Art Radar || 16 July 2026

From immersive installations and boundary-pushing dance, to reimagined baroque music and city-scale spectacles, here's a selection of artists from around the world that our Artistic Director Matthew Lutton thinks should be on your radar!

Recent discoveries include Boris Acket's mesmerising installation The Bird of a Thousand Voices, the strikingly intimate queer dance work Bottommost and the extraordinary public spectacles of French company La Machine.

What unites these works is a fearless commitment to experimentation, inviting audiences to experience the world through new perspectives and possibilities.

Boris Acket is a visual artist who creates installation work that consistently evokes a bodily response from audience members, and his latest piece, The Bird of a Thousand Voices, is no exception. This work connects the spiritual with nature, where the mechanical morphs into something organic.

There is always a close relationship between performance and eroticism, as the audience's gaze inevitably carries a voyeuristic element. However, creating something genuinely erotic on stage is incredibly challenging; it can come across as performative, inauthentic, or exaggerated. I recently saw the queer dance work Bottommost in Montreal, and I believe it is the most successful work I have witnessed in generating eroticism on stage.

Il Pomo d’Oro is a baroque ensemble based in Italy and Switzerland that is breaking boundaries and creating a buzz in the music scene. Their interpretation of the repertoire is electric and full of energy. Their recent program blew me away, as it felt like hearing these instruments and works with fresh ears. For lovers of early music, keep Il Pomo d’Oro on your radar.

One of the great companies creating visual spectacles that transform cities is the French company La Machine. From giant arachnids that climb over buildings to monsters that fight in the streets, they also feature a floating paradise of environmental discovery that brings insights from distant lands. I love the imagination behind their work and the way it disrupts the norm while generating jubilation throughout a city.

These masked musicians are the ones everyone wants to see. Two artists have created personas of aliens who have arrived on Earth with music from another world; they produce rock microtonalism that is truly out of this world. If they land in your city, make sure to see them. They serve as the "antidote to AI," as their uniqueness makes it impossible for AI to predict or replicate music of this nature.