Issue 249
March 2025

We have the means, now more than ever, to be experimental. Hedi El Kholti

The March issue of frieze magazine is dedicated to artists and writers living and working in Los Angeles. Rahel Aima profiles artist Wael Shawky ahead of the US premiere of his film installation Drama 1882 at The Museum of Contemporary Art. Plus, a selection of writers, editors and artists contribute to an oral history on Semiotext(e), tracing how the publisher bridges avant-garde literature, radical philosophy and underground culture.

Profile: Wael Shawky

‘I’m fascinated with the idea of translating societies that are moving from one system to another.’ Rahel Aima speaks with the artist about his childhood in Makkah and his cinematic portrayals of the Crusades, examining the ways in which his work challenges the construction of history.

Oral History: Semiotext(e)

‘The press continues to be forged by community.’ François Cusset, Hedi El Kholti, Veronica Gonzalez PeñaBruce Hainley, Wayne Koestenbaum, Chris Kraus, Lauren Mackler, Eileen Myles, Christine Pichini, Lynne Tillman, McKenzie Wark and Noura Wedell reflect on the legacy of Semiotext(e). From its roots in the New York art and theory scene of the 1970s to its transformative impact on global intellectual discourse, the independent publisher continues to defy literary boundaries.

 

Also featuring  

Gregg Bordowitz speaks to Jeremy Lybarger about using poetry to navigate identity and grief on the occasion of his exhibition at Camden Arts Centre, London, and his show at The Brick in Los Angeles. Assistant editor Cassie Packard pens a thematic essay on feminism and queer ecology’s relationship to intimacy. In ‘1,500 Words’, curator Bilal Akkouche details a recent trip to Algiers, highlighting art’s capacity for resistance.

Columns: Object Lessons

Brian Dillon profiles Haegue Yang, exploring her interest in the particularities and repetitions of household goods, Caitlin Chaisson highlights Maria Hupfield’s transformative felt sculptures, Chrissie Iles traces how Dala Nasser’s Cyanotypes capture the dismantlement of site into memory, Carson Chan writes about Michael Reynolds’s innovative buildings composed of beer can bricks, Simon Wu outlines Gala Porras-Kim’s process of artefact rematriation.

Finally, senior editor Terence Trouillot responds to David Hammons’s print Injustice Case (1970) ahead of the artist’s show at Hauser & Wirth, Los Angeles. Plus, Hedi El Kholti contributes to our series of artists’ ‘to-do’ lists and senior editor Marko Gluhaich pens a postcard from Chicago.

From this issue

Titled Erratic, the artist’s playlist is meant to loop on shuffle until you can’t listen to it any longer

BY Gregg Bordowitz |

A curatorial research trip became a profound reckoning with resistance, anti-colonialism and the power of art

BY Bilal Akkouche |

The artist discusses the challenges of survivor’s guilt and fostering community through shared experience

BY Gregg Bordowitz AND Jeremy Lybarger |

Assistant editor Cassie Packard on confronting the toxicity that permeates our environments, bodies and lifestyles

BY Cassie Packard |

The artist’s film and performance challenge how Middle Eastern history is constructed and portrayed

BY Rahel Aima |

Gala Porras-Kim works to heal institutional spaces shaped by the lasting impacts of colonial extractivism

BY Simon Wu |

A look back at proto-environmental art that reimagined sustainable architecture

BY Carson Chan |

The artist captures residues of the past by dyeing fabrics and rubbing them against ancient Lebanese sites

BY Chrissie Iles |

The artist’s sculptures, though seemingly static, pulse with kinetic energy, radiating a sense of dynamic movement

BY Caitlin Chaisson |

The artist’s multidisciplinary practice dives into the unexpected depths of the ordinary and mundane

BY Brian Dillon |

Amid a growing political crisis in the US, the artist’s 1970 body print emerges as a powerful call to action 

BY Terence Trouillot |

At Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville, the artist’s earthen installations address the contested history of land

BY Edmée Lepercq |

At Kin Museum of Contemporary Art, Kiruna, the artist’s embroidered canvases depict Sámi culture’s close relationship to nature

BY Amanda Hakoköngäs |

The artist’s show at Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, sees his avatar swim across the Pacific in a journey simulated using real-time data

BY Madeleine Freund |

A group show at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles provides vital context for the continuous battles over bodily autonomy

BY Grace Byron |

A spectre of danger permeates the works in this impressive survey at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin 

BY Sean Burns |

At the National Gallery of Kosovo, the artist highlights the stifling media depictions of women in former socialist Yugoslavia

BY Erëmirë Krasniqi |

Bringing together work by 76 local and international artists, ‘Nurture Gaia’ turns to ancient cosmologies to make sense of the present

BY Nadine Khalil |

At the Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, the artist questions our unwavering faith in efficiency and development

BY Krzysztof Kościuczuk |

At Goldsmiths CCA, London, the artists repurpose images from digital sources to create works which evoke the experience of being ‘extremely online’

BY Matthew McLean |

At Efie Gallery, Dubai, the artist’s rich textiles draw parallels between the Arabian Bedouins and West Africa

BY Rebecca Anne Proctor |

At DOOSAN Gallery, Seoul, the artist’s rhythmic abstract paintings aren't just full of movement; they also elicit it

BY Andy St. Louis |

At Haus am Waldsee, Berlin, the artist’s life-like dolls use silence to navigate discourse around violence

BY Gabriela Acha |

In a series of collaged paintings at Victoria Miro, London, the artist builds images from fragmented memories, identities and histories

BY Sofia Hallström |

At Greene Naftali, New York, the artist transforms vintage gay pornography into paintings – to ‘soul-dissolvingly, corrosively beautiful’ effect

BY Simon Wu |

The New Dehli-based artist’s survey at MoMA PS1, New York, interweaves the autobiographical and the sociopolitical to consider the state of his motherland

BY Murtaza Vali |

Inspired by a Maryse Condé novel, this group exhibition at Palais de Tokyo, Paris, asks where and with whom refuge can be found

BY Yaa Addae |

At Sid Motion Gallery, London, the artist engages with states of freedom and imprisonment in works that recall the COVID-19 lockdowns

BY Juliet Jacques |

At APALAZZOGALLERY, Brescia, the artist’s first solo retrospective mainlines virility and homosocial tenderness as a foil to abject mementos of the AIDS crisis

BY Joe Bobowicz |

At FERNBERGER, Los Angeles, the artists abstract compositions suggest an indeterminate, emergent world akin to that of classical Chinese landscapes

BY Will Fenstermaker |

A show at the Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City, conjures the spectral presences behind cinematic artifice

BY Mariana Fernández |

Constellating work by over 90 artists and groups, a survey of Asian American art at 80WSE Gallery, New York considers the power of the collective

BY Geoffrey Mak |

At Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman, Vienna, the artist’s textured paintings invite us to delve beneath their surface

BY Simone Molinari |

The artists show at Amant, Brooklyn, depicts the art world and financial systems as twin spectacles: performances of value without substance

BY Joel Danilewitz |

At Nahmad Projects, London, the artist’s paintings draw attention to the economic and environmental impacts of fashion

BY Salena Barry |