Omar Ba’s State of Emergency

The Senegalese artist's striking pieces are beautiful, but deceptively dark

The vibrant, precise color combinations and elaborate detailing in artist Omar Ba’s paintings, on show now at London’s Hales Gallery, sometimes make them reminiscent of illustrations for a beautiful children’s book. But as you draw closer, the sinister underside of the images starts to reveal itself—the reflections in a man’s sunglasses depict tanks and a helicopter, the marionette hands that control soldiers and weapons bear …

FPOAFM’s One-of-a-Kind Ceramic Artworks

The experimental collective explains why they're giving away a hundred handmade cups and the importance of staying original

Ceramics seem to becoming more and more like T-shirts, in which the cup or bowl becomes a vehicle for something catchy, cute or plain-old homey. One collective that’s highlighting the neglected creative potential of the historic medium is FPOAFM, a studio that’s fond of collaborating with other artists to produce functional, one-of-a-kind artworks with personality—and whose prices are (mostly) in the tens, not the thousands. …

Art or Sound at Fondazione Prada

Curated by Germano Celant, a provocative exhibition exploring the transcendental nature of instrumental expression

Ca’ Corner della Regina is a majestic Venetian palazzo overlooking Canal Grande, built between 1723 and 1728 by Domenico Rossi. At the end of 2010 Fondazione Prada began a restoration process on the historic building while also breathing new life into its rich cultural offerings. The most recent incarnation of this program is “Art or Sound,” an exhibition curated by Germano Celant—the famed curator who …