This week—the last of 2022—we’re taking the time to reflect on the year that was. First up, a look at some of our most memorable covers.
Tom Sachs portrait by Karl Hab.
Mickalene Thomas for the cover of Whitewall’s Winter 2022 Experience Issue, photo by Steve Benisty.
Winter 2022 Experience Issue
The winter issue was all about embracing that experience. While much of it was still put together remotely, across cities, countries, phone calls, and Zooms, some was done person-to-person, with studio visits and photo shoots, just like in the old days. For our Tom Sachs cover story, captured by Karl Hab, we traveled to Paris and Hamburg to witness the artist’s 24-hour “Exchange” and fourth “Space Program” mission. We visited Mickalene Thomas in her New York studio for another cover, photographed by Steve Benisty, between multiple exhibition openings across New York, London, Paris, and Hong Kong.
Billie Zangewa, “Soldier of Love,” 2020, 2018, courtesy of the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul, and London.
Spring 2022 The Artist Issue
For the first time, we called our annual art issue the Artist Issue. It felt fitting, and certainly due, given that artists have a greater agency over their practice and careers than ever before. And we—as fans, advocates, or patrons—have more access than ever. Two years into this pandemic, the bittersweet and sometimes brutal reality of life’s fragility has emboldened cultural practitioners to say, “Yes, let’s go for it.”
Pieces in silk by Billie Zangewa, another artist on the cover, challenge ideas around what is an appropriate subject. She unabashedly depicts her day-to-day acts as a woman and mother, with a tenderness and beauty we admire. This is her act of feminism, one that is still radical in this art world.
Whitewall’s Spring 2022 Artist Issue over featuring: Jennifer Guidi, “Moonlight and Love,” 2021, Sand, acrylic and oil on linen, 21 x 15 inches; photo by Brica Wilcox, courtesy of the artist and Gagosian.
Jennifer Guidi, whose work graced one of the issue’s three covers, shared with us about what it was like to find success in art after 40. She said that once she connected with her practice on her own terms, people connected with it, too. Following her own path of meditation and artmaking, her sand-based paintings, which feel both of this world and another, elicit a grounding feeling not dissimilar from what she herself feels when painting them.
Glenn Ligon, “Debris Field (Red) #17,” 2020 – 2021, for the cover of Whitewall’s Summer 2022 Impact Issue; photo by Thomas Barratt, © Glenn Ligon, courtesy of the artist, Hauser & Wirth, New York, Regen Projects, Los Angeles, Thomas Dane Gallery, London, and Chantal Crousel, Paris.
Summer 2022 Impact Issue
For our annual Impact Issue, this summer we looked toward the future—one that is sustainable, innovative, socially responsible, and ever more digital. As we sent the issue to print, we were in the middle of a fantastic Frieze Week in New York, looking ahead to a summer of art, design, and fashion events around the world. It certainly felt like everyone is back into the swing of things, and we were feeling great about that.
Katharina Grosse, “Chill Seeping,” SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA, USA, 2022, photo by SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, courtesy of Helsinki Art Museum, © Katharina Grosse and VG Bild-Kunst Bonn, 2022.
Reviewing the pages of this issue, we’re struck by the vibrancy of color—whether it was Alex Israel’s gradient sunset peppered with palm trees (on one cover), Jen Stark’s optically charged works, Glenn Ligon’s warning red “Debris Field” series (also on our cover), Takashi Murakami’s smiling flowers, and Katharina Grosse’s immersive, draping canvases (on our cover, too!)
Derrick Adams in his Brooklyn, NY, studio, portrait by Steve Benisty.
Fall 2022 Harmony Issue
This issue, The Harmony Issue was all about finding the balance in our new normal. That perspective shift, whether it be reexamining one’s purpose, practice, or the past, can be found throughout these pages. In speaking with artists, makers, designers, and creatives of all kinds, there’s a clear pursuit of finding what brings a greater sense of ease, purpose, and even justice. Harmony—in beauty, design, and art history—emanates from the interviews you’ll find here.
Cover artist Derrick Adams, photographed by Steven Benisty, talked with us about creating a space in Baltimore for artists to find peace within, with The Last Resort Artist Retreat. The filmmaker Isaac Julien, on our cover, revisited a now-iconic work of his own, Looking for Langston, in his newest commission, to create a spellbinding visual and sonic investigation of poetic restitution.
Isaac Julien, “The New Negro Aesthetic” (detail) from “Once Again … (Statues Never Die),” 2022, courtesy of the artist & Victoria Miro, London/Venice, © 2022 Isaac.
