ANNIE LEIBOVITZ TO REISSUE “WOMEN” WITH MORE THAN 100 NEW PORTRAITS
Annie Leibovitz’s new edition of Women will be released by Phaidon this November as a two-volume set. The set will include the 1999 edition of the portrait collection, along with a new volume that will showcase portraits taken from 2000 to the present day. The project has been described as “open ended” by Leibovitz and in 2016, the photographer revisited the idea in Women: New Portraits, an exhibition organised by UBS. The new edition includes portraits of activists, artists, authors, musicians, and world leaders, from writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to folk singer Joan Baez and Rihanna. The new edition will also include newly commissioned essays from Adichie and Gloria Steinem. This reflects the original collaboration between Leibovitz and Susan Sontag for Women (1999) where Sontag’s essay was featured alongside portraits exploring the representations of femininity and power at the turn of the millennium. Portraits included in the first edition featured prominent figures such as astronaut Eileen Collins, artist Louise Bourgeois, and Supreme Court justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Annie Leibovitz
A RARE RODIN SCULPTURE, LOST FOR OVER A CENTURY, FETCHES $1.2 MILLION AT AUCTION
Aymeric Rouillac, a French auction house owner, came across a rare sculpture titled Le Désespoir (ca. 1892-93) by Auguste Rodin in late 2024. The sculpture was sold by Rouillac at its Garden Party sale, held at the Château de Villandry, a castle in western France. The piece centres around despair, depicting a seated nude woman with her right leg drawn toward her body and her hands holing her extended left leg. The work was last put on auction in 1906 in Paris, where it sold to financier Alexandre Blanc for 4,100 francs. On Sunday Le Désespoir was sold to another banker from the US for €1.1 million (USD 1.2 million), continuing the financier ownership of the sculpture. A similar statue was sold at Sotheby’s New York in 1990 for USD 797,500, significantly surpassing its USD 220,000 high estimate. Rodin’s current auction record is USD 20.4 million, set by L’éternel printemps (1884) at Sotheby’s New York in 2016. The Musée Rodin in Paris will also be expanding internationally into Shanghai this September, coinciding with the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between France and China.
Auguste Rodin, Le Désespoir, ca. 1892-93
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM AND WATCHMAKER VACHERON CONSTANTIN LAUNCH ARTIST RESIDENCY
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York launched a new residency for artists who incorporate craft or artisanal materials and techniques into their practices in collaboration with the Swiss watchmaker Vacheron Constantin. The residency was formally launched on June 6th and will last 18 months; the participating artists will have the chance to spend time with both the collections and team at the Met, as well as the artisans at Vacheron Constantin’s headquarters in Geneva. The three artists that have been chosen for this year’s residency are Aspen Golann, Ibrahim Said and Joy Harvey. Golann is a furniture maker based in New Hampshire who explores themes of labour, gender and power within her practice. Golann also teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design. Said is an Egyptian ceramic artist who comes from a family of ceramicists, having first learned pottery from his father. His practice reimagines Ancient Egyptian ceramic forms and techniques, adapted through a contemporary lens. Originally trained as a chemist, Harvey began her career as a jewellery make nearly a decade ago. She founded La Luce in 2021 with Marco Rossi, focusing on sustainably and ethically sourced materials. Heidi Holder, the museum’s chair of education said in a statement, “At the Met, we believe deeply in the power of art to ignite curiosity and, at the same time, to redefine artistic and cultural boundaries. This residency is a testament to that belief, offering the artisans access to our collection, scholarly resources and the expertise of Met scientists, curators, educators and staff to inform, inspire and support the reimagining of traditional craft knowledge and techniques for the next generations.”
The inaugural cohort of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Vacheron Constantin's Artisan Residency, from left to right: Aspen Golann, Ibrahim Said and Joy Harvey
VICTORIA MIRO CELEBRATES 40 YEARS WITH THE ARTISTS WHO HAVE SHAPED ITS HISTORY
Victoria Miro has opened a new exhibition to celebrate its fortieth anniversary. The gallery began on Cork Street, driven by Victoria’s passion for art during a time of flux for the art world. In 2000, Miro relocated to a larger gallery in Hoxton and later opened a new space in Venice in 2016. The exhibition will be held in Miro’s Hoxton space and features the gallery’s roster of artists, such as Sarah Sze, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Conrad Shawcross, Do Ho Suh and Paula Rego. The exhibition combines the contemporary with the historic, presenting works including María Berrío’s watercolours on linen, an Alice Neel portrait, and Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s mixed media works. The exhibition will be running until 1 August 2025.
Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Na Parlour (In the Parlour), 2025
‘THE PLANTATION PLOT’ CONTENDS WITH VIOLENT LEGACIES
ILHAM Gallery in Kuala Lumpur has opened The Plantation Plot, an exhibition that challenges the notion that the successful cultivation of agriculture must be accompanied through rigid order and monoculture. Critiquing the systems that were enforced on colonial plantations, the exhibition raises the question of “which mediums and aesthetics most effectively enable historically suppressed narratives to irrupt the complicated discourse surrounding plantation legacy?” Including works from 28 artists and collectives across Southeast Asia and beyond, each explore the legacy of colonial influence in their individual ways. Malaysian artist Minstrel Kuik draws inspiration from his own experiences growing up within a plantation-based community. Residence Time (2025) revisits Kuik’s childhood in Pantai Remis, a fishing town that was impacted by the government’s resettlement scheme to establish palm-oil plantations in the 1960s. The installation includes images taken from Kuik’s personal archive. Across the world Brazilian artist Noara Quintana investigates the impact of the Amazon rubber boom between 1879 and 1912 in her installation series Belle Époque of the Tropics (2021, subverting colonial aesthetics and the irony of the Brazilian art nouveau movement of the time. One of the other featured artists is Malaysian filmmaker Gogularaajan Rajendran integrates historical culture with the present, highlighting the resilience and solidarity that emerged from these plantation-based communities. The exhibition will be on view at ILHAM Gallery in Kuala Lumpur until 21 September.
‘The Plantation Plot’, 2025, exhibition view
IM YOUNGZOO TAKES FRIEZE SEOUL 2025 ARTIST AWARD FOR ‘CALMING SIGNAL’
Im Youngzoo, a South Korean artist, will be presenting her works at Frieze Seoul’s 2025 edition following her acceptance of the 2025 Frieze Seoul Artist Award earlier this week. Im won the award for Calming Soul, which explores the possibilities of an ‘uncertain future’ through its rotational depiction of cultural dances. The title references the signals that animals adopt when under stress and reflects the instinctive behaviour that is drawn out of humans during periods of collective unease. Im’s practice is research-based and explores the boundaries between personal and collective narratives, utilising mediums such as video, installation, performance, and virtual reality. Patrick Lee, the director of Frieze Seoul, has noted how Im’s work resonates with the fair’s exploration of community and shared experience within this year’s theme Future Commons. Im is also shortlisted for The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art’s 2025 Korea Artist Prize
Im Youngzoo
Jordan Tan holds an MA in History of Art from the prestigious Courtauld Institute of Art. With a passion for fine art and the art market, Jordan plays a key role at Art Works by researching and interpreting trends across the primary and secondary markets, delivering valuable insights and business intelligence for the fine art department.
