Cover ‘Lumina’ (2025) by Sruli Recht, featured at ‘Lair’ in Shenzhen (Photo: courtesy of the artist)
‘Lumina’ (2025) by Sruli Recht, featured at ‘Lair’ in Shenzhen (Photo: courtesy of the artist)
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From ‘skin’-made lanterns to a diamond grenade, Iceland-based artist Sruli Recht’s first Asia exhibition in Shenzhen explores the uncanny
If you thought Megan Fox’s rose-thorn engagement ring—which hurts the wearer when removed—was unsettling, Iceland-based artist and designer Sruli Recht’s work takes unease to another level. In 2019, he went viral after surgically removing a piece of skin from his abdomen and mounting it on a 24-carat gold band to create a ring titled Forget Me Knot. Earlier, in 2013, he produced A Lasting Impression, a pair of gloves made from basking shark skin lined with thousands of hook-like thorns—painful to remove. In 2021, he unveiled futuristic platform shoes inspired by rising sea levels.
Now, the artist is coming to Asia for the first time to present Lair: Relics for the Future, an uncanny exhibition that features lanterns made of translucent skin-like material and a diamond-encrusted grenade. Running until March 3, 2026 at the Sea World Culture and Arts Center in Shenzhen, the show features 68 new sculptures across 11 installations made in Shenzhen, employing techniques such as electric mineral accretion and lava casting; materials like lightning-formed glass and bee-skin fur; and instruments for olfactive amplification.
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Above Iceland-based artist Sruli Recht, whose exhibition ‘Lair’ is now running in Shenzhen (Photo: courtesy of the artist)
Iceland-based artist Sruli Recht, whose exhibition ‘Lair’ is now running in Shenzhen (Photo: courtesy of the artist)
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The title of the show perfectly elucidates his practice. “In one sense, we understand lair in relation to animals, and in another, it alludes to a supervillain’s den in pop culture,” he says. “Villains often have the best taste, clothing and architecture. Look at the James Bond or sci-fi bad guys—they have sleek interiors, minimal furniture, beautiful tailoring, good haircuts, and they eat well. I identify with that—the desire for this kind of object acquisition. But there’s a moral flip where only the bad guys have good taste.”
Far from wicked, the creations of this “villain”—who has no white cats but an arm tattoo of the words “to create” in his native language Hebrew—invite visitors to see common objects and social phenomena from alternate perspectives. They push viewers out of their comfort zones, evoking emotional responses and encouraging reflection on their relationships with both art and the materials from which it is made.
One installation, Down (2025), features sculptures crafted from the skins and feathers of various migratory birds. Some pieces hang mid-air like tutus, while others resemble couture forms resting on mannequin busts. Recht notes that birds are not inherently commodified, yet cultural aesthetics impose value upon them, turning them into “instruments of subtle threat and inverted desire”. (The specimens were sourced ethically, using birds that died of natural causes and are certified by China’s National Forests and Grasslands Administration.)
Above ‘Down’ (2025) by Sruli Recht, featured at ‘Lair’ in Shenzhen (Photo: Tatler Hong Kong)
‘Down’ (2025) by Sruli Recht, featured at ‘Lair’ in Shenzhen (Photo: Tatler Hong Kong)
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Lumina (2025) examines life and death through animal and mythical creature lanterns that resemble Frankensteinian hybrids stitched from translucent membranes. Hung against the exhibition hall’s ceiling lights, the forms reveal ghostly “bones” and “veins” visible beneath the stretched surface. The rugged texture resembles fingerprints. Though they seem organic, the artworks are made from a bioplastic algae membrane. The eerie and somewhat revolting sight evokes contemplation on the fragile boundary between organic decay and radiant preservation.
Another highlight, Caraxy (2025), resembles a grenade covered entirely in lab-grown diamonds. Recht is intentionally cryptic about its true form, saying the word for it is censored in mainland China. “You have to figure it out,” he says. The sculpture’s shape cheekily nods to eroticism, while the unprotected diamonds tempt touch, provoking reflection on desire itself.
Beyond these sculptures, scent plays a major role in the exhibition’s multisensory narrative. Recht believes that smell can unlock memory more powerfully than sight. As visitors traverse different rooms, they encounter unconventional, confusing blends of scent that seem like perfume, body odour and plastic. “I told my perfumer, ‘I need the unfamiliar. I want something that doesn’t have a memory hook. I don’t want people to recognise it and say, oh, it’s banana. I want them to smell it and say, what the sh*t is that?’”
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Above ‘Caraxy’ (2025) by Sruli Recht, featured at ‘Lair’ in Shenzhen (Photo: courtesy of the artist)
‘Caraxy’ (2025) by Sruli Recht, featured at ‘Lair’ in Shenzhen (Photo: courtesy of the artist)
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Why, then, create art that makes one uncomfortable? For Recht, discomfort is a tool for self-understanding and cognitive expansion. “There are so many ways to access discomfort: the unfamiliar, the awkward, the grotesque,” he says. “I’m often uncomfortable. I’m not a social person. I don’t like being onstage, around noise, or in crowds.” His months-long stay in Shenzhen, he admits, has tested that tolerance.
“I use discomfort as a listening tool,” he continues. “I ask: why am I uncomfortable? What does it mean? Often what annoys us in others mirrors ourselves. We dislike what we recognise. So I use that recognition to create something that forces me [and others] beyond comfort.”
Eugene Rabkin, founder and editor of the counterculture magazine StyleZeitgeist, praises Recht’s approach. “The exhibition asks you to suspend your preconceived notions and open yourself to experiences beyond familiarity,” he says. “My problem with many exhibitions I’ve been to is that they are didactic. You walk into a museum and read the plaques that tell you what the art is saying. What is the point of art, then? Giving you all the answers negates the very purpose of art. Lair leaves room for your own conclusions.”
Above ‘Geomancer: the Acronymicon’ by Sruli Recht, featured at ‘Lair’ in Shenzhen (Photo: courtesy of the artist)
‘Geomancer: the Acronymicon’ by Sruli Recht, featured at ‘Lair’ in Shenzhen (Photo: courtesy of the artist)
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Daisy Cheng Xue-er, CEO of Orenda Art who invited Recht to Shenzhen, recalls discovering Recht’s work on Instagram during the pandemic. Having known of his previous collaborations with Alexander McQueen, she was impressed by his fearless use of unconventional materials in both his fashion designs and art. “In fashion, people choose comfortable fabrics like cotton. Then there’s Sruli, using shark skin or even his own,” she says. “He expanded the horizons between fashion, art, and design.”
As Lair unfolds, Recht already looks toward his next experiment: an ambitious “cellular opera” blending science and performance art. In it, protocells will act as microscopic performers, choreographed through chemical gradients to create a living opera. This pioneering fusion of biology and art underscores his determination to transcend conventional material boundaries. Discomfort, after all, remains his muse.
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Zabrina is the Senior Editor, Arts and Culture of Tatler Hong Kong. She specialises in performing arts, visual art and film. Her wanderlust was first fuelled by the Mighty Rovers Antarctica Expedition 2010. Over the years, she has interviewed A-list artists and filmmakers, including Oscar winners Chlóe Zhao and Tim Yip, Golden Horse winner Sylvia Chang, In the Mood for Love cinematographer Christopher Doyle, Pachinko author Min Jin Lee, and Coachella’s first Chinese solo singer Jackson Wang. She won gold at the WAN-IFRA Asian Media Awards for her 2021 feature on the waves of hate crimes targeting Asian Americans.
