Art, Reality, Belonging
Musings from the ‘74 Community
LOLA MONTES SCHNABEL
Lola is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans painting, ceramics, film, and design. Drawing from mythology, memory, and the natural world, her work evokes a deeply intuitive and spiritual sensibility. Based in Sicily and Milan, Schnabel often collaborates with local artisans, incorporating volcanic clay and ancient techniques into her ceramics. Her recent exhibition Cirica at Vito Schnabel Gallery in New York showcased hand-painted tiles and sculptural vessels that blur the lines between the earthly and the ethereal.
What are you working on recently?
I’m immersed in a series of ceramic paintings that explore the intersection between memory and mythology—images that feel suspended between dream and recollection. I’m also developing a documentary that investigates the identity of poet / painter / art critic and arbiter of taste my god father and mentor Rene Ricard
A quote you live by?
“Beauty will save the world.” — Dostoevsky.
Beauty not as decoration, but as a force that demands attention and care.
A space you return to time after time?
The sea—always.
And Sicily: the light there is unlike anywhere else. There’s a weight to the air, and the history seeps into the skin. It’s a place where the past feels very alive, and I find that creatively nourishing.
What does the word ‘real’ mean to you?
Something that leaves a mark—on your body, your memory, your intuition. It’s not always visible, but it lingers.
What defines your reality?
How I see—through intuition, through the filter of dreams and emotions. My reality is shaped less by facts and more by symbols and tone.
An illusion you’d like shattered?
That clarity comes from knowing everything. Sometimes, it comes from surrendering to not knowing.
Where is it that you most feel like you belong?
In spaces that hold contradictions. Sicily holds a kind of sacred chaos—decay and beauty existing in the same breath. That speaks to me.
Your favorite neighborhood?
The West Village in New York in the time I grew up so 90’s – 2000 —it holds a quiet defiance.
But there are villages in Sicily, too—stone houses on hillsides, lemon trees pushing through rusted fences—my traffic has become a flock of goats and sheep instead of taxis this is where I feel a deep sense of ancestral connection.
What holds the most power to alter your perceptions?
The magic of art when it acts as a confirmation from
The universe that you’re on the right path .
Other artists sense of humor and generosity of spirit
Stillness And light—how it touches a wall at dusk.
Something for now obscure or intangible that you’d most like to know?
The moment when memory becomes mythology. When the truth becomes a story we carry.
The relationship of art with reality, for you?
Art is a reality unto itself. It doesn’t copy the world—it reveals the world’s inner nature. Sometimes, what’s most real only becomes visible once it’s made into art.
What’s the real deal?
Something—or someone—that doesn’t need to announce itself. That exists without explanation, but with presence.