On the top floor of Buffalo AKG Art Museum’s Gundlach Building, a vast body of work from 58 artists comes together for Let Us Gather In a Flourishing Way. The impressive ensemble is both a survey of contemporary Latinx painting and a lively dialogue between a spectrum of artists with diverse backgrounds, experiences, identities, languages, and creative mediums.

Let Us Gather In a Flourishing Way is a major exhibition that has slowly unfolded over the course of several years. Curator Andrea Alvarez—the architect and driving force behind the project—has spent much of this time immersed in research and collaborating closely with each artist throughout the process, refining every detail of the show.

The exhibition’s title alludes to former U.S. poet laureate Juan Felipe Herrera’s titular poem. Oscillating between English and Spanish while employing lush imagery of flora and fauna, the poem itself—like the survey—is an exuberant celebration of community and cultural convergence. He writes:

cielo de calor and wisdom to meet us
where we toil siempre
in the garden of our struggle and joy
let us offer our hearts a saludar our águila rising
freedom

The show traces this poetic rhythm in its spatial design. Herrera’s stanzas greet visitors at each entrance and throughout its galleries, establishing tone and providing context for what lies ahead.

Although the exhibition is organized into seven themes, Alvarez highlights its intrinsically flowing nature, noting that even if the collection were rearranged, the show would still hold together. In a walkthrough, it became clear that space was central to the viewing experience, leaving room for visitors to engage with the works on their own terms, much like the exhibition’s overarching focus on gathering and bolstering free-flowing conversation.

In Moises Salazar Tlatenchi’s “Cruising Queens,” a boat of five faceless figures and an American flag sail icy waters. Reminiscent of 18th-century America, the figures wear powdered wigs and tricorne hats. Finished with a dense layer of glitter and a daintily crocheted lavender frame, the artist’s glamorous materials—and the existence of brown figures in this context—subvert American history. “Cruising Queens” is placed within the exhibition’s New Histories section, which focuses on retelling personal, cultural, and global histories.

Colossal readers might also recognize Eamon Ore-Giron’s tessellated abstractions in “Talking Shit with Ilapa (variation I),” Guadalupe Maravilla’s mixed-media techniques in “Pupusa Retablo,” and Firelei Báez’s vibrant portraits bursting with floral motifs in “Mawu-Lisa (I build my language out of rocks).” Known for deconstructing colonial structures within her work, Báez turns toward the transatlantic slave trade, invoking deity Mawu-Lisa, a critical figure in the culture and religion of the Fon people in West Africa, who were brought to the Caribbean by force.

Bodies & Figures denotes another section of the show, highlighting “representations of and by marginalized people, considering the importance of the body, and who is or isn’t seen in an image,” the catalog says. One such work is Salomón Huerta’s triptych of untitled canvases. Through the absence of figurative human subjects within the paintings, visitors experience an intimate representation of the artist’s father.

“Huerta’s father protected the family in their home in Ramona Gardens, a violent housing project in East Los Angeles,” the museum label reads. “At night, he would set his .38-caliber revolver on the bedside table and ask Huerta to bring him a snack—often a concha or a glass of milk.” Disrupting expectations of traditional portraiture, the artist evokes something that feels deeply tender and human-centered—without the presence of a body.

At the same time, Let Us Gather In a Flourishing Way begs the question: how do identity and place shape each other? Los Angeles-based artist Alfonso Gonzalez Jr. turns to the rich visual language of signage. A meticulous technique passed down from his father’s professional career in commercial sign painting, Gonzalez has developed an enduring relationship with East Los Angeles’ emblematic advertisements and billboards, often reflecting Chicano culture. In “Abogados Tierra Caliente (Billboard),” the artist underscores the inherent connection between local landscapes and one’s selfhood, and an interesting relationship emerges between public commercial objects, personal portraits, and the museum itself.

Chicago-based Yvette Mayorga’s strikingly pink composition, “The Brunette Latinx Self Portrait After Francois Boucher’s “The Brunette Odalisque” c. 1745,” is affixed to a wall in the show’s cluster of Pinturx works, which are described as “contemporary Latinx approaches to traditional painting genres like still life and portraiture.” The artist’s distinctive technique of piping acrylic paint embodies themes of labor, femininity, and memory. Mayorga’s unconventional methods are an example of newer approaches to portraiture and complement the artist’s nods to Baroque and Rococo art.

Included in this grouping of nontraditional painting methods are other artists previously featured on Colossal, such as Sarah Zapata’s textile columns, made from handwoven cloth and various fibers. Installed leaning against a wall or protruding downward from the ceiling, her structures convey instability—a reflection of the current climate we find ourselves in. Narsiso Martinez also makes an appearance with “Checker Leading the Crowd,” made with charcoal on his distinctive cardboard produce box background, calling attention to labor.

In an anchoring room of the exhibition, “Promised Land” by Patrick Martinez spans 16 feet wide, redolent of a landscape’s sweeping view. Acrylic, neon, stucco, spray paint, and ceramic tile are just some of the layers that sit atop each other in the mixed-media work. Martinez ruminates on his native Los Angeles and the facade of “paradise” amid an ever-changing cultural landscape marked by gentrification and financial marginalization. Abstracted and washed-out structures, spray-paint marks inspired by graffiti, and an archival family photo collage represent the passage of time and the act of constantly rebuilding. “Promised Land” is part of the exhibition’s Land/tierra section, which highlights “Latinx approaches to landscape and the built environment, thinking about land and tierra and their rapid change.”

As a whole, the boundary-pushing exhibition comes together in a chorus of dialogues, mediums, backgrounds, and experiences. The Caribbean and Latin American diaspora is complex, and each artist remains distinct—resisting an external flattening into a monolithic identity. Let Us Gather In a Flourishing Way is a celebration of contrasts and connections and a necessary counterbalance in the glaring face of division.

The exhibition is on view through September 6, when it will travel to the Des Moines Art Center, the Phoenix Art Museum, and the Frye Art Museum in Seattle. Public programming—workshops, artist talks, tours with poet Juan Felipe Herrera, and more—is slated to accompany the show’s run, so keep an eye out for events on the museum’s website.

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For the 13th edition of Design Shanghai, Hu Yuehua presented a bold bouquet intersecting organic forms and human craft traditions. “Weaving Nature” is a large-scale composition of indigo and ochre leaves, blooms, and growths stitched together from dyed cotton and linen. Tightly nested in a wall-like garden, the individual pieces form a dense field of color and texture. Loose threads, raw edges, and tight rows of pleats radiate across the upright piece, merging evidence of the artist’s hand with the natural forms she depicts.

Design Shanghai concluded last week, but you can see more of the projects on display at the annual event on its website.

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While the Dutch city of The Hague may be best known for the judicial arm of the United Nations, there’s a lot more to it than global peace and justice organizations. It’s home to some of Europe’s most esteemed art museums, such as the Mauritshuis, where you can visit Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring. Then there’s the immanently popular Madurodam, a sprawling scale model of some of The Netherlands’ most famous and historic palaces and public buildings. That, in turn, is located in the charming Scheveningen district, which boasts a wide, popular beach on the North Sea.

Madurodam, for one, is where you’ll find a handful of playful inflatable art installations as part of BlowUp Jubilee, an anniversary edition of The Hague’s popular BlowUp Art event. Now in its sixth year, the open-air public art exhibition curated by Mary Hessing brings together 20 pieces that interact with monuments and buildings in a celebration of heritage and access for all.

For BlowUp Jubilee, artists whose work has been shown during the past five years have been invited back. In many cases, the sculptures are in new locations or configurations. Scale, color, and form interact in surprising ways as inflatable orbs, shell-like shapes, spikes, and more reimagine a variety of landmarks.

At Madurodam, size and scale are on particularly curious display, as what appears to be a giant pink chair in the middle of a fountain is actually quite small. Other works around town, however, celebrate historic architecture with genuinely monumental creations, such as Steve Messam’s bulbous, green passageway installation or Eugenie Boon’s ode to her Caribbean heritage in a piece titled “koncha pa dilanti,” which refers to a board game played on the islands. You’ll also find a giant yellow donut by John Körmeling, a pink pavilion by Sigrid Calon, and a cosmic cafe concept by Yamuna Forzani.

BlowUp Jubilee continues through June 21. Learn more and plan your visit by checking out the event’s website. You might also enjoy Bubbletecture.

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Faig Ahmed is known for his vibrant textile sculptures that take traditional Azerbaijani ornamental carpets as starting point, often appearing to melt, pool, or glitch. In his current solo presentation at the 61st Venice Biennale, where he is representing Azerbaijan, the Baku-based artist branches out into more conceptual territory, exploring science, alchemy, spirituality, and perceptions of self in a sprawling, maze-like installation called The Attention.

Curated by Gwendolyn Collaço, the exhibition expands upon Ahmed’s interest in the dialectic between digital processes and time-honored, hand-crafted techniques. The artist considers how advanced scientific inquiry, such as quantum physics and neuroscience, relates to how we “articulate cosmologies of belonging,” says a statement.

Ornamental carpets continue as a through-line in The Attention, undulating, scrunching, distending, and balling up through a series of rooms. They even extend outdoors, creating a kind of continuous runner that spills out of doorways and stretches into long lines of color.

“Ahmed bridges the 15th-century Hurufi mystic tradition—which viewed the universe as a coded text—with modern information theory,” says a statement. “By channeling the ‘human energy’ of the weave, he uses this ancient textile paradigm to address our era’s information overload and collective grief.”

Ahmed taps into a theoretical framework coined by physicist John Wheeler that can be summed up, rather enigmatically, as “it from bit.” It’s a short way of describing an approach to information theory that string theorists and quantum mechanics researchers have tested. In other words, “…every it—every particle, every field of force, even the spacetime continuum itself—derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely—even if in some contexts indirectly—from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, bits.”

In The Attention, the binaries of “it from bit” are not only present in the way digital methods and the physical labor of the loom converge but also in Ahmed’s interests.

“I have always been drawn to exploring consciousness for as far back as I can remember,” he says in a statement, continuing:

This search has guided my attention in two directions: on one hand, toward science—biology, physics, and mathematics—and on the other, toward spirituality, art, poetry, and creative expression. At first glance, these fields appear opposite, even contradictory. One form of knowledge is directed out-ward, toward what can be measured, calculated, observed, and verified. The other turns inward, toward the subjective, the unprovable, and the inexpressible. It is an experience that cannot be confirmed or fully shared with another, just as it is impossible to truly know what it feels like to be someone else.

Merging 15th-century Hurufi mysticism with science, digital interfaces with the analog, and introspective personal experiences with objective data, Ahmed’s carpets guide visitors through the immersive space. The largest one, a monumental machine-woven piece, is titled “I Can Contain Both Worlds But I Do Not Fit Into This One.” It forms what the artist describes as a “breathing body” that climbs the architecture, knots itself, collapses, and spills. “Ancestors,” a faintly anthropomorphic wall piece that glows psychedelically in black light is woven by hand. And a work called “Entropy Altar” uses a quantum random number generator to translate visitor presence into an evolving language.

The Attention remains on view through November 22 at Campo della Tana, Castello 2124/A–2125, Venice. See more on Ahmed’s Instagram and Vimeo.

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Inside the cavernous former train station that now houses Hamburger Bahnhof, 400,000 wooden cubes stack and topple into piles. Conceived by Lithuanian artist Lina Lapelytė and commissioned by Chanel, “We Make Years Out of Hours” is a large-scale installation that invites the public to remake structures from these 10-centimeter blocks made of pine and spruce.

Lapelytė often combines sound and performance and collaborates with both professionals and novices. This participatory work continues the artist’s interest in collective making and caretaking, particularly as it relates to shared authorship and how we might amend and reshape what currently exists.

A trio of weekly performances on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays will feature a libretto with the words of 15 writers, including Vietnamese-American poet Ocean Vuong, Lebanese-American painter Etel Adnan, Iranian filmmaker
Forugh Farrokhzad, and Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. Centered around community, love, and loss, these songs create another dimension in the space to consider agency and hope.

“We Make Years Out of Hours” opens on May 1 and is on view through January 10, 2027, in Berlin. Explore more of Lapelytė’s multi-disciplinary works on her website and Instagram.

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Multi-colored lengths of fabric billow in the breeze in the work of Thomas Jackson, challenging the relationship between nature, human intervention, and consumerism. “Rooted in the tension between nature and artificiality, the installations pose questions about how we interact with the environment and how we might find equilibrium with it,” the artist writes in a statement.

“All of my photographs strain credulity by design,” Jackson says. “At first blush, they can appear to be digital fabrications, but in truth, they are entirely in-camera, printed with minimal post-production.” The undulating swathes of fabric in his ethereal photographs initially appear to float and drape on their own, almost superimposed onto various landscapes, but upon closer inspection, the images reveal taut strings holding the carefully layered sheets.

Currently, Jackson is focusing on a forthcoming book project and taking advantage of the time between major exhibitions to make new work. See more on Instagram.

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Eudaemonius posted a photo:

The expression “wherever you go, there you are” is often wielded to describe futile attempts to escape hangups, anxieties, and a variety of unwanted emotions. Although this truism is typically offered as a negative, it can also be read as a positive that provides comfort and stability amid new environments.

In I Bring Home with Me, Ghanaian artist Amoako Boafo recreates his Accra studio in an architectural reproduction within Roberts Projects’ Los Angeles gallery. Boafo is known for his stylized portraiture of Black people, whose skin the artist renders in swirling gestures made with his fingers. This exhibition presents a collection of paintings embedded within the life-sized replica, created in collaboration with architect and designer Glenn DeRoche.

According to a statement from the gallery, Boafo wanted to reflect both the “images, sounds, people, stories, and events that shape his sense of place” and how community gatherings in his studio are essential to his process. While some portraits depict imagined subjects, many portray friends, family, and public figures.

Monstera wallpaper, porous wall dividers, and floral seat covers add color and texture to the largely black, wooden structure and echo Boafo’s use of paper transfers, embroidered details, and thick impasto. Paired with his portraiture, these architectural details guide viewers through the space and capture how presence and memories shape our inner and outer environments.

I Bring Home with Me is on view through March 21. Find more on the artist’s Instagram.

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A visit to Lincoln Park or the Garfield Park Conservatory is one of the outings Chicagoans rarely pass up, particularly when we need some reprieve from all the concrete and steel. Two beloved green spaces in the city, these spots boast oases blanketed in verdant foliage even in the depths of winter and house an array of specimens not native to the Midwest.

For artists Merryn Omotayo Alaka and Sam Frésquez, the immersive nature of a conservancy, with plants above and below and all around, became a central point for a collaborative project. Your Birth is My Birth presents the duo’s synthetic hair sculptures, which suspend from the ceiling of Jane Lombard Gallery and splay across the wooden floor like organic growths. Alaka and Frésquez describe the exhibition as a sort of “Kanekalon forest,” referring to the brand behind the luscious material.

Five different “species” emerge in the space, including Listening Roots, Hearing Bells, Mother & Child, Stacking Pearls, and Umbra Pods. Dark, dyed locks and domed shapes are throughlines, although each takes on a distinctive form. The series are influenced by epiphytes, non-parasitic plants that make their homes on a host specimen. Think orchids, cacti, moss, and kelp.

Surging upward from lily pad-shaped discs suctioned to the floorboards, the largest sculpture is part of Listening Roots, which tethers singular shoots to a central form. This connection between smaller pieces—like the feather-duster-shaped Stacking Pearls—and more comprehensive structures recurs throughout the exhibition, gesturing toward an intimate and intentional symbiosis.

Several works also reference genetics and what’s passed down through generations, as mirrored forms emerge within the same vertical tendril. “Similar to an epiphyte and its host tree, these sculptural works have their own life cycles evoking systems of dependence and exchange, where one form sustains from another,” says a statement.

Your Birth is My Birth is on view through June 13. Explore more from Alaka and Frésquez on Instagram.

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In Sydney’s Circular Quay, a 6.5-meter-tall installation spins, twirls, and totters amid a public thoroughfare. Titled “There, Now, Here,” the kinetic artwork is by the Brooklyn-based duo Wade and Leta and is in almost constant motion, thanks to wind, motors, and willing participants hopping on a see-saw.

With black and white stripes alongside a more muted palette, the colors of the playground-style project reference Dorothea Mackellar’s beloved poem “My Country,” which professes her devotion to the Australian landscape and what she dubs the “sunburnt country.” Harnessing the washed-out tones of a sun-bleached environment, the artists present their signature bold works in more subtle hues, as if the pieces have been baking under the light for years.

A sonic component created by Josh Burgess accompanies the sculpture and can be manipulated by the public through accessible controls. “If one were to listen closely, they can hear the rush of water on the rocks, the dings of the light rail, the crosswalk signal, and most importantly, the local wildlife,” the artists say. “Our favorite piece is a nod to the ‘bush doof’ using the sounds of a lyrebird as the structure.”

“There, Now, Here” is the pair’s first public work in Australia and part of the annual light and music festival Vivid Sydney. Find more on Wade and Leta’s Instagram.

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LIVINGSTON, La. — PrimeScape Fence and Stain is highlighting its use of No-Dig PostMaster V3 steel posts for property owners who want a stronger, cleaner-looking, and longer-lasting wood-fence system. The company now offers PostMaster V3 installations as part of its commitment to durable fencing solutions that combine curb appeal, structural performance, and professional workmanship.

The PostMaster V3 steel-post system is designed to solve several common problems associated with traditional wood posts, including rotting, warping, insect damage, and long-term movement. Unlike exposed round metal posts, PostMaster posts can be concealed behind fence boards, creating a finished appearance on both sides of the fence. This hidden-post design helps homeowners maintain the natural look of a wood fence while gaining the structural benefits of galvanized steel.

PrimeScape Fence and Stain is positioning the system as an upgrade for homeowners who want a fence built for long-term performance. The company’s website notes that the PostMaster V3 steel-post system is engineered to withstand winds up to 73 mph, resist warping, rot, and insects, and create a clean, seamless look by hiding the posts from view. The system is also described as low-maintenance, recyclable, and backed by a limited lifetime warranty.

“A fence should look good on day one, but it should also be built to stay strong for years,” said a representative of PrimeScape Fence and Stain. “By offering No-Dig PostMaster V3 posts, we can give customers a wood-fence appearance with the added strength and durability of steel. It is a smart option for homeowners who want beauty, function, and long-term value.”

Product information from Master Halco, the manufacturer of the PostMaster+ system, supports the strength and design benefits of the steel-post approach. Master Halco states that PostMaster+ is a family of steel posts designed as an alternative to wood posts and traditional round metal posts, and that its engineered design can be covered to create a “good neighbor” fence. The manufacturer also states that PostMaster+ can be installed with any fence style, allowing customers to choose the look they want while using a stronger steel-post framework.

Wind resistance is one of the key reasons many homeowners consider a steel-post upgrade. Master Halco’s PostMaster+ details page lists wind resistance ranging from 73 to 112 mph, depending on the post type. The same manufacturer’s detail page states that PostMaster+ line posts are rated at 73 mph, while PostMaster+ gate posts are rated at 112 mph. That distinction is important because it keeps the performance claim accurate while helping customers understand that ratings may vary across the system.

PrimeScape’s use of the PostMaster V3 system also supports a cleaner design for residential properties. The posts are designed to be concealed behind fence boards, creating a more finished look from both sides. This is especially useful for homeowners who want the warmth of a wood fence without the visual interruption of exposed metal supports. The result is a fence that can provide privacy, structure, and curb appeal without sacrificing appearance.

The system also offers practical maintenance advantages. Wood posts can be vulnerable to ground-contact moisture, termites, rot, cracking, twisting, and gradual weakening over time. Galvanized steel posts are designed to avoid those common wood-post issues, helping reduce the need for post replacement and ongoing structural repairs. For homeowners, that can mean fewer maintenance concerns and a more dependable fence structure over the life of the installation.

PrimeScape Fence and Stain also emphasizes professional installation as part of the upgrade. Proper layout, post placement, alignment, gate planning, rail attachment, and board installation all affect the finished result. With a hidden-post system, installation quality is especially important because the structure must perform well while preserving the clean, finished appearance customers expect.

The No-Dig PostMaster V3 option may be especially useful for property owners seeking a faster, cleaner installation with less disruption than traditional post-setting. PrimeScape describes no-dig fence posts as an alternative to traditional posts that require digging and concrete, using ground anchors or metal spike-driven systems instead. The company notes that this approach can reduce soil disruption, avoid concrete-curing delays, and support a more efficient installation process when site conditions are appropriate.

Because site conditions can affect fence performance, homeowners should work with a qualified installer to determine whether a no-dig approach is suitable for their property. Soil type, fence height, slope, wind exposure, drainage, gate placement, and local project requirements can all influence the best installation method. PrimeScape’s professional installation process helps customers evaluate those details before choosing the right fence system.

For homeowners focused on long-term value, the PostMaster V3 system can also support curb-appeal and property-improvement goals. A durable, attractive fence can help define outdoor space, improve privacy, support pet and family use, and create a more polished property boundary. When paired with professional installation, hidden steel posts, and a wood-fence design, the system offers a balance of strength and appearance.

Customers who want to learn more about PrimeScape’s fencing services and PostMaster V3 options can visit PrimeScape Fence and Stain in Livingston, Louisiana, for service information, project examples, and consultation details.

PrimeScape Fence and Stain can be reached by phone at (225) 316-2104.

About PrimeScape Fence and Stain

PrimeScape Fence and Stain provides fence installation, fence repair, staining, and related outdoor improvement services for residential and commercial customers in Livingston, Louisiana, and the surrounding areas. The company offers a range of fencing solutions, including wood, aluminum, chain-link, steel, wrought-iron, and automatic-gate options, with a focus on durable materials, clean installation, and long-term customer value.

Media Contact

PrimeScape Fence and Stain
Livingston, Louisiana
Phone: (225) 316-2104

The post PrimeScape Fence and Stain Highlights No-Dig PostMaster V3 Posts for Stronger, Cleaner-Looking Wood Fences appeared first on Social Lifestyle Magazine.

The Belfast Photo Festival is still over a week from starting in Belfast, Northern Ireland, but it has already instigated serious outrage among photographers. The Belfast Photo Festival will include a major interactive public exhibition that invites visitors to pick up a hammer and destroy "obsolete" cameras, and not everyone is on board.

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