MAGMA No. 3: Archive Of The Future – A Luxurious Odyssey In Contemporary Art

For collectors, aesthetes, and cultural connoisseurs, Magma No. 3: Archive of the Future arrives as a landmark in contemporary luxury publishing. The third edition of Magma—a bilingual (French/English) volume spanning 388 pages—is a curated convergence of over twenty-five international artists, writers, filmmakers, and composers. Following Magma’s celebrated collaboration with the Centre Pompidou for the Surrealism centenary in 2024, this latest edition deepens its exploration of art as a living archive.

“Hans Ulrich Obrist captures the essence perfectly,” says founder and creative director Paul Olivennes. “Magma is an extraordinary collection of artist archives that helps us invent the future. These archives are not places of certainty, but tools—prototypes for future action and for the world as it could be.”

A Living Archive for a World in Flux

In a moment where the past feels fragmented and the future uncertain, Magma No. 3 interrogates the capacity of art to anticipate what is to come. Olivennes emphasizes, “To choose what we preserve is to choose how we see.” Within this unstable temporal space, Magma constructs an “archaeology of the future,” where yesterday’s and today’s works form the scaffolding of tomorrow’s imagination.

The volume features over 100 previously unpublished works, spanning a range of media and sensorial experiences:

• Elizabeth Peyton: Continues her metaphysical exploration of portraiture, compressing art history into the intimate terrain of the human face.
  
• Precious Okoyomon: Offers a poetic and botanical insert—a sachet of cosmos seeds paired with original poems.
  
• Stephan Crasneanski: Reveals the cinematic and personal archives of Jean-Luc Godard, with accompanying text by Patti Smith, documenting the filmmaker’s radical archival renunciation.
  
• Charles Ray: Presents five dawn recordings from Los Angeles walks, merging conceptual drift with lyrical introspection.
• Pol Taburet: Explores Ultra Half Negro Symbolism, transforming black from color to primal syntax.
  
• Merry Alpern: Revisits Dirty Windows, her once-controversial documentation of Wall Street nightlife, now an iconic cultural artifact.
  

Other remarkable contributions include Michelangelo Pistoletto’s mirror paintings, Jonas Mekas’ Fluxus Polaroids, and immersive olfactory experiences designed by Sissel Tolaas, all offering a multi-sensory engagement with art.

Luxury Meets Cultural Legacy

Magma’s partnership with Bottega Veneta reinforces the publication’s status as a collectible luxury object. Beyond its exquisite print design, the volume operates as an aesthetic manifesto—an invitation to experience art across time, medium, and discipline.

Complementing the publication, exclusive exhibitions are scheduled in London at TRAMPS gallery (October 13, 2025) and in Paris at FORMA, 127 rue de Turenne, Marais (October 19–November 19, 2025), where original works from the volume are displayed.

Global Distribution and Collectability

Archive of the Future is distributed across over 35 countries in high-end bookstores, museum shops, concept stores, and selected hotels, including prestigious locations like the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Fondation Louis Vuitton, MoMA, and major art fairs such as Art Basel, Frieze New York, and Design Miami. This ensures collectors worldwide can access Magma’s groundbreaking vision.