ALTERED STATES

British-based artist/musician Halina Rice’s work combines art, music and tech, creating immersive electronic soundscapes, and her shows have been described as “part rave, part art happening”. I especially love the track ALTERED STATES from Halina’s 2025 album UNREALITY; it immediately grabbed me and took me on a journey. Check it out! 

Firefly

Artwork: by OAKOAK, Firefly, Paris, 2026

Catching fireflies…love this spray work from OAKOAK in Paris.

Juan Muñoz. Stories of Art

Artwork: Juan Muñoz, Conversation Piece III, 2026, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

Spanish artist Juan Muñoz is often described as a storyteller. However, what’s interesting is that he seems to inspire people to want to tell stories about his art. Recently finished, an exhibition of Munoz’s work featured at the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid—a truly wonderful gallery to experience, especially the Goyas—titled, Juan Muñoz. Stories of Art. The title evokes an iconic art historical text by Austrian art historian, Ernst Gombrich, that was written primarily for young adults, The Story of Art, but in relation to Muñoz, it is the correlation of his work and storytelling that is centre stage. I was fortunate enough to find at a second-hand bookshop an exhibition catalogue of Juan Muñoz from the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, 1994, where the curator had asked writers such as John Berger, Marina Warner, Adrian Searle, Lynne Tillman, William Forsythe and others to respond to the question: How can words reach beyond descriptions or critical analysis to convey our experience when we encounter a work of art? Each writer responded to one of Muñoz’s artworks with a fictional story, making this a fascinating and engaging interpretation of his work.

Artwork: Juan Muñoz, detail from Conversation Piece III, 2026, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

 Muñoz lived in Madrid and was a frequent visitor of the Prado, inspired by the artwork of Velázquez and Goya and the art traditions of the Renaissance, Mannerism and Baroque. Muñoz once said: “I think the great Baroque artists were asked to do the same as modern artists: to construct a fictional place. To make the world larger than it is.” One of the key works of the exhibition was Conversation Piece III. Influenced by the Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti, Muñoz created a series of these configurations of sculpted figures throughout his career. Conversation Piece III was situated on the first floor in the main gallery amid the lush paintings by the Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens. Muñoz’s figures appeared as silhouettes against the colour and vibrancy of Ruben’s work. Interestingly, American art critic Dave Hickey wrote a story about an earlier version of this artwork from the Dublin exhibition titled Mayflies, a strange conversation between an American and Spaniard, supposedly friends, who were in a roundabout way, settling a gambling debt. The silent communication of the figures, their gestures, positioning and attitude, prompts the viewer to wonder: What are they talking about? And in response, we fill the space between them with our own musings and words.

Flou

Released today, Flou is a fantastic track from O.M.’s premiere EP Élan from Inside Out Records. O.M. created the entire EP in her bedroom; a mix of spoken French, beats, blurs, bass that melds into this cool, stripped back and wonderfully unpredictable recording. Love it.

Twin Flames

Artwork: Mural by Ben Keller, Twin Flames, New York, 2026

Felt the need to post something lovely given the craziness in the world right now. Artist Ben Keller (@benkellerct) created this mural titled Twin Flames in the Lower East Side, New York, located at the 2 Ave subway station entrance.

The Book of Life

Artwork: Mural by Millo, The Book of Life, Yangpu district, Shanghai, 2026

Street artist Millo has just completed another great mural titled The Book of Life in Shanghai, right next to a mural he completed nine years ago called Twist of Fate. Millo wrote this about the artwork:

“Both works are located in the heart of KIC (Knowledge and Innovation Community) in the Yangpu district - a vibrant, unique ecosystem that integrates over ten prestigious universities, high-tech parks, and thousands of startups and SMEs. Returning after nine years has transformed my perspective: while ‘Twist of Fate’ was an invitation to curiosity, ‘The Book of Life’ is an evolution, fostering a deeper integration between creativity, culture, and daily urban life within this highly innovative environment.”

DIS(INFORMATION)?

Cool and hypnotic short dance film DIS(INFORMATION)?, choreographed by London and New York based Benjamin Jonsson and performed by MA students from London Contemporary Dance School, is intended to mirror the speed, relentlessness and saturation of social media, and how people experience the world though a screen.

Creating a claustrophobic environment around fast-paced movement and intense visuals, the piece: “…considers how a tool intended to pull us together can in turn force us apart. As momentum builds, collective movement collapses and individuals are isolated, overwhelmed, and swallowed, beginning to unravel…The dancers move as a unit, steered by the surrounding mass, as their behaviours and identities are redirected by the algorithm…DIS(INFORMATION)? observes the narrowed reality delivered by social media, and a landscape in which nuance becomes harder to find, led by what holds our attention, reinforcing what we already believe.”

 Check it out!

Oops I crossed the line...

Artwork: ENDER Oops I crossed the line...
Paris Belleville , February 2026

Love this spray and paste-up work by French street artist ENDER (@ender.artiste). Titled, Oops I crossed the line…, Ender writes “There is no need to wait before doing great things.” Agree.

Nurturing a heart

Artwork: OAKOAK, stencil street art, Paris, 2026

Yet another poetic and perfectly placed stencil artwork by OAKOAK (@oakoak_street_art).

For, In Your Tongue, I Cannot Fit

Artwork: Shilpa Gupta, For, In Your Tongue, I Cannot Fit, 2017-18

Currently showing at Museum Voorlinden in Wassenaar, Netherlands, is Mumbai-based artist Shilpa Gupta’s multi-channel sound and object-based installation For, In Your Tongue, I Cannot Fit. Originally created in 20017-18, it is now part of the Voorlinden collection, and is a symphony of 100 dissident voices of poets from across the globe such as Malay Roychoudhury, Ashraf Fayadh, Huang Xiang, Osip Mandelstam, Mahmoud Darwish, Martin Carter, and Faiz Ahmad Faiz. All were censored by officials of various states for their writing and their beliefs.

The title of the installation comes from a poem by the Azerbaijani poet Ali Imaduddin Nasimi (1369-1417), better known by his pen name Nasimi. His writing was considered blasphemous and it is said the religious authorities seized and flayed him alive. The installation is comprised of white pieces of paper with the lines of poems and works of these writers impaled on spikes beneath speakers, out of which a cacophony of voices speak the words written on the paper in different tongues—Hindi, Chinese, Azaeri, Arabic, and English. One such poet, Palestinian Dareen Tatour, tore the zipper of her jacket to write on the walls of her prison. Another, Irina Ratushinskaya, a Christian, was arrested due to Soviet anti-religious persecution and was imprisoned in the Gulag. Ratushinskaya scratched her verse on soap, memorized it, and then used the soap to wash. She then wrote her verses on cigarette papers, and smuggled them out of prison. Chinese calligrapher and poet, Huang Xiang, came to prominence post-Cultural Revolution and was imprisoned on several occasions between 1958-1995 for his advocacy of human rights, democracy and freedom of expression. Xiang wrote this poem, Singing Alone in 1962:

Artwork: Shilpa Gupta, For, In Your Tongue, I Cannot Fit, 2017-18

Who am I

I am a lonely soul of a waterfall

A poem

Dwelling forever in Solitude

My drifting song is a dream’s wandering

Trace

My only audience

The still

(translated by Andrew G. Emerson)

By giving the poets back their voice, Gupta emphasises the issue of freedom of expression and the importance of the spoken and written word, which those in power might fear and then suppress (the sale of TikTok to pro-Zionist Larry Ellison comes to mind, and the now heavy censorship of any criticism of Israel on the app). As she said: “Often, as it is happening right now, the voices of the truth cause discomfort and are cut off, yet the echo remains and continues to be heard.” Gupta also said this at the installation’s inaugural showing: “The exhibition brings attention to the fragility and vulnerability of our right to freedom of expression today. Throughout history, poets from across geographies have been incarcerated for their work, and there are still many unsettling instances of this taking place today.”

That thou canst not stir a flower

Artwork: Wall mural by Emily Jacir, Bethlehem, 2026

Emily Jacir has just installed a hand-painted wall mural in the historic Center of Bethlehem that originally featured in the exhibition Material for a film, 2007. A Sydney Biennale (2006) installation by Jacir of a performance, also from Material for a film, is currently up at Fondazione Brescia Musei, Bethlehem's sister city.

The words featured in English, Arabic and Italian, are from a poem by British poet Francis Thompson, The Mistress of Vision (c, 1897). The lines are from the 21st stanza:

All things by immortal power,
      Near or far,
      Hiddenly
      To each other linkèd are,
      That thou canst not stir a flower
      Without troubling of a star

(source: Francis Thompson New Poems, Burns and Oates, London, third edition, 1907)

Just Me & U

Baltra just released his great new EP In the Afterglow, and I’ve been looking forward to this after listening to his preview track Just Me & U on repeat on SoundCloud. Check it out!

small stories: I called him Love

Artwork: Nami Yokoyama, drawing from series Memories of Love and Me, 2025, charcoal and pencil on paper, old frame

I called him Love—

and I took him to the beach, where I wrote words in the sand, built a sandcastle and later, sat by a bonfire. 

I took him skating, and he ran beside me.

I took him camping, and we sat in the tent with a lamp lit against the dark.

I took him flying in a plane, riding on a horse, and on my moped for long drives.

I took him with me for daily walks, past empty buildings and houses, sometimes at night where we’d sit on benches under the street lamps.

I took him to galleries to look at art, and one day I painted a picture of him.

I took him to a lake where we sat on the pier, then went out on the water in a boat.

And he sat with me while I ate, watched TV, watered the plants, looked out the window at the sky, lay on the couch, read a book, played Jenga, heated water for tea, played the piano, and did my homework.

I called him Love, and he was with me, everywhere.

 

© Angela Jooste



(Story inspired by Nami Yokoyama’s series of drawings Memories of Love and Me, 2025, charcoal and pencil on paper, old frames)

Colors That Survived

Artwork: Drawing by Ahmed Madi, 12-year-old from Gaza, 2025

An upcoming fundraising exhibition in New York, Colors That Survived, features the artwork of Palestinian children. The artworks reveal how the children experience the devastating reality of life in Gaza, and the possibility of hope for their futures. Organised by Artists Support (a non-profit that sells art to support charities artists care about, @artists_support_) in collaboration with the creators of the movie The Voice of Hind Rajab, and curated by Ms Rachel (@msrachelforlittles, an American educator who has supported the children in Gaza throughout the genocide), the artworks featured are for sale via Artists Support from January 13-30, with the proceeds going directly to the young artists. Ms Rachel wrote this about the exhibition: “The kids of Gaza and I are having an art show in New York City! I am unbelievably proud of them! They named the show, wrote their stories, shared what this means to them, and of course created incredible art.”

 A high-profile supporter of the exhibition is the internationally acclaimed artist/photographer Nan Goldin. She donated an artwork for silent auction in support of the fundraiser, Ava twirling, from her Eden and After series. Goldin is one of the few high-profile artists that has openly discussed the genocide in Gaza, because doing so comes at a cost in the western art world. Regarding her support of the Colors That Survived exhibition, Goldin said this: “I can never forget the children of Gaza and I’m grateful to be allowed the opportunity to help them in some meaningful way. The war on Gaza is a war on children wiping out multiple generations, erasing the future. According to Unicef, in the last two years more than 64,000 children have been killed or maimed. I witness the constant terror the children in Gaza live with, while supporting their families and taking on adult roles, but I also see the joy in their faces; graduating from school, singing together, and learning to love and rescue animals. The children who survive will need to be nurtured and learn to hope, after living through such unimaginable horrors.”

 In November 2024, Goldin had a major retrospective at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, and courageously stood up at the opening and spoke her position regarding the war in Gaza. Goldin began by saying this: “Why did I feel I have to talk tonight? This is my lifetime retrospective, but there is nothing in it from the past year, and that’s missing. The museum has kept its promise to allow me to talk, and I thank them. But they claim that my activism and my art are separate, even though that has never been the case. The last year has been Palestine and Lebanon for me. Since October 7th, I have found it hard to breathe. I feel the catastrophe in my body, but it’s not in this show.”

Goldin’s speech and the context of the art world and its response to Gaza is excellently discussed in former Artforum editor David Velasco’s essay for the magazine Equator, “How Gaza Broke the Art World”. Velasco was fired from Artforum for authorising the publication of an open letter in Artforum on 19 October 2023, from a group of culture workers in support of Palestinian liberation and a ceasefire in Gaza. It garnered 8,000 signatures of artists and art workers, Nan Goldin included. Velasco wrote this about its impact:

“Shortly after we publish the letter, all hell breaks loose. My phone, once a conduit for benign distractions, acquires the menacing nimbus of a grenade. In the car from Newark airport, I take a call from the head publicist of Penske Media, the company that acquired Artforum a year earlier, who implores me to do something acknowledging “the other side”. Our Instagram post about the letter becomes a flashpoint, generating more than 15,000 likes in a handful of hours – far more than any other post in our history. The comments feed is flooded with emojis of Palestinian flags, but also accusations of antisemitism and calls to unsubscribe. In an unprecedented move, the publishers go above the heads of the editorial department and take down the Instagram post. They remove the letter itself from the magazine’s homepage and briefly make it invisible in the search function, so that to find it you need a direct link. Shortly afterwards, they stop responding to my messages.”

Artwork: Film still from Nan Goldin’s Gaza Notes

Velasco’s experience and those of artists, writers, academics and art workers who signed the letter is a must-read to understand the noticeable silence about Gaza the past 2 years from the western art world and academia. The article can be found here. Nan Goldin has also produced an ongoing film titled Gaza Notes that can be viewed at Equator here. Goldin wrote this about the ongoing project:

“I have no more words. This is my way of speaking out.

This piece is a work in progress that stands as a record of what has consumed me for the last two years: the need to bear witness.

 This is the first genocide unfolding in real time on our phones and it is unbearable. The footage in this film is from friends who visited Palestine, the brave journalists on the ground, most of whom have been targeted, and the people living it. It remains silent because music is too directive and without sound people are forced to look more intently. The film loops because what it is showing is constantly repeating. It remains unfinished because it is not over.

 It’s not the time for denial and amnesia.”

Rusty Nails

German group Moderat’s track Rusty Nails (2009) seems to be my go-to track lately. Can’t get enough of it: the vibe, the vocals, all of it. Check it out!

small stories: Stay Wild

Artwork: Print by Kenny Random, Stay Wild Moon Child, 2025

On nights he couldn’t sleep
he’d run with wolves
in the forest
on the outskirts of town.

The mask of his everyday 
self, would disappear
with the moon as his guide
his skin a pelt of fur.

And he’d howl in concert
with his friends, face
arced to the sky
sounds carried on the wind.

Too soon the moon
would fade with the
light of dawn and he’d
shed fur for civility.

A slow walk from the woods
along roads, and then 
houses and shops and 
home, his other family.

Yet on one night
becoming morning 
as he walked 
he saw a girl.

Silhouetted and perched
on the roof of a house 
head tilted to the fading
light of the moon.

Face obscured, she wore
a mask, so strange the boy 
stopped and wondered,
how could this be? 

Who was she?

A girl with a mask
like a fox, staring
at the moon 
still as a statue.

And he wished
for the first time
he could reveal 
his wildness.

To share the moon
and the night 
to howl with another
voice like his own.

 

© Angela Jooste

Blue deer

Artwork: Mural by Banksy, London, 2025

Couldn’t resist! Here is a more subdued version of a Christmas deer from Banksy, tricked out with lights!

Golden deer

Artwork: Mural by DZIA, golden deer, Turnhout, Belgium, 2025

To everyone celebrating Christmas this year, I hope it’s a happy day spent with people you care about. Otherwise, happy holidays! Belgian artist DZIA recently created this eye-catching golden deer and wrote this: “A quiet animal, loud background. because subtlety is overrated in December”. 🎄