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90s household items recreated in clay
In “Domestic Bliss,” a tender depiction of American life in the 1990s at New York's Alexander Berggruen Gallery, artist Stephanie See immerses us in the story of a turbulent family. The ceramic objects on display play different roles in the drama of the interior. Cigarette butts or crushed beer can be a signal to acquiesce to temptation. The complete “Buns of Steel” training series on VHS and Suzanne Summers' ThighMaster are proof of your investment in personal improvement. Viagra pills indicate desire, perhaps hope. Frozen dinners – one for each member of the nominal “nuclear family” – sit atop a white Panasonic microwave, suggesting an uneasy coexistence. On the ironing board, the iron is accompanied by the paperback body slipper “Prisoner of My Desire.'' What book inspired this body of work? 1998's Divorce for Dummies, which Shih renders here as part of his self-help library. Artists create their works by hand, using fine brush strokes to decorate the surfaces. There are subtle signs that each object is handmade, recalling the well-crafted pop sensibilities of Corita Kent and Liza Lu. There's a slightly mottled finish here and a hint of hand lettering there. The end result is the eerie feeling that an entire room has been seen, recorded, lost, and then lovingly recreated, each element evoked by humans with painful memories. “Stephanie H. See: Domestic Bliss” will be held at Alexander Berggruen in New York from January 22nd to February 26th (alexanderberggruen.com).
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A new hotel that pays homage to Madrid's creative history
French designer Philippe Starck tapped into the city's creative spirit when he was asked to design Brunch Madrid, a hotel that opened earlier this month in a 1920s building on Calle Gran Via in the heart of the Spanish capital. I thought I would like to convey this. The hotel's ground-floor cafe has a leather-woven ceiling, walls lined with artisanal tiles, and features dozens of paintings by the Spanish artist that Starck spent three years searching for. . The 57 rooms are decorated with flamenco shawls, vintage black and white portraits, leather headboards and tasselled pillows. Each bathroom has a large terracotta-framed mirror and speckled breccia tile floors. Brach Restaurant offers a Mediterranean-inspired menu such as grilled eggplant with tahini and lamb shoulder with za'atar sauce, giving it the feel of a grand European cafe. Starck installed wood-paneled walls, large slanted mirrors, and several portraits of Spanish poet Gabriel García Lorca in Madrid, where Lorca, Luis Buñuel, and Salvador Dali gathered at the city's Café Gijón. It reminded me of the surrealist avant-garde era. From about $500 per night at brachmadrid.com.
When Elena Liao and Frederico Ribeiro started Té Company, a Taiwanese tea shop in New York's West Village in 2012, Liao wanted to serve pineapple cakes. But not wanting to compete with her own (and everyone else's) memories of the iconic Taiwanese treat, “I thought I'd do something next to the pineapple cake,” she says. I made Linzer cookies with pineapple jam and yuzu pepper sandwiched between hazelnut shortbread cookies. Since then, many bakeries across the country have introduced new versions of this classic sweet. It usually takes the form of a buttery shortcrust shaped like an ingot and is stuffed with pineapple, sometimes mixed with winter melon. For a pop-up in California's Bay Area, pastry chef Jessica Little Hu created treats using peach, nectarine, and pineapple conserves, and topped the bars with heavy cream and lime leaf powder. . Winson Bakery in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, will team up with nearby Taiwanese shop Yun Hai to serve Parmesan shortbread stuffed with pineapple jam during the Lunar New Year season. And as a recent special, Café Panna, an ice cream shop with locations in Gramercy Park and Greenpoint, is offering a win-win ice cream, layered with Fior di Panna soft serve and finished with Grana Padano cheese and pineapple jam. Son's crushed cookie sundaes were sold. Raymond Yeh, owner of Foundry Bakery in suburban St. Louis, says making pineapple cake for his Taiwanese-style bakery is “a no-brainer, because it's a very Taiwanese pastry.” Pineapple cake is considered especially auspicious around Chinese New Year. In Taiwanese, the word “pineapple” is a homonym for “prosperity is coming.” This year, Ye is making a kumquat pineapple cake and doubling it down by adding another fortuitous fruit.
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Artist's experiments with color and light on display in Mexico City
Lately, Mexican artist Cristian Camacho has been drawing inspiration from the shadows of colored vinyl tarps commonly found throughout the country. They hang above market stalls and public squares, painting those who walk beneath them in a variety of intense hues. His nearly 50-foot-wide work Aquaprene au Plano Central Flotante (2022) evokes a kaleidoscopic experience with a patchwork of vulcanized canvas reminiscent of stained glass. It was originally commissioned for Macro Plaza, a town square in Monterrey, Mexico, but was later installed at the bottom of an Olympic-sized swimming pool in the same city. This piece is currently one of four that make up the exhibition “Inmersión: Formas del Campo líquido” at the Chopo University Museum in Mexico City. Incorporating a variety of mediums such as water, acetate, and LED monitors, Camacho's works challenge the viewer's perception of scale and light. “Inmersión: Formas del Campo líquido” will be on display at the Chopo University Museum (chopo.unam.mx) in Mexico City from February 1st to May 18th.
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Ceramic or cardboard? A ship that requires double effort
Ceramist Jacques Monureau's stoneware has a slightly rough texture and a mottled brown hue, and it closely resembles cardboard, so when buyers open the box of their purchase, they can't tell where the packaging starts. Sometimes it becomes difficult to tell where the container starts. The Bayonne, France-based potter says online: “People will scroll through too many photos of my work and think it's AI. Then they'll realize it actually exists and be really surprised.” Background in Graphic Design Monureau, who grew up around painting and woodworking, often makes prototypes out of actual cardboard. Next, imitate the subtle ripples of the clay material, add wavy zigzags along the edges, and draw opalescent stripes of translucent glaze that look like Scotch tape. “We think of cardboard as something disposable, so we really enjoy the contrast of turning it into ceramics that can last for thousands of years,” he says. In his latest work, Monureau has referenced classical Chinese, Iranian, and Guatemalan forms and reimagined them in modern terms. They will be exhibited this week at the Brussels Ceramic Art Fair, where Paris's Arsenic gallery is representing Monureau. instagram.com/jacquesmonneraud.
