Chanel Becomes Lead Sponsor of Hong Kong’s M+ Museum in Expanded Three-Year Deal

Pia Camil: Bestia★★★★☆All sorts of secret, shocking things happen behind closed doors, but they probably pale in comparison to what’s happening behind the saloon-style screens in Mexican artist Pia Camil’s debut UK exhibition. Swing them open and you’re greeted with eye-popping paintings of lust and sexual freedom. A demonic, fanged creature humps away at a blindfolded woman in one, a blue-skinned being with a curly little pig’s tail performs cunnilingus on another. Everywhere you look there are bodies writhing in ecstasy, hair being pulled, stilettos being pressed into bare skin. Most of the time when you see sexual art these days it carries a big political message about exploitation and abuse, but this is the opposite: this is about the joy of sex, about liberation through desire, about a feminist reclamation of eroticism. In the middle of the room, a huge inflatable sculpture of Lady Godiva inflates and deflates, rises and falls, over and over. The whole show is like all your favourite erotic surrealists put through a Mexican art filter.

what does a house look like when it is designed from the perspective of a cat? what does a seawall look like when the client is an oyster, a garden when it is planted for a bee’s vision rather than ours, or a bridge whose only users are deer and mountain lions? in posthuman utopias, we ask what a world looks like when we stop designing on the planet, and learn to design with it. the stories ahead look at those working with bacteria and algae as collaborators rather than materials, sensors that turn forests into something that can be listened to, buildings that are drawn to decay gracefully back into deep time rather than stand forever, new technologies turned on damage that older ones caused, and infrastructure built for, and with, animals, plants and oceans. sofia lekka angelopoulou October 22, 2026 5 min prefer designboom on googleFour years ago, in the Arsenale, I stood with French artist Marguerite Humeau in front of three beings she had named after ocean currents, and nobody could agree on what they were.

Blackpool, Sheffield, Milton Keynes and Wrexham have been shortlisted to be the UK city of culture 2029, an award viewed as a way to boost local economies, foster civic pride and, above all, have some fun. The four places were chosen from a longlist of nine and each will be given £125,000 to develop their bids before the winner is announced in the new year. That winner will be given a further £10m to help fund what has, in previous years, been a blizzard of events and ideas that create jobs, increase arts engagement and bring in tourists. All four previous UK cities of culture – Derry (2013), Hull (2017), Coventry (2021) and Bradford (2025) – said afterwards that the designation had been transformative and brought lasting legacies. Before the shortlist was announced, Wrexham was the bookmaker’s favourite to win. The city is already surfing a Hollywood wave after its football team was bought by the actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney. Wrexham is surfing a Hollywood wave the football club was bought by the actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.

designers stephanie forsythe and todd macallen craft sculptural partitions with gmund's sustainably produced glacier and deep blue paper. lisa kostyra October 22, 2026 4 min prefer designboom on googleintroducing sloped softwall in deep blue and glacier bluemolo’s founders Stephanie Forsythe and Todd MacAllen have explored paper as a sculptural medium for over two decades, finding strength and purity in this material. The Vancouver-based studio is renowned for its soft collection — a modular line of flexible space partitions, building blocks, furniture, and lighting made almost entirely from paper or textile. Expanding this system, molo introduces sloped softwall in two nuanced shades of blue, debuting alongside a sustainable manufacturing partnership with historic Bavarian mill Gmund Paper.‘Rather than designing furniture with rigid definitions of use, we envision layers of possibilities — abstract objects to accommodate gatherings, performances, pauses, and transitions.

How protesters are subverting France’s public landmarks; an "awfully confusing" costume show at The Met; and the true story of an artist, a scammer, and a Wikipedia page. Against the backdrop of the out-of-touch wealthfest that is Art Basel Paris, there’s an image from the ongoing student protests in France that is seared into my mind: Marianne, the allegorical figure at the center of the Monument à la République in Paris, donning a fluorescent yellow traffic vest, an emblem of the earlier gilets jaunes movement. But this particular garment bears a message: “Police mutilate high schoolers.” It’s a reference to the gruesome injuries sustained by young protesters at the hands of French police, including a 14-year-old boy whose jaw was shattered by a tear grenade. In the footsteps of activists including Black Lives Matter protesters who tore down Confederate statues, today’s demonstrators are upending the symbolic power of their nation’s landmarks, Staff Writer Anna Lee and Associate Editor Phillip Pyle report today. In the world of bizarre things that happen to artists, Laura June Kirsch's story about the scammer who held her Wikipedia page hostage is up there.

John Anderson, the traditionalist US country singer whose extensive body of work included five No 1 hits on the country charts, has died aged 71. The news was announced on social media by his family, who said: “To the world, he was a gifted country music singer whose voice and songs touched countless lives. To us, he was so much more. He was the heart of our family, the one who made us laugh, loved us fiercely and made every ordinary moment feel special.”So woven into the culture of country music that he once worked as a roofer on the genre’s focal point, Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry, Anderson’s career spanned nearly 50 years and resulted in him being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2024. Among those paying tribute to Anderson was country singer and friend Blake Shelton: “I am a very lucky man. I got the opportunity to find out that my hero wasn’t just the guy I hoped he’d be.” Shelton’s wife Gwen Stefani wrote: “We loved him!!