CULTUREEDIT’s inaugural online art auction celebrates queer voices in the art world

Lin Zhipeng.

Most people know ‘Chungking Express’ for the pineapple tins – the film’s now-iconic symbol of love with an expiry date. Lin Zhipeng, however, took something else from Wong Kar-wai’s cult classic: a name. More than 20 years later, the photographer still works under the alias No.223, borrowing the identity of Takeshi Kaneshiro’s lovesick policeman to build one of contemporary China’s most recognisable photographic worlds.

This summer, that world arrives at Saint Laurent Rive Droite Beijing, where Anthony Vaccarello has curated a new exhibition celebrating the artist’s long-running exploration of youth, intimacy and personal freedom. Opening to coincide with Qixi, often described as China’s equivalent of Valentine’s Day, the presentation continues the house’s growing commitment to photography as a central part of its cultural programme.

Long before Instagram turned everyday life into visual currency, Lin was already documenting it. His career first gained momentum in 2003 through ‘North Latitude 23,’ a personal blog where photographs sat alongside fragments of writing, attracting a generation of readers drawn to his rebellious perspective on contemporary Chinese life. That combination of self-publishing, internet culture and diaristic storytelling helped establish him as one of the country’s defining independent image-makers.

Lin Zhipeng.

Working almost exclusively in vivid colour, Lin photographs friends, lovers and strangers with an intimacy that rarely feels staged. Bodies intertwine with flowers, fruit, cigarettes and peeling interiors, while moments that might otherwise disappear into memory become suspended somewhere between a documentary and a dream. His photographs prefer short-lived encounters that capture desire, vulnerability and the freedom of simply existing outside expectation.

The relationship between Saint Laurent and Lin stretches back several years. His work first appeared in ‘Pink Matter,’ the group exhibition staged by Saint Laurent Rive Droite in Paris and Los Angeles in 2022, before receiving a solo presentation the following year. The Beijing exhibition marks another chapter in that ongoing dialogue, bringing his imagery back into the cultural spaces Vaccarello has steadily transformed into destinations extending well beyond fashion.

Alongside the exhibition, every photograph on display will be available to acquire, offering collectors the opportunity to take home a fragment of Lin’s unmistakable visual language.

The exhibition runs from 6 August until 11 September 2026 at Saint Laurent Rive Droite Beijing. Find out more here.

photography. courtesy of Lin Zhipeng
words. Gennaro Costanzo

‘Soft Ground’, Comporta, 2026. photography. Bruno Lopes | Courtesy of Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, Mendes Wood DM and Kubikgallery

Nestled amidst rolling sand dunes, luscious rice fields and expansive pine forests, sits Comporta, a collection of hamlets just south of Lisbon, Portugal. While unassuming at first glance, this once sleepy fishing region, still peppered with traditional beach cabanas, begets a burgeoning art scene enjoyed by locals and international visitors alike.

Gathering artists, collectors and curators into a vibrant artistic exchange is Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, Comporta, an annual summer exhibition conceived by renowned gallerist, Maria Ana Pimenta, in partnership with Mendes Wood DM and Kubikgallery. Now in its sixth year, this summer’s exhibition, ‘Soft Ground’, which runs until 5^th September, examines the environmental, social and political pressures endangering the region and its way of life.

Most interestingly, the show paints a community in flux. Distinctively bohemian in style, Comporta is a rare find, but with hoteliers such as Sublime, JNcQUOI and Experimental Group, all with projects in development, the region is on the cusp of growing exponentially. As locals contemplate what that expansion brings, the exhibition provides a moment of reflection to consider what the community could and should become.

left. ‘Untitled (Flamboyant Tree)’, Frank Walter. image. ©Photodocumenta | Courtesy of Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel. right. ‘Full Moon’, 2015, Erika Verzutti. image. Courtesy of the artist and Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel

Tied to Herdade da Comporta, a huge agricultural estate established in the early 19th century, the landscape was defined by salt works, fishing communities and rice fields. During the mid-20th century, Portugal’s most powerful banking dynasty, the Espírito Santo, claimed a near monopoly of the estate, as they turned the land into some of Portugal’s largest rice fields. While no longer under the ownership of the Espírito Santo family, the uninterrupted protected beaches, rich fauna and strict building codes remain, forming the backdrop of Comporta’s emerging contemporary art scene.

Having holidayed in the area since she was young, Maria Ana Pimenta, Partner and International Director of Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel (FDAG), recognised the region’s cultural curiosity and deep connection to the local landscape, making it a unique addition to the FDAG portfolio.

left. Maria Ana Pimenta. photography. Carolina Pimenta. right. ‘Untitled IV (Ressurgir series)’, 2026, Laís Amaral. photography. Mateus Rubim | Courtesy of the artist & Mendes Wood DM

As one of the leading Brazilian contemporary art galleries, with a dynamic programme across São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, FDAG has established itself as a custodian of Brazilian art globally. Its annual Comporta activation, in collaboration with Mendes Wood DM and Kubikgallery, reflects a collaborative ethos between like-minded institutions.

Balancing issues that resonate with the community along with the creative impulses of the galleries’ artist portfolio, the Comporta show confronts the mounting pressures on the area. Ongoing catastrophic weather events, which saw the landscape submerged by floods as recently as February this year, create the need for “an urgent dialogue between fragile gestures of care and preservation and the ecological, social and political forces threatening to overwhelm them”. ‘Soft Ground’ acts as an urgent collective response that “extends beyond traditional exhibition models” while incorporating the region’s distinct contemplative atmosphere.

‘Untitled (Water Birds Gathering)’, Frank Walter.

For Pimenta, the show offers “a compelling visual and material experience, while opening a dialogue around issues central to this region and deeply connected to the practices of our artists”. Unfolding across two venues, the Casa da Cultura da Comporta and the Espaço Museológico Museu do Arroz, pieces from the 26 exhibited artists – including Solange Pessoa, Marina Rheingantz, Pedro Vaz, Ernesto Neto, Patrícia Leite and Damián Ortega, to name but a few – explore what comes next and whether there is still time to shape this “moment of transition”. Spanning a wide range of mediums, the pieces which have predominantly been created by Brazilian and Portuguese artists for the show specifically, sit in constant conversation with one another.

Recurring representations of ascending, falling or trapped in mid-transition are reflected across the space at Casa da Cultura da Comporta. Vasco Futscher’s ceramic sculptures – playfully named with titles such as ‘Walnut Rubble Swirl’, which conjure up the image of melting ice cream – toy with the idea of impermanence. Artur Lescher’s suspended cylinder, made from the precious Jacaranda wood, simultaneously evokes a sense of falling and rising, while Solange Pessoa’s exhibited works ask the audience to contemplate whether they are emerging or collapsing.

Left. ‘Untitled’, 2023, Santídio Pereira. photography. Estudio EmObra | Courtesy of the artist, Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel and Galeria Estação. right. ‘Paisagem da janela do ateliê’, 2026, Paula Siebra. Photography. EstudioEmObra | Courtesy of the artist and Mendes Wood DM

Housed in the Espaço Museológico Museu do Arroz, the expanded second space explores how our relationship with natural resources is evolving as we continue to interact with the land. Marcius Galan’s ‘Anti-clockwise’ tracks the movement of a feather shot in the Sahara, as a bass-heavy soundtrack creates a new sensory layer. Building on this theme, Ernesto Neto’s use of saffron-infused crochet evokes a multisensory environment.

As Carolyn Drake Kandiyoti, Partner, Mendes Wood DM, points out, “Climate crisis and real estate speculation are no longer abstract forces here; they are physically reshaping the land and the lives of those who inhabit it.” This feels particularly pertinent as the local community contemplates whether it is ready to be discovered by international visitors.

‘Soft Ground’, Comporta, 2026. photography. Bruno Lopes | Courtesy of Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, Mendes Wood DM and Kubikgallery

At the heart of these discussions is how the community can grow sustainably in a way that retains the local charm. Elevated dining spots such as Sado pay tribute to regional culinary traditions of rice and seafood while reflecting the restaurant’s surroundings. For local collectors, it’s imperative that the area’s idiosyncrasies are shared with visitors to protect the region’s authenticity.

Both Pimenta and Drake Kandiyoti are optimistic that the annual Comporta exhibition can provide an open forum in which local and international communities come together. For this year’s opening party, residents celebrated alongside international guests as renowned Lisbon DJs played late into the night. This summer’s programme also unfolds beyond the gallery walls with an outdoor film club, as Pimenta and Drake Kandiyoti emphasise the importance of more “inclusive moments for the whole community”.

‘Untitled’, 2026, Marcos Siqueira. Photography. EstudioEmObra | Courtesy of the artist and Mendes Wood DM

For Pimenta, it’s about creating a collective where “all parties” win. As the summer activation evolves, she hopes that invited international artists can create installations directly in Comporta for local artists to learn from.

While it’s easy to make comparisons to the Hamptons or Ibiza, Comporta’s close ties to the land and desire for cultural exchange make it a truly unique region. International growth may seem inevitable but through initiatives such as FDAG Comporta and partnerships with like-minded local institutions, the community can flourish into a thriving contemporary art scene while remaining true to its creative origins.

Find out more about FDAG Comporta here.

words. Katie Shuff
edit. Olivia Chichero
photography. courtesy of FDAG Comporta

top + trousers. Avvenn
shoes. Simon Miller
jewellery. Baublebar

There’s a particular kind of artist who treats the studio like a confessional — someone for whom painting isn’t decoration but excavation. Emily Labowe is one of them. Trained in Sociocultural Anthropology before she ever picked up a brush seriously, she brings a researcher’s eye to her own interior life: watching for patterns, zooming in on what’s easy to miss, turning small fragments into entire universes.

Her current body of work traces back to something specific — a 2013 car accident that left her severely injured as a passenger. The scars from that experience have become the underlying architecture of her paintings, which are populated by web-like, cellular forms that read like neural pathways, veins, or root systems: the body’s hidden machinery of connection and repair, made visible.

Based in Los Angeles and moving fluidly between painting and modelling, Labowe talks to Schön! about learning to trust spontaneity over control, where the work comes from, what it’s taught her, and where she’s headed next.

sweater. Avvenn
shorts. Myus
jewellery. Hefang
opposite
artwork. ‘Circuity of soy sauce’/ 2024
Acrylic & molding paste on canvas
30” x 40”

Can you take us back to the beginning: when did you first realize art was not just an interest, but something essential to your life?

Painting became an essential part of my life five years ago, when I was living in a home at the very top of a mountain. I would spend hours in the early mornings, entering the studio garage while it was still dark out, a coffee in my hand, well before the sun came out. Sitting in my sweats, headphones on, working out ideas. In the afternoon, lying outside on the grass painting. In the evenings, watching the pink sunset overlooking the entire city with the door open behind my easel. Painting became such an important part of my daily life.

Very organically, it turned into a normal practice where I felt something was missing if I didn’t do it. I would just zone — get out of my head and let all these ideas come out. Sounds cliché, but that was a very romantic and life-changing time in my life.

How does the act of painting allow you to access ideas or emotions differently than writing, film, or fashion?

Painting is how I get out of my own head instead of narrating it. My analytical mind takes a back seat, and the movement does the work. The physicality frees things up, and ideas and emotions surface that I couldn’t think my way to. There isn’t a self-conscious element to it, no sense of performing for someone, no awareness of being looked at.

bikini. Mayanna
jeans. Avvenn
bracelets. BaubleBar

How has your background in anthropology shaped the way you observe the world and translate those observations into visual work?

Studying Sociocultural Anthropology gave me a lens for being genuinely curious about people — watching how they move, what they leave unsaid, the small details in an interaction that might be missed. That’s carried directly into how I see the world and work visually — finding recurring patterns, zooming in on tiny details and magnifying them to explore an entire universe inside of a small fragment.

Where does inspiration usually come from in your practice? Do ideas emerge from observation, memory, conversations, or more instinctive and unconscious places?

Inspiration tends to come from small, close-up observations: the way surfaces age, how light moves across skin or concrete. What I plan as a rough idea inevitably shifts once I begin — I start seeing shadows and shapes, building textures. I trip out on tiny micro patterns. The piece ends up informing itself.

What kind of environment do you need to create? Do you work best in solitude and silence, or do you need movement, noise, and external stimulation around you?

Sometimes I’ll sit down and start painting while listening to ambient music, sometimes a book, or sometimes silence. Depends on my tolerance for myself that day.

artwork. ‘Earthstory’/2024
Acrylic & molding paste on canvas
30” x 40”
opposite
artwork. ‘Escape Velocity’/2024
Acrylic & molding paste on canvas
30” x 40”

Are there particular moments in the day when you feel most creatively open? Do you have rituals or habits that help you enter a working state?

Generally, early mornings suit me best. Lately, though, I’ve been getting energized in the evenings — something about it being dark out and the world feeling quiet.

Many artists struggle between control and intuition. When you’re in the studio, how do you know when to guide a painting and when to let it lead you?

To be completely honest, at the present, spontaneity has been leading my practice. The trick for me is not getting stuck and too attached. I keep relearning that making big moves is important, even when they take the painting somewhere I don’t love yet. It’s just paint — more can go over or be removed, or just start over.

Your practice often feels both intimate and expansive — how do you balance discipline with spontaneity in the studio?

To be completely honest, at the present, spontaneity dictates the timing of my practice. I aim to stay structured enough to finish pieces, but loose enough to let them evolve naturally.

What role does storytelling play in your abstract work, especially when there isn’t a clear narrative for the viewer to follow?

There is always an underlying story that runs through my head while I’m working. In 2013, I was a passenger in a car accident that left me severely injured. The scars from that incident serve as inspiration for my current body of work. All of the pieces live in this reticular universe.

artwork. ‘Hermosa Eosine’ / 2024
Acrylic on canvas
30” x 40”
opposite
top + trousers. Avvenn
jewellery. Baublebar

Are there recurring themes, emotions, or questions that you find yourself returning to in your paintings, even unconsciously?

Texture has always been a constant. Lately, it’s showing up specifically as these web-like, interconnected cellular formations that keep surfacing in my paintings and drawings, whether I plan them or not — shapes and patterns resembling living organisms: neural pathways, internal networks, veins, interconnected lines and loops. I find myself returning to the body’s hidden systems of connection and repair — the parts that are constantly functioning under the surface, largely unnoticed, until something forces our attention to them.

Can you talk about a painting that felt particularly transformative or revealing during the process of making it? What did it teach you?

“Untitled Warmth,” which I made over two months in a random Airbnb, feels right, honestly — some things only happen to you when you’re a little lost and nowhere near your own furniture. I look back at it now and genuinely think, how did I do that? I was fully locked in, but also don’t really remember the process. What it taught me is that the parts of a painting I have the least control over are usually the parts that end up being the most mine.

Living in Los Angeles means being surrounded by a city full of energy and distractions. How does the city shape your artistic sensibility?

Indirectly. LA is a driving city. In 2013, I was a passenger in a car accident that left me severely injured. The scars from that incident serve as inspiration for my current body of work.

What does an ordinary day in your life look like when you’re not modelling or in the middle of an exhibition or a major project?

Entering a minimum of two markets a day.

cardigan. Vintage
bikini. Mayanna
shoes. Simon Miller
opposite
artwork. ‘Ty Oro Osia’ / 2024
Acrylic on canvas
30” x 40”

Are there places in Los Angeles you return to for grounding or inspiration — neighbourhoods, landscapes, bookstores, cafés, or hidden spots you love?

Driving around in the same car I’ve had since high school, windows down, with a green Poppy baseball cap.

You seem to move across many different rhythms and forms of work (modelling, art, and design). How do you navigate a life that is creatively rich but potentially very frenetic?

A pack of light blue American Spirits, a balcony and chair, direct sunlight.

What is your relationship to boredom? Do you see idleness or “doing nothing” as something uncomfortable, productive, or even necessary?

My relationship with boredom is something I’ve been working on recently and trying to befriend. Living in a city where everyone is always “on,” it can feel uncomfortable to sit with idleness. But I’ve started to see slowness and downtime as really necessary for me. When I stop filling every minute, that’s often when ideas show up, or feelings become a lot clearer in my head.

Tricia Hersey’s ‘Rest Is Resistance’ is the ultimate guidepost for this. She reframes rest as a radical act against grind culture and the need to connect our worth to our productivity. And daydreaming — that’s the biggest fuck you to the system.

artwork. ‘Untitled Warmth’ / 2025
Acrylic & molding paste on canvas
30” x 40”
opposite
detail artwork. ‘Untitled Warmth’ / 2025
Acrylic & molding paste on canvas
30” x 40”

Do you intentionally make space for yourself outside of work — for rest, slowness, or private rituals of care? What does that time look like?

Rummy 500. Castelvetrano olives. A really good medium-rare steak. A martini, straight up with a twist. A hot bath. A hotel robe. Lily’s chocolate chips. Check, please!

What does it mean for you to protect time for reflection, pleasure, or simply being?

In a culture obsessed with productivity, output, and urgency, making time to mess around and just be keeps you honest. To me, that’s ideally what makes paintings interesting to look at — not getting wrapped up in chasing what everyone else is doing or following rules and trends. Appreciating awe in small moments. Not taking life too seriously.

As your artistic practice continues to evolve, what are you most interested in exploring next, whether conceptually, materially, or emotionally?

I’m interested in engraving and etching into glass and epoxy — the same interconnected, web-like patterns, carved out instead of built up. Exploring the removal of material, which is the opposite of how I usually work, by adding and building layers of molding paste to create texture in my paintings.

bikini. Mayanna
jeans. Avvenn
shoes. Simon Miller
bracelets. BaubleBar
opposite
detail artwork. ‘Entanglement’ / 2025
Acrylic on canvas
30” x 40”

photography. Lily Merriman
fashion. Georgie Stuart
artist. Emily Labowe
words. Kelsey Barnes