Refik Anadol is a leading figure in the world of digital art and crypto collectibles, minting the first fully immersive digital artwork in September 2021.

Since the inception of his Machine Hallucinations project in 2016, the Istanbul-born, Los Angeles-based artist has employed machine-learning algorithms and quantum computing to transform vast datasets such as wind patterns and Bluetooth signals into mesmerising, immersive moving artworks – or ‘data paintings’, as he calls them.

The AI algorithms employed in his Nature Dreams series scan the pigments, shapes, and patterns present in millions of images of nature to generate new virtual landscapes.

Offered for sale via OpenSea — the world’s leading NFT marketplace — this unique digital artwork shows snow-capped mountains morphing into wetlands, which then transform into forests and rocky planes. Sunrises change seamlessly into sunsets.

Anadol sees the hypnotic result as a collective memory of nature. ‘I think data is a form of memory, and I’m profoundly asking myself and the team, how we can reconstruct it,’ he has said.

The photographer Ron Galella is widely recognised as the ‘Godfather of American paparazzi’. He is perhaps best known (and reviled) for his unflinching and unapologetic images of celebrities, from Marlon Brando to Grace Jones — and relentless pursuit of Jackie Kennedy (which ended in multiple lawsuits). He stopped at nothing to get the perfect picture, often shooting a whole role of film to get one frame.

Among his most iconic images of New York’s club scene is this 1978 snapshot of Dolly Parton at her farm-themed afterparty at Studio 54. Organised by Steve Rubell (Studio 54’s co-founder), it featured horses, donkeys, chickens and haystacks. Unfortunately, the Queen of Country was less than amused. ‘Dolly came and was completely freaked out at the number of people there,’ recalls journalist Michael Musto. ‘She was real nervous about this whole deal and went up to the balcony and sat up there for a while.’

David Hockney has been painting landscapes for over 50 years, capturing everything from the Grand Canyon to the rolling hills and little valleys of his native West Yorkshire. Executed in 2006, two years after his pivotal return from California, this canvas depicts a tunnel of trees lining a snowy country track. Employing loose, impressionistic brushstrokes, he pays tribute to the unspoiled beauty of his homeland.

Over the following years, Hockney would explore the most rural corners of East Yorkshire, capturing the shifting light and seasons. ‘I was painting the land, land that I myself had worked,’ he later recalled. ‘I had dwelt in those fields, so that out there, seeing for me, necessarily came steeped in memory.’

In the 1960s Robert Indiana conceived his most famous work, LOVE, which came to embody the decade’s idealism. The motif was explored in paintings and screenprints before his first major sculptural version in 1970 at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

The image nods to our hyper commodified culture as well as the complex erotic, religious and autobiographical aspects of the theme. ‘LOVE is purely a skeleton of all that word has meant,’ Indiana said, ‘and to bring it down to the actual structure of calligraphy [is to reduce it] to the bare bone.’

Impressive in scale and instantly recognisable, this 3D stacked edition in gold and blue draws the eye with its powerful physical form. ‘It’s always been a matter of impact,’ the artist said. No wonder it remains one of the most loved images in 20th century art.

Kehinde Wiley is best known for his highly stylized portraits of Black protagonists in the traditional poses and settings of Old Master paintings. Since he shot to fame in the 2000s, he has painted such celebrated figures as Barack Obama, Spike Lee and Ice-T, enjoyed solo shows around the world and seen his works sell for six-figure sums at auction. Opening in December is a major new exhibition of his landscapes at the National Gallery in London.

This painting from 2006 combines several of Wiley’s signature motifs: the self-empowered black man, a bold, brilliant colour palette and a richly patterned, floral background. The discord between the official role implied by the title and the appearance of its hip-hop loving sitter draws attention to contemporary discussions around representation and identity. ‘I believe it’s possible to hold twin desires in your head, such as the desire to create painting and destroy painting at once,’ the artist has explained. ‘The desire to look at a black American culture as underserved, in need of representation.’

Es Devlin has established a reputation for theatrical, immersive installations and her newest large-scale project is the talk of Miami Art Week. Conceived in collaboration with Chanel to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Chanel No.5, Five Echoes transforms Miami’s Jungle Plaza into a multisensory labyrinth inspired by the scent’s iconic composition. Surrounded by a lush forest that recalls the landscape of southern France, and animated by light and sound, the circular sculpture draws on Coco Chanel’s childhood while also addressing contemporary themes such as sustainability. It is a powerful mediation on the power of scent to transport the body in mind and spirit. Five Echoes is open to the public until 21 December 2021.

Wendy Red Star draws on contemporary art as well as her Native American heritage for inspiration, and her 2016 Apsáalooke Roses pays homage to her Crow culture. The striking print comprises portraits of the artist and her daughter taken decades apart, at the same age and at the same cultural event. ‘Apsáalooke roses symbolise Crow womanhood and the matrilineal line connecting my daughter and myself to our ancestors,’ she has said.

Born in 1981 and raised on the Apsáalooke reservation in Montana, Red Star upends the romanticised notion of Native Americans as ‘noble savages of the past’, while also celebrating Crow life, history, culture and identity. In contrast to the stoic, idealised images of Native Americans taken by the 20th-century photographer Edward Curtis, for instance, Red Star’s work, spanning photography, video, sculpture and performance, brims with playfulness, humour and irony. ‘Humour is healing to me,’ she has said. ‘To have that element in my work is quite Native, or Crow, and I’m glad that it comes through.’

Charming Baker shot to fame in the noughties for his witty take on well-trodden themes such as love, life, death, joy and despair. Solo shows at the Truman Brewery in 2007 and the Redchurch Street Gallery in 2009 were followed by critically acclaimed shows across the pond and a collaboration with Paul Smith for the 2012 Olympics.

His practice, which spans painting, sculpture and print, challenges you to ‘sit up and examine your conscience,’ as the art critic Edward Lucie-Smith so aptly put it. One of Baker’s most recognisable images, The Enemy Within (Small) features a clutch of chicks against a dusky pink background, emblazoned with golden vines. The incongruity of the image and the artwork’s title is typical of Baker’s irreverent humour. At just £295, this silkscreen print is a bargain.

The Swiss photographer René Burri is perhaps best known for his black-and-white work and piercing portraits of leading cultural and political figures including Pablo Picasso and Che Guevara. Indeed, his 1963 image of the Cuban revolutionary leader has become one of the most iconic images of the 20th century.

But his lesser-known colour compositions are just as compelling. ‘They have a different language than his black and white photography,’ says Mélanie Bétrisey, curator and supervisor of the René Burri Collection. ‘There is something more emotional, less calculated about them.’

This brilliant shot of San Cristobal’s stable, horse pool and house, designed and built by the Modernist Mexican architect Luis Barragán, is one such example. Taken in Mexico in 1976, it reflects Burri’s mastery of light, shadow, angle and geometry. The composition is dominated by two large walls — one red, one pink — that stand in striking contrast to the vivid blues of the pool and sky. What strikes, says Bétrisey, is ‘the play of flat areas and depth of field of colour with clear diagonals, the play of lines.’ No question, it will draw you in, transporting you in time and place.