“Precise, smooth, and powerful:” the sexual energy rippling through Gillette’s 2004 ad campaign nearly leaps from the page — not because razors were suddenly sexy, but because its star, David Beckham, was known at the time as “the biggest metrosexual in Britain.” With a freshly shaved head, glistening muscles, and a green-tipped razor in hand, the image cemented what the world already knew, by way of a £40 million global ad campaign. This British soccer star — this man who wore pink nail polish and, occasionally, his wife’s panties — was seen as the peak of masculinity that year, and nobody else came close. As Gillette’s tagline went, Beckham was “the best a man can get.”
This story appears as part of 2004 Was So Gay, Them’s look back at a pivotal year for queer history and pop culture.
Deep within the cavernous Arsenale di Venezia, amidst hundreds of works on view at the 60th edition of the Biennale, two paintings by Peruvian artist Violeta Quispe offer an invitation into a queer, gender-breaking multiverse. The works — El Matrimonio de la Chola (2022) and Apu Suyos (2024) — are a patchwork of nearly 100 characters pulled from Andean traditions of Quechua culture, recontextualized and filtered through a prism of sexual and gender equity. The inspiration for these colorful pieces comes from an adolescence spent navigating Lima’s deep conservatism. “This led me to ask myself, where do I place myself in the nature of a society where ‘those minorities’ are found and marked by the society of a country that, unfortunately, still has patriarchal, racist, classist, homophobic and sexist thinking?” Quispe told ARTnews in a recent interview. “My origin is part of my blood, my touch, my art, my customs and my identity.”
Like clockwork, springtime in Berlin brings brighter skies, warmer temperatures, and a wave of must-see exhibitions for Gallery Weekend Berlin. This year, the event celebrates its 20th anniversary edition, taking place April 26–28, with over 90 presentations at more than 60 locations across the city.
For my debut at ARTnews, I poured over dozens of exhibition programs to find the five must-see shows of Gallery Weekend Berlin 2024. The list includes Sprüth Magers, Dittrich & Schlechtriem, Heidi, ChertLüdde, and Contemporary Fine Arts — plus two "unofficial" shows at Cabin and Sandy Brown.
“It’s hard and edgy, but also beautiful and bright.” The four adjectives used by Martine Ali to describe silver could easily be used to describe her, too. As one of New York’s biggest jewelry designers, the alloy has fused with her identity. “Gold feels far too precious, and oftentimes it’s done very delicately,” she says. “Silver just has this universal ability to appeal to different people in different ways.”
It’s this versatility that Ali has tapped into since launching her namesake brand in 2010. Though her designs fit into the familiar categories of bracelets, necklaces, earrings, and rings, Martine Ali pieces are meant to be modular — creative building blocks ready to be recontextualized by the wearer.
This story appears as a FRONTPAGE digital cover story and in their Winter 2023 print magazine.
Down a cold, cement staircase and through a cavernous tunnel somewhere in Berlin, Ai Weiwei sits quietly at a long table in a brick hall. It’s early, and as the city outside begins to wake up, Ai is busy scrolling through his phone and sipping tea. A few feet away, sunlight streams into an open courtyard set two floors below ground. There’s a serenity and completeness to the scene because, in a way, this former brewery turned underground art studio is a perfect metaphor for the artist’s journey. Here, in what he calls his “underground temple,” Ai has found peace and come full circle.
This story appears as a FRONTPAGE digital cover story and in their Spring 2022 print magazine.
When Omar Rudberg first met his Young Royals co-star, Edvin Ryding, it wasn’t a meet-cute. It was a meet-stressed, mixed with a bit of meet-sweaty. For Rudberg, landing a second audition for the Swedish Netflix series had put him on the verge of a big break; a first step towards launching an acting career after years spent entrenched in the music scene as part of an award-winning boy band. As he burst into the chemistry read for the series five minutes late, there was no time to introduce himself to the person who would become his co-star. “I was so scared,” he recalls of the audition that would change his life. “I sat next to him and we just started. We met for the first time in character, basically, and it was just there. It was natural. It was perfect.”
This story appears as a FRONTPAGE digital cover story and in their Summer 2023 print magazine.
