Download Whitewall’s Winter 2021 Experience Issue

We closed out 2020 while looking ahead to 2021 with our annual winter Experience Issue. And what an experience this past year has been.

While globally and across the U.S. we are entering a second and, for some, third peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are finding small comfort and hope in the promise of a forthcoming vaccine and restored leadership under President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President–elect Kamala Harris. We are looking forward to the sun setting on 2020 and what the promise of next year brings.

And in this issue you’ll find that cyclical theme of destruction and creation, beginning and end, discussed among artists. Take one of our cover artists, Anselm Kiefer, who sees his practice as perpetually being made and destroyed. From his studio outside Paris, he discussed the influence of poetry, philosophy, language, and history.

The artist Sanford Biggers similarly deals with themes and questions of defacement and rebirth, using culturally and historically weighted objects like African statues, quilts, and Roman marble motifs. Fresh from the opening of solo shows at the Bronx Museum of the Arts and Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York, Biggers also shared the experience of working on the recent feature film Antebellum.

Rashid Johnson also graces one of our covers, sporting a collaboration with LIZWORKS—the “Anxious Men” jewelry collection. Inspired by the artist’s series of the same name, Johnson saw the opportunity to create jewelry as a chance to wear one’s mental health on one’s sleeve (or rather, finger, wrist, neck), as well as benefit two organizations he holds dear: the Black Mental Health Alliance and Prep for Prep. From his studio in Long Island the artist mused with Whitewall on his “Anxious Red Drawings” becoming a symbol for the collective mood this year.

We are also excited to feature the South African DJ and art collector Black Coffee on our cover, where inside he discusses with us his vision for the future of the music industry as well as his relationship with emerging contemporary African artists.

We’ll leave you here with eager anticipation of a brighter future and inspiration thanks to the creative personas in the pages beyond.