FEBRUARY PLAYLIST
SP LIST: ART EXHIBITIONS & BOOKS
Blommers & Schumm, MID AIR, at Foam, Amsterdam
from 20 September, 2025 to 23 February, 2026
Having met at Amsterdam’s Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Dutch photography duo, Anuschka Blommers and Niels Schumm, began collaborating shortly after graduating in 1997. The pair are now synonymous with playful and provocative imagery, which challenges the conventions of fashion photography and embraces the unexpected – enticing audiences to reconsider how they interpret what they see…. for nothing is quite as it seems.
Tracing the pairs’ remarkable 25-year career, this retrospective takes us into their conceptually rich and ever-evolving world, with iconic photographs seen in publications such as Fantastic Man, The Gentlewoman, Dazed & Confused, Self Service, Purple, AnOther Magazine, and The New York Times Magazine.
Left Ciara, styling by Suzanne Koller, 1998 © Blommers & Schumm
Right Jana for Agenda Magazine, styling by Danielle van Camp, 2024 © Blommers & Schumm
Left Josefina wearing Bless, styling Georgia Pendlebury for Exhibition Magazine, 2018 © Blommers & Schumm
Right Nadja for Buffalo Magazine, Styling by Harry Lambert, 2019 © Blommers & Schumm
Sterling Ruby, Atropa, at Sprüth Magers, New York
from 30 January to 28 March, 2026
Sterling Ruby’s multifaceted practice spans painting, sculpture, textile, ceramics and video, and is defined by its sustained engagement with our chaotic present. For over two decades, his work has explored themes of violence, confinement and societal pressures through a consistent focus on material and artistic process.
This latest solo exhibition of new works features graphite drawings and small-scale pen-and-ink studies alongside expressive watercolours.
DRFTRS (9061), 2025, collage, paint, and glue on paper, © Sterling Ruby, courtesy the artist and Sprüth Magers, picture by Sterling Ruby Studio
SPLITTING (9091), 2025, collage and glue on paper, © Sterling Ruby, courtesy the artist and Sprüth Magers, picture by Sterling Ruby Studio
Claire Tabouret, D’un seul souffle, at Grand Palais, Paris
from 10 December, 2025 to 15 March, 2026
This exhibition is a rare look behind-the-scenes of a monumental project: the future of the contemporary six-stained glass windows of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, featuring life-size models and sketches by Tabouret, winner of the competition organised by the Ministry of Culture.
Each model is a life-size reproduction of a bay in the cathedral's south aisle, produced in monotype, a printing technique frequently used by Tabouret, and enriched with stencils for the rosettes and decorative motifs. Playing to the neutral light of the iconic building, in soft transition with Viollet le Duc’s-stained glass, while offering bright, balanced colours, Tabouret’s work is inspired by the theme of Pentecost, a symbol of unity and harmony.
Mock-up, detail of the bay window for the Saint-Paul-Chen chapel, ink on paper, © Claire Tabouret, picture by Marten Elder, 2025
Left Mock-up, detail of the bay window for the Sainte-Geneviève chapel, 2025, ink on paper, © Claire Tabouret, picture by Marten Elder, 2025
Right Mock-up, detail of the bay window for the Saint-Denys chapel, ink on paper, © Claire Tabouret, picture by Claire Dorn, 2025
Jason Renaud and Devon Ross: Her Blue Eyes, published by Friend Editions
Photographer and director Jason Renaud’s striking new photo book is a collaborative journey through friendship, trust and intimacy with actress/musician, Devon Ross.
Shot in off-camera moments between sessions, the images are poetically raw with an unguarded honesty, instinctive rather than staged in performance – the result of a shared emotional language between artist and subject. From bedroom lounging to nature wanders or immersed in her passions… records, books, vintage clothes…. it’s a visual immersion that spans time and location and traces a creative partnership which instantly vibed. Alexa Chung offers up the foreword.
All pictures by Jason Renaud, from the book Her Blue Eyes
All pictures by Jason Renaud, from the book Her Blue Eyes
Martha Jungwirth, Geh nicht aus dem Zimmer, at Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris
from 22 January to 28 February, 2026
Centred around a remarkable large-scale 131-part installation of drawings and paintings on paper interspersed with texts cut from newspapers – described by Bernard Blistène as a ‘great frieze of unruly images’ – these works created over the course of three years. This monumental work will be accompanied by a selection of the artist’s recent paintings, as well as a group of watercolours, the earliest of which date from the 1980s.
Untitled, 2025, oil on paper on canvas, picture by Ulrich Ghezzi
Untitled, 2025, oil on paper on canvas, picture by Ulrich Ghezzi
Richard Avedon, Facing West, at Gagosian, London
from 15 January to 14 March, 2026
From crying miners to birthday girls and a meat packer, portraits from Richard Avedon’s celebrated series In the American West are on show in this new exhibition curated by his granddaughter, Caroline Avedon.
The series of works celebrated its fortieth anniversary last year, and at the time of its debut in 1985, the iconic photographer was well known for fashion photography, portraits of people in power, and his work with the civil rights movement. These images, which picture the heart and soul of working-class America, represented a significant new direction in his work. Now, returning to the series four decades on, it prompts reflection on the evolving interpretation of the photographs’ imagery, and on the series’ status as its maker’s magnum opus.
Left Joe Dobosz, uranium miner, Church Rock, New Mexico, June 13, 1979, © The Richard Avedon Foundation
Right Charlene Van Tighem, physical therapist, Augusta, Montana, June 26, 1983, © The Richard Avedon Foundation
Left Freida Kleinsasser, thirteen year old, Hutterite colony, Harlowton, Montana, June 23, 1983, © The Richard Avedon Foundation
Right Unidentified migrant worker, Eagle Pass, Texas, December 10, 1979, © The Richard Avedon Foundation
Sam Lipp, Base, at Soft Opening, London
from 17 January to 14 March 2026
For more than a decade, the British artist, based in New York, has rendered flesh, desire and damage into paintings to reveal intimate portraits of the human body. This is Lipp’s debut London exhibition which presents a series of works in three main colourways, from blood reds and cloudy grey to overexposed white, exploring old film and digital image aesthetics.
Working largely in oil on rusted steel, made by the friction of dragging the works along a pavement with chains, he then fixes them to the wall with crude screws, offering the viewer an intense proximity to the processes of degradation of the physical object.
Left Tyrannicides, 2025, oil and enamel on steel, frottage, screws, courtesy the artist and Soft Opening, London
Right Untitled, 2025, oil and enamel on steel, frottage, screws, courtesy the artist and Soft Opening, London, picture by Eva Herzog
Brooke DiDonato: Take a Picture, It Will Last Longer, published by Thames & Hudson
This debut monograph from the American visual artist and photographer explores the strangeness lurking behind the ordinary in everyday life, whether it be a pair of legs hanging from a window, or a pastel suburban house where flowers bloom from toilet bowls or armchairs. Tracing her surreal world, this is a collection of work that blends nostalgia, humour and unease, teetering between the familiar and the fantastical.
The book also includes an introduction by writer Eleanor Sutherland and a conversation between Emmy Award-winning filmmaker and writer Eve Van Dyke and DiDonato’s father, Bob DiDonato. An invite into DiDonato’s beguiling universe, this book dares us to stare a little longer.
Left How It Happened, 2018, © Brooke DiDonato
Right Subscribe to My Only Fans, 2022, © Brooke DiDonato
Text by Kate Lawson