The Hellp: Fame is a Double-edged Sword
March 25, 2026
“Fashion Week appearance + chorus gaining traction on TikTok = celebrity”: The Hellp on breaking out of pigeonholes.
“Fashion Week appearance + chorus gaining traction on TikTok = celebrity”: The Hellp on breaking out of pigeonholes.
In the opening to Mike Leigh’s Abigail’s Party (1977), we meet Beverly and Laurence – equal parts a parody of and a startlingly accurate depiction of the era’s British suburbanites. They’re hosting a dinner party, we learn, which quickly becomes a performance of status for their guests, Angela and Tony. The mother of the titular Abigail is also in tow. She has been invited over to skirt her teenage daughter’s party upstairs. Mapped between a strangely sexual undercurrent and a wry nod to art-world seriousness, the play culminates with Laurence,
“Is society a shit show?” Ahead of his second solo show at London’s Carl Kostyál gallery, Callum Eaton’s answer is simple: “Yes.” A quick glance at What A Shit Show reveals the truth in this semi-ironic, semi-serious quip. Across the wood-clad walls of the Savile Row gallery, Eaton draws on the absurdity of the Dada movement and the low-meets-high sensibilities of Pop Art. In ‘Toxic’ (2025), a collaged cut-out painting, he depicts a kitchen cleaner with its handle and wilting flowers arranged into a modern-day bouquet — both beautiful and
Few places carry more storied reputations than London’s Soho. With a murky past as the city’s red-light district, it’s no surprise that the area has long been a hotbed for those seeking its unique brand of free-thinking bohemianism. In fact, art world hard hitters like Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, and Damien Hirst have all at one point found solace in Soho’s creative scene. Enter the Soho Open. Extending this rich cultural legacy to today, The Soho Housing Association — which has advocated against homelessness since the 1970s — is playing
In Turin — one of Northern Italy’s rapidly rising creative hubs — a flurry of artists and collectors are gathering for the thirty-second edition of Artissima. Entering its fourth year under Luigi Fassi’s directorship, the art fair continues to make inroads into the art world withits commitment to critical dialogues, an openness to emerging voices, and a uniquely pointed curatorial vision. Open from 30 October to 2 November, the fair returns under the theme Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. On board are 176 galleries from 33 countries— each tasked with showcasing
When Mau P skyrocketed to stardom following the release of his debut track, he was caught a little off guard. After a childhood dotted with various musical endeavours and a half-realized career under his own name, the Amsterdam-based DJ was taking a moment to reset and rebrand. “I was just some random guy with a song that had a hundred million streams,” he tells me. “I didn’t even have my new name yet.” But far from shrinking in the shadow of the house-inflected ‘Drugs from Amsterdam’, the 28-year-old developed a
A scattering of found objects lies against the black background of an at‑home scanner. A used latex condom found in Berlin’s Hasenheide, a muddied pair of Aussie Bum underwear from Dublin, and a canister of Iron Fist poppers from London’s Walthamstow Marshes. These relics of cruising culture — that is, the practice of searching for anonymous sex in public spaces — form the visual language of Cruising Archaeology. Founded by Jack Scollard of SMUT PRESS, the project began as an anonymous Instagram page before morphing into something between a zine
In Dover with ‘SOS SKYN’ Off a passenger train at Dover Priory and to the townhouse of Samara Scott of SOS SKYN. Amongst a wealth of unfinished home projects and a network of scaffolding cascading down towards the doorpost, a view of the English Channel and one of Europe’s most iconic seaports. To the rear, the White Cliffs back onto a lovingly overgrown garden, complete with submerged neo-Classical sculptures and a wire-backed bench. Today, Scott’s home is the site of an exclusive photoshoot for the COLD Magazine. Though this venue
In the accompanying poem for his solo exhibition at Pilar Corrias, Manuel Mathieu does not mince his words. In three stanzas, he conjures images of sweat turning to oceans among a genocide of stars, of the devil sucking him like ice as his hopes crumble like ash in the wind. A warning – “don’t forget the weight of your sins / as the skeletons of your past become your altar” – is equally affronting. These lines are an indictment of our tendency to pave over the cracks of oppression, an
Among the independent bookstores and artisanal coffee shops dotting the streets of a very trendy London Fields, is the rather unassuming entrance to Brother_LDN. Head through a cobalt blue threshold and up a flight of stairs to reach the loft-turned-retro-futurist-inspired concept store at the forefront of a new type of archive shopping experience. Expect hard-hitting labels—Ann Demeulemeester, Yohji Yamamoto, Tom Ford-era Gucci—among rare copies of Madonna’s legendary Sex publication, bespoke jewellery from emerging designers like MQT, and an array of ironic tees. My favourite? A white one reading, ‘MY SHOES ARE
When I spoke with Anselm Reyle during a tour of his solo exhibition at Opera Gallery, his clarity of thought was immediately apparent. While Sunrise Mission — a collection of towering ceramic works, neon sculptures, gestural paintings, and stools crafted in collaboration with Franz West — may feel like a spontaneous outpouring of creativity, Reyle revealed it to be more: a deeply considered commentary on what it means to exist in an art world increasingly shaped by dominant institutional voices. The Berlin-based artist is certainly no stranger to the establishment.
Dr Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian and two doppelgängers land on the moon. This is the creative experiment at the centre of her newest documentary, Doppelgängers3, which sees the award-winning designer of experiences venture into the depths of a Spanish cave to reflect on humanity’s expansion into the universe. But what she delivers is a far cry from what we’re used to seeing in the genre—there’s no Elon Musk-style odes to interplanetary colonisation, nor celebrations of the just-for-fun adventures of Katy Perry and her crowd of Bezos-backed ‘astronauts’. Instead, what Doppelgängers3 uncovers
Listening to Rosa Cecilia, it’s clear why the London-based musician has developed something of a cult following. With over 2.5 million streams on Spotify, she’s a sensual artist whose breathy, atmospheric compositions feel just as at home scoring the sun-drenched romanticism of Alfonso Cuarón’s ‘Y Tu Mamá También’ or Luca Guadagnino’s ‘Queer’ as they do in quiet moments of introspection in candlelit bedrooms. Bridging jazz, R&B, and Latin influences, her sound is both nostalgic and contemporary—it’s retro soul decked out with references to Twitter, polyamory, and queer love. Not to
