Textiles Take the Spotlight at Smithsonian American Art Museum

Apparently, it’s textile season in the museum world. The medium is the subject of spring and summer exhibitions countrywide, from New York (MoMA PS 1) and Massachusetts (MIT List Visual Arts Center) to Texas (Blanton Museum of Art). Washington is in on the action, too, with Smithsonian American Art Museum mounting two such shows: “Pattern and Paradox: The Quilts of Amish Women,” which will be on view from May 31 to January 5, 2025, and “Subversive, Skilled, Sublime: Fiber Art by Women,” which will be on view until August 26.

Stephanie Stebich, the Margaret and Terry Stent director of SAAM and Renwick Gallery, explains that, “They’re an opportunity to tell a broader story of fiber art as a powerful medium that women have continuously embraced, adapted, and reinvented, and for us to elevate both the contributions of female artists and less examined creative practices.” “Pattern and Paradox” does so via 50 works made between 1880 and 1950 that underscore how quilting for the Amish was an aesthetic endeavor merging cultural and individual expression. “Subversive” features 33 more-recent pieces, by the likes of Sheila Hicks and Faith Ringgold, who mastered, then disrupted everyday fibers into dramatic modern art. 

Porky Hefer Displays Playful Sculptures at Galerie56

Eileen Gray, Zizipho Poswa, Gaetano Pesce. All have been subjects of exhibitions at Galerie56, a newcomer to the Manhattan arts scene founded by Interior Design Hall of Fame member Lee F. Mindel to celebrate the city’s cultural intersection of art and architecture (it’s aptly located at the base of Herzog & De Meuron’s 56 Leonard “Jenga” tower, next to a gleaming Anish Kapoor sculpture). 

The last of those initial three names, the recently deceased Pesce, has been an inspiration to Porky Hefer, whose solo show “no bats, no chocolate” is on view now at Galerie56. It continues Hefer’s focus on animal behaviors, organic forms, and ecosystems—we first wrote about him in 2017 when, after observing weaver birds, he had hand-fabricated human-size nests of fibers indigenous to South Africa, where he lives—via nine new, playful sculptures of animals who have what he calls “weird talents” that benefit the planet (the title derives from that fact that bats are responsible for pollinating many plants including cacao). Although the exhibit’s aim is a greater reverence for nature, “Porky,” Mindel says, “appeals to the children in all of us.” 

Rockwell Group Updates a Historic Hotel in Boca Raton

Addison Mizner would be proud. One of the last projects of the early 20th–century American architect, who is perhaps best known for the Mediterranean revival mansions he built throughout Palm Beach, Florida, for his wealthy clientele, was the 1926 Ritz-Carlton Cloister Inn in Boca Raton. Over the decades, the waterfront resort and private club had been added onto in piecemeal fashion. Now, it is simply dubbed the Boca Raton, and, in anticipation of its centennial anniversary, commissioned hospitality authority Rockwell Group to renovate, expand, and cohere the property in the firm’s signature luxury and consideration of site.

The five-year project, led by partner Shawn Sullivan and co-studio leader, senior associate Merav Lahr, encompasses eight F&B venues and the main lobby, where a “law-office vibe,” Lahr notes, has been replaced with a monolithic quality via tumbled limestone floor slabs. The same material appears in the pool club, a new structure with arched windows and a teak ceiling that echo Mizner’s Mediterranean style. Rockwell’s scope also entailed the 244 guest rooms and suites inside an existing 27-story tower. Two floors were gutted to make way for one soaring three-bedroom townhouse, its nearly 4,000 square feet featuring plush custom furnishings suitable for today’s one-percenters.

Stonehill Taylor Designs a Biophilic Hotel Haven in Boston

Raffles Hotels & Resorts is a luxury Singaporean chain launched by the Persian-Armenian Sarkies brothers in 1887. Over the centuries, the portfolio has grown to more than 20 properties, a mix of secluded resorts and urban towers in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. One of the most recent openings—and the brand’s U.S. debut—is Raffles Boston, a 35-story new-build by The Architectural Team encompassing residences by Rockwell Group and a 147-key hotel by Stonehill Taylor. 

Since the company was named after pioneering botanist Sir Stamford Raffles, it’s fitting that this hotel concept draws from the city’s Emerald Necklace, the 1,100-acre chain of parks, infusing flora and fauna in guest rooms and public spaces, which include two lobbies, conference areas, lounges, and four F&B outlets. “We brought biophilic designs to life throughout,” interiors design director Bethany Gale says. That’s first evident in the ground-floor lobby, where a custom blown-glass installation resembles leaves falling from trees. The sky lobby, on 17, boasts actual plant life cascading from a 30-foot-high shelving system clad in warm copper. The latter material, which reappears in an elevator lobby, is another part of Stonehill Taylor’s regional narrative: Its use was inspired by the Revere Copper Company, founded in 1801 in a Boston suburb by Paul Revere. 

Escape to Arev Saint Tropez, an Ethereal Boutique Hotel

A newly launched hospitality brand has an inviting moniker. It’s Arev, and it’s derived from the French word for dream. Indeed, the debut property, Arev Saint Tropez, which opened March 15 in the south of France, is certainly swoon-worthy. Local firm François Vieillecroze Architecte and Madrileños Luis Bustamante Interiors and Jesús Ibáñez Paisajismo have dreamt up an experience that is not only quintessentially French Riviera but also feels like an exquisite private estate. A tree-lined drive leads past manicured gardens to six compact buildings, their facades, in a plaster color appropriately named Provencal Crème, fronted by pale-blue shutters and capped by Mediterranean-style terra-cotta roofs. Inside, the spirit of Saint-Tropez is captured in a palette of blue, white, beige, and red, often rendered in nautical stripes, a nod to the region’s yachting DNA. Luis Bustamante outfitted the 43 guest rooms and suites in pristine custom furnishings and vivid patterns ranging from toiles and florals to more stripes. Rounding out the hotel is a spa, a revival of the legendary Strand Restaurant and Champagne Lounge, and a glittering sundeck, its pool bottom spelling out “a rêve in the sun.”

Step Into The Artistic Glamor of Gardiner House

Celebrated early 20th–century American painter Howard Gardiner Cushing died at just 47. But, over a century later, his influence lives on at Gardiner House, a luxury harbor-front hotel opening April 1 in Newport, Rhode Island, where the artist had a residence and studio. It’s the vision of his great-grandson, Howard Cushing, and Wirt Blaffer, who collaborated with local architecture firm Herk Works and Brooklyn, New York, design studio Space Exploration on the five-year, ground-up project that’s residential in scale and spirit. The centerpiece of the 21-room property is the entrance hall, a double-height space floored in black-and-white limestone and marble tile, centered on a grand spiral stair, and wrapped by wallpaper that recreates a lush landscape mural painted by Cushing the senior in 1905 at the Ledges, his nearby family home. Right off the lobby is Studio Bar, its rich green walls hung salon-style with dozens of paintings, satirical cartoons, and original signed prints by the likes of Slim Aarons, H.M. Bateman, and Brandon Best, an eclectic mix curated by Cushing the junior. 

citizenM Menlo Park Hotel is a Lively Riot of Color

With the opening of citizenM Menlo Park, visitors to Meta’s California headquarters aren’t the only ones in luck. Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger employees needing a midday workout or place to crash after a late night of engineering software are, too. The 240-key outpost is the Amsterdam-based hotelier’s 15th in the U.S. (with two more opening in Boston and Miami later this year) and, like all of them, embodies a tech- and sustainability-driven, accessibly priced concept by fellow Dutch firm Concrete. The exterior is a restrained composition of three adjoining masses in glass and aluminum. But the mood skews lively inside: The lobby is a riot of color, thanks to Facebook-blue Antonio Citterio sofas, and lighting, the ceiling a veritable constellation of white Isamu Noguchi pendant fixtures; in a corner is a famous Wiggle chair by Frank Gehry, who designed part of the 250-acre campus in 2018. Guest rooms epitomize efficiency, their modular approach reducing construction waste by up to 60 percent, and the blinds, climate, TV, and color-changing lights controlled by iPad. World-class art unites indoors and out, the latter emblazoned with a diversity-themed mural by Oakland artist Alexandra Bowman.

Catch Barbora Žilinskaitė’s ‘Chairs Don’t Cry’ Exhibit in Los Angeles

A mere 28 years old, Barbora Žilinskaitė has already had a noteworthy trajectory. She was born and educated in Lithuania, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in product and spatial design, lives in Brussels, and, lately, has been taking California by storm: recently participating in a group show at San Francisco gallery Jessica Silverman and now the subject of a solo exhibition, “Chairs Don’t Cry,” currently on view at Friedman Benda Los Angeles. All showcase not only her vivid, anthropomorphic work that blurs the line between person and object—the show title attributing emotion to furniture—but also her signature medium, reclaimed sawdust, which she sources from a nearby timber workshop. “Beyond its aesthetic value—texture, malleability, porosity—I also appreciate the narrative behind using the material,” Žilinskaitė says. “Objects made from it already carry a story, and it continues to ‘live,’ shaping new forms instead of ending up in a landfill.” But for Art Basel Switzerland in June, she’s switching things up, crafting her Sunbather bench—which is debuting in L.A. in blue-pigmented wood dust—in pale-yellow concrete, her first of the kind.

“Chairs Don’t Cry,” Barbora Žilinskaitė’s 10-piece solo exhibition at Friedman Benda gallery in Los Angeles through March 30, features the 9-foot-long sideboard While we hide our secrets there, they hide theirs, the 3-foot-tall mirror Mr. Judgy, and the 6 foot-long Sunbather bench, all in pigmented reclaimed sawdust.

Two Major Exhibits Spotlight Latin American Design

In Colorado and New York, Latin America is having a moment. In February, “Have a Seat: Mexican Chair Design Today” opened at the Denver Art Museum featuring 17 contemporary pieces from the DAM’s permanent collection. There are also historical artworks, underscoring the connection between modern-day Mexico and the country’s ancient and colonial artistic practices; the opportunity for visitors to conceive their own digital chair; and a site-specific installation by Mestiz founder, architect and textile designer Daniel Valero. “The show and these designers explore the realm where traditions and cultures converge with innovation,” says Jorge Rivas Pérez, the museum’s Frederick and Jan Mayer curator of Latin American art.

In March, “Crafting Modernity: Design in Latin America, 1940–1980” launches at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan encompassing 110 items from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela that spearheaded the development of modern domestic design in the region. “Through the study of objects and material culture, a more nuanced vision of Latin America can emerge,” explains guest curator Ana Elena Mallet, who herself is based in Mexico City.

Catch These Must-see Works at the Denver Art Museum

View Latin American Design Through the Decades at MoMA in New York

Christopher Myers Creates Art on Ice in Brooklyn

Temperatures were chilly in New York over the winter holidays. But at 99 Scott in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the vibe was hot. That was courtesy of Studio Skate, a pop-up ice rink curated by Zoe Lukov featuring a site-specific commission by interdisciplinary artist Christopher Myers. Titled Feathers on the Waves, the installation’s colors recall Myers’s stained glass, yet his inspiration came from such trailblazers as Surya Bonaly, whose backflip during the 1998 Winter Olympics defied conventions. “The history of Black athletes on ice is long and complicated,” Myers says. “Feathers consists of images of bodies suspended between here and there, like those in the myth of Icarus, filled with aspiration, freedom, and sometimes failure.” Speaking of bodies, that of singer Alicia Hall Moran was outfitted in a costume by Myers when she performed at the rink. 

Studio Skate wrapped last month. But a solo exhibition of stained-glass light boxes by Myers is on view in Charlotte, North Carolina, as will be his monumental textiles at the Biennale of Sydney, from March 9 to June 10.