The Art of Embroidery is Thriving in this Designer’s Hands
When artists and designers require the highest level of expertise, they call upon Aska Yamashita of Chanel's Atelier Montex to make their dreams into reality.
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New York, “Anish Kapoor: Early Works” (Until Feb. 1)
Before he was making million-dollar steel public sculptures like Cloud Gate aka “The Bean” in Chicago, Anish Kapoor made far more fragile pieces of art. Kapoor’s first sculptures were made with colorful loose pigment on the floor of his London studio and take inspiration from the spices in markets in India, where he lived until he was 16. This show features 55 lesser seen sculptures and drawings from the ’70s and early ’80s. thejewishmuseum.org
Los Angeles, “Mark Ryden: Eye Am” (Until Dec. 20)
Like other Lowbrow artists, Mark Ryden’s highly kitsch work divides opinions. He began in commercial illustration, creating album covers for Michael Jackson, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and 4 Non Blondes. His 1998 gallery debut “Meat Show” introduced the favorite motifs of his surreal work: doll-eyed babies, religious iconography, meat, and even Abraham Lincoln. As always, the 11 paintings here are cute, ridiculous, and somewhat grotesque, which is to say, unmistakably his. perrotin.com
New York, “Sylvia Snowden: On the Verge” (Opens Nov. 6)
Born in 1942 in Raleigh, North Carolina, Sylvia Snowden studied fine art at Howard University in the ’60s. In the midst of the civil rights movement, African American artists were reckoning with their responsibility to represent their experience in their art. “We were defining what Black art was, what did it look like?” Snowden recalled in a 2023 interview. “And it was representational. It was not abstract.” But using thickly layered acrylics and arduous brush strokes, Snowden resisted the denunciation of abstraction as superfluous. Her career-long pursuit to paint a portrait of humanity is presented in her first U.S. solo show, from early ’70s paintings to 10-foot-tall canvases. whitecube.com
Torin, “Enrico David: Domani torno” (Until March 22, 2026)
Enrico David’s practice spans painting, drawing, and embroidery, though these days he focuses on sculpture. Growing up on Italy’s Adriatic coast before moving to London in his 20s, David came to art as a means for soul-searching. The human form remains his recurring subject regardless of medium. This retrospective, coinciding with his debut at White Cube, covers all the dimensions of his career, from fragile early works from the 1980s to large-scale installations. castellodirivoli.org
London, “The Long Now: Saatchi Gallery at 40” (Opens Nov. 5)
In 1991, Richard Wilson flooded a room in the Saatchi Gallery to waist height with engine oil, bisecting the glossy black pool with a narrow metal walkway. 20:50 became a fixture there for years, a defining work of Britain’s post-industrial sculpture. It returns in this landmark show that covers forty years of daring contemporary art, including English painter Jenny Saville’s fleshy portraits, German painter André Butzer’s cartoonish characters, and a large-scale installation by American performer Allan Kaprow. saatchigallery.com
