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Culture

Three trailblazing photography dealers in LA, Hong Kong and Amsterdam

Gallery 01The West Coast pioneerWebber 939,Los AngelesAfter more than 20 years of running photographic and creative agency Webber Represents, as well as a London gallery, Chantal Webber (pictured) moved to Los Angeles in 2019, just as the city’s art scene was luring galleries from across the world. “The creative energy reminds me of New York in the 1990s,” she says from her east-side space. “But for a city steeped in photographic history, there a...

David Williams in Culture 2026-01-04 08:27:36

Reel potential: Is Uruguay South America’s next cinema hotspot?

Facundo Ponce de León is a man on the move. The president of the Uruguayan Film and Audiovisual Agency has just landed back in Montevideo after a whistle-stop tour of Europe, touting his country at the London Film Festival as the place to make movies in 2025 and learning how the UK and Germany built their national film archives. “We’ve never had a film win a Palme d’Or in Cannes or even be in the main festival,” says Ponce de León. “But we are cr...

Jane Williams in Culture 2026-01-06 12:46:12

Lausanne’s Capitole cinema shines once again

Lausanne’s Capitole cinema has reopened after being renovated for the third time since it was built at the end of the 1920s. Switzerland’s largest movie theatre owes its longevity to its longtime owner, Lucienne Schnegg, who died at the age of 90 in 2015. An ardent cinephile from the Jura region, Schnegg was hired as the cinema’s secretary in 1949, before being appointed as its manager seven years later. When its former owner, Luxembourgian confe...

Robert Brown in Culture 2025-12-09 12:34:14

State of the art: Six important new museums to visit in 2025

1.Museu de Arte Contemporânea Armando MartinsLisbon, PortugalLisbon’s new cultural hotspot, the Museu de Arte Contemporânea Armando Martins (Macam), is housed in the 18th-century Palácio Condes da Ribeira Grande a five-star hotel. It is both a gallery and a hotel – the first of its kind in Europe. Founder Armando Martins’s private collection of 600 artworks decorates the walls of both the exhibition areas and the hotel rooms. “This creates an imm...

David Davis in Culture 2025-12-31 13:38:03

Key highlights to expect at Art Basel 2024

Art BaselBlast offVenice aside, the year’s biggest art deal (pun intended) is Art Basel. With the Swiss firm’s Miami and Hong Kong fairs long bedded in and the new Paris1 event in October circled on every collector’s calendar, Basel’s Messeplatz mothership has become an awesome arrangement of the very best there is to buy (unless it’s artefacts you’re after, in which case, see you at Maastricht’s Tefaf next March), supported by a formidable array...

Emily Brown in Culture 2025-12-10 13:51:24

Culture agenda: How Studio Ghibli might inspire urbanists and the revival of a former factory in Ljubljana

Cinema,JapanBrought to lifeIdentifying the rustic locations that inspired a Studio Ghibli animation is a game that fans like to play. The picturesque fishing town inPonyois based on Tomonoura in Hiroshima prefecture. Meanwhile, the leafy forest inMy Neighbour Totorois modelled on Sayama Hills in Saitama. Sense of scaleDirector Hayao Miyazaki’s urban world is equally thrilling. His extraordinary eye for detail zooms in on the unconscious elem...

Jennifer Miller in Culture 2025-12-27 01:22:49

The Pentax 17 film camera is bringing a digital generation back to analogue

When camera designer Takeo Suzuki first suggested to his bosses at Ricoh Imaging that they make a new Pentax film camera, he was met with an awkward silence. Ricoh had acquired the iconic Japanese camera brand from the optical-glass company Hoya Corporation in 2011 but film-camera production had been abandoned in Japan; there hadn’t been a new Pentax model since 2003 and Ricoh’s focus was now fully on digital. “I just remember everyone seemed to ...

John Miller in Culture 2026-01-06 04:10:39

Meet the measured French society working to preserve the art form of poetry

Step into Toulouse’s Hôtel d’Assézat and you will find the oldest literary society in Europe. The former aristocratic residence, with its mouldings, bay windows and creaky floors, is where the Académie preserves and fosters the art of poetry written in French and in Occitan, the regional language spoken in the south of France, Monaco and parts of Italy. The first records of this quintessentially  Toulousian organisation date back to 132...

John Smith in Culture 2026-01-03 19:46:14

Meet the Annecy creatives redrawing the animation industry

At a screening of an AI-generated music video, there are blank faces in the audience. Moments later, boos fill the hall. It is the first sign of discontent at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival. About 16,000 people from 102 countries have gathered for the flagship event of the animation industry, which is projected to grow by €200bn in the next decade. Despite these positive numbers, mass layoffs at major studios and the arrival of ...

Michael Williams in Culture 2026-01-06 22:35:36

Wildflower Studios: The production company bringing Hollywood-style filmmaking to New York

“There is no other facility like this,” says Adam I Gordon, co-founder and managing partner at Wildflower Studios, the newest production lot in New York’s growing ecosystem of film and television facilities. Filming of the studio’s first project commenced in October but the idea for the site came to its founders five years ago.“It turns out that New York has been underserved for many years in terms of studio space,” Gordon tells monocle during th...

Robert Jones in Culture 2025-12-30 10:20:41

Emily in limbo: The pull of Rome causes a diplomatic stir

Whovswho?FrancevsItalyWhat it’s about:Emily in Paris, the Netflix series about an annoying American woman inhabiting a clichéd simulacrum of the French capital. It has become an enormous global hit, very possibly because it permits non-American and non-French people to sneer loftily at American and French people at the same time. Rumours abound that its titular character might be heading to Rome, and French president Emmanuel Macron, for one, is ...

Sarah Johnson in Culture 2026-01-01 16:35:31

Meta’s news ban in Canada is disrupting the country’s media outlets

Earlier this year I joined the judging panel of a journalism prize to assess submissions from across Canada. It was a particularly interesting time to review the country’s news output, not only because of the sheer range of stories covered – from record-breaking wildfires to the end of a prime-ministerial marriage and the run-up to a general election – but because of the additional hurdle that its newsrooms have faced in publishing their work onl...

Jane Miller in Culture 2025-12-13 15:34:35

The independent Toronto retailer keeping magazine culture alive

Back in 2021, Nicola Hamilton, an award-winning art director for several Canadian magazines, noticed something missing from Toronto’s media ecosystem. Despite being Canada’s largest city and home to the country’s biggest print, broadcast and media-production hubs, it seemed to lack a specialist shop dedicated to selling print. “I have worked in magazines for a decade,” says Hamilton. “But I realised that Toronto hadn’t had an independent kiosk of...

Sarah Smith in Culture 2026-01-05 02:40:56

Editor’s letter: Into autumn’s glow

In the northern hemisphere the back-to-school feeling that hits after a hopefully blissful summer isn’t something that only students or their teachers experience. It permeates everything. Galleries pull up the shutters to open new shows, shops unveil their autumn wares, politicians return to parliaments – things click back into gear. While packing away the loungers and returning the sun cream to the bathroom cabinet can be a little unsettling, th...

John Williams in Culture 2025-12-11 12:29:08

December cultural updates, from Ruinart’s art-infused cellars to Finland’s national soundtrack

House ProudArt,FranceIf you find yourself at an art fair and in need of a drink, chances are that a cold glass of Ruinart will be available to quench your thirst. The champagne house – which was founded in 1729, making it France’s oldest – has long fostered close ties with the contemporary art world. This relationship is the focus of Ruinart’s newly renovated headquarters in Reims. In addition to a sparkling new pavilion designed by Japanese arch...

David Johnson in Culture 2025-12-14 13:32:18

Playlist: 50 cosy songs for long, dark nights

Morning sunThere’s nothing like the sunlight on a crisp winter morning. Allow these tracks to provide a gentle, warming accompaniment.1.Todo Dia SantoMarcos ValleBrazilian legend Marcos Valle delights with his breezy, effortlessly cool bossa sound.Marcos ValleBrazilian singer and producerWhat are you listening to currently?On the road, I like to listen to playlists that I’ve made. I’m also listening to Céu’s new album, Novela, which is very ...

Robert Brown in Culture 2026-01-02 00:41:34

Interview: Brazilian actress Fernanda Torres on bringing resilience to life in ‘I’m Still Here’

In 1986, Fernanda Torres became a Brazilian icon after winning the best actress award at Cannes for her role in Arnaldo Jabor’s Love Me Forever or Never. Here, she tells Monocle Radio about her latest film, I’m Still Here, set during Brazil’s military dictatorship. The film is already one of Brazil’s most successful-ever features and has been nominated for three Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actress for Torres.The film tells t...

David Davis in Culture 2026-01-02 14:26:10

The cultural agenda for autumn 2024

Q&A: FranceLambert WilsonFrench-language showLa Maisonon Apple TV+ follows two rival families as they compete for dominance in Paris’s high-fashion world. The cast includes Lambert Wilson as star designer Vincent Ledu. Here he discusses his role, his character’s taste and learning to sew. Your character is a harsh person. Did you enjoy playing Vincent?I like playing kings. Vincent reigned at a time when he only had to answer to critics i...

Jane Jones in Culture 2025-12-26 20:56:17

DJ Harvey’s recipe for the perfect nightclub

Turns out, DJing for 40 years to audiences around the world teaches you about human nature. DJ Harvey, born Harvey William Bassett in London, cut his teeth behind the decks after hearing early glimmers of hip-hop on a trip to New York. His sound has morphed and moulded over time, touching on house, disco and whatever else catches his ear, into a mélange of beautiful eclecticism.As a drummer in his earlier musical life, rhythm and interesting perc...

Emily Jones in Culture 2025-12-25 19:03:45

Three literary leaders share their predictions for the book industry in 2025

Every October, Frankfurt becomes a hive of activity with the arrival of the annual Frankfurter Buchmesse. Once upon a time, publishers, agents and authors would hold back-to-back meetings here, the air fizzing with new ideas and high-stakes negotiations. Many still talk about the time when an agent could slap a manuscript on the table for an editor to read overnight before striking a deal the next morning.Networking at the Frankfurter Buchmesse&l...

Robert Williams in Culture 2026-01-03 09:35:08