Matisse drew his collection from the far corners of the world: Buddhist statuary from Thailand, Bamana figures from Mali, furniture and textiles from North Africa. Rarely of material value, these objects were nonetheless precious. Offering points of departure to which he could return again and again, they appear in his work in different guises and across spans of decades, reinvented afresh in each new setting.

Matisse’s objects formed his repertoire, but they also provided him with influences from beyond the limits of Western art. African sculpture and masks were a revelation, suggesting more expressive models for depicting the human figure and face. Later, Matisse adorned his Nice studio with props from the Islamic world to create the sensuous sets for his ‘odalisques’, in which a harmonious synergy emerges between figure and object. His oeuvre reached its joyous apex in his cut-out period, he looked to the concise precision of Chinese calligraphy and African textiles as he sought to invent his own simplified language of signs.

This sumptuous exhibition offers a rare glimpse into the artist’s personal collection, as well as the paintings, sculptures and drawings it inspired. Seen together, they reveal how Matisse’s masterful vision of rich and masterful energy first stemmed from the collage of patterns and rhythms which he found in the world of objects.

Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) is widely regarded as Japan’s most famous and influential artist. He produced works of astonishing quality right up until his death at the age of 90. This new exhibition will lead you on an artistic journey through the last 30 years of Hokusai’s life – a time when he produced some of his most famous masterpieces.

Throughout the exhibition, outstanding examples of Hokusai’s work will show the artist’s creative breadth and depth. A selection of superb landscapes is introduced with the iconic Great Wave – itself part of a print series of views of Mt Fuji. Intimate domestic scenes capture fleeting moments in private lives. Exquisite depictions of flora and fauna display an innate skill in representing the natural world. The artist’s imagination is given full rein in the portrayal of supernatural creatures such as ghosts and deities. Through all of these works, explore Hokusai’s personal beliefs and gain a fascinating insight into the artist’s spiritual and artistic quest in his later years.

The exhibition will include prints, paintings and illustrated books, many of which are on loan from Japan, Europe and the USA. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see these extraordinary works together.

‘Footprint – The Tracks of Shoes in Fashion’ is an exhibition which opens at MoMu Antwerp on September 3, 2015, telling the story of inspirational and groundbreaking fashion shoes of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

The exhibition shines a light on those fashion and shoe designers who left their footprint on the world of shoes by means of the exquisite and innovative designs they created. Their craft and art came together in architectural shapes, leaving a footprint on the fashion images of their time. The exhibition will include insights into the evolution and design of the shoes on display from the individual designers and creators, many of whom have influenced footwear for decades.

Over the last seven years the V&A has been working with Black Cultural Archives to acquire photographs either by black photographers or which document the lives of black people in Britain. Funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), the Museum has been able to collect 118 works by 17 artists. To complement the photographs, Black Cultural Archives have collected oral histories from a range of subjects including the photographers themselves, their relatives, and the people depicted in the images.

Black Cultural Archives

Founded in 1981, Black Cultural Archives’ mission is to collect, preserve and celebrate the heritage and history of Black people in Britain. They opened the UK’s first dedicated Black heritage centre in Brixton, London in July 2014, enabling greater access to the archive collection and providing dedicated learning spaces and an exciting programme of exhibitions and events that explore British history from a unique perspective. The archive collection offers insight into the history of people of African and Caribbean descent in Britain and includes personal papers, organisational records, rare books, ephemera, photographs, and a small collection of objects.

One of our greatest Shakespeareans, Yukio Ninagawa directs his best-loved play, returning to the tragedy that he says ‘deals with the world’s vastness and depth’ once more.

In this new version of Hamlet, popular Japanese actor Tatsuya Fujiwara takes the title role. Fujiwara made his stage debut at the Barbican under the direction of Ninagawa in 1997 and six years later became the youngest Hamlet in Japanese theatrical history, aged just 21. The pair now reunite as part of the director’s 80th birthday celebrations.

This exhibition features bronze sculptures, gouaches, paintings, large-scale embroideries and neon works, the exhibition chronicles the contemplative nature of work by an artist who has consistently examined her life with excoriating candour.

Reflective in tone, the works in the exhibition are the result of many years’ development, from the bronze sculptures – the most significant body she has made to date – to the works on canvas. There is a complexity in the sculptural form of the bronzes, simultaneously robust yet tender, that points to a consummate understanding of material, composition and subject matter. In Grotto (2014), a tessellated, cave-like chamber gives sanctuary to a solitary figure as artist proxy, while the muscular form of Bird (2014) harmonises sinuous lines with gravity and grace. A series of bronze bas relief plaques portray figures that appear amorphous yet distinct, with subtle interplay between light and shadow.

Lee Boroson creates large-scale immersive installations using inflatables, fabric, and light to create phenomenological experiences for his viewers, based on the elemental forces in nature, from air, fog, and smoke to fire and the cosmos. Boroson’s work begins with ideas of nature, which he mediates between the landscape-as-culture as opposed to notions of the outdoors as “wild” or “untamed”. Boroson’s installations are embodied and ephemeral at the same time. They transform both material and experience within the space of the museum.

For MASS MoCA’s signature football field-sized Building 5 gallery, Boroson will create an ambitious new installation consisting of four components: The Fog, The Falls, The Crypt, and The Lava Field. After moving through them sequentially, viewers will reach the mezzanine, a vantage point from which they can see the first two sections of the landscape resolve as a single image.

Setting the stage for the exhibition, The Fog wipes away structural landmarks to leave behind a sense of negative space, priming viewers for the rest of the show. Multi-layered and intricate, it consists of clear, polished vinyl sheeting sewn with colored thread and arranged to create passageways that lead into divided rooms. Every surface is mostly transparent and punctuated with pieces of reflective material and color that alter one’s perception and sense of the scale of the space. Comparable to moving through shifting fog, viewers in this segment will stumble upon the occasional clear view through the haze and then lose it to obscuring layers of vinyl, partially opaque yet still penetrated by light.

After navigating The Fog, viewers will enter The Falls, a subtle, referential ode to the tourist’s experience of visiting Niagara Falls. Complete with an overwhelming white noise much like that of the actual site, this construction will stretch from ceiling to floor and, using conveyor belts and blowers, constantly spout streams of reflective spheres. Like a fountain, the material will move cyclically up and down, building a sense of timelessness and adding movement to the exhibition. The silvery spheres mirror their surroundings and, when in motion, effectively re-create the sensation of falling water. In its man-made elements and aesthetic, The Falls relates to Niagara as a highly engineered and controlled arena designed to emulate nature.

The two mezzanine galleries represent the earth and fire components of the exhibition, both using variations of geological structures. The Crypt comprises an array of inflatable fabric forms molded into stalactites to evoke the architecture of the underworld, providing room for contemplation in a dark, primordial chamber. Directly above, on the second level of the mezzanine, The Lava Field is a “field” of hand-blown glass shapes containing lava-like fluids that recall the iconic imagery of “lava lamps.” In each of the 100+ vessels will be an oozing, burbling liquid display, similar to that of the inside of a lava lamp. Boroson has concocted his own fluids, all in variations of white, to create this virtual lava field and the accompanying illusion of lava leaking out of the mezzanine floor.

Arte Povera artist Mario Merz uses his ‘poor art’ motifs to challenge our definition of an art object in this exhibition at Pace Gallery London

Mario Merz is primarily associated with the Arte Povera movement that swept Italy in the late 1960s. Artists like Merz such as Michelangelo Pistoletto and Jannis Kounnelis used materials that had not previously been considered worthy of inclusion in art to disrupt the commercial orientation of gallery art and expand the possibilities of what could constitute an art object. Hence Arte Povera’s translation as ‘Poor Art’

This exhibition provides an excellent opportunity to see some of Merz’s signature works. The ten major sculptures and installations that are included in the show, alongside seven works on paper, give us key examples of Merz’s practice. The igloo, the Fibonacci sequence and the table are the three motifs that structure Merz’s work, and are often used to articulate his ideas around the daily rhythms of social behaviour, nature and the role of the artist.

Over the autumnal months, Camden Arts Centre presents Glenn Ligon: Call and Response, the first exhibition in a UK public gallery for the celebrated American artist.

One of America’s most distinguished contemporary artists, Ligon (b.1960) has been deeply engaged with the written word throughout his career. Drawing attention to the problems of language and representation, he addresses pressing and challenging topics of race, language and sexuality. His works reconsider and re-present American history, especially narratives of slavery and civil rights, within a contemporary context. Best known for his stencilled text based paintings, he weaves together wide-ranging influences from literature, visual arts and popular culture. Over the past 10 years, Ligon has also been dedicated to interrogating these themes through his prolific and astute writing and interviews.

For his exhibition at Camden Arts Centre, Ligon presents a new series of large paintings based on the 1966 seminal taped-speech work, Come Out, by Minimalist composer Steve Reich. Come Out is drawn from the testimony of six black youths arrested for committing a murder during the Harlem Race Riot of 1964. Known as the ‘Harlem Six’, the case galvanised civil rights activists for a generation, bringing to attention police brutality against black citizens. Echoing Reich’s overlapping repetition of words and phrases, Ligon’s silkscreen paintings overlay the words to create slowly shifting and rhythmic effects.

Ligon is creating a new neon work, which draws on the words of Daniel Hamm, one of the ‘Harlem Six’, describing the police beatings. Neon letters, suspended for visitors to walk amongst, blink on and off in a cycle reflecting Reich’s work. Ligon’s neon works continue his interest in pushing text and speech to the point of abstraction. As with his paintings, they encourage the viewer to oscillate between reading and looking.

A new multi-screen video work uses footage of comedian Richard Pryor’s 1982 stand-up performance, Live on Sunset Strip. Ligon has reorganised and refilmed the recorded material to emphasise Pryor’s emphatic body language, movement and expressions, removing articulated words to focus on body language and the performative delivery of speech.

Constructing Worlds brings together eighteen exceptional photographers from the 1930s to the present day who have changed the way we view architecture and perceive the world around us.

From the first skyscrapers in New York and decaying colonial structures in the Congo, to the glamorous suburban homes of post-war California, and the modern towers of Venezuela, we invite you on a global journey through 20^th and 21^st century architecture.

Featuring over 250 works, this exhibition highlights the power of photography to reveal hidden truths in our society.

Centred around an augmented and appended version of the new multi-screen video work Ribbons, Atkins’s exhibition transforms the Serpentine Sackler Gallery into a submersive environment of syncopated sounds, bodies and spaces. This is his largest solo exhibition in a UK public institution to date.

Ribbons (2014) will have its UK premiere at the Serpentine Sackler Gallery in a site-specific adaptation. Presented alongside installations of text and images, accompanying videos and tourettic interjections, the exhibition will underscore the ambivalent relationship that exists between real and virtual objects; between real and virtual conditions.

“The Sackler exhibition will re-possess some sort of sub-horror genre; the old powder rooms, haunted by the phantom smell of gunpowder, paranoia and anticipation of violence, will emphasise a particularly phantasmatic aspect of Ribbons; the protagonist’s questionable corporeality, their presence, their performance of loss and monstrousness” – Ed Atkins

Sounds from a suite of synchronised projections positioned throughout the Gallery will lead the visitor through the space, with glimpses of song, swells of orchestra, murmuring voices and waves of sub-bass. Ribbons is part musical, part horror, and part melodrama; Bach’s Erbarme Dichand Randy Newman’s I think it’s going to rain today are two of the songs featured. Naked, lonely and misanthropic, the palpable melancholy of Atkins’s Computer Generated avatar hero is ‘rendered’ as HD graphic, troll, voyeur and, perhaps, artist.

Atkins’s work draws attention to the way in which we perceive, communicate and filter information. His videos combine layered images with incomplete or interrupted excerpts of singing, speech, subtitles and handwriting. Working with a specialist in computer generated animation, Atkins exploits the hyperreal surfaces produced by new software systems to create complex, nightmarish environments populated by virtual characters, avatars of ambiguous provenance and desires. Atkins has described the male figure that appears in these works as ‘a character that is literally a model, is demonstrably empty – a surrogate and a vessel’. Despite the emotive music and poetic syntax of the protagonists, their emptiness serves to remind the three-dimensional, warm-bodied viewer of their own physicality.

The experience of the physical body in Atkins’s show will be contrasted with and complemented by the durational performance being undertaken by Marina Abramović, whose exhibition runs concurrently at the Serpentine Gallery.

La Jolla International Fashion Film Festival is the First International Fashion Film Festival Founded in North America. Its mission is to “empower, support, & recognise the individual creative professionals who make up the fashion film community worldwide”, the festival is the world’s largest gathering of fashion filmmakers.

Known as the Cannes of fashion film, La Jolla will once again will be the market maker for distribution deals, director representation, and fashion film production houses. Hundreds of fashion filmmakers from around the world will be in attendance, packing a theatre of 500 seats to be enthralled by the top 1% of fashion films produced worldwide at the upcoming 5th year of LJIFFF.

The latest trends for SS20 Women’s RTW will be showcasing in various venues throughout the city between 29th September – 1st October 2019. Paris Fashion Week, is one of four major fashion weeks/events in the fashion industry, taking place in Paris, France. The event features hundreds of designers from all over the globe, attracting journalists, editors, buyers, celebrities, and socialites with each fashion designer responsible for their guest list. As a major contributor to the global fashion industry, guests to the event can expect numerous catwalk shows created by global fashion houses and top designers. A fascinating and entertaining event, the SS16 (Ready To Wear) Paris Fashion Week allows designers to show off their upcoming SS16 collections and is a must see event for buyers in the fashion world.