What’s Happening: The artist collective (and super PAC) reimagines television news—and billboard advertising—in Miami and New York.

The Download: On Sept. 16, Mahsa Amini was detained by the Tehran morality police, allegedly for not properly wearing her hijab. She died in police custody. Protests in her memory have gripped the country since, leading to the arrests and reported abuse, sexual and otherwise, of tens of thousands of citizens. On Thursday, Nov. 24, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said the country is in “a full-fledged human rights crisis.”

For Freedoms believes artists belong in public conversations about politics; as the world trains its focus on the Iranian uprising, the collective has assembled a coalition of artists to broaden perception. Recently, co-founder Eric Gottesman seized the format of television news to launch the For Freedoms News network at the Brooklyn Museum. “We’re appropriating the form and aesthetic of broadcast news,” he told the New Yorker, “as a way to build greater civic engagement through art.”

At this year’s Untitled Art fair in Miami, the network will stage an ersatz studio for interviews at the fair entrance, hold conversations with artists including Michele Pred and Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova, and send “reporters on the street” to interview artists and attendees around the city as part of the For Freedoms Special News Report: EYES ON IRAN. The collective will also fly “Eyes in the Sky” billboards above South Beach, featuring optical artwork by co-founder Hank Willis Thomas and the Iranian oil and digital painter Mahvash Mostala, on Nov. 28 and 30.

Those billboards will then travel to New York City to join Eyes on Iran, a multimedia installation For Freedoms created in collaboration with Vital Voices Global Partnership, a nonprofit devoted to increasing the number of women in leadership positions. It will activate the FDR Four Freedoms State Park on Roosevelt Island in hopes of amplifying the Women, Life, Freedom campaign to remove Iran from the UN’s Commission on the States of Women.

The activation brings large-scale artwork from Iranian artists including Aphrodite Désirée Navab, Icy and Sot, Sepideh Mehraban, Sheida Soleimani, and Shirin Neshat, who joined former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and others at the opening on Monday, Nov. 28. Like all of the artwork, Neshat’s piece—a monumental close-up photograph of an eyeball wheatpasted on the park’s stairs—stares down the United Nations across the river, which is currently in the midst of its annual 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign. Its message is clear: the courage of Iranian women will not be kept from view.

In Their Own Words: “When we say that we must keep our ‘Eyes on Iran,’ we mean that what’s happening deserves not only our attention but our vision,” Neshat explained. “In solidarity with the courageous Iranians who are risking their lives to express their human rights, many artists throughout the diaspora and beyond are bringing our vision to bear to ensure international audiences and institutions remain aware of what is happening in Iran, in their eyes and in their hearts, and feel moved to respond.”

Surface Says: News from the World Cup: USA 1, Iran 0.

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From Web3 Salon Sessions co-hosted with Polygon at the W South Beach to cocktails fêting a visionary sustainability exhibition by Model No., join Surface and the leading designers in our network for a packed Miami Art Week.

They say “go big or go home,” and for this year’s Miami Art Week, Surface is going bigger and better than ever with immersive art-meets-Web3 programming at the W South Beach. Those planning to be in town for the Art Basel and Design Miami/ VIP days can look forward to joining Surface for a series of thought-provoking, salon-style conversations, a disco-fied lightwave bungalow, and opportunities to fête with our community of artists and designers.

Outside of our activation at the W South Beach, we’re sharing details on events from our community of Surface-approved artists and designers, including a panel with homeware designer Tina Frey, a ceramics exhibition presented by SCAD, and a multi-artist furniture launch by Model No.

Returning with high-concept presentations by an exciting crop of creative talents, the collectible design showcase readies a hopeful eye to the future with thought-provoking pieces united in their optimistic mood. Our editor rounds up ten of the fair’s unmissable moments.

The Ameritech Center in Hoffman Estates, just outside Chicago, was completed in 1990, and feels that way: a postmodern riff on a chateau, the massive complex is a relic of the decade’s suburban dream of the corporate campus. Times change, of course, and the one-time AT&T research facility has been reincarnated as Bell Works Chicagoland, the latest rethink of Bell Laboratories by the brand’s lead designer and creative director Paola Zamudio.

Zamudio’s own firm, NPZ Studio, led the effort, after successfully transforming Eero Saarinen’s two-million-square-foot midcentury masterpiece in Holmdel into Bell Labs New Jersey—and into what she calls a “metroburb” amalgamation of workplace and culture hub. The Chicagoland space is a bit smaller at 1.65 million square feet, but as big of a swing. “The Block” forms a central corridor of art and hospitality amenities for the complex’s various tenants, which range from law offices to real estate and brokerage firms. Each end is anchored by a “Square,” an airy gathering place boasting swoopy benches and friendly soft seating in primary colors that wink to the postmodern vibe of the past.

Saint Laurent is bringing Sex to the beaches of Miami like never before with an exhibition curated by Madonna and Anthony Vaccarello, celebrating the groundbreaking book’s 30th anniversary and re-edition. Premiering Tuesday, Nov. 29 during Miami Art Week, the beachfront gallery will feature large-format prints from the trailblazing tome along with never-before-seen images pulled from the archive going on display for the first time.

With photographs by Steven Meisel punctuated with words penned by Madonna herself, Sex featured the iconoclastic singer along with the famous and infamous of the time, including Naomi Campbell, Isabella Rossellini, Big Daddy Kane, and Vanilla Ice. Upon its release in 1992, when it sold more than 150,000 copies on the first day, Madonna shattered the boundaries of pop stardom and the expectations that came with it.

Fresh off the triumphant folds of aluminum and wood screens defining the Albert Kahn Museum in the Bois de Boulogne, Kengo Kuma traveled to the island of Kyushu in southwest Japan to unveil the hot spring ryokan Kai Yufuin.

The Hoshino Resorts property nestles 45 private guest rooms and villas among landscaped rice fields and the bountiful Yufuin Hot Springs. For the main public building, Kuma refreshed the traditional Japanese farmhouse: a custom reception desk nods to the form of a kamado stove as it sits upon a 21st-century take on the tataki dirt floor, now made of gravel mixed with lime and soil. In the guest rooms, craftswoman Chika Iwakiri translates firefly baskets into spiral light fixtures of Shichitoi straw to illuminate the bamboo beds and sofas. The hipped-roof black cedar villas offer outstanding views of nearby Mt. Yufu, as do the many indoor and outdoor mineral baths.

The semi-private dining hall serves seasonal kaiseki course meals, or a special shabu-shabu trio of local game meats, along with both Japanese and Western breakfasts. Washi paper made of local vegetation covers the walls, while Kuma custom designed the paper and bamboo-stick lighting. It’s the perfect spot, after a long afternoon soak, to savor the “Celebratory Box,” a construction of preserved flowers and cakes as minimalist and elegant as the resort itself.

There’s a chameleonic appeal to the ceramic work of Floris Wubben, the freethinking and process-driven Amsterdam designer who can seamlessly pivot between creating sculptural one-of-a-kind pieces and studio-made products coveted for their stolid forms and shimmering glazes. His latest debuts, a throne-like chair and cloud-colored freestanding mirror on view in The Future Perfect’s booth at Design Miami, embody his unflinching drive to experiment with new forms and expand his material lexicon all while maintaining a soft, poetic eloquence.

By illuminating jewel-like clusters of glass panels with a spotlight, the crypto art pioneer and Bitchcoin founder reveals mesmerizing holographic visuals of plant matter that remind us to slow down and appreciate nature’s perennial beauty.

Here, we ask an artist to frame the essential details behind one of their latest works.

Bio: Sarah Meyohas, 31, nomadic.

Title of work: Interference (2022).

Where to see it: Marianne Boesky’s booth (B12) at Art Basel Miami Beach.

Three words to describe it: Impossible, mesmerizing, resonant.

What was on your mind at the time: The holograms come more out of a desire to connect viscerally with the world, rather than to express something within myself. They are analog augmented reality—nothing gets plugged in except for a spotlight from above, which illuminates the glass and replays wave phenomena to produce a 3-D experience. They interact with the optics of your eyes in a way that screens do not.

When making these holographic works, I wanted to create an embodied experience using hyperreal macro imagery of plant matter, which reveals a sense of the infinite found within the smallest details of something so typically mundane. In a world that spins and scrolls so quickly, we can sometimes feel like we are losing control or alienated, and the act of looking very closely, of pausing on a leaf, feels immediate, meditative, and intimate.

Like all of Ellis’ handbags, the Jamie doctor bag, pictured in a punchy tropical orange, deserves to be the center of attention. Its patent-leather construction is the work of Italian artisans, and its crystalline PVC body means it’s equally at home in a VIP box at an NFL game or late nights at Le Bain. Ellis’s custom slide-lock closure and pinecone feet protect your personal belongings and the bag itself in equal measure. Sized to fit even the largest iPhone, it features both an interior pocket and an optional crossbody strap. In other words, it’s built for wherever the night takes you.

In advance of Iddris Sandu’s talk at the Surface x Polygon bungalow during Miami Art Week today, revisit our conversation with the wunderkind from 2019. Sandu has coded for tech’s biggest names, collaborated with hip-hop stars, and received honors from President Obama. Since our story, Sandu founded the incubator Spatial LABS (sLABS) and the wearable, blockchain-enabled fashion brand and platform LNQ. Last year, the Jay-Z-helmed capital firm Marcy Venture Partners invested in Spatial LABS, reinforcing Sandu’s mission to democratize tech for communities traditionally shut out of innovation industries. Check out the Q&A to see why the 25-year-old mogul is one of the brightest minds in Web3.

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