21 new additions to the list to inspire and delight.
Every month is a surprise with the results of the updated heat list. Released last week, March’s edition was no exception, delivering some fascinating artists to discover. This month saw the addition of 21 new artists, with significant movement in the “under $10.000” and “between $10.000 and $50.000” sections. Below are three new additions to the list.
Heat Index under $10.000
Małgorzata Mirga-Tas
(b.1978, Poland)
Global ranking: 1,110
Poland ranking: 17
Annual growth: 15.59%
In last month’s heat list newsletter, we featured the Bosnian Roma artist Selma Selman, and this time round it’s the Polish Roma artist, Małgorzata Mirga-Tas. It’s truly a pleasure to see artists from Europe’s largest ethnic minority receiving cultural recognition, and climbing the ranks of our database. Małgorzata Mirga-Tas shot to international recognition when she represented Poland at the 59th Venice Biennale as part of the “Milk of Dreams” exhibition. This was also the first time a Roman artist had been asked to represent any country at the Biennale. Mirga-Tas creates stunning large-scale textile collage portraits of her Roma community. Regularly depicting their everyday lives, her protagonists are often family members, artist friends and other important community figures. Her depictions, created from donated clothes and fabrics, respect and honour her people, counteracting the often negative preconceived stereotypes that external eyes have portrayed them as.
You can catch her first solo exhibition at a museum from June 8 at the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht, the Netherlands.
Heat Index between $10.000 and $50.000
Gala Porras-Kim(b.1984, Colombia)
Global ranking: 776
United States ranking: 233
Republic of Korea ranking: 7
Annual growth: 7.07%
It was right around this time last year that we first wrote about Gala Porras-Kim. Since then her ranking has increased by almost 300 points, which is no small feat when you are as highly ranked as her.
The Colombian-born, California-based artist creates sculptures, installations and drawings. Porras-Kim’s well-researched works question the ethics of museum conservation and investigate how artefacts exist in institutions away from their original sites and devoid of their original purposes. Her work queries the institutional frameworks that define, legitimise, and preserve cultural heritage, and invites the viewer to assign new meaning to the artefacts extracted. In her more recent creations, she has been working on distilling natural processes into sculptures, drawings, and installations that evolve throughout an exhibition. You can delve into her explorations of natural creations in her current solo exhibition, Gala Porras-Kim: A Hand in Nature at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, which opened last week and runs until September 1.
Heat Index over $50.000
Lauren Halsey(b.1987, United States)
Global ranking: 1,646
United States ranking: 435
Annual growth: 18.19%
The American artist Lauren Halsey works with standalone artworks, site-specific immersive installations which bridge sculpture and architecture, and large maximalist collages. The artist draws her inspiration from the “vitality, pride, and resilience” of her community in South Central Los Angeles, an area which is often devalued or ignored, and commemorates, celebrates and documents that community by repurposing imagery unique to it. To do this, she collects and then integrates a diverse array of everyday symbols, graffiti, logos, signage and fliers, from local businesses, organizations and social causes. The results are bold and almost documentarian, offering a fascinating snapshot into a vibrant community. In addition to her art that honours, Halsey also founded a community centre, ensuring that her success is “recirculated” back to the very community which led her to that success.
Next week you will be able to catch Halsey’s self-titled solo show and very first exhibition with Gagosian, in their Paris location, opening on March 21.
We hope you find inspiration in March’s heat list.Expand the way you see art,
Headerimage by Tanner Boriack on Unsplash