Colossal

In our era of screens and proliferous imagery, it strains the imagination to comprehend a time before photography. Two centuries ago, an inventor named Nicéphore Niépce took the very first picture of his courtyard in France by fitting a pewter plate into a camera obscura. A few years later, a professional scene painter named Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre conceived of the aptly named daguerreotype, in which the image could be permanently fixed.

Known for her lush assemblages of flameworked glass, Amber Cowan reimagines a ubiquitous yet fragile medium. Flowers, filigree, and colorful baubles cluster into dense compositions that invoke fairytale narratives and whimsical nature scenes. Cowan typically works with industrial scraps, antiques, and other offcasts, which allows her to draw on products and colorways that are no longer in production.

The term “ark” invariably conjures images of the monumental boat onto which pairs of animals were stewarded prior to a cataclysmic, biblical flood. It’s a reference that feels apt amid the climate crisis and our planet’s rising sea levels, although in this case, the melting ice caps and creeping tides are down to us. The large-scale exhibition titled The Ark at Powerhouse Arts asks, will we care for the future of our planet the way we care for the animals we love?

110 years ago, Thomas Lupo’s grandfather opened the American Wood Column Corporation in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood. Specializing in architectural woodwork including decorative moulding, columns, balusters, corbels, and more, the historic family-owned company is shutting down after more than a century. A new documentary directed and produced by filmmaker and photographer Joshua Charrow takes viewers on one final walk-through of the factory.

From happenstance and humor to solemnity and tension, the images topping the 2026 Pure Street Photography Awards run the gamut of daily scenes. The annual contest is organized into two categories: black-and-white and open. Reflections of New York City meet dramatic views of urban spaces and pensive tableaux in rural communities, emphasizing timely and candid moments that center diverse human experiences.

Amid the rugged, wave-churned shoreline of France’s Breton coast, a surprising tidbit of pop culture has kept beachcombers returning for more than 40 years. The short film “Silly Little Plastic Cat” transports us to this slice of Brittany, where local residents grew up collecting parts of a 1984 Garfield-themed plastic telephone on the beach—and still do.

The spiral is one of the most ubiquitous, universal symbols. Or perhaps it is more apt to describe the motif as mimicked from nature, where it occurs in the form of seashells, flowers, and curling waves. From Neolithic stone carvings at Newgrange in Ireland to swirling motifs on prehistoric pottery discovered in Thailand, the spiral represents growth, the cycles of life, and evolution. Sometimes two or more interlink, and other times they emerge from an endless line.

In 2022, New York resident and bonafide feline devotee Dan Rimada felt that something needed to be done to shine a light on the city’s cats. The Big Apple not only has a real feral issue, but many of these creatures make their homes in iconic shops found around the city: bodegas. Over time, locals get to know them and they become fixtures of shelves and countertops. Technically, though, New York City considers it a health code violation to have animals in businesses that serve food.

Whether playing a game of Uno on the back patio by the light of a headlamp or wading into a preternaturally still body of water on a pitch-black night, the figures in Aron Wiesenfeld’s works calmly exist amid an air of mystery. His enigmatic paintings and drawings entice viewers into a world of timeless intrigue, delving into the power of visibility and imagination. Uncanny lighting creates silhouettes and deep, hidden distances.

In the voluptuous ceramics of En Iwamura, sweeping lines of clay frame minuscule eyes and noses that just barely emerge from the earthen material. The artist is based in the iconic pottery town of Shigaraki in Japan’s Shiga Prefecture and is known for his expressive yet abstract sculptures. Evoking playful depictions of masks and busts, the works are often vibrant in color, featuring bold gradients or two-toned combinations.