beyond our horizons le19m | in conversation with pauline guerrier

It is a bit of a cheek to ask who owns a circle, isn’t it? But for Adam Pendleton – the man currently occupying the high altar of American abstraction – it’s the only question worth asking. If you’ve spent any time in the world’s major galleries lately, you’ll know Pendleton as the architect of ‘Black Dada,’ a conceptual whirlwind of monochrome spray paint and layered history. 

Today marks the final curtain call for ‘Who Owns Geometry Anyway?’ at Friedman Benda gallery in New York. Since opening its doors on 7 November, this exhibition has seen Pendleton swap the frantic, spray-painted energy of his canvases for materials with significantly more gravity.

Speaking to the press, Pendleton revealed: “What is exciting and interesting about this exhibition is that the works being shown are ideas I had for a very long time, but had never given myself the agency to execute.”

Ranging from marble and onyx to granite and wood, these materials are transposed into what the gallery politely calls “functional forms,” though they feel more like altars than coffee tables. Take the aptly named ‘Boulder,’ a two-part marble work that doubles as a seat and a permanent tectonic shift.

This is also the artist’s first proper foray into furniture, and frankly, it makes a lot of contemporary design look a bit flimsy. Pendleton has taken the basic building blocks of the avant-garde – the triangle, the square and the circle – and realised them with a couturier’s obsessive eye. 

The ‘Extended Form’ series, rendered in both honey-hued onyx (‘Extended Form One’) and stark marble (‘Extended Form Two’ and ‘Three’), displays this perfectly. The detailing is exquisite: raised rims trace the edges of massive stone slabs, while legs taper into curves so precise they make the heavy black marble seem like it is levitating. 

There is a clever play on displacement too. In pieces like ‘Four Circles’ (crafted from granite) and ‘Split Form’ (marble), the geometry is punctuated by voids, as if he has simply reached into the stone and plucked the mass right out. It is not all cold stone, however; the ‘Two Circles’ (Studio Table) brings stained white oak into the mix, grounding the collection in something warmer, while ‘Drawn’ introduces a shock of modernity – a massive 180-inch loop of aluminium, silicone and LED light that cuts through the space.

Drawing on the philosophy of fellow American artist Isamu Noguchi (who famously said art should be “one with its surroundings”), Pendleton has turned the gallery itself into a ‘social form.’ Massive, hard-edged wall paintings, specifically ‘Black Triangle’ and ‘White Triangle,’ frame the installation creating an architectonic environment for the series of ‘Untitled’ glazed ceramic paintings that embellish the walls.

It has been a massive year for Pendleton. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) recently acquired his entire 35-work ‘Who Is Queen?’ exhibition in one swoop and he is currently dominating the Hirshhorn in D.C. with a major survey. But this New York show offers something rarer: a chance to see a master of two dimensions figure out how to conquer the third.

Find out more here.

photography. courtesy of William Jess Laird (featured), Izzy Leung, Matthew Septimus (portrait)
words. Gennaro Costanzo

Daniel Mercado is a creative working across photography, film and art. Driven by “curiosity, movement and a love for story telling in all forms”, he aims to capture fleeting moments that “live between elegance, emotion and identity”. Born and raised in Harlem, with Brazilian and Puerto Rican roots, Mercado brings a rich cultural lens to everything he creates, and travels often, “seeking out the spaces where identity and feeling collide”.

Using mostly acrylic pens and paint, French Moroccan artist Sophia Bounou creates works laden with patterns and characters, in both strong, saturated colour and more monochromatic palettes. She is inspired by Picasso, Modigliani, Basquiat and Miró.

Here, Mercado captures Bounou in her New York studio and recounts the experience of watching an artist at work.

“It was a quiet Thursday morning in Soho, the kind where the rain falls just enough to blur the skyline and the city feels like it’s holding its breath; the kind of weather that can weigh on you – unless you’re Sophia Bounou. Before I even reached the top floor, I heard her yell, ‘Sorry for the walk-up! It’s all the way on the third floor!’ She laughed and, at that moment, I knew this session would be something special.

“As I stepped into the studio, I entered a space that felt alive, with creative energy in every corner. With coffee on the table, brushes at the ready and my camera in hand, we got to work. Sophia found the perfect spot on the wall for a blank canvas, hammer and nails in hand. ‘Are these levelled?’ she asked. I looked up. They were flawless.

“It was clear I was in the presence of someone whose instincts were second nature. She chose her palette – deep browns, reds – and, without hesitation, began painting. There was no pause, no second-guessing. Her brush moved like water. It was a performance, but not one put on for show; it was internal, instinctual, like watching someone do what they were meant to do. Music blasted, we talked freely and nothing felt like noise. It was energy. It was momentum. She was in a flow state, unshaken by anything around her. In just over an hour, I watched an empty canvas become a physical reflection of her thoughts.

clockwise from top left. ‘Family’, ‘Friends’, ‘Home’

“Along the way, we shared stories, memories of her childhood, her relationship with her art, her journey. One story in particular that stuck with me was about her mother. Like many mothers, she supported her daughter, but she also saw her early creative sparks and encouraged her to stitch them into something bigger. The way Sophia’s characters came to life from old school doodles, collected and curated by her mom, spoke to the kind of support that shapes a person

“As she kept painting – layering colour, sketching shapes, letting her mind translate into form – I stepped back often to take it in, sometimes in silence, sometimes between changing film, but always watching her work with deep presence. It’s rare to witness someone that tuned in.

“Eventually, we wrapped. The art was done. Our time together had come to a close, but the impression of the moment lingers. Sophia is not only immensely talented – she’s generous, grounded and entirely herself. If there’s one thing I walked away with it’s this: let your imagination run, but don’t let it leave without you.”

Daniel Mercado: How do you discipline yourself?

Sophia Bounou: I saw a very interesting quote and it was like, “There will be days where you are unmotivated and you still have to do it. You’ll have these really tough days and you still have to get it done.” And, in my head, people have divorces and they still have to go to school or go about their life. I tell myself I have the privilege of creating [as] a job, so the least I can do is get my shit together, even if I’m having a bad day. Even on the stressful days, I just have to create. You can be talented but if you’re not putting yourself out there and giving it 110%, you won’t know what could happen. Some of the people who made it aren’t even the most subjectively talented but they just kept going!

DM: Are you ever stressed when painting? 

SB: NO! I love painting. I have a horrible attention span, maybe because of being Gen Z, and my phone. However, when I paint, I can do it for hours nonstop. I forget to eat and sleep, but it’s the one thing that calms my mind and there’s no challenge in my brain when I paint. I just go. I get into this hyper focused state.

photography + words. Daniel Mercado
artwork. ‘Brown World’ by Sophia Bounou

Photographer Niko Tampio’s new photo series depicts Barcelona’s ‘manteros’, the street vendors who hawk goods up and down the Barceloneta beaches and have become a mainstay of the city’s landscape. Named after ‘mantas’, the blankets on which they display their merchandise, these vendors are largely undocumented migrants shut out from traditional forms of work whilst they navigate the bureaucracy of settlement.

Like the humanist photography of the 20th Century, Tampio’s pared-back portraits are simultaneously a sociological and aesthetic exercise, illustrating the joy and community that persist despite economic precarity and anti-immigrant hostility. 

Schön! alive spoke to the photographer about the inspirations behind the series, the responsibility of the artist and Barcelona’s dynamism.

How did this project come about and when did you first decide you wanted to represent Barcelona’s beach vendors as photographic subjects?

I’ve been going to Barcelona for years, and I’ve always gone to the beach and seen the manteros walking around. They have this singing voice when they’re selling that represents to me the sound of Barcelona, and I’ve always wondered about how their lives are.

They also interest me in a fashion sense, because I do a lot of fashion photography, and I like their clothing – I thought that they looked interesting – so, I decided that I had to do a project about them. I come from the working class as well, and I want to tell the stories of people from this background. There are many, many angles why I chose to do this project. 

You mentioned that you spent a lot of time getting to know the subjects and forming relationships with them beforehand. Was there anything that you learned in that time that particularly stood out to you? 

There were a lot of people that didn’t let me take photographs, so I don’t know what’s going on for them. But those people who were open to it, they are just like you and me. Many of them have come from Pakistan or Senegal, and because they don’t have papers, they have to do this kind of work, but they all dream about having a regular job in a restaurant, and they live just like you and me, even though they don’t have papers.

One thing that surprised me was how happy some of them were to be photographed. I gifted them the photos later and I saw how much happiness they got out of it because they felt seen. I think because somebody took the time to photograph them, the actual photograph meant a lot. 

Even though it’s so hard, there are moments of connection or happiness that you can find in migration, and that really comes across in your photographs.

It was a really tight-knit community. People who were working close to each other knew each other by name, [but] when I went to the other side of the beach, I showed them pictures of the other guys and they were like, “Yeah, I know him.” 

You mentioned before that some people didn’t want their photos taken. It’s difficult to represent undocumented people because there can be dangerous implications to their visibility. Was this a big concern for you and for your subjects when you were making this series?

Some of the manteros, especially those who didn’t let me photograph them, asked if I’m working for the police, for example. When I started the whole project, I didn’t even know if I could get any photos, but then I learned that some were really happy to be photographed. Some were strict, and I respect that. I understood that they didn’t want to get photographed, and I didn’t want to push it.

How did you try to represent the subjects with compassion and humanity? 

Of course, I wanted to have my direction so that the photos look like they are in the same series – and the lighting and the time of the day dictates a little bit what I can do – but, basically, I let them choose the spot and choose how they posed. One guy wanted to sit under the umbrella, and one guy wanted to have something that was important to him in the background. I also took some pictures with their friends, all together.

I didn’t want to create any extra dramatisms from my side but just show them as a person and tell their story, and that’s why I didn’t want to take sneaky photos and stuff – I wanted to get to know them and build that relationship. I can call many of them my friends now.

They are very visible, but at the same time, I feel like they are kind of invisible. So, I wanted to photograph them as a whole person and show them as positively as possible, to lift them up, because I think photographs have the ability to make something more sublime, or put it in a good light.

The setting of the photos is evocative of those beach photos that Martin Parr did back in the ‘80s, yet very different because, of course, he’s depicting leisure and you’re depicting labour. Did you have any influences, photographic or otherwise?

I think the biggest inspiration is my background and my interest in my subjects, but I got really into photography when I was a super small kid. I grew up in the late ‘90s, early 2000s and I was looking at a lot of music album covers and fashion photography in magazines like ‘The Face’, and ‘i-D’, so a lot comes from there. 

Also, Wolfgang Thielmans and William Eggleston…When people look at my photos, they mention either of them, so feel some kind of connection to those photographers. Estevan Oriol, who’s a LA-based photographer, has been really influential for me. I wanted to photograph my subjects in a similar, straight up style, and I think that gives power to these photos.

Did you consider your own experience of migration and movement whilst doing this series?

I think so. I come from a working class background, and my dad has been traveling for his job his whole life. And the same thing for me; I feel like moving is in my blood somehow. Because I’m an EU citizen, I can go to Spain and anywhere in the EU, so in that sense, I’m in a privileged position. The manteros come from Pakistan to Spain without papers, and they don’t instantly have the same opportunities. I often thought about how lucky I am to be able to do that. And of course, coming from Finland, I don’t need to escape from anything.

The working title – ‘the working class below the working class’, is an interesting sociological perspective. Could you tell me a bit about the naming?

A lot of people are talking about the working class and what it is. I feel like people tend to forget that there’s a class of people who really want to work, but they can’t because of bureaucracy and certain laws. Being from a working-class background, it was a struggle to get master’s degrees in arts and photography – it wasn’t really on the table for me to become a photographer. I promised myself a long time ago that if I have the opportunity to work as a photographer or artist and I have a platform, I want to dedicate a part of my work to give some type of voice to people, because I think that’s the most important thing. If I don’t talk about those who are struggling more than me, then what am I doing? I think [artists] should try to bring about something better than what already exists. And if you’re not making anything better, at least try to not destroy anything more.

Finally, I was wondering about your relationship with the city of Barcelona. How does your perception of the city inform your photography?

For about 15 years, I’ve been living in the city and going there regularly. It’s been really influential for me. I also lived in Madrid for a year and I’ve spent time all across Spain, but Barcelona is a special place. Because I’ve spent so much time there, I know the dynamics, and I’ve seen how tourism has changed the city. When I went there 15 years ago, it was different than it is today, and it was also different after the pandemic. 

I don’t know exactly why I got so into it, even before the first time I went there. When I was a kid, I liked ‘Miami Vice’ a lot and I didn’t have the opportunity to go to Miami, but then I heard about Barcelona and I was like, “This is in Europe and it looks kind of like Miami!” So, it created an obsession before I even went there.  The first time I was there as a tourist, but then I got to know all the places and the people. It’s super vibrant and there are people from all over the world and from all classes. It’s hard to explain, but I love the city and that’s why I started to do this project about the people there.

It’s not been the easiest project to carry on. I spent pretty much the whole summer there, on the beach. I usually went there early in the morning, and back again in the evening to spend time with the manteros, so they got to know who I am. The most important – or best – part of being a photographer is that you meet people; you take their photo and you learn from them.

words. Soraya Odubeko
photography. Niko Tampio