Blue Period / Last Summer, Arakinema

Art

All photo by

Nobuyoshi Araki, courtesy of Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo

Prolific lensman Nobuyoshi Araki is a titan of Japanese photography. Araki’s immense oeuvre exploring corporeal subjects—bondage, his late wife Yoko, food, nudes—is readily recognized, yet few are familiar with his experimental film project Arakinema. First performed in 1986, the work features two ceiling-mounted projectors screening slideshows of the artist’s photographs along to an atmospheric soundtrack. In homage to this little-known work of Araki’s, New York’s Dashwood Books and Session Press will publish Blue Period / Last Summer, Arakinema, representing a comparative study on two series of images that comprise the piece. In 2005, the last year the work was staged live, Araki described its contrasting elements: “Last Summer is the future, it has a certain sense of resignation about it. Blue Period is the past, because it’s about how memory inhabits us. But we don’t yet have a memory of the future.” Office Magazine presents an exclusive look at Blue Period and Last Summer in anticipation of the upcoming book release.

Art

Once Leda Found an Egg — Blue Like a Hyacinth

February 25, 2025

Maria Kulikovska refuses to be silenced. Her performances are protests, her sculptures are acts of defiance, and her body is a living testament to resistance and resilience. A renowned Ukrainian artist and performer, Kulikovska has gained global recognition for her fearless feminist stance and critique of the systemic violence inflicted on women’s bodies. Known for her performative sculptures created from “non-sculptural materials” like ballistic soap, epoxy resin, blood, sperm, flowers, and chains, Kulikovska’s work delves into themes of systemic power, feminist resistance, and bodily autonomy. On February 22, 2025, Rukh Art Hub and Mriya Gallery brought her raw, unfiltered vision to New York for the first time with Once Leda Found an Egg — Blue Like a Hyacinth.

Artist Maria Kulikovska
Curator Maria Vtorushina
Organized by Rukh Art Hub & Mriya Gallery

Born in Kerch, Crimea, Kulikovska’s life and work are inseparable from the political turbulence that has shaped Ukraine over the past decade. Her performances, direct confrontations with Russian aggression and authoritarianism, have landed her on Russia’s intelligence blacklist, making her a target of surveillance and persecution. Yet she remains undeterred, staging protest actions across Ukraine and Europe, defiantly challenging colonial and patriarchal structures.

In 2014, the same year she was banned, Russian forces seized the Izolyatsia art center in Donetsk, where her sculptures stood alongside works by Cai Guo-Qiang and Pascale Marthine Tayou, turning it into a prison and torture site. Her casts, molded from her own body, were destroyed. Years later, prisoners uncovered the shattered fragments, a haunting metaphor for both personal and national erasure.

In Ukraine, her feminist initiative Flowers of Democracy shook up societal norms with a clothing line featuring images of her vulva, igniting both acclaim and backlash. Her exhibition at Mriya Gallery is an extension of this philosophy. Once Leda Found an Egg — Blue Like a Hyacinth explores themes of motherhood, trauma, and survival through body casts, performance relics, and documentation of her politically charged actions. The pieces reflect the sculptures lost at Izolyatsia, turning destruction into rebirth. Recent video works and drawings reflect on the complexities of motherhood during wartime, making the personal unapologetically political. The exhibition also features the eighth installment of her performance Lustration / Ablution, where she cleanses herself in a bathtub filled with soap sculptures, symbolizing the intricate relationship between trauma, conflict, and healing.

In my work, I only create and speak about what I’ve experienced because I don’t think I have the right to do anything else

This exhibition is particularly significant, opening just days before the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine (February 24, 2025), and the anniversary of the Day of Resistance against the Occupation of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol (February 26, 2025). With the rise of Trump’s administration, which aims to limit bodily autonomy and suppress women’s rights, these themes have become even more pressing. The exhibition serves as a powerful statement on the urgent need to defend bodily autonomy and the rights of women everywhere.

On Display

February 24 - March 5, 2025

Address: Mriya Gallery, 101 Reade St, New York, NY, 10013

Art

Here and Then

Art

Please Touch: Brett Miller

His designs don’t just invite interaction. They demand it. Round shapes, in particular, seem to call out to be touched. Please Touch is a rebellion against convention and an invitation to break the rules. It asks you to step outside the lines and reach for what’s supposedly off-limits. Because really, why not? Why does a table have to be rectangular, square, or even circular? Why does a chair need four legs? Why does a cabinet have to be static?

Miller’s work is the result of a decade-long journey of self-discovery, experimentation, and pushing boundaries. When he moved to New York in 2015, he was searching for something—purpose, direction, and a sense of identity. He started out farming in the Hudson Valley before shifting to metal fabrication. Eventually, he found his true calling in furniture making. In 2017, he launched Jackrabbit Studio and made it a full-time endeavor the following year.

"I’ve never been one to follow the rules," Miller says. "But through my practice and working with natural materials, I’ve gained a deep appreciation and respect for universal laws. Some things just won’t work, but most things do. And within the parameters of functionality, there’s almost limitless wiggle room for the expression of form." This balance between structure and freedom is at the core of his work. His pieces invite interaction, encouraging people to rethink how objects function.

"Why?" is the first question we ask as kids when we learn to speak. But before we ask why, we touch—to know, to understand, to feel. This show is about embracing that instinct. So, let the kid in you take over. Run your hands along the edges, break the rules, and Please Touch.

Please Touch by Brett Miller from January 18th - February 22nd, 2025