What’s Happening: The Danish-Icelandic artist is heavily involved in the electronic music giant’s debut album, from his work appearing on the cover to directing a music video in which they dance and play with mirrors in his studio.

The Download: Olafur Eliasson first discovered breakdancing as a teenager—and realized that moving can change space and how we perceive it. “I was into popping, moving like a robot, and doing the electric boogie,” he says. “Street dance enabled me to explore the space of my body in relation to the world around me.” The Icelandic-Danish artist has since dedicated his career to making art that toys with that notion, from a mist-darkened chamber that illustrates the urgency of reducing air pollution to large-scale light works that dole out mesmerizing, kaleidoscopic visual experiences. His dance floor prowess was lesser known until, as the story goes, he stood up at a restaurant in Berlin and showed his longtime friend, the South Korean electronic music giant Peggy Gou, some impromptu moves.

An unlikely collaboration was born. Eliasson is heavily involved in Gou’s debut album, I Hear You, which arrives on June 6. It begins on the album cover, which pictures a gaze-averted Gou wearing mirrored earpieces angled to reflect her ears in a ring-like pattern—a clever riff on the title. The piece is Eliasson’s Psychoacoustic Empathy Amp (2023), an aural sculpture that explores how the body receives and our brain interprets sound. (Think of it as an aural version of his popular 2011 work Your Plural View, in which viewers place their heads in a construction of mirrors and witness their own reflections.)

The teamwork continues on album opener “Your Art,” in which Gou reinterprets a poem Eliasson penned about humanity’s obligation to address the climate crisis for a 2022 Time cover story. He also directed the music video for her single “1+1=11,” which is the most mesmerizing of all—it features Eliasson, dressed in a pink velour work suit, showing off impressive dance moves as he glides, spins, and moves like a robot inside his Berlin studio. At times, he appears as a pinkish eight-tone silhouette projection that overlaps and cascades across the wall, mirroring his 2010 work Your Uncertain Shadow, a mainstay of his museum shows. It’s interspersed with footage of him and Gou playing with geometric models, lights, and mirrors.

In Their Own Words: “Sculpture and dance are both non-verbal languages. Sometimes in order to communicate, you simply have to move,” Eliasson says. “By bringing together dance with colorful shadows, lights, and mirrors, I was able to bring the key interests that have shaped my art into an entirely new context. Working together has been rewarding and a lot of fun!”

Surface Says: More studio visits should break out into impromptu dance parties.

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Azzedine Alaïa was an avid art lover whose nonpareil talents in sculpting cloth earned the late couturier an avid following of high-profile power women and an enduring moniker: the king of cling. Honoring his predecessor’s vision has been key for Pieter Mulier, the Belgian talent who took the label’s helm in 2021 and recently unveiled an art-filled new flagship in London.

Beyond offering figure-flattering knit dresses and goddess gowns, the store doubles as a gallery meticulously curated by Mulier. Marc Newson lamps warm up the concrete floor; a medley of chairs by Gerrit Rietveld, Franco Albini, and Gio Ponti lend dynamism, as do a Steven Shearer collage and painting by Sterling Ruby. Ascend a spiral staircase for the ultimate homage: an industrial kitchen that mimics Alaïa’s own in Paris, where his closest friends would gather in glee.

The Whitney Museum of American Art has named Kim Conaty the Nancy and Steve Crown Family Chief Curator. In her new role, she will help shape the museum’s mission and vision, overseeing curatorial, publications, and conservation departments while developing the permanent collection and exhibitions. Conaty has worked at the Whitney since 2017 and has curated shows by Edward Hopper, Mary Corse, and Ruth Asawa, as well as co-directing the Whitney’s Collection Strategic Plan to set priorities for the museum’s future. She succeeds Scott Rothkopf in the role, who was promoted in November to serve as the museum’s director.

In other people news, Sonya Haffey has been promoted to CEO of V Starr, the South Florida interiors firm founded by Venus Williams; she has served as the firm’s principal for 15 years. Alex Williams will be transitioning away from his position as part-owner of RBW, the lighting firm he founded in 2007 with Theo Richardson and Charles Brill. Under their leadership, the brand plans to launch a record 17 new products this year, largely thanks to the state-of-the-art manufacturing facility it recently opened in New York’s Hudson Valley.

When: Until June 1

Where: Hannah Traore Gallery, New York

What: Discrimination. Migration. Liberation. Turya Adkins’ show of paintings and assemblages explores these multifaceted aspects of resistance through the lens of Black bodies in motion. The Brooklyn-based artist draws parallels between history and African mythology; in her trove of work, everything from Black athletes’ legacy of greatness in track and field to James Meredith’s 1966 “March Against Fear” are related to imagery of Tuskegee Airmen and themes of supernatural flight in African folklore. A sense of mysticism and inheritance permeate her eerily haunting works.

Last week, Cipriani South Street hosted the New Museum’s annual benefit, where a star-studded list of speakers including writer Jacqueline Woodson, Mickalene Thomas, and Tracee Ellis Ross brought down the house over a three-course dinner. The evening opened with a cocktail attended by notables including Leonardo DiCaprio and his art adviser, Ralph DeLuca. Dinner guests enjoyed musical performances by Deon Jones and DJ April Hunt, as well as an auction steered by Gabriela Palmieri—which featured Thomas’s Dior Lady Art 8 bag and a six-night Ionian Sea cruise aboard a yacht with artwork by Jeff Koons.

When was it? April 3

Where was it? Cipriani South Street, New York

Who was there? Cindy Sherman, Theaster Gates, Sanford Biggers, Nari Ward, Tschabalala Self, Thelma Golden, Derrick Adams, JiaJia Fei, Jasmine Wahi.

Alma Communications is a Latin-owned and female-founded arts and culture firm in New York City, operating at the intersection of contemporary art, social change, partnerships, and innovation. Alma approaches communications and partnerships with an emphasis on collaboration and humanism, treating each project with the utmost care.

Surface Says: With the firm’s art-world expertise, it’s no wonder high-profile galleries and institutions like FLAG Art Foundation, Jack Shainman, Nicola Vassell, and Creative Capital choose Alma.

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