Weiyu Dou, Looking for Bamboo, 2020.

Editor’s Welcome

REGENERATION. It's a word we experience all the time but probably don’t say all too often. Unlike its more active forms, regenerating or regenerating, which signifies the action of change taking place, regeneration is both a stable state and a constant movement. Whilst this sense is technically not true, for the word regeneration is, in actuality, a noun, it seems rather appropriate… First, because its definition relates to its past and present verb iterations. Second, and more importantly, because, in essence, nothing ever really can remain still or stay the same. 

The idea to theme MADE IN BED’s third print edition regeneration came in the new year – the pinnacle period where we all desire change  –  whilst visiting Tate Modern’s annual EY exhibition, Cézanne (5 October 2022 to 12 March 2023) one early January afternoon with a university friend. Having deemed the show to be a bit of a dud, we wandered around the mute-hued rooms, giggling and exchanging stories from the last few weeks. Whilst light-heartedly deliberating potential ideas for publication, off-handedly, I said, “What about something incredibly evasive, like… regeneration?” To my surprise, the comment was well received. To my even bigger surprise, when the time came to prepare for the print, the idea of regeneration remained in my mind. 

Since then, I have been thinking about this word and what it means to the surrounding art world. And with every consideration, something new revealed itself. Over the last twelve months, we have encountered many tremendous moments in art that have evolved its perceptions greatly: Gustav Klimt’s last great portrait came to auction and sold for £85.3 million at Sotheby’s; the grand reopening of the National Portrait Gallery and with it the tremendous partnership between the museum and J. Paul Getty, Los Angeles to save Joshua Reynolds’ Portrait of Mai; the presentation of the Venice Biennale’s Golden Lion award to Sonia Boyce, making her the first Black woman to win the coveted prize; Frieze’s daring purchase of The Armory Show and EXPO Chicago; Damien Hirst’s controversial bonfire ‘The Currency’ that put the preference for NFTs and physical art to the test; and many many more… This small sampling provides just a taste of how innovative and ever-changing the art world is.  

Using the broad theme of regeneration as a springboard, this year’s online print edition of MADE IN BED explores these themes further through the pen and perspective of its writers. As I sit here writing this in the kitchen of the house I grew up in, I think about the many ways in which my childhood home, myself, and my impressions of art and art’s impressions on me have changed over the years. And it is my wish that when you flip through the articles published this month, you too think about how you play a regenerative role on your surroundings, whether they be internal, at your kitchen table, or out in the art world.  

Ilaria Bevan, Editor-in-Chief, 2022-2023