Take That Step #51
Erwin Wurm @ Camden Arts Project
1) After my Bad-Bunny-fever, I’ve now entered my Fela Kuti phase. Controversial, the Nigerian has always awakened both love and revulsion. Along with his swinging, politicized and sexy music, he had a more sinister side that included a harem of 27 women, all members of his band Africa 70 - the Kalakuta Queens. Fela also openly denied the existence of AIDS, which he considered a "white disease", despite having died of complications resulting from HIV.
That said, I'm not alone in my new hyperfocus. A podcast dedicated to him, released in October, won over fans and, with that, I feel that many people have fallen in love with him again. Here it is:
2) The Queens of Kalakuta were dancers, singers and vocalists and lived in a community in the Kalakuta Republic. They were independent artists and activists who defied social norms, marrying Fela in a 1978 ceremony to escape police harassment (and prove they were not prostitutes). They all got married of their own free will.
3) Sotheby's was taken by basketballs (via New York Times):
That room, in the former Whitney Museum of American Art, got a makeover. It is now a basketball court where, until Friday, you can shoot hoops.
On the walls now, in museum-style display cases, are game-worn jerseys, sneakers and basketballs that belong to the former N.B.A. player Scottie Pippen, who was once described as the Robin to Michael Jordan’s Batman during the Chicago Bulls’ championship years in the 1990s. Sotheby’s, which now occupies the building, is selling 50 items from Pippen’s career that he saved and kept in a storage unit.
Sotheby’s says the display is “blue-chip art giving way to blue-chip sport” and “a temporary reimagining of a landmark New York cultural space, reflecting how sports memorabilia is increasingly presented.” The basketball court will disappear almost as quickly as it appeared. It will be open during the day through March 10, then disassembled. Pippen will be there for a private event — Sotheby’s won’t say when — and will play one-on-one with V.I.P. clients.
4) Lars von Trier: There are no sacred rules when it comes to movies.
5) I went to dinner the day before yesterday at a friend's house. She cooks divinely well and taught me how to make a delicious quiche. Since it was the night of a lunar eclipse, while the quiche was in the oven, we sat down to meditate for half an hour. It was very powerful to meditate in pairs! I loved it. After we ate, we decided to go back to our meditation cushions and meditate a little more - this time with a specific focus that needed our attention. We came out of the experience so well, that we have already scheduled to make other meetings like this.
6) The Whitney Museum Biennial opens this weekend. For the art world, the exhibition serves as an x-ray of contemporary American art.
The eighty-second edition of the Whitney Biennial—the longest-running survey of contemporary art in the United States—features work of 56 artists, duos, and collectives that reflects the current moment and examines various forms of relationality, including interspecies kinships, familial relations, geopolitical entanglements, technological affinities, shared mythologies, and infrastructural supports.
Whitney Biennial 2026 offers a vivid atmospheric survey of contemporary American art shaped by a moment of profound transition. Rather than offering a definitive answer to life today, this Whitney Biennial foregrounds mood and texture, inviting visitors into environments that evoke tension, tenderness, humor, and unease. Together, the works capture the complexity of the present and propose imaginative, unruly, and unexpected forms of coexistence.
7) I loved Gemma Correll’s illustration about anxiety and, especially, the banana for scale hahaha:
8) The color blue is mythical. That's why I loved this video below:
He also inspired one of the most beautiful songs of the Brazilian song songwriter:
9) Everyone must have seen Rosalia's presentation with Björk, but I wanted to register here. A classic is born:
10) The playlist of the week is inspired by Fela Kuti and Bruno Mars' new album: