Contemporary Art | COMBAT ART REVIEW 4/4

Jonathan Lyndon Chase. Keep thinking nobody does it like you here comes the sunset

Gió Marconi Gallery presents Keep thinking nobody does it like you here comes the sunset, the first solo exhibition in Italy by American artist Jonathan Lyndon Chase, and their first exhibition with the gallery.

The exhibition explores everyday moments of Black queer life in the city. It reflects on memory and the mind, the body and the soul, the passage of time, oppositions and balance, legibility and abstraction.

Chase divides the gallery’s ground floor into private interior spaces, including a living room, a bedroom, a kitchen, and a bathroom. These are the places in which the figure moves and interacts, revealing emotional, mental, and psychological states.

Each environment becomes a landscape in its own right. The interiors function as both an archive and a reflection of these elements. The space itself seems alive, like a body, marked by cracks, exposed wires, dripping pipes, leaking ceilings, and a carpet that holds many stories.

Jonathan Lyndon Chase. Keep thinking nobody does it like you here comes the sunset

From January 30 to March 21, 2026

Opening: Thursday, January 29, 2026, from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm

Gió Marconi Gallery | Via Alessandro Tadino 20, Milan (MI)

Yayoi Kusama. The major retrospective at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne

To mark its fiftieth anniversary, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne is dedicating a major exhibition to the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama in 2026.

Kusama (*1929, Matsumoto) is one of the most renowned artists of our time. Her iconic polka dots, pumpkin sculptures, and Infinity Mirror Rooms have become a kind of trademark, appearing millions of times over on social media. The exhibition takes visitors on a fascinating journey through Kusama’s entire oeuvre, from her first drawing, dating back to ca.1934, to a newly commissioned installation. More than three hundred works will be featured, spanning a wide range of media that includes painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, fashion, performance, and literature.

This comprehensive show will extend beyond the Museum Ludwig’s temporary exhibition spaces and into other areas of the building, including its two rooftop terraces. An immersive installation developed especially for the show, featuring an integrated Infinity Mirror Room, will fill the museum’s largest hall. Additionally, a number of early iconic works, such as Kusama’s first installation, Aggregation: One Thousand Boats Show from 1963, will be on display.

Kusama’s practice revolves around nature and its state of constant transformation, of becoming and decay, and the boundlessness of the universe, in which everything that exists eventually perishes. The polka dot pattern used by the artist to cover objects and people is as much an expression of this worldview as her Infinity Mirror Rooms.

Experiences from Kusama’s childhood, including hallucinations in which she perceived dots, flowers, and other repeating patterns that engulfed her entire body, run like a thread through the artist’s oeuvre. A sense of fragility and obliteration accompanied these experiences, along with the impression of becoming inseparable from and merging with a greater whole. For Kusama, art is an expression of her life, and the macrocosm’s intimate connection with the microcosm is revealed through her works’ engagement with the personal.

After growing up in the confines of rural, patriarchal postwar Japan, Kusama fled to New York City in the 1960s, finding herself in the midst of the Flower Power movement and anti–Vietnam War protests. Using art as a means of activism, she hit the headlines with provocative happenings. Returning to Japan in 1973, Kusama began to work through her existential anxieties, often in visceral novels and poems. Her powerful mature work, in turn, contains vibrant, richly colored cycles of paintings.

Describing the common thread that runs through her work, Kusama says, “In my more than seventy years as an artist, I have always been in awe of the wonder of life. More than anything, this strong sense of the life force in artistic expression is what has supported me and gave me power to overcome feelings of depression, hopelessness and sadness. I have been guided by my belief in this power.” Yayoi Kusama is being presented by the Museum Ludwig in collaboration with the Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel (October 12, 2025 – January 25, 2026) and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (September 12 2026 – January 17, 2027).

The Cologne venue of the exhibition features several large-scale installations that are not part of the exhibition in Basel, such as Kusama's first installation, Aggregation: One Thousand Boats Show, created in 1963; the environment I'm Here but Nothing (2000 to present), a living space bathed in black light with countless fluorescent adhesive dots; and the imposing, colorfully painted bronze Flowers, which will be installed on the roof terrace of the Museum Ludwig.

Yayoi Kusama

March 14 – August 2, 2026

Museum Ludwig | Heinrich-Böll-Platz, 50667 Colonia, Germany

The 17th Edition of the Combat Prize will be hosted by the Museo della Città di Livorno

Updated: Jan 29

The Museo della Città di Livorno will host the exhibition of the eighty finalist artists of the 17th edition of the Combat Prize, scheduled from 4 July to 2 August 2026. The artworks will be displayed in the museum’s galleries, home to a significant contemporary art collection and a key reference point for the city’s cultural life.

Enriching Livorno’s summer cultural programme, the award ceremony will take place in conjunction with Effetto Venezia, the city’s historic festival that attracts a high number of visitors each year, and with Livorno Art Book Fair, the fair dedicated to artist-led and independent publishing.

With the announcement of the new dates and exhibition venue, applications officially open for the 17th edition of the Combat Prize, an international competition dedicated to the promotion and support of contemporary art.

The Prize was established with the aim of identifying and supporting the most significant trajectories in Italian and international artistic research, following the evolution of languages and practices. Through a process of mapping and accurate observation, the Prize seeks to bring to light the most dynamic and vital energies within the contemporary art scene.

Also confirmed for this edition is the Combat Prize Award, valued at €10,000, which will be awarded by the jury to one of the eighty finalist artists. In addition, the section prizes will be awarded in the following categories: Painting; Sculpture and Installation; Photography; Graphics and Drawing; Video/Performance.

The Gallery Special Prize involves the selection of one finalist artist by five leading contemporary art galleries and by the independent space SAC – Spazio di Arte Contemporanea. The initiative aims to foster new collaborations and shared projects, which will take shape during the 2026–2027 exhibition season through the realization of a solo or group exhibition.

The Poliart Special Prize is also confirmed. Promoted by Poliart, a leading company in expanded polystyrene processing, the prize supports the production of a new artwork by an artist selected from among the finalists.

Also confirmed is the The Place Special Prize, promoted by the marketplace The Place in collaboration with Ultracontemporary Art Project aps (U-ART-P aps). The prize consists in the production, at Calcografica Petronilla in June 2026, of a fine art intaglio print in 12 copies plus 2 artist’s proofs (A.P.).

The Special Prizes are designed to encourage and strengthen dialogue between art, enterprise, and the local territory, a fundamental axis for supporting the promotion, visibility, and recognition of contemporary artistic research.

Application deadline: 30 April 2026

For further information: https://www.premiocombat.it/bando

To apply: https://www.premiocombat.it/register

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