A gap year often breaks from chronological understandings of how life should be organised and lived. An education. A job. A home. A family. And after all that, fulfillment?

This week, 'gap year' invites us to stay with the process, mobilising the many slippages between phenomena, fields of inquiry, and at a fundamental level, time and space. How can a work of contemporary art gesture to gaps in art history? A curatorial unpacking of a Cecily Brown showcase at the Barnes Foundation asks hard questions about how we might meaningfully engage with large institutional collections. During Hong Kong Art Week 2025, as the art market contended with economic uncertainty, it welcomed a new generation of millennial and Gen Z buyers. While eye-popping sales figures

are hard to come by, transaction volumes remain robust, as buyers look to invest in more affordable art. Italian director Paolo Sorrentino's installation at Salone del Mobile.Milano gives form to the anguish of waiting, attempting to transform a lack of certainty into restful limbo. 'Broot - Dialogues from Within' at Milan's Fuorisalone combines Portuguese stone with softer natural forms in a convergence of design and ecology.

A 'gap' suggests a spatio-temporal interruption – a void, a chasm between the here and now, and what comes after. To build on poet Robert Burns' lines, if our best-laid plans go awry, perhaps we might turn our attention to their unraveling?