Issue 157 has that classic early-2014 Juxtapoz feel—street art, needle-sharp illustration, outsider projects, and a wide emotional swing between intimate and explosive. It opens with a contributor spotlight and short intro before stepping straight into Basel Insider, a behind-the-scenes look at the Art Basel frenzy: booths, murals, parties, and the flood of artists who orbit Miami every December. The Event section continues the momentum, and the Picture Book brings a photographic breather before the issue ramps up again.
Design and fashion chapters lean clean and contemporary, setting the stage for Influences, which acts as the bridge between reportage and the big artist features.
The lineup this month is stacked:
• Mel Kadel leads with her beautifully fragile, tightly patterned drawings—resilience, vulnerability, and hand-drawn repetition woven into surreal scenes.
• The Heidelberg Project, Tyree Guyton’s legendary, community-powered outdoor installation in Detroit—chaotic, political, playful, and deeply rooted in social survival.
• F. Scott Hess, blending classical technique with psychological narrative and historical symbolism.
• Erin M. Riley, transforming tapestry into confessional portraiture—sex, intimacy, self-documentation, and emotional rawness rendered in wool.
• Brett Amory, whose haunting, blurred, nearly-lost figures feel like snapshots caught between memory and disappearance.
• OLEK, the crochet interventionist turning public spaces, bodies, and objects into neon yarn explosions—activist, absurd, and unmistakable.
The Report follows, filling in the broader cultural context, then “Beautiful Bits” highlights smaller gems from across the art world. Book reviews, a profile piece, product picks, and Sieben’s life column (always dry, always sideways) round out the back half. Pop Life closes the cultural loop, and Perspective ends the issue with a reflective note.
A textured, emotionally varied issue—quiet, loud, handmade, political, and personal all at once.
