In the Studio Cecilia Vicuña, New York

Cecilia Vicuña’s practice moves fluidly between poetry, sculpture, textile, and performance, always returning to what she calls arte precario: an art built from debris, unspun wool, feathers, and stone that she has been making since 1966. Rooted in Indigenous Andean knowledge systems, and above all in the khipu—the knotted cord long dismissed as a mere accounting device—her work reframes precariousness and fragility as forms of consciousness rather than loss.

Person with long wavy hair sits on a stool in a gallery, looking at the camera, wearing a navy jacket; left wall covered in blue Life posters.

In the Studio Robin Kid, Rambouillet, France

Robin Kid works with images that feel less made than encountered. Cowboys, cops, fragments of cartoon Americana: images that existed long before he picked them up, suspended somewhere between memory and mass culture. Raised in the south of the Netherlands by his grandparents, in a former mining neighbourhood bordering an American army base, he grew up with the idea of the U.S. glowing faintly from the other side of the fence.

Adult female with blonde ponytail in a dark sweatshirt stands with arms crossed amid tall cacti in a sunlit garden.

In the Studio Megan Plunkett, Los Angeles, CA

American artist Megan Plunkett turns away from depicting people, instead focusing on everyday objects. Drawn from consumer culture, and the film industry, her carefully constructed photographic series cultivate a sense of estrangement within things that might otherwise feel familiar.

Gray-haired man in a dark blazer sits on a light sofa, leaning forward and looking to the left, in a modern studio with sculptures.

Collector Stories Michael Trestik, Prague

Married to famous documentary filmmaker Helena Trestikova and father to Tomas Trestik, one of the leading Czech photographers, Michael Trestik is a person of public interest himself, with an interesting biography. He is also a passionate collector of antiques, ceramics, and art. We met Michael Trestik in his home above the rooftops of Prague’s Letná district and talked with him, among others, about his passion for collecting, why he is now divesting of his collection nonetheless, and what motivated him lately to trade in his pencil for an artist‘s crayon.

Culture Briefing

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Nordic Notes

Person with short hair, glasses, wearing a pink shirt, stands with hands on hips before a large abstract mural in an art studio.

Kirsi Mikkola, Berlin
Finnish artist Kirsi Mikkola gained recognition in the 1990s for her colorful, cartoonish plaster sculptures. In recent years she went through a radical shift in her artistic practice in developing a distinct approach to abstraction that merges the formal language of painting and collage that Mikkola herself refers to as “constructions”.
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