{"id":2189042,"date":"2026-10-10T08:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T05:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2189042"},"modified":"2026-10-10T08:15:00","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T05:15:00","slug":"alex-margo-arden-gets-up-close-and-personal-with-amy-winehouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2189042","title":{"rendered":"Alex Margo Arden Gets Up Close and Personal With Amy Winehouse"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\tThis summer marked 15 years since the death of British singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse, but her spirit lives on. Now, her life and influence are the subject of \u201cNothing Personal,\u201d a just-opened exhibition by artist Alex Margo Arden spread across three rooms of the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation in London.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor the exhibition, Arden has created hundreds of simulacra of Winehouse\u2019s personal items, recreating a pair of ballet slippers signed by fans left outside the singer\u2019s home after her death and a birthday card from the music producer Mark Ronson and Adele that Winehouse never received. To round out this display, Arden purchased exact copies of books found in Winehouse\u2019s library, the makeup and perfume she used, and boardgames and decorative items like mirrors that dotted her house. The display can at times feel like you\u2019re surreptitiously browsing the most intimate parts of someone\u2019s home. Since 2021, Arden has been forensically dissecting pixelated images of Winehouse she\u2019s found online, in catalogues, newspapers and magazines, to determine which items she would need to track down. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis show is a really personal insight into Amy,\u201d Arden told ARTnews<\/em>, describing what\u2019s on view as \u201cparallel objects.\u201d She feels that the hundred books on display create an intimate atmosphere and add historical value, more so than if she actually had presented just one or two authentic items from Winehouse\u2019s estate.<\/p>\n

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Alex Margo Arden, Library<\/em>, 2026.<\/span>Courtesy the artist<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tThe sensitivity to detail across the project is striking. At one point during this five-year scavenger hunt, Arden wound up with 20 versions of the same book; she wanted to compare each copy\u2019s spine and cover to make sure she had the correct one. The bulk of this labor is showcased in Library<\/em> (2026), containing dozens of tomes from Vladimir Nabokov\u2019s Speak Memory<\/em> next to the cookbook The New Classic 1000 Recipes<\/em>, which is not far from a book on marriage. There are also biographies of David Beckham, Bob Dylan, Carole King, Marilyn Monroe, and Audrey Hepburn.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat I\u2019m proposing in the artwork is that as a collection, this gives us really good insight\u201d into Winehouse\u2019s life, Arden said, warning against zeroing in on any one book. She pointed to a Weight Watchers book, which some might relate to Winehouse\u2019s history of eating disorders, which were put under a microscope by the British tabloids. \u201cIn isolation, these objects can be used to really push specific narratives about her,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the next room, Arden presents Same Otherwise<\/em> (2026), a recreation of the fireplace in Winehouse\u2019s home at 2 Jeffrey\u2019s Place, where she wrote her Grammy Award\u2013winning album Back to Black<\/em>. Just as Winehouse once had it, Arden has positioned framed issues of British Vogue<\/em>, comic book pages from Betty and Veronica<\/em>, and a mirror with a picture of Marilyn Monroe over the mantel. But the artist has left gaps where the musician had personal photos of friends and family framed. \u201cThe gaps speak to the feeling of things being present and missing always,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

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\"Perfume<\/div>\n<\/div>
Alex Margo Arden, Perfume said to have belonged to Amy Winehouse<\/em>[I-IV]<\/em>, 2024\u201326.<\/span>Courtesy of Alex Margo Arden<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tAs we spoke, I became captivated by a scent in the gallery. At first I thought it was Arden\u2019s perfume, but the fragrance was, in fact, an artwork, Perfume said to have belonged to Amy Winehouse [I-IV] <\/em>(2024\u201326). The Chanel No.5 I was smelling had been emitted from a custom dispenser by Arden. Throughout the exhibition\u2019s run, the Chanel No.5 will be exchanged for other perfumes that Winehouse is said to have worn. Arden wouldn\u2019t disclose which ones would feature, but various accounts by fashion publications previously reported that Winehouse also wore Alien by Thierry Mugler, Vera Wang Princess, and Givenchy\u2019s Hot Couture. The work was a touching reminder of Winehouse\u2019s tangible presence, wafting through the galleries.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe exhibition also includes more intimate works that at times get overshadowed. Jigsaw<\/em> (2026), for example, is a stack ofthose titular puzzles of scenes of the Beatles, The Simpsons<\/em>, and Casablanca<\/em>. The patience required to piece them together paints Winehouse as an introspective woman as opposed to her party girl that the tabloids portrayed her as. Sent Otherwise<\/em> (2026) is the recreation of the aforementioned birthday card that was only discovered years later, a poignant reminder that even a decade and a half after Winehouse\u2019s death, her life is still being excavated. Taken together, they act as clever tidbits into Winehouse\u2019s short-lived life.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo her tribute to Winehouse, Arden also adds a piece of herself, via Display<\/em>Identification Cubes<\/em> (2026), an artwork made up of a thousand acrylic ice cubes that resemble the placards that are typically used in museum vitrines to match an object to its corresponding label. This numbering methodology recurs across Arden\u2019s oeuvre. In All Clear<\/em> (2022), these numbers appear as print-outs affixed next to items such as a broom, a ladder, and a woven basket, perhaps evoking the objects found at a crime scene, the mundane taking on a more sinister connotation. <\/p>\n

\n\tBut in \u201cNothing Personal,\u201d on view through January 23, the plastic numbers serve as pieces that Arden hasn\u2019t discovered about Winehouse yet\u2014and maybe never will. \u201cThey draw attention to spaces where things are absent, but they also mark spaces where things have once been,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Alex-margo-arden-amy-winehouse.png?w=1024″] This summer marked 15 years since the death of British singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse, but her spirit lives on. Now, her life and influence are the subject of \u201cNothing Personal,\u201d a just-opened exhibition by artist Alex Margo Arden spread across three rooms of the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation in London. For the exhibition, Arden […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2189042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2189042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2189042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2189042\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2189042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2189042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2189042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}