ISSUE
50
architecture interiors design culture
THE NIRVANA ISSUE
modern luxury.
Style Variation 16, (2019), by artist Derrick Adams
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NO 5 0 : THE NIRVANA ISSUE
8. M A S T H E A D 10 . C O N T R I B U T O R S 16 . S T I L L L I F E Los Angeles art director and animator Debora Cheyenne Cruchon walks the line between digital and analogue.
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BULLETIN 26.
FIRST LOOK Contemporary art gallery Winston Wächter brings cutting-edge design into high-art spaces with its 2020 series showcasing the revolutionary work of three rising LA creatives.
3 0.
INTEL The Seattle Asian Art Museum’s modern addition, Toronto’s latest international home décor boutique, Luzli’s collapsible headphones, and other goings-on in the world of design.
F I E L DWO R K
3 8 . O B J E C T S O F D E S I R E Kitchens and bathrooms are the workhorses of every home, but you can be both practical and adventurous with these playful products. 48.
STUDIO VISIT OMFGCO cofounders Fritz Mesenbrink and Jeremy Pelley push past creative boundaries in both their own work and their clients’ projects.
5 4 . S E A L O F A P P R O V A L Native Alaskan artist Nicholas Galanin uses his art to fight cultural erasure.
on the cover
Style Variation 16, (2019) by Derrick Adams. Courtesy Derrick Adams, Luxembourg & Dayan, New York/London, and Salon 94, New York. Photographed by Christopher Garcia Valle SEE PAGE 66
tents 82
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BACKGROUND CHECK The Farnsworth House, in Plano, Illinois, adds a new layer to its history by exploring the life and times of its pioneering first resident, Dr. Edith Farnsworth.
6 0.
OPINION Why are some art spaces so physically hostile?
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POWER Taller Ken may be a young firm, but the international architecture studio is already directly investing in the next generation of designers.
N I R VA N A 66.
76.
82.
PARTY POLITICS New York artist Derrick Adams is asserting the joyousness of black creation and representation in art—one exuberant canvas at a time. CASE STUDY Interior and textile designer Michelle Dirkse’s creative force is at play even in her own print-opulent home. HIDDEN GEMS Five Los Angeles designers reveal the city’s best-kept secrets.
APPENDIX 90 .
CHECKING IN Noteworthy hoteliers and restaurateurs pushing the proverbial design envelope.
94 .
AGENDA A global calendar of goings-on in the worlds of architecture, culture, and design.
98 .
OBSESSION Texas antiques dealer Steve Wiman loves the irony—and silent stories—of his stone book collection.
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CONTRIBUTORS
CHRISTOPHER DIBBLE (“Rule Breakers,” page 48) is a Portlandand Los Angeles–based photographer. His work has appeared in Architectural Digest, Spain, W, Time, and Paper Magazine, among other publications. He is the creator and curator of Stockpiler, a creative community for textile artists. LAUREN GALLOW (“House Call,” page 58) is a Seattle-based writer and editor and a former Olson Kundig marketing coordinator. Her work has appeared in Seattle Met and ARCADE, among other publications. She has an MA in the history of arts and architecture from the University of California, Santa Barbara. HARIS KENJAR (“Case Study,” page 76) is an interior design and architecture photographer based in Seattle. His work has been published in Dwell, Dezeen, Interior Design Magazine, and GRAY, among other publications.
BEHIND THE LENS CHRISTOPHER GARCIA VALLE is a New York photographer whose work has appeared in Vice, Surface, OUT, and GRAY, among other publications. He captured the Baltimore-born, New York–based multidisciplinary artist Derrick Adams at his Brooklyn studio for our cover story, “Party Politics,” on page 66. Below, Valle recounts his experience shooting Adams. “MY IMPRESSION OF DERRICK ADAMS WAS THAT HE WAS HAPPILY BUSY. Much of his work was on display in his studio, and his assistants were busy getting works ready for Basel and various exhibitions. “I wanted to highlight the fragmented nature of Derrick’s work, and how his collage pieces become whole narratives. I enjoyed exploring the intimate connection Derrick has with his subject matter, and I wanted to capture that relationship visually. Derrick was a very active participant. For a few frames, he wore the same paper party hat that he uses in his installation We Came To Party and Plan. “I keep a small film camera on me, which acts as a visual journal. After the shoot, I discussed this with Derrick and asked if he would take a selfie using the film camera. It was a fun exchange activated by both of us, and I’m very happy with how it turned out.”
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JILLIAN STEINHAUER (“No Rest for the Weary,” page 60) is a journalist and editor who writes about the intersection of art and politics. She has contributed to the New York Times, the Nation, CNN.com, and Guardian US, among other publications. In 2014, she won the Best Art Reporting award from the US chapter of the International Association of Art Critics. She lives in Brooklyn. JESSE TREECE (“No Rest for the Weary,” page 60) is a self-taught collage artist who reconstructs illustrations found in vintage magazines and books. He lives in the greater Seattle area. MICHAEL WILSON (“Party Politics” page 66) is an independent writer and editor. His work has appeared in Art Monthly, Artforum, Contemporary, and the Wire, among other publications, and he has contributed to exhibition catalogues published by Art in General, the Venice Biennale, and Lisson Gallery. He is based in Brooklyn. AMANDA ZURITA (“Case Study,” page 76 ) is a writer and former editor-in-chief at Seattle Met Bride & Groom. Her work has appeared in GRAY, Seattle Met, and Seattle Magazine, among other publications. She is based in Seattle.
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G R A Y AWA R D S
Design’s Night Out ON NOVEMBER 20, 2019, we celebrated Pacific Northwest design at the third annual GRAY Awards Party, held at the National Nordic Museum in Seattle. Each award announcement was accompanied by video and commentary from our renowned judges, and every victory was punctuated with streamers, champagne, and a custom-designed trophy by glass artist John Hogan. The GRAY Band of Designers kicked off the evening, followed by a can-can performance, a flash mob reveal of the GRAY Awards issue, and a dance party led by Bamboo Beats. Thank you to everyone who purchased tickets—50 percent of proceeds were donated to the Block Project, which assists unsheltered people in Seattle. See you again next year!
Thank you to our sponsors, partners, and volunteers: YVES BÉHAR, F OU N D ER, F U S E P R O J E C T ; RAFAEL DE CÁRDENAS, F O U N D E R , RAFAEL D E C ÁRD EN AS / A R C H IT E C T U R E A T LA RG E; JOHANNES CARLSTRÖM, FO UN D ER, N OT E D ES I G N S T U D IO ; METTE & ROLF HAY, C OF O U N D E R S , H A Y ; PAULA HAYES, ARTI S T; CASSANDRA HOBBINS, VP OF PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT, NSTO ; NICOLE HOLLIS, F O U N D E R , NICO L EHOL L I S ; ANGIE MYUNG & TED VADAKAN, C OF OU N D E R S , P O KE T O ; PATRIK SCHUMACHER, P R IN C IP A L , ZAHA HAD I D ARC HI T EC T S
See more at grayawards.com Photographs by
STILL LIFE
Virtual Reality By CLAIRE BUTWINICK Photograph by DEBORA CHEYENNE CRUCHON
FOR MULTIMEDIA ARTIST DEBORA CHEYENNE CRUCHON, ART CANNOT HAPPEN WITHOUT ENDLESS EXPERIMENTATION. The French-born 28 year old spends her days as an art director at Los Angeles–based production company Buck and her off-hours creating vibrant, ethereal works that range from tubular ceramic sculptures to whimsical digital paintings, each more complex— and more dynamic—than the previous one. Using a dizzying array of media (clay, spray paint,
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Photoshop), Cruchon forms pieces that explore themes of spirituality, ancestry, and environmentalism, each digging into the meaning of the creation process in today’s digital age. “Trying out a new medium is like being in a science lab,” says Cruchon, who earned her degree in animation from Paris’s Gobelins, l’École de l’Image, before moving to LA in 2016. “The discoveries I make through experimentation expand how I see different media and allow me to push them further.”
Informed by weeks of preliminary research on topics such as Afrofuturism and ecological decay, as well as techniques honed with past creations, Cruchon does not see her projects as creative blank slates, but rather as a series of blurrings of the lines between the analogue and digital worlds. “There’s abstraction and mystery in my work,” Cruchon says. “The digital pieces and sculptures are set in an unknown place—a domain of the mind. I try to get at the very small space where viewers can step into the digital.” h
DEBORA CHEYENNE CRUCHON URBAN PANORAMA (2019)
@DEBORA_CHEYENNE
Los Angeles art director and animator Debora Cheyenne Cruchon walks the line between digital and analogue.
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KAREN LA
Goings-on in the world of design.
Vancouver jewelry designer Erica Leal, known for her meticulous 3D-printed and acrylic inlay pieces, is stepping out of her geometric comfort zone with a new limited-edition collection, At Play. Debuted in October 2019, At Play features feminine, one-of-a-kind wirewrapped earrings, floral-shaped pendants, and delicate chain-linked bracelets made without any help from modern technology. “I have a lot of freedom to experiment with forms at a faster pace than with my other line,” Leal says. “When I get tired of carefully cutting and placing colorful pieces of acrylic from my original line, I can take a break and try out a shape I’ve thought of for At Play.” Crafted from hand-molded, malleable wax, cast in silver, and then embedded with tiny gemstones, each piece in the collection is slightly imperfect, showing minute variations that include the occasional impression of Leal’s fingerprints. “At Play is a little more openended than my other work,” she says. “I can make jewelry or an object. It’s a continuous process of exploration.” —Annette Maxon with Claire Butwinick
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FIRST LOOK
BULLETIN
FROM LEFT: Light stacks in artist Matt Gagnon’s Los Angeles
studio; close-up shot of a single light stack. Gagnon uses industrial materials such as concrete, acrylic, and glass.
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Crossed Lines
Contemporary art gallery Winston Wächter brings cutting-edge design into high-art spaces with its 2020 series showcasing the revolutionary work of three rising LA creatives.
By RACHEL GALLAHER
D
DEBATES HAVE LONG RAGED IN THE CREATIVE WORLD OVER WHERE—AND WHETHER—LINES SHOULD BE DRAWN BETWEEN FINE ART AND DESIGN. Does an invisible boundary separate objects from one another, rendering some worthy of display in galleries, and others fit only for our homes? Functionality plays a role in this kind of categorization, of course, but who’s to say that a chair can’t also be a work of art? (The Bertoia chair immediately comes to mind.) As definitions of both art and design broaden, warp, and inevitably overlap, gallerists around the world are opening their doors, and their wall space, to welcome work by creatives who don’t fit easily inside predictable aesthetic borders. This March, Winston Wächter Fine Art, a bicoastal contemporary gallery with spaces in Seattle and New York, becomes the latest to embrace a design-centric approach as it launches a new program dedicated to artists working in media such as textiles, furnishings, and glass. “Winston Wächter has always appreciated how design and fine art live and work together,” says Stacey Winston Levitan, who cofounded the gallery in 1995 with Christine Wächter-Campbell. “Synergy between the two has always existed. Collectors who are interested in fine art also care about furniture, design, and the overall aesthetic of their homes and spaces. Our gallery has shown ceramics and objects and incorporated furniture into our exhibitions since our inception. This series feels like the natural next step in marrying our interests in art and design.” »
COURTESY MATT GAGNON AND WINSTON WÄCHTER FINE ART
GRAY
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FROM TOP: The Calley sconce
Slated for Winston Wächter’s Seattle gallery, the series features three Los Angeles–based artists in turn, starting with Matt Gagnon, whose pieces—ranging from furniture and sculpture to wall installations—appear in London’s flagship Louis Vuitton store, the Four Seasons Seattle, and the W Maldives Resort, among other high-profile locales. It was his work at the new Peter Marino–designed Louis Vuitton store that first caught Levitan’s eye. Several of Gagnon’s signature light stacks—illuminated pillars of layered concrete, pine, ash, acrylic, and LED lighting—command the well of the shop’s double-helix-shaped staircase. “We were instantly drawn to the work,” says Levitan. “Matt himself is an architect and designer, and we connected to his exploration of light and material and the overall design sensibility of his work and process. The complex yet simple elegance of his aesthetic resonates with the gallery and
“Elevating design to a museum setting creates a new context and value for everyday objects.” —STACEY WINSTON LEVITAN
the work we present here.” Gagnon’s show, MATERIAL MEMORIES, which runs from March 14 to May 2, features a selection of his light stacks. “As many as I can pull off in the next few months,” he says with a laugh when asked how many he’ll present. “I use a similar mindset to approach this work as I did when I was an architect. I’m interested in the poetic side of spaces. When you put all these different materials together, it changes the way the light comes through the acrylic. It’s an additive process, an assemblage of parts. All these parts on their own are mundane, but when you put them together, they transform.” He’s assembling the individual stacks in his LA studio and will ship them to Seattle to be arranged in the gallery. “The space will inform the final configuration,” he explains.
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THIS SUMMER, Winston Wächter Seattle will open an exhibition of work from furniture designer Ryan Belli. His fantastical pieces, which merge brilliantly hued forms both organic and alien, reflect the influence of the Haas Brothers, with whom he interned (briefly—he was hired after just three days) while studying product design at Pasadena’s ArtCenter College of Design. The gallery is currently keeping hush about the third exhibition, but it will feature work by a female textile artist, nicely rounding out the trifecta of product design categories. “The gallery has always been a place that has presented interesting and unique work and curated experiences with its audience,” says Levitan, who has personally collected design-related objects for years. “Elevating design to a museum setting creates a new context
and value for everyday objects. In the past 10 years, design fairs and gallery exhibitions have brought attention to many previously unknown artists, artisans, and craftspeople. We think of this series as the logical progression of our mission as an arts center in our community.” h
TIM HANS, COURTESY RYAN BELLI AND WINSTON WÄCHTER FINE ART
FIRST LOOK
and the Shuggie couch by designer Ryan Belli blend whimsy with utility.
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INTEL
BULLETIN
A RC HIT ECT URE
SHORTLY BEFORE IT CLOSED FOR A TWO-YEAR RENOVATION IN 2017, THE SEATTLE ASIAN ART MUSEUM THREW A PARTY AT WHICH GUESTS WERE INVITED TO WRITE ON THE SOON-TO-BE-DEMOLISHED GALLERY WALLS. It was a clever way to bid a final farewell to some of the museum’s cramped, closed-off exhibition spaces. On February 8, the museum, located in the heart of Capitol Hill’s Volunteer Park, reopens with a modern addition designed by LMN Architects that fuses the original 1933 Art Deco– influenced structure with a new, airy, light-filled modern exhibition space. By 2017, the original building, designed by Carl Freylinghausen Gould and Charles Herbert Bebb, needed mechanical and
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electrical updates, a new gallery for temporary exhibitions and South Asian art, educational space, and a conservation studio. “Our goal was to connect the museum more strongly to the community,” says architect Wendy Pautz, a partner at LMN who worked on the project for more than seven years. “The addition, with its large windows overlooking the park, allows people outside a peek inside the museum.” The new three-floor, 13,905-square-foot addition is a contrast to the building’s striking Art Deco façade, but Pautz and architect Sam Miller, another partner at LMN, used neutral-toned precut concrete panels for the exterior to fuse the two volumes into a cohesive whole. During renovation of Fuller Garden Court, the newly light-filled hub that
connects the building’s north and south galleries, as well as the new addition, a previously covered original fountain was restored and reactivated. “There’s historic precedent to the addition,” Miller says. “When we looked at the original drawings, we saw that Gould had outlined several additions, one in the same area where ours is. When you’re working on a historic building, it’s important to understand the reasons behind what [the original architects] were trying to do— not just their materials, but things like daylight and visitor circulation. Those are all key underpinnings that help you understand an architect’s approach.” —Rachel Gallaher
EXTERIOR: TIM GRIFFITH; INTERIOR: ADAM HUNTER/LMN ARCHITECTS
Balancing Act
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Sky Light
Thirty-one years ago, architect Rand Elliott joined the board of City Art Center (now known as Oklahoma Contemporary), a fledgling Oklahoma City institution dedicated to contemporary art and arts education. As the decades have passed, the organization has seen a lot of change—a new name, a new location, and a new building opening on March 13— but, according to Elliott, whose firm, Rand Elliott Architects, designed OC’s new 54,000-square-foot building, “education has always been the top focus.” Oklahoma Contemporary is not a collecting museum, so Elliott’s design emphasizes flexible spaces that can be used for everything from dance perfor-
mances and immersive installations to traditional art-on-the-wall exhibitions. The building also has to be able to withstand the constantly changing Oklahoma weather. “We have everything from strong winds and ice to flooding and 60-degree temperature changes,” Elliott says. “One of the results is really beautiful skies, and we took inspiration from them.” The skin of the building is clad in vertical rows of aluminum fins that reflect the colors of their surroundings. Walking around the building to view the undulating fins from different vantage points changes the visual experience and, says Elliott, “roots it in a strong sense of place.” —RG
R E T AI L
The Chubby desk and stool from Toogood.
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Toronto’s latest home décor boutique, Goodroom, is using retail as a way to break down barriers between local and international design. Helmed by Canadian multidisciplinary designer Jess Anderson, the shop, which opens in February, is as beautifully designed as the products it offers. Anderson outfitted the space, located in the Junction Triangle neighborhood, with elegantly crafted chairs from England, colorful glass art from Copenhagen, and Canadian-designed letter openers. She plans to stock Goodroom with the work of Canadian designers, including Toronto-based Mercury
Bureau, alongside globally regarded names such as Muller Van Severen, Toogood, and HAY. “There’s a massive opportunity to create a movement that embraces not only our own independent designers, but also international design, putting them on a level playing field,” Anderson says. “Canadian design always has an ‘apology’ attached to it, but I want to represent it along with well-known designers [from other countries] and have them all seen as good design, not set in separate categories of Canadian and international design.” —Claire Butwinick
COURTESY TOOGOOD; COURTESY RAND ELLIOTT ARCHITECTS
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Street Style
Before celebrity endorsements, brand collaborations, and industry crossovers dominated the fashion world, American designer Willi Smith (1948–1987) was fostering essential relationships across creative disciplines, including design, music, art, and dance. A pioneer in producing affordable,
TE C H
Modern Classic
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inclusive fashion, Smith launched his wildly popular WilliWear label with partner Laurie Mallet in 1976. More than four decades later, on March 13, 2020, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, opens Willi Smith: Street Couture, the first museum exhibition dedicated to Smith’s life and work.
“Smith was ultimately interested in connecting art with everyday life,” notes the exhibition’s curator, Alexandra Cunningham Cameron. “He did this by using avant-garde means to present and style affordable basics. WilliWear’s models danced down runways to music from composers Jorge Socarras and Peter Gordon among installations by influential video artists like Juan Downey and Nam June Paik. He invited Jenny Holzer, Robert Rauschenberg, Barbara Kruger, Keith Haring, Dondi, and many others to put their work on mass-produced T-shirts—which wasn’t done at the time.” The exhibition—showcasing a selection of photography, video, design drawings, garments, patterns, and ephemera by Smith and his peers—positions him as a free thinker and innovator who pushed the boundaries of fashion and encouraged the wearers of his clothes to cut, modify, and alter the pieces to make them their own. “He was interested in shifting values, in breaking down barriers within a fashion industry that emphasizes class hierarchies, fantasy, and aspirational consumerism,” Cameron says. “He created an elite-feeling product, something well designed and made with care, that was for the masses.” —RG
Flashy gadgetry and tech accessories are rapidly transforming the definition of luxury, but Swiss electronics brand Luzli is supplementing its longstanding dedication to craft with new personal tech influenced by classic opulent watches. Informed by the meticulous work of horology, the new ROLLER MK01 and MK03 foldable headphones are tech-savvy nods to the interlocked links of storied timepieces’ wristbands. “There is something retro about the look,” says Luzli founder and designer Andrew James Lee. “It comes from not jumping on a style bandwagon but following a classic direction of form and function, using premium materials and ensuring quality throughout.”
Crafted by hand from pure silver, premium aluminum, and stainless steel, the MK01 and MK03 each have 11 head-wrapping links that provide exceptional acoustic conductivity. When not in use, the headphones roll up into a bundle for easy storage and transport. And unlike brands that operate under a “designed here but made there” philosophy, Luzli creates its products order by order and in house, with longevity in mind. “We want these to surpass all expectations of durability and endurance,” Lee says. The high-end materials and finely crafted design come with a hefty price tag (the MK03 clocks in at $5,000), but like a fine timepiece, these headphones are an investment for life. —Annie Dahl with CB
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The people, places, and objects in our orbit.
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OBJECTS OF DESIRE
F I E L DWO R K
Created by Ditte Buus Nielsen for Danish furniture label Skagerak, Coquo kitchen tools are the design-forward alternative to mundane kitchenware. Made from FSC-certified, hand-processed oak, the spoons—sold individually or in a set of four at Design Within Reach—protect users from bacteria without compromising their beautiful grain and texture. dwr.com
MAKING A SPLASH
Kitchens and bathrooms are the workhorses of every home, but don’t let their utilitarian function repress your urge for playful design. You can be both practical and adventurous with these options, including an emerald-green refrigerator, a petal-pink washbasin, and geode-inspired bars of soap. By CLAIRE BUTWINICK
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Available in sleek columns ranging from 30 to 48 inches, True Residential’s refrigerators are customized in-house with 48 combinations of powder-coated doors and stainless-steel handles. The 36-inch column, shown here in emerald green with gold-toned hardware, offers more than 25 cubic feet of storage space. true-residential.com
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OBJECTS OF DESIRE
F I E L DWO R K
Last spring, the nearly century-old New York–based Nemo Tile launched the Cadence collection, a series of ceramic tiles in both jewel tones and neutrals, all with subtle color variations inspired by handmade stoneware. Available in rectangular and square cuts as well as special trims, the chemical- and stain-resistant tiles are kitchen and bathroom staples, standing up to even the greatest of messes. nemotile.com
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The sculpturally carved sinks of Kast’s Canvas collection are a welcome addition to the world of bold bath dÊcor. Available in 28 colors and three streamlined styles, the concrete basins echo retro midcentury furniture styles and, despite their high stylization, are minimal enough for any bathroom. kastconcretebasins.com
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OBJECTS OF DESIRE
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Packing a punch with 10 vivid colorways, including Saddle Brown, Seal Grey, and Seaweed Green, the Stockholm-based furniture manufacturer Swoon Studio’s Stone bathroom vanities are, just as the name says, swoon-worthy. Developed by Swedish designer Fredrik Wallner, each playful vanity set is lacquered with humidityproofed MDF board and includes a ceramic lay-on basin that sits atop a smooth marble counter. swoon.se
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Imagined by Germany’s Sieger Design for high-end appliance manufacturer Dornbracht, the newest CL. 1 faucet handles nod to the polished look of architectural glass façades. Made from Swarovski crystal, they’re offered in three finishes, including tricolor knobs with gemlike hues of orange, green, and blue. professional.dornbracht group.com
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OBJECTS OF DESIRE
After four years of product development, the Australian furniture brand Nood Co. has perfected the ultrahigh-performance concrete bathroom sink. Available in 14 finishes, ranging from sand and custard to mint and charcoal, the variously shaped basins (ovals, rectangles, bowls) blend the industrial aesthetic of concrete with the performance of high-quality ceramic. noodco.com.au
French designer Xavier Dupuy took a hint from 20th-century French copperware when creating his contemporized Narcis washbasins. Designed in collaboration with Laurent Basseas for Bassines, the stainless-steel basins merge modern technology with timeless French craftsmanship—each one is finished with physical vapor deposition coating, which makes the metal permanently scratch-resistant. bassines.com
Available in monochromatic and multicolored hues, and scented with natural fragrances such as sweet almond and green tea, Seem Soap’s geode-shaped cleansers are equal parts form and function. Launched in collaboration with French artist and designer Garance Vallée, the vegetablebased bars are inspired by nature’s own colors and rock formations. seemsoap.fr
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dornbracht
Composed of stainless steel and 170 anti-limescale nozzles, Fantini’s first double rain-jet shower, the Acquafit Dream, is the tech-savvy showerhead you didn’t know you needed. It’s equipped with multisensory and environmentenhancing options, such as LED chromotherapy, and users can personalize their shower experience via touchscreen. fantiniusa.com h
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GENERATION NEXT The fifth generation of Chowns are bringing fresh ideas to the hardware industry. By RACHEL GALLAHER LAST YEAR WAS A BANNER YEAR FOR CHOWN HARDWARE. Not only did the company celebrate its 140th anniversary, but the fifth generation of the Chown family underscored its place as one of the most innovative purveyors of luxury kitchen and bath fixtures and lighting in the Northwest and beyond. Founded in Portland (with additional stores in Bellevue, Washington, and most recently Seattle), Chown Hardware stocks a curated collection of architectural hardware, plumbing, and lighting from more than two dozen high-end brands, including Waterworks, Rocky Mountain Hardware, and Dornbracht. In addition to product, Chown has an event space,
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The Eleanor (named after the fifth generation’s grandmother and adjacent to its Portland headquarters), which the company uses to host community-focused events and gatherings for the local design scene, believing that bringing people together fosters innovation, collaboration, and connection. (“She Built This City,” a 2019 panel dedicated to Eleanor, honored women who broke into male-dominated industries). Looking to guide the company through an era with a rapidly changing economy and technologies, Chown’s forwardthinking approach to product (it’s often the first retailer to carry up-to-the-minute innovative pieces) and marketing (last
year’s irreverently themed “Meet Me in the Bathroom” party featured karaoke and a bubble bath–themed photo booth) sets it paces beyond the rest when it comes to brand recognition. “Community is a very strong emphasis for us, and we like to do things in a manner that will be remembered long after an event or a sale,” says marketing manager Nathanael Chown. The new Seattle showroom, designed by Weedman Design Partners and built out by Roberts Group, is sophisticated and modern, making use of materials such as imported Italian tile to give customers a gallery-like experience as they shop. In addition to events, the younger
“EACH GENERATION [OF CHOWN] HAS PUT THEIR STAMP ON THE COMPANY’S HISTORY BOOK. THIS GROUP IS NO DIFFERENT.” —KYLE CHOWN, CEO + PRESIDENT, CHOWN HARDWARE
LEFT TO RIGHT: Dornbracht kitchen faucets; Nathanael Chown, Marketing Manager (left) and Kyle Chown, CEO + President (right); Fantini bathroom
faucet; Classic Brass knobs; Waterworks cabinetry and hardware; innovative design events “She Built The City” panel discussion series and “Meet Me in the Bathroom” after party held during Design Week Portland.
generation of Chowns puts an emphasis on supporting local charities, as giving back is central to the company’s mission statement. For its 140th anniversary, the company worked with a Portland nonprofit, Color Outside the Lines, to invite children in the foster care system to paint a mural on the wall of one of Chown’s office buildings. “Our core values don’t live in a dusty closet somewhere in the building,” says company CEO and president Kyle Chown. “We live them, speak them, and act on them daily. Each generation has put its stamp on the company’s history book. This group is no different. We aren’t looking to make drastic changes,
but we are looking at more and better ways to understand our clients’ needs, wants, and challenges and to give them what they want in a unique and compelling way.”
PORTLAND • SEATTLE • BELLEVUE CHOWN.COM
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STUDIO VISIT OMFGCO cofounders Fritz Mesenbrink (left) and Jeremy Pelley (right) with company mascot, Fritz’s dog Myla.
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F I E L DWO R K
RULE BREAKERS OMFGCO cofounders Fritz Mesenbrink and Jeremy Pelley push past creative boundaries in both their own work and their clients’ projects. Interview by LAUREN MANG Photographs by CHRIS DIBBLE
D
esigners Fritz Mesenbrink and Jeremy Pelley founded their fearlessly bold branding, strategy, and design firm OMFGCO in 2009 while sitting in Pelley’s dining room. A decade later, the Portland-based firm is behind campaigns for big-name companies including Japanese retailer MUJI, Portland’s Stumptown Coffee Roasters, and LA’s Ace Hotels. Looking to the next 10 years, Mesenbrink and Pelley say they’ll relish breaking even more rules, delivering nowhere-near-the-box ideas, and proving that work—even the most routine—doesn’t have to suck.
Where did OMFGCO’s overarching tagline, “We build brands for visionaries,” come from? Fritz Mesenbrink: Four years in, we had a meeting with a hotel brand and presented a concept that we felt solved all their problems. The pushback we got was “No one does this. Why would we do this?” We came back from that meeting so disappointed because we’d wanted them to say the exact opposite. That’s when we realized we wanted clients who were visionaries—willing to do things differently and ask the big questions. We wrote our tagline to challenge our clients and ourselves to always do visionary work and be unafraid to question things. »
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STUDIO VISIT
THIS PAGE: Each of the internal teams at OMFGCO takes turns designing and installing a display for the office windows facing the Burnside Bridge. BELOW: A secret door opens to the stairs leading to the meditation room. OPPOSITE: Spiral stairs lead down from the office’s calming meditation room.
Jeremy Pelley: Something we learned is that you have to vet your clients really hard. We start our new business meetings with questions like “Do we care about this product or service?” or “Do we like the people behind this product or service?” If they check both of those boxes, and it’s something we believe in and feel good about birthing into the world, then we ask about budget, scope, timeline, and so on. But we don’t start there. We start with that feeling. We want to align with things we believe in. That’s got to be a challenge when you’re a young firm. How did you get to the point where you could actually vet clients? FM: Early on, we said yes to a lot more [work] and quickly got to a place where we said yes to too many things. So we looked back at what we shouldn’t have taken on, and which things made us miserable, and that led to [noticing] a lot of red flags in our vetting process. We did a lot of projects early on that timed well with Portland’s growth and national fame, which helped us get into the right conversations. Maybe not immediately, but eventually. It’s a luxurious spot to be able to choose who we want to work with.
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You both worked at Wieden+Kennedy. Why did you decide to go out on your own and cofound your own firm? JP: Literally, Fritz and I were sitting at my dining room table, and we were like, “We should start doing work together and make our current clients, Ace Hotels and Stumptown Coffee Roasters, hire us as a duo.” Then Olympic Provisions approached us and we thought, “Between Olympic, Ace, and Stumptown, we can totally make this happen.” FM: We focused on the joy of collaborating and how the work just grew better, faster. At [Wieden+Kennedy,] we worked all the time and learned a lot, but after a while it wears on you. You don’t have much of a life outside work, and you don’t realize it until after you’ve left. We didn’t want that situation. JP: We’ve learned over the years that it’s not about hours. Who is paying you for the time when you have an idea in the shower that’s likely the idea you’ll use for a campaign? No one. So it’s less about hours and more about output. We try to cultivate a studio that values what matters most, versus hours and butts in seats. It’s not a badge of honor to work more hours; it’s proof that we’re mis-
managing a project. Work doesn’t have to suck. We try to build a lifestyle that we don’t need to escape from. So, let’s talk about that name. FM: It stands for Official Manufacturing Company. We were trying to find a classic generic name—like the kind you’d find on a metal badge on an old piece of furniture. So we started looking at manufacturing companies, and “official” was the most »
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STUDIO VISIT
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Collectible curios; inspirational cups; a bit of nature indoors; humorously titled books and other trinkets collected over the years. OPPOSITE: A relaxed conference room at the back of the studio provides staffers a quiet place to work and read.
generic, most available thing we came up with. JP: When we started getting bigger clients, we realized they loved calling us OMFGCO, not Official Manufacturing Company. FM: Most of them were calling us just OMFG. It’s funny because we didn’t set out to have a meme-sounding Internet name, but it just happened. JP: So we rolled with it, changed our URL to omfgco.com, and never looked back. Have you ever gotten pushback from a client or been told an idea was too out there? FM: It’s all about expectation management. Even if they’ve asked us for something that we’re not going to give them, we address it. But most people hire us because the work we do has honesty to it. So we’re not often fighting anyone.
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JP: It’s part of that vetting process again. If someone is bringing us a bunch of BS to begin with, we won’t even touch it. I like to use a music analogy: our clients are really talented singer-songwriters who have already written some cool songs, and our job is to be an amplifier, to tweak the knobs, strengthen what they’re trying to do, and broadcast it to the people who need to hear it, see it, and feel it. There’s a fidelity that comes with good amplifiers. You say that you operate as a meritocracy—that ideas can come from anywhere. Why does that make for the best working environment? JP: It’s tied to one of our core values, which is that the best idea wins. That means it’s not about Fritz or me being creative directors. We’re not magicians who hold all the secrets. We’re talented and smart, but there are a lot of talented and smart people in this world, and a lot of them are in our studio. And they’re
not all called designers. They’re studio managers or producers. So for us to shut ourselves off to how many great minds are in this studio would be foolish. It would limit us tremendously. Is there one OMFGCO project, past or present, that has a special place in your hearts? FM: The Laylow Hotel [in Waikiki, Hawaii]. It was our first opportunity to do a full interior design for a hotel. We learned so much through that process and felt like we got our master’s degrees in interior design. We tried a lot of things, made a lot of mistakes, and were very happy with the end result. Now whatever project we’re working on is the one that— JP: —we really care about. FM: [Laughs] Yeah, it’s our next chance to figure out how deep we can go as a company. h
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Voice of Resistance SEAL OF APPROVAL
Native Alaskan artist Nicholas Galanin uses his art to fight cultural erasure. By RACHEL GALLAHER NEARLY SIX YEARS AGO, in the summer of 2014, I visited Your Feast Has Ended, an exhibition of the work of three young minority artists (Nicholas Galanin, Nep Sidhu, and Maikoyo Alley-Barnes) who take a no-holds-barred approach to their practice, at Seattle’s Frye Art Museum. Vibrant and ranging across numerous media—carving, painting, clothing design, video, and sculpture— the show addressed communities facing economic and social barriers and investigated issues of power, race, class, ideology, and creative and personal freedoms. A taxidermied gray wolf (actually two wolves sewn together) took the spotlight in the center of the last gallery, its front half intact, head high, paws reaching out as if to drag itself across the floor. Its back half—splayed, immobile, and outlined in scalloped black felt—was a startling visual metaphor for the
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structures that hold us, and society at large, back from progress. Titled Inert (2009), the piece held me in a conflicted grip of fascination and repulsion. It made me feel uncomfortable, as do most pieces that speak to the complex social systems that benefit some (white, cis, middle- and upper-class individuals) while excluding others. I walked around that wolf multiple times and returned to the Frye again and again during the run of the exhibition. Years later, I’m still talking about that wolf, and for its creator—Sitka, Alaska–based multidisciplinary artist Galanin—that’s the point. “I’ve had people become upset when faced with these kinds of conversations, but I’m not concerned with that at all,” Galanin said to me across the table at a Seattle coffee shop last November. His wife, Merritt Johnson, sat between us with their eight-month-old son, At Tugáni,
snuggled in a baby wrap. We’d been talking about the under-discussed cultural and actual genocide of Native Americans as a result of white colonization and hegemony. “For me, this [work] is about empowering our community, our next generations, and getting into spaces where we’re not generally accepted or even allowed to be. Once I get into a space [such as a museum], it’s important to not change my practice in order to ‘fit into’ it. These spaces need to change; we don’t.”
FROM LEFT: Let Them Enter Dancing and Showing Their Faces—Sister (2018), ink, paper, and gold leaf; Imaginary Indian (Totem) (2016), wallpaper, paint, and wood. BELOW: I Think It Goes Like This (2012),
carved wood and paint. All works by Nicholas Galanin.
The 40-year-old Galanin, who is of Tlingit/Unangan (Aleut) descent, is part of a growing group of younger Native American creatives both reclaiming Native art and redefining what being a Native artist can mean. He’s produced art, including jewelry, woodwork, sculpture, and music, for more than two decades, performing under the names Silver Jackson and Indian Nick and cofounding HomeSkillet Records in 2006, but it’s the past few years that have launched him into the international spotlight. Two of his works—the large wall textile White Noise, American Prayer Rug and the inkand-gold-leaf print Let Them Enter Dancing and Showing Their Faces— Shaman (both 2018)—were included in the Whitney Biennial last summer, the former of which critiques American politics, contemporary society, and the growing acceptance of intolerance and xenophobia. He and eight other artists asked to pull their work from the show
to protest the presence of Warren B. Kanders (owner of Safariland, which manufactures tear-gas canisters and other weapons used against protestors around the world) on the Whitney’s board. Kanders resigned several days later, and Galanin chose to remain in the exhibition. He said that the decision to stay, and in fact his decision to participate in the biennial in the first place, was a conflicted one, but ultimately he chose to fight against erasure of Native artists in prestigious institutions. “We have to show up when and where we can,” he said. “Erasure is such a common [topic of] conversation in indigenous communities, which are actively ignored. To show up now is an honor to everybody who came before me and everyone who will come after me.” Growing up in Sitka, Galanin had a line of artistic mentors, learning woodcarving and jewelry-making from his father and uncle. Yet he also grew to »
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F I E L DWO R K LEFT: Operation Geronimo (2013), silkscreen. BELOW: Inert (2009), taxidermied wolf hides and
SEAL OF APPROVAL
felt. Both by Nicholas Galanin.
recognize the legacy of misrepresentation of indigenous art by non-Native people. In fact, until recently, much work passed off as “Native” or “Native-inspired” was not created by Native people, but instead appropriated imagery for profit that never reached Native communities. Galanin’s work, in contrast, speaks to the importance of supporting Native artists creating their own authentic work. His practice combines traditional craft (such as intricately carved silver bracelets) with harsh criticism of white-dominated culture and even macabre images—a pair of rape-whistle earrings, for example, offers chilling commentary on the disproportionate numbers of Native women who experience sexual trauma, violence, and murder. “I started with our culture’s visual language as a foundation for my work and a way to understand my history and my
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family,” he said. “I’ve long had an issue with how outside communities engage with our work, how our culture and history are often stereotyped, commodified, romanticized, and heavily contaminated by western anthropology. My art has always been my biggest voice of agency, the most powerful tool at my disposal.” It’s a tool that he continues to hone. In addition to the Whitney Biennial, in 2019 Galanin showed with Jeffrey Deitch and Gagosian at Art Basel Miami Beach, announced his representation by Peter Blum Gallery in New York, and appeared on numerous Top Ten Artists of the Decade lists. This March, he presents work at the 22nd annual Biennale of Sydney in Australia—a country whose history, much like America’s, is rooted in claims of European “discovery” and ensuing violence toward Aboriginal peoples. It’s a history that Galanin plans to confront with a
40-foot-tall sculpture of Captain James Cook in Sydney’s Hyde Park—the biennial coincides with the 250th anniversary of Cook’s arrival in the country. The working title, Shadows on the Land, A Bush Burial, expresses Galanin’s plan to dig an archeological excavation of the ground in the shape of the Cook monument. His fourand-a-half-minute video Tsu Heidei Shugaxtutaan, Part I (We Will Again Open This Container of Wisdom That Has Been Left in Our Care; 2006) is also on the biennial’s schedule. Also on deck for 2020 is participation in the American Academy of Arts and Letters Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts, a new project and band called Indian Agent, and several other ventures that are currently under wraps. In an art market dominated and driven by the interests of white men (and thus inherently racist), it takes courage for artists, especially minority artists, to be themselves. Yet, as Galanin noted of his own decision to pursue a career in art, it’s also empowering. “It’s a special thing because you can shape how the world is listened to or experienced. I don’t create from a reactionary standpoint—my work is a reflection of the reality that I, and many others, have faced through the years. Some people are actually starting to listen.” h
Nicholas Galanin, Things Are Looking Native, Native’s Looking Whiter (2012), giclÊe print.
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F I E L DWO R K E DI TH FA RN SW O RTH ’S C O U N TRY H O U SE Mar. 31-Dec. 31
BACKGROUND CHECK
Plano, Illinois farnsworthhouse.org
Dr. Edith Farnsworth (left) on the steps of her Ludwig Mies van der Rohe– designed weekend house in 1951, shortly after its completion.
House Call The Farnsworth House, in Plano, Illinois, adds a new layer to its history by exploring the life and times of its pioneering first resident, Dr. Edith Farnsworth, in a nine-month-long exhibition.
WHEN I WAS STUDYING ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY IN GRADUATE SCHOOL AT UC SANTA BARBARA, THE FARNSWORTH HOUSE—A ONE-ROOM WEEKEND RETREAT IN PLANO, ILLINOIS—WAS A CONSTANT PRESENCE IN MY 20TH-CENTURY DESIGN SEMINARS. Completed in 1951 by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the Farnsworth House has become a modern design icon, on par with watershed projects such as Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater. The glass-walled structure revolutionized design by putting its interiors on full display, further cementing Mies in the annals of architectural history, but the client behind the project—the enigmatic Dr. Edith Farnsworth (1903–77)—is often overshadowed by her own home. Now she finally is getting her due as the subject of a new exhibit opening in March, Edith Farnsworth’s Country House, which for
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the first time interprets the home’s interior as Dr. Farnsworth occupied it. Born and raised in Chicago, Farnsworth was an accomplished physician in her early 40s when she met Mies at a dinner party in 1945 and commissioned him to design a getaway house on a plot of land she had purchased in rural Plano, along the Fox River. “Dr. Farnsworth was a risk-taker,” says Nora Wendl, associate professor of architecture and planning at the University of New Mexico whose forthcoming book, Glass, is the culmination of nearly two decades of research on Farnsworth. “She bought an experimental piece of land and hired an experimental architect to design her house on it. Here was a woman who not only made advances in medicine—she was the first to run clinical trials on the synthetic hormone ACTH in treatment of the kidney disease nephritis, and some have argued she should have been nominated for a Nobel Prize for it—but who also desired to be a
COURTESY DAVID DUNLAP
By LAUREN GALLOW
patron of the arts, to participate socially and culturally in the women of her time could only imagine. And yet she’s lived in modern movement. And she certainly did.” Mies’s shadow for the last 75 years.” Farnsworth, who was unmarried and pursued a career in Through the new exhibit, visitors to the Farnsworth House medicine after abandoning her earlier dream of becoming a will get a clearer picture of the complex, intellectually accomconcert violinist, bucked societal expectations in more ways plished woman who gave Mies his first successful private than one. The Farnsworth House reflects her free-spirited, US commission, essentially launching his American career. wholly modern attitude. “This was a radical project for the Running for nine months, the exhibition, developed in conjunc1950s,” Wendl says. “This was a society that did not embrace tion with the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s “Her women who chose to focus on their careers instead of reproducTurn” campaign, completely restages the house and includes tion. And yet Mies designed for Dr. Farnsworth a house of her programming exploring Farnsworth’s life and times. “It’s own, with no walls, where she could live as she wished and pursue her passions “She didn’t marry or have children, she smoked and drank, she loved music during her time off from work.” Although visitors have to date seen the and poetry and world travel—she ‘self-actualized’ in ways that many women of her time could only imagine. And yet she’s lived in Mies’s shadow house only as its second owner, develfor the last 75 years.” —SCOTT MEHAFFEY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, FARNSWORTH HOUSE oper Lord Peter Palumbo, staged it—with Miesian furniture placed according to the architect’s original intentions—Farnsworth lived in the space about restoring a piece of history,” says interior architect Rob quite differently. Contemporaneous photographs reveal that she Kleinschmidt, who has sourced original historic furnishings, rejected Mies’s ascetic interior plans, instead selecting her own including a pair of low-slung Jens Risom maple lounge chairs furnishings, which were largely Scandinavian modern pieces with basket-woven webbing and a glass-topped white-steel and likely purchased from Baldwin-Kingrey, the first store in Florence Knoll coffee table like those Farnsworth owned. Chicago to sell midcentury modern furniture to the public. “Edith was an exceptional person whose role as a client and Farnsworth’s domestic life was layered with colorful, textural patron helped shape the course of American architecture,” items: her violin, her typewriter, her books, and even her Mehaffey says. Wendl agrees: “She was a real fighter. Not only ashtrays and her bounding black poodle, Amy, reflected her did she hire an avant-garde architect, one she wasn’t afraid to love of the arts and filled her open-plan home with energy. litigate against when the house’s costs became exorbitant, but “Dr. Farnsworth was an individualist, an iconoclast, and a she also went to court against the county a few years later, when fully developed modern woman,” says curator Scott Mehaffey, they tried to seize her land. History needs to acknowledge more executive director of the Farnsworth House. “She didn’t marry women like Edith: women who wouldn’t agree to be invisible but or have children; she smoked and drank; she loved music and instead actively worked to become forces to contend with.” h poetry and world travel—she self-actualized in ways that many
HB-14490-U, CHICAGO HISTORY MUSEUM, HEDRICH-BLESSING, COLLECTION , © CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Located in rural Plano, Illinois, the one-room Farnsworth House was designed and constructed by Mies between 1945 and 1951.
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F I E L DWO R K
No Rest for the Weary OPINION
Why are some art spaces so physically hostile? By JILLIAN STEINHAUER Artwork by JESSE TREECE ONE OF THE BEST ART EXHIBITIONS I SAW LAST YEAR WAS PHENOMENAL NATURE: MRINALINI MUKHERJEE. The retrospective at the Met Breuer in New York introduced US audiences to the Indian artist’s masterful biomorphic fiber sculptures. Their dramatic impact (they are large, textured, and often richly colored) was heightened by an unusual exhibition design: a hanging gray curtain wound through the gallery, serving as a backdrop for strategically grouped works, while a matching path led viewers around the floor. The show was almost free of wall text. Proceeding through Phenomenal Nature felt like a journey of discovery—and by its end, I had discovered two important things: I love Mukherjee’s work, and the Met had neglected to provide a single chair or bench for visitors in the entire show. The second observation was dispiriting but not exactly surprising. I often go to a museum or gallery only to find nowhere to sit down within view of the art, which might include videos that run upward of five minutes. When seats are available, they most often take the form of a single, hard, backless bench with room for about three people. In those moments, I wish I could conjure one of the artist Shannon Finnegan’s roomy, bright blue, custom-made museum benches bearing text that reads, “This exhibition has asked me to stand for too long. Sit if you agree.” Why are some art spaces so physically hostile? This is a question that delves far beyond comfort into what the American Alliance of Museums identifies as issues of diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion. But discomfort is part of the picture—in a way, it’s a microcosm of a larger problem. If I, a straight, cis, white female art critic, albeit one with a bad back, can’t rest easy in art institutions, then who can? The nature of American museums has changed greatly in the past half century. Writing in the journal Daedalus in 1999, longtime museum administrator Stephen E. Weil summarized this shift as the ongoing evolution of an “establishment-like institution focused primarily “[Ablenationalism is] the way that able-bodiedness inward on the growth, care, and study of its is made to seem natural, unmarked, and intrinsic to collection” into “a more entrepreneurial institution the imagination of US that . . . will have shifted citizenship and culture.” —KEVIN GOTKIN, ARTIST AND RESEARCHER its principal focus outward to concentrate on providing a variety of primarily educational services to the public.” In other words, museums have relatively new identities as public-facing social spaces, which helps explain their slowness to adapt to people’s, rather than objects’, needs. There are other reasons for the inhospitable nature of institutional space. Many art organizations represent a unique intersection of massive wealth, reverence for sleek appearances, and vestiges of outdated ideas about highbrow, “civilizing” culture. They lack diverse staff. They’re often
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designed by architects who continue to view accessibility as an afterthought. (In one recent high-profile example in New York City, Steven Holl Architects designed a $41.5 million new public library with terraced stacks, some of which are not accessible by way of the building’s sole elevator; a senior partner at the firm insisted that this was not “a flaw in the design” but rather “an evolution.”) And they exist within a society that subscribes to what disability scholars call “ablenationalism,” which was explained by artist and researcher Kevin Gotkin, who cofounded the activist group Disability/Arts/NYC, in the Avery Review as “the way that able-bodiedness is made to seem natural, unmarked, and intrinsic to the imagination of US citizenship and culture.” All these factors have consequences. According to the National Endowment for the Arts’ 2017 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, only 6.6 percent of visitors to art museums and galleries were people with disabilities— representing only about half of the US population with disabilities (12 percent). Another NEA study, in 2015, found that for people with disabilities, “difficulty getting to the location was a noteworthy barrier” to attending exhibits, even those they wanted to see. The mainstream art world is a province of the privileged, but art is made by and for everyone. It can give us pleasure and radically alter how we understand the world. Viewers with disabilities deserve equal access to such experiences. And if designers begin to plan galleries and museums with and for these viewers, the rest of us will benefit, too. h
TO THE TRADE IN THE SEATTLE DESIGN CENTER dfgseattle.com
F I E L DWO R K
Two-Way Street Taller Ken may be a young firm, but the international architecture studio is already directly investing in the next generation of designers. By RACHEL GALLAHER
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ARCHITECTS INÉS GUZMÁN MENDEZ AND GREGORY KAHN MELITONOV, founders of the international firm Taller Ken, met in 2010 while both were working at the Genoa office of Pritzker Prize–winning architect Renzo Piano. As members of the architectural design team for the Whitney Museum of American Art and the headquarters building for the High Line, Guzmán Mendez and Melitonov had more than enough work and travel to fill their days, but despite their involvement in some of the world’s most renowned architectural projects of the time, the duo wanted something more. Gathering a group of young employees from Piano’s office, they planned an artistic intervention in an area of Genoa
that Melitonov describes as “forgotten, with a bridge that was a bit of urban blight.” The group strung a laundry line under an elevated highway overpass and hung it with nearly 500 hand-painted T-shirts. It was a simple installation, but it touched on multiple ideas that interested Guzmán Mendez and Melitonov, from community and collaboration to ways that design can stimulate wide cultural conversations. “A lot of people have an interest in architecture but don’t have an easy access point to it,” Melitonov says. “They see it as something very high-end that requires a lot of money and knowledge to access or understand. We try to provide a way for people to participate in the discussion, to layer more voices into and
MARCELO GUITTEREZ
POWER
Playa Chomo, the first project by Taller Ken’s FUNdaMENTAL Design Build Initiative, was a temporary installation in the center of Guatemala City.
MARCELO GUITTEREZ; ANDRES GARCIA LACHNER
FROM TOP: Children playing at Barrio Gerona, a project focused on rehabilitating a defunct rail depot in Guatemala City. For the Parque O2 intervention, Taller Ken used colorful bamboo poles to enliven the pathways of an underused park in San José, Costa Rica. Both projects were designed and built through the FUNdaMENTAL Design Build Initiative.
encourage more dialogue around the design process.” Guzmán Mendez and Melitonov might not have known it back when they were stringing shirts along the overpass, but they were setting down the roots of their future architectural practice. After their contracts with Piano’s office ended, Guzmán Mendez, who is from Guatemala, asked Melitonov for advice regarding design opportunities she had back home. The two realized how well they worked together and that their values and design approaches aligned, so they decided to formalize a practice. Launched in 2013, Taller Ken is based in three countries, with team members in Guatemala City; San José, Costa Rica; and New York City. The firm’s first project was the renovation of a single-story concrete-block building in Guatemala City for the menswear brand Saúl E. Méndez. Since then, it has completed more than two dozen projects in its signature playful style and bright range of colors. In 2016, the firm launched the FUNdaMENTAL Design Build Initiative—a project that invites 10 early-career or student architects and designers from around the world to further develop their skills by working on a project for three months in Costa Rica or Guatemala. “The initiative was a direct result of a building competition we had entered in Guatemala that we didn’t win,” Melitonov says. “We wasted thousands of dollars on the process. If we had just
taken the money and gone out and built something ourselves, that would have been a much better use of the money.” After crowdsourcing nearly $10,000, Guzmán Mendez and Melitonov rented out a youth hostel around the corner from their Guatemala office, borrowed a fleet of bikes from a nearby cycling shop, and convinced several companies to donate raw materials. The 10 participants hailed from countries around the world and lived together in the hostel while working with Taller Ken to plan a project that would enrich the community where they were staying. The result, Playa Chomo (Connection Beach), was a temporary installation at the base of the Centro Cultural Miguel Ángel Asturias, a green-
space in central Guatemala City that contains the national theater. A large arch made from thousands of meters of colorful elastic ribbon, Playa Chomo reactivated a disused space and educated the participants about the importance of civic and cultural renewal, as well as giving them all skills in negotiation, collaboration, and problem-solving. “We’re learning on the fly from the kids as much as they are learning from us,” Guzmán Mendez says. She and Melitonov aim to keep the brainstorming and design process as equitable as possible because they believe that “anyone can bring a great idea to the table, no matter how young they are or how much experience they have.” h
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Architecture: MW Works Builder: Dovetail Photo: Kevin Scott
NIRVANA
KAREN LA
Derrick Adams expands black representation in art, Michelle Dirkse embraces a bold, multilayered aesthetic, and a handful of Los Angeles creatives share their favorite design destinations.
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party politics
New York artist Derrick Adams is asserting the joyousness of black creation and representation in art—one exuberant canvas at a time. By MICHAEL WILSON Portrait by CHRISTOPHER GARCIA VALLE
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Artist Derrick Adams in his Crown Heights studio. On the walls hang pieces from the forthcoming We Came to Party and Plan installation.
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I arrived for our morning interview, in November 2019, before the artist did, but activity already buzzed throughout the long white room as his assistants began their day’s work. The space is a new one for Adams—he’d moved here in summer 2019, following a stint at the Rauschenberg Residency on Florida’s Captiva Island—but it’s close to his previous studio, and his home. Baltimore-raised Adams and I had met once before, in 2010, when he was an early Fountainhead Resident in Miami. He’s been back to the Florida city often since then, and when we spoke last fall, he was planning yet another visit, this one for December’s Art Basel Miami Beach jamboree. “I’ll be DJing inside Mickalene Thomas’s Better Nights installation at the Bass museum,” he explained. “I like to have fun and be a part of other people’s things. It feels good not to be the main person sometimes—it feels great, actually!” Being the center of attention is something that Adams has had to get used to in recent years. Over the past decade, he’s racked up an impressive list of exhibitions and projects, and he has yet another packed year in sight. “I teach at Brooklyn College now in addition to making work,” he says, “so I’m pretty busy.” He’s now on the roster at New York gallery Salon 94, which corepresents him with Luxembourg & Dayan in New York, and he’s been with Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago since 2014. This March, he presents Buoyant, a solo exhibition at the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, which includes works from his multiyear series Floaters alongside a new installation, We Came to Party and Plan, in a second gallery in the museum. He’s also undertaking a curatorial intervention, conferring with HRM curator Laura Vookles on which pieces from the museum’s permanent collection will be exhibited in other areas
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of the museum during the show. Adams, whose Floaters depicts African Americans happily adrift in the blue expanses of swimming pools, takes a strikingly optimistic approach in his work, refusing to diagnose or underscore current or historical sociopolitical issues; instead, his aim is to expand what’s expected from a black artist and black subjects: not tragedy but delight. Adams aims to present the black figure in a relaxed context, one that most viewers aren’t used to seeing, and to eschew references to historical painting traditions. “I wanted to do something reflective of how people feel and exist now,” he stressed. “Most of the things I make are based on observing things, figuring out what’s missing, and seeing what I can contribute.” The men and women in Floaters, a series he began in 2015, are clad in colorful swimsuits and lounge in cool azure spaces that represent both water and freedom from boundaries. A key aspect of the series, and of Adams’s work more broadly, is a concern with setting. He’s immersed himself in what he calls “urban suburbia,” a milieu common in Baltimore, a town dotted with “neighborhoods that can feel like they’re not in the city but are still part of its structure.” Thinking about the roles that public and private pools play in this setting, and aiming to empower viewers by depicting the black figure as self-possessed and playful, Adams remains aware of an underlying dissonance: “There are still obstacles for communities of color.” Although viewers might perceive didactic messages in his work, Adams doesn’t disregard the intelligence of his audiences, either. “I’m always thinking about the nonartist, the person who is not necessarily invested in the same ideals that I am,” he »
COURTESY DERRICK ADAMS
DERRICK ADAMS’S STREET-LEVEL STUDIO IN THE CROWN HEIGHTS NEIGHBORHOOD OF BROOKLYN IS SURROUNDED BY AUTO-REPAIR SHOPS AND TAXI GARAGES, AND EVERY FEW MINUTES A TRAIN THUNDERS PAST ON THE ELEVATED TRACK THAT FACES IT.
Style Variation 17, (2019) by Derrick Adams.
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COURTESY PRIMARY GALLERY
BLACK WHITE AND BROWN, a 2017 installation by Derrick Adams at PRIMARY arts collective in Miami.
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THIS PAGE AND OPPOSITE: COURTESY DERRICK ADAMS
Head 12 (2012) by Derrick Adams. OPPOSITE: Figure in the Urban Landscape 25 (2018) by Derrick Adams.
says. “As artists, we’re reared to be critical of what we’re observing, but work can be more of an offering than a critique— another perspective on culture that broadens the conversation about purpose and belonging and perseverance.” The idea of community resonates on several levels for Adams. “When I’m with a group of friends,” he says, “I feel privileged to be in a space with radical thinkers and makers.” This feeling led him to create We Came to Party and Plan, the new installation, which situates his portraits in an imagined poolside party room. “It came from thinking about my peer group. We party and plan in the same space, just as the black American church became a place of social engagement as well as radical activity.” What about the curatorial aspect of the upcoming project? I mean to ask how it feels to intervene in the museum’s permanent collection, but another word slips out: interfere. “To interfere! Right!” Adams exclaims with a laugh, responding that he’s still gathering material for his contribution. “I want it to point the viewer in the direction of my other work, to give it context, and I’ve been thinking about key figures who participated in radical social change,” including activists Martin Luther King Jr. and Bayard Rustin and artists Romare Bearden, Faith Ringgold, Adrian Piper, and David Hammons. He notes that the works he’s selecting from the HRM permanent collection are “in the sensibility of representations of leisure and life around water.” Another of Adams’s consistent interests is architecture; I’m struck by his mention of “the relationship between man and monument.” “Figures in urban space have an influence over the architecture around them,” he explains, observing that cities are forced to adapt to the needs of their growing populations. “If the governing society doesn’t support the growth of a community, the community will build for themselves, like the creation of community gardens and farmers’ markets. The way we see each other is a product of the spaces we create and inhabit for ourselves, physically or mentally.” A responsibility that comes with his increased visibility is participation in art fairs: on this winter’s agenda is showing
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with Salon 94 at Frieze Los Angeles in February. I ask how he feels about the art-fair context, one that’s often reviled by artists and visitors for whom the commercial ambiance threatens to overwhelm the viewing experience. “Fairs are about items rather than experiences,” he concedes, “but they can still work if a gallery allows you to present your ideas in a way that’s not so focused on commerce. For Frieze, I’m doing a segment of the Hudson River party room installation, showing works in an interior whose wallpaper graphic features furniture and decorations. Sometimes you have to create a context for your work within the work itself. You have to give a little more.” Warming to his conjoined subjects of optimism and the communal, Adams discusses the black experience in art more broadly. “We’re never going to run out of works that represent oppressive structures, political unrest, or the plight of black America,” he notes. “What we lack is images relating to gains.” As a student of Kara Walker and Coco Fusco at Columbia University in the early 2000s, Adams opted to focus on topics other than colonialism and its brutalities. “I was making work based on my personal lived experiences instead of oppressive histories that I didn’t experience first-hand. I tried to focus on form but was unable to, as my conversation was always steered toward colonialism and the European influence on the black body. I thought there was room for artists who weren’t just responding to hot-button topics.” As we’re winding down the interview, a photographer shouts from across the studio: “So, are we ready to party?” There’s only one possible response. h Frieze Los Angeles runs February 14 to 16, 2020, at Paramount Pictures Studios, Los Angeles. Derrick Adams: Buoyant is on view March 7 to June 14, 2020, at the Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, New York. Co-curated by James E. Bartlett and Laura Vookles.
THIS PAGE AND OPPOSITE: COURTESY DERRICK ADAMS
ABOVE: Inside Derrick Adams’s studio. The three works on the left, Style Variation, are from Adams’s Beauty World series. OPPOSITE: Derrick Adams’s Woman in Charcoal Gray (2016).
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Throughout her Seattle condo, interior designer Michelle Dirkse has peppered in artwork by some of her closest friends and colleagues, including Jeff Gerber’s sculptural glass pyramids on the coffee table and a large, ethereal photograph by Jessa Carter. The black-and-white Sketches wallpaper is a pattern from Dirkse’s collection based on work from Gerber.
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case study
Interior and textile designer Michelle Dirkse’s creative force is at play even in her own print-opulent home. By AMANDA ZURITA Photographs by HARIS KENJAR
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In the entryway, a vintage chandelier, sourced from 1stdibs and rewired at Harold’s Lighting in Seattle, and an oblong mirror from CB2 are minimal additions against the Rorschach-like wallpaper. Vintage chairs, also sourced through 1stdibs, bring a hint of Art Deco glamour to the dining area, and Mya Kerner’s art is the basis for the curtain fabric seen at near left.
Walking into Michelle Dirkse’s home is like stepping into a maximalist’s dream. A mix of rich texture, bold patterns, and saturated color, the interiors are the antithesis of the oftenpraised Northwest minimalism, but are elegant nonetheless. After purchasing a 1960s-era condo in Seattle, Dirkse—whose eponymous interior design firm is known for its sumptuous, layered, and sometimes quirky deliverables—set out to remodel the dated space, embracing a project with no limits (on time or aesthetics) and infinite opportunities to explore the nuances of combining furniture, art, and various design styles into a cohesive, livable space. “When you present clients with samples, it can be so intimidating for them,” she says. “Walking through my home, they can discover how fun—and genuinely livable— bold prints can be.” At the time of the move, Dirkse was in the middle of designing her first collection of wallpaper, textiles, and rugs, so the condo became the ideal testing ground to play with the bold looks. “I never get to do maximalist pattern on pattern, and I want to show clients that that kind of mix doesn’t have to be scary or overwhelming—it actually can be really fun,” she says. For the line, Dirkse reached out to a handful of favored regional artists about a potential collaboration; subsequently she used work from the likes of Dana Mooney and Mya Kerner, among others, to create patterns for the collection. One such pattern—the bold, black-and-white Sketches wallpaper based on work by Seattle artist Jeff Gerber—holds court on the anchor wall in her living room. Minimalist artwork and a lush green velvet custom-designed sofa, opposite a soft petal-pink lounge, provide balance. “Oftentimes, you see solid-colored walls with a more intense painting, so I did just the opposite,” she says. As with the artists chosen for her textile »
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and wallpaper line, Dirkse leans local when it comes to her personal art collection, curating paintings, photographs, and objets from Seattle-area artists, including Jody Joldersma, Mike Duryea, Corrie LaVelle, and Jennifer Gauthier. Peeling back the asbestos popcorn layered over her concrete ceilings revealed an unexpected pattern that works beautifully into the design— a series of black stenciled numbers applied when the home was initially constructed. “It wasn’t exactly my plan to have a concrete ceiling,” she reflects, “but I thought to myself, ‘When am I going to have this opportunity again?’” In the kitchen, Dirkse chose black oak cabinets with a cerused finish that draws out the detail and character of the grain—a dramatic move she has always found hard to sell to clients, who often fear that dark cabinetry will be too harsh. To keep things light and provide a sophisticated tonal contrast, she topped the cabinets with book-matched Dekton Aura countertops from Cosentino. This look carried over to the bathroom, where, true to her predilection for a good quirky element, Dirkse kept the vintage periwinkle tub and added new wall tile with pale pink grout to complement the tub’s unusual hue. In the bedroom, a softly feminine wallpaper from her own line is toned down with the addition of a gothic-style black Anthropologie bedframe that had been on her personal wish list for some time. Ceramic lamps commissioned from local artist Sarah Stokes sit on a set of nightstands she designed and had built at Plank & Grain. “I don’t get to commission lamps from artists I love for every client, so this feels like such a luxury,” she says. “I have a personal relationship behind almost every piece in my home. They’re not just random objects I went shopping for. Everything feels special and has meaning, rather than filling a space just to fill it.” While her home is a shining testament to her work, it’s far from a stark showroom. It feels alive and conversational—and, for Dirkse, altogether complete, with everything in its place. “There’s another thing I tell clients,” she says. “I say, ‘Yeah, you’re going to love the look of your home, but you’re also going to love how it feels to live there.’” Living in a space replete with multiple patterns and eyegrabbing colors might seem jarring to some, but for Dirkse, it’s just another day at the office. Her home is an honest extension of her client work—youthful and fresh without veering into trend-driven territory, it’s a testament that a balanced, maximalist look is actually easy to live with and, once you’ve embraced it, hard to live without. h
THIS PAGE: A nightstand designed by
Dirkse and built by Plank & Grain holds a commissioned lamp by Seattle ceramist Sarah Stokes, while a black bedframe and Lucite-set scorpion bring an electric edge. OPPOSITE: Black kitchen cabinetry serves as proof of concept for client that the moody option can be elegant rather than overwhelming. Open shelving against the Dekton backsplash by Cosentino balances the deep hue.
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Hidden Gems
Five Los Angeles designers reveal the city’s best-kept secrets. As told to CLAIRE BUTWINICK After my most recent trip to LA, I thought I’d seen it all, and flew home convinced that there was little depth beneath the storied city’s glimmering façade. Turns out, I just wasn’t visiting the right places. When I spoke with five LA-based creatives working in various sectors of the design industry—from fashion and product design to architecture— it became clear that the City of Angels was far more than I’d thought, and my preconceptions of the place had barely scratched its surface. From transportive taco joints and quirky vintage retailers to secluded midcentury residences and beautiful rooftops (even on parking garages), Los Angeles isn’t a gilded myth—it’s a diverse and genuine city full of groundbreaking creatives, and hidden gems are scattered among all its world-renowned treasures. You just need to know where to look.
Owl Bureau
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Casa Perfect
DAVID BENJAMIN SHERRY FOR CHANDELIER CREATIVE; PIA RIVEROLA; MARK LAFLAVOR; MARIELLE V CHUA
HOPIE STOCKMAN Cofounder, Block Shop Textiles “Los Angeles is full of architectural contradictions that inspire [me and my cofounder/ sister, Lily Stockman, at right in photo]. We look at Art Deco flourishes on buildings like the Eastern Columbia and the geometric details on Mayan Revival buildings such as Hollyhock House—austere as that space is—and the Mayan Theater downtown. There’s something wild, liberating, and even humorous about the fact that it’s all mashed together alongside swaths of strip malls here in LA. Many LA businesses are still relatively small—mostly bootstrapped, self-financed, and working out of warehouses scattered around the Eastside, so there’s this sense of creative freedom that comes with being right here, right now. I’m loving Owl Bureau [bookstore] in Highland Park. The shop is by Chandelier Creative, and its book selection is as heavenly as its furniture, which was designed by our friend Shin Okuda of Waka Waka. A stop at Hauser + Wirth gallery, followed by lunch at neighboring Manuela, is always an afternoon treat. The Future Perfect’s Casa Perfect [design gallery] in Beverly Hills is stunning and hosts inspiring events. Individual Medley is our favorite local clothing boutique, and it’s a stockist of all things Block Shop! Hostler Burrows gallery recently opened an LA space designed by architect Linda Taalman, another friend.” »
Hostler Burrows
Individual Medley
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ALEXANDRA LOEW Founder and creative director, Alexandra Loew “We have a vibrant museum and gallery scene here. My current favorites are the Nonaka-Hill gallery, the Pavilion for Japanese Art at LACMA, designed by Bruce Goff, and the Institute of Contemporary Art downtown. I also love hiking in this city—it’s a great way to clear my head, tune out the noise, and feel the seasons, which of course shift pretty subtly here, but they’re glorious if you pay attention. I also try to catch everything by the LA Dance Project. The city has a richness that pulses just below the surface that may be overlooked in the fascination with shiny things. Street tacos and salsa dancing are two ways to experience the city’s diversity and creative, joyful expression. I love [antiques showrooms like] JF Chen and Blackman Cruz, but my new go-to is Sonia Boyajian’s shop. She’s a jeweler but just introduced lighting and mobiles. They’re fanciful and refined.”
Blackman Cruz
Nonaka-Hill
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DAVID W ROSS; © MUSEUM ASSOCIATES LACMA
LACMA
AZA ZIEGLER Fashion designer, Calle del Mar “I was in New York for six years before I landed in Echo Park, renting a backhouse from a friend of a friend, and I just fell in love. It’s a wacky community of people who are very much just themselves. Everyone’s really authentic and doing something they love. It’s the right place for my brand. Something I love about LA is that there’s an amazing community of people structuring their lives the way that they want to. There are so many moms who run brands, and artists who have furniture companies—there’s room for lots of multilayered people in LA. Life is made a little easier, and I find that inspiring. I have an incredible vintage dealer, Tommy Dorr of Moth Food. He has a showroom in Mount Washington and a great collection of vintage denim. I follow a lot of individual [design studios] like Entler—they have the coolest lamps. There’s also a cool furniture store in Atwater called Grain and a cactus shop called Cactus Store.” »
Moth Food
Entler
ANDY J SCOTT
Cactus Store
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Objects for Objects
Elyse Graham
Ross Hansen
“There’s still a sense that anything is possible in LA, as well as an interesting creative spirit—this feeling that whatever you want to do, you can make it work. This is especially true for my furniture design; I can get anything made in LA. There’s such a range of styles, which has been helpful for my work, which is pretty out there. I feel really fortunate to be a part of the design community here. Everyone is supportive, sweet, and hustling. We’re all ready to lift one another up and keep gaining recognition for LA as a great design city. I feel like we’re just picking up steam. As my peers become more successful, I hope more world-renowned galleries begin to come here. We have the talent; we just need the opportunities.
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I love everybody who’s been featured in my traveling exhibition series, Object Permanence. I really admire [furniture designer] Ross Hansen, as well as artist-designer Elyse Graham—she’s the sweetest person but also a badass woman. [The design studio] Objects for Objects is fun, fresh, and playful. They’re not afraid to use color. LA is such a beautiful and rich and dynamic city. There’s a diversity of culture—there really is something for everybody here.”
URBAN OUTFITTERS; JAMES ELLIOT BAILEY; PETER BOHLER; COURTESY VOLUME GALLERY
LEAH RING Multidisciplinary designer and founder, Another Human
Highly Likely Cafe
ROW DTLA
Alta Adams
JEFF MINDELL; JIM SIMMONS; ANDREA D’AGOSTA
ANDY LANTZ Architect and creative director, RCH Studios “So much of LA is about serendipitous exploration and coming across things you’d never anticipated. It’s a huge place, so there’s always this sense of make-believe. Once I ended up at a garage sale at Miranda July’s house and bought a painting from her! I worked on [office, retail, and dining project] ROW DTLA in the Arts District, and my favorite place there is the top of the parking garage because you get a view of the city from its rooftop park. You’ll never guess what you’ll discover [in LA]. If you wander enough, you’ll find plans for your evening. Near RCH Studios, Highly Likely Cafe is a great spot. Alta Adams also just opened up, which features Southern fusion food and good California wines. There’s another spot in Frogtown called Salazar, which is an amazing sensory experience that takes you out of LA—it’s an outdoor restaurant adjacent to the LA River, so it’s romantic and magical.” h
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APPENDIX
KAREN LA
An invigorating coda.
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APPENDIX
SE A TT L E
Willmott’s Ghost
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A SLICE OF ITALY HAS TAKEN UP RESIDENCE IN THE MOST UNLIKELY OF PLACES: SEATTLE’S FLORA- AND FAUNA-FILLED AMAZON SPHERES. In 2018, James Beard Award–winning chef Renee Erickson opened Willmott’s Ghost, a tranquil eatery named for 19th-century horticulturalist Ellen Willmott and offering Roman-style bites, on the ground floor of the tech giant’s experimental downtown space. The interior of the restaurant takes a cue from Rome’s golden hues and characteristic warmth: Price Erickson and Heliotrope Architects used natural materials to soften the originally industrial space. “We were given a shell that was steel, glass, and concrete,” says Jeremy Price, who
cofounded the Price Erickson interior design firm with Renee Erickson in 2008. “We wanted to complement the shell of the building by using warm wood tones and natural leather.” The curved glass walls are lined with concave turquoise booths, marble tabletops perched atop pastel-green bases, and natural oak chairs. With its blush-hued walls and asymmetrical chandeliers, the restaurant imparts a youthful and spirited energy. As Price says, “When thinking of the design, we wanted to share the experiences that we’ve had in Rome and Italy.” —Annette Maxon with Claire Butwinick
KEVIN SCOTT
CHECKING IN
Noteworthy hoteliers and restaurateurs pushing the proverbial design envelope.
NEW YORK
Il Fiorista The bloom of spring has arrived early in New York’s NoMad district with the opening of Il Fiorista, an 85-seat eatery dedicated to all things floral. It houses not only a café, bar, and restaurant, but also community educational spaces and a boutique devoted to flowers. The bright,
organic-feeling space, designed by New York–based architect Elizabeth Roberts, is filled with ash-topped dining tables and floral-hued frescoes and graced with a selection of new and vintage light fixtures. Guests enter the restaurant through the glossy black storefront and
continue through the boutique area, where floor-to-ceiling cedar shelving holds home goods for sale and a table full of colorful flower arrangements sets the tone. —Annie Dahl with CB
KAUL A L UMP UR
EMILY HAWKES; ORMOND GROUP
MoMo’s Kuala Lumpur Combining equal parts play and relaxation, the recently opened MoMo’s Kuala Lumpur welcomes guests to unwind and let loose in whatever style they choose. Inspired by the vibrant energy that so often draws travelers to Kuala Lumpur, the design team at Sydney-based Akin Atelier dreamed up the Playground, a vibrant social space located on the hotel’s first floor and decked out with a taco bar, flamingo-colored chairs, and colorful geometric murals. When visitors are ready to crash, MoMo’s offers 99 sanctuary-like micro rooms that exhibit a tranquil, minimalist aesthetic with clean modular lines, snowy walls, and beds on raised tatami platforms. —AM, CB
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APPENDIX
CHECKING IN
The West Hollywood Edition When real estate developer Ian Schrager first imagined the West Hollywood Edition, he envisioned a property evocative of the Sunset Strip’s golden age. Yet what the project’s architect, John Pawson, gave him was the exact opposite: an Italian travertine–clad lobby, guest rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows and whitewashed wood headboards, and a lush restaurant atop a terraced deck with wood-bench seating. “I see my role at the West Hollywood Edition as creating
H A R ADS, SWEDEN
Arctic Bath
When writing a packing list for Swedish Lapland, most people wouldn’t include a swimsuit. But if a stop at the Arctic Bath hotel is on your agenda, you’ll definitely want to add one. Opened in January 2020, the six-room floating hotel sits in Sweden’s Lule River, just south of the Arctic Circle. An additional six cabins sit on the riverbank. “The hotel is inspired by the timber-floating era, when felled trees were transported downriver for processing,” says Annkathrin Lundqvist, who designed the riverbank cabins.
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spaces where the grit and the glamour of the Sunset Strip coexist and flourish,” Pawson says. “When someone walks into one of my buildings, it’s not the details of the architecture I want them to register first—it’s the life the architecture is making possible.” While Pawson’s design might seem atypical for its West Hollywood location, it subtly nods to its California setting— native flora is planted along the drive and at the front entrance, and Los Angeles– based artist Sterling Ruby’s mobile installation Scale, topping off the lobby’s spare design, references the contradictions between the lush hotel and the gritty West Hollywood street. —CB
At the center of the circular aquatic lodgings, designed by architects Bertil Harström and Johan Kauppi, is an openair cold-plunge bath that allows visitors to view the northern lights in wintertime and the midnight sun during the summer months. “The idea for Arctic Bath came from one of the owners, Per-Anders Eriksson, who had asked for a floating sauna nine years ago with the opening of the nearby Treehotel,” notes Harström. “The project is based on a method called ‘dig where you stand,’ so most of the materials have a local connection.” Constructed from pine, a traditional building material in the region, both sections of the hotel
feature a minimal Scandinavian aesthetic with décor from a number of Swedish design brands, including bespoke lighting by Ateljé Lyktan, beds from Carpe Diem, and additional furniture from Karl Andersson & Söner, Norrgavel, and Swedese. “The surrounding nature has been incorporated into the cabins and suites,” says Lundqvist. “We used natural, sustainable materials with a rich history, such as wood, stone, and leather, as well as luxurious textiles.” In addition to three saunas, a hot tub, and a treatment spa, guests can enjoy offsite experiences including a husky-drawn sled ride, a visit to nearby Harads, and a trip to a traditional Sámi village. —Rachel Gallaher
COURTESY THE WEST HOLLYWOOD EDITION; ANDERS BLOMQVIST
LOS ANGELES
Designing Friendship During Reykjavik’s Bicentennial Anniversary in 1986, Reykjavik and Seattle signed a sister city pact that charted course for 34 years of cultural and educational exchange. In the spirit of this partnership, the Seattle design community and the Icelandic Design Centre have organized Hæ/Hi: Designing Friendship, the first collaborative design exhibition between Reykjavik and Seattle. Sixteen studios from various disciplines will exhibit their interpretation of how we express something about ourselves, our personality, and our culture upon meeting others. Hæ/Hi: Designing Friendship, a traveling exhibit, will be featured in Design March, Reykjavik’s annual design festival in March 2020, NYCxDesign in New York May 2020, and Seattle in October 2020. Participating designers include Hanna Dis Whitehead, Ragna Ragnarsdottir, Theodora Alfredsdottir, Ragnheidur Osp, Agustav, 1+1+1, Jonathan Junker, Fruitsuper, John Hogan, Grain, Amanda Ringstad, Thorunn Arnadottir, Fin, Gabriel Stromberg, and WKND Studio.
APPENDIX A global calendar of goings-on in the worlds of architecture, culture, and design. FEB 20–AUG 20
AGENDA
COUNTRYSIDE, THE FUTURE
The Guggenheim’s newest collaborative exhibition, undertaken with architect Rem Koolhaas and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, reveals the radical effects of urbanization on the world’s countryside and wilderness as rural areas become increasingly reliant on technology. From artificial intelligence in farming to political radicalism, Countryside, the Future both explores advances in agriculture and breaks down the social politics that are altering the natural world as we know it. guggenheim.org
MAR 1–JUL 11
JUDD MoMA New York, New York He might never have admitted it, but midcentury artist Donald Judd revolutionized modern sculpture. Using industrial materials such as aluminum, steel, and Plexiglas, he developed his signature vocabulary of hollow “boxes,” often arranged in a series. Presenting the artist’s first retrospective in the United States in more than 30 years, MoMA’s Judd explores Judd’s multidisciplinary work, displaying the colorful geometric sculptures that redefined artistic approaches to form and space, along with his paintings, drawings, and rarely seen works from the past three decades. moma.org
MAR 5–8
COLLECTIBLE Brussels, Belgium The third annual Collectible turns the traditional design fair on its head by displaying contemporary collectable design in a museumlike setting. Hosted at Brussels’ Vanderborght Building, known for its stark gallery-style walls and six-story atrium, the show displays international design pieces in an exhibition-style format. This unique experience allows customers to not only look at, but also touch and purchase high-end 21st-century design pieces. collectible.design
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PIETERNEL VAN VELDEN; DONALD JUDD UNTITLED (1973). SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM, NEW YORK, PANZA COLLECTION, 1991 © 2020 JUDD FOUNDATION / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK; ISABELLE DE BORCHGRAVE BRONZE CHAIR (2019). COURTESY ISABELLE DE BORCHGRAVE; PAO HUI KAO PAPER PLEATS COLLECTION (2018). COURTESY SPAZIO NOBILE
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum New York, New York
Special thanks to Gray magazine, Blu Dot, Thompson Seattle, Design Within Reach, Hemlock Printers, Mohawk, Fruitsuper, Totokaelo, Rudy’s, Arcade, Allied Arts Foundation, Seattle Public Library, Aesop, mamnoon, mbar, Convention Totes
APPENDIX
FEB 1-29 MADRID DESIGN FESTIVAL Madrid, Spain madriddesignfestival.com
FEB 3–9 STOCKHOLM DESIGN WEEK Stockholm, Sweden stockholmdesignweek.com
FEB 13–23 MODERNISM WEEK
Palm Springs, California modernismweek.com
FEB 26–28 DESIGN INDABA
GENEVA INTERNATIONAL MOTOR SHOW Geneva, Switzerland The world’s most renowned car manufacturers trek to the heart of the Alps to unveil their new designs during Geneva’s annual 10-day auto event. For industry experts and car enthusiasts alike, GIMS is the premier destination to witness alternative-propulsion innovations and, if you’re lucky enough to win the opportunity, even test-drive one of the 48 new models on display before they hit the road. gims.swiss
Capetown, South Africa designindaba.com
MAR 12–15
MAR 12–15 DESIGN SHANGHAI
KLEUREYCK: VAN EYCK’S COLOURS IN DESIGN
Shanghai, China designshanghai.com
MAR 12–22 MELBOURNE DESIGN WEEK Melbourne, Australia ngv.vic.gov.au/ melbourne-design-week
MAR 13–22 SXSW Austin, Texas sxsw.com
MAR 16–22 ARCTIC DESIGN WEEK Rovaniemi, Finland arcticdesignweek.fi
MAR 25–29 DESIGNMARCH Reykjavík, Iceland designmarch.is
MAR 25–APR 5 BOSTON DESIGN WEEK Boston, Massachusetts bostondesignweek.com
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Design Museum Ghent Ghent, Belgium A journey through seven vibrant hues that 15th-century artist Jan van Eyck and his Northern Renaissance contemporaries obsessively explored and utilized in their work, Kleureyck: Van Eyck’s Colours in Design highlights both the master’s use of color and its influence upon his peers and later generations of artists working not only on canvas but in product design, crafts, textiles, graphic design, and more, demonstrating Van Eyck’s long-lasting impact on aesthetic creation. designmuseumgent.be
MAR 26–28
DIFFA BY DESIGN Center 415 New York, New York For more than three decades, DIFFA (Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS) has mobilized the minds and talents of American designers to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS. This year, the three-day event provides an opportunity for socially minded creators to gather, share their brands, and fight misinformation and prejudice standing in the way of political action. All proceeds from the event, which includes a boutique offering artisan creations, a gala cocktail party and a chef’s tasting, as well as industry talks, will be donated to HIV/AIDS organizations. DIFFA has famously gifted more than $45 million to organizations fighting HIV/AIDS worldwide. diffa.org
COURTESY GENEVA INTERNATIONAL MOTOR SHOW; COURTESY DESIGN MUSEUM GHENT
AGENDA
DESIGN FESTIVALS
Detail of Bisel tables by Patricia Urquiola, featured at Madrid Design Festival.
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APPENDIX
Written in Stone
OBSESSION
Texas antiques dealer Steve Wiman loves the irony— and silent stories—of his stone book collection. As told to CLAIRE BUTWINICK Photograph by STEVE WIMAN
Steve Wiman, artist and owner of the Austin, Texas, antique shop Uncommon Objects, often says that he has a “collection of collections.” The Texas native currently maintains over a dozen assemblages, ranging from balls of string to Mexican clay bird wall pockets, all gleaned from thrift stores, antique shows, and the sides of railroad tracks. For years, Wiman incorporated his vintage tchotchkes into sculptural pieces (he has an MFA in studio art from the University of Texas), but in 1991, he cofounded Uncommon Objects so that other collectors could showcase their own idiosyncratic treasures. One of Wiman’s largest collections consists of nearly 100 decorative stone books dating to the mid-1800s.
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I REMEMBER THE FIRST STONE BOOK I BOUGHT, who I bought it from, and the city in which I bought it. It was in 1994 at an antique show in Nashville called Heart of County. I had never seen anything like it. It has religious images including a cross, a pair of hearts, crossed feather pens, and shaking hands, dating back to 1886. I think headstone carvers made some of the stone books I’ve collected because a lot of them use the same precise lettering style and wording. Alternatively, some of the pieces are complete folk art, made by untrained hands; they’re almost crude. I have everything from sublime attempts to beautiful marble. They’re like what you see when you go to a cemetery. One thing I love about such books is that a lot of them have dates. With textiles, you can learn about the fabric of a quilt, but to have antiques [marked with dates,] like stone books, is rare. I
was completely enamored and taken by them. I paid more [for that first book] than I should have, but it was magnetic for me. I like the idea of stone books because they take something—rock—that’s available and free and turn it into something sentimental and meaningful. Some commemorate a wedding, a baptism, a birth, or a death. Then there are some that are souvenirs of places—Colorado’s Garden of the Gods, for example. They’re each made by different hands. It’s poetic how something that looks like a book, full of knowledge and resources, is stone cold. I like the irony of that. One of my favorite titles is Hidden Secrets. If you pulled it out of your shelf of real books, it would be inaccessible. A lot of the stone books in my collection have chips or cracks. Some collectors want to avoid that, but I embrace the irregularities because they [are signs of] authenticity and genuine age. h
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