From the Editor CHRISTIAN SCHWALBACH Art has always held up a mirror to the world. Sometimes it reflects back a relatively faithful image in the form of a handsome portrait or a beautiful decorative work that looks great on our walls. Sometimes the mirror’s funhouse-distortions are provocative and humbling, showing us perspectives on our societies and ourselves that we had ignored or forgotten. In this issue of Centurion, we take a moment to celebrate art in all its forms. Naturally, we dedicate a number of stories to the state of the art market, with pieces chronicling the latest developments in art fairs – offering surprisingly positive news, given the difficulties of the past year – as well as the recently unveiled museums opening across the globe and a profile of a new technology that just might revolutionise the artbuying world. Elsewhere in the issue, we tackle the concept of art a bit more abstractly. Chefs, for instance, create masterpieces that may last only a few minutes – but are nevertheless deserving of our aesthetic appreciation. In our feature on page 98, author Bill Knott, a former chef himself, explores the history of avant-garde plating, be it the minimalist flourishes of the 1990s or the trompe l’oeil surprises that continue to delight diners at the world’s top restaurants. We also explore the evolving art of superyacht design, a raft of Japanese hotels that put creative energy at their heart, the new vogue in the fashion world for giving traditional techniques a 21st-century spin – and many more artistic creations, from timeless timepieces to the crème de la crème of the jewellery world. As always, we pride ourselves in offering inspiration and analysis, and we hope you take time to contemplate not only the pages of this issue, but also the built world around us and all the artistry that has gone into it. • Light Black Mexico-born, Barcelona-based artist Mareo Rodriguez’s rich oeuvre of work seeks to interpret the natural world as a constantly shifting mantle of condensed light, as in this edition’s cover art, an acrylicon-canvas painting from his Expansion series 12 CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM YOUR CODE FOR EXCLUSIVE ACCESS TO CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM: RL15CM
