The castles of the German and Austrian Alps are known for their fairytale quality. The iconic turreted silhouette in the background of the Disney logo was, in fact, modeled after Neuschwanstein, King Ludwig II’s Bavarian palace near the border of the two countries. Schloss Fuschl, set on an emerald green glacial lake 20 minutes outside of Salzburg, is no exception. Built in 1461, the sprawling stone mansion served for four centuries as a luxurious hunting lodge for the prince-archbishops of Salzburg, who ruled the region under the Holy Roman Empire, as well as their royal guests. After World War II, the schloss (“castle” in German) was converted into a hotel that operated mostly seasonally, from April to October, until 2022, when Rosewood Hotels & Resorts purchased the property and began renovations . On July 1, Schloss Fuschl will reopen with 98 rooms, including six self-contained chalets. There are six restaurants and bars on site. indoor and outdoor infinity pools. a spa with three saunas and eight treatment rooms; and access to Lake Fuschl: fishing expeditions, boat trips and botanist nature walks can be arranged. Although the schloss was never home to the likes of Cinderella or Rapunzel, it did play host to a movie princess: Fans of mid-century cinema might recognize the place from German-French actress Romy Schneider’s “Sisi” films – a historical trilogy about the young Elisabeth of Austria — filmed there in the 1950s. Today, the Sisi Teesalon bears the character’s name and will offer afternoon tea with a wide variety of homemade pastries, including the Schloss Fuschl Torte, a truffle cake with hazelnut chocolate first created in the home kitchen more than 30 years ago. Prices from about $695 per night, rosewoodhotels.com.
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At the New Michael Werner Gallery in Beverly Hills, Two Painters in Conversation Across Time
When it opens in Beverly Hills on June 22, Michael Werner Gallery’s Los Angeles outpost will feature works by 19th-century French artist Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and German postwar painter Markus Lüpertz. Gallery co-owner Gordon VeneKlasen chose these artists in part to surprise viewers: “No one expects to see these two artists in a show in LA,” he says. The show reveals Lüpertz’s long-standing admiration for his predecessor: The works on display, dating from 2013 to a decade later, incorporate and reconstruct images from Puvis’s work, such as “Étude pour Le Pauvre Pêcheur” (“Study for the poor fisherman”) 1881 charcoal sketch of a fisherman and two figures, which in Lüpertz’s painting “Besuch von Pierre” (“Visit From Pierre”) (2018) becomes a gaze without people. VeneKlasen wants this interplay between two eras to characterize the gallery’s future exhibits. “I really wanted to show that we’re attached to history and modern and contemporary at the same time,” he says. Other exhibitions planned in the minimalist space, which wraps around a courtyard, include works by 20th-century American conceptual artist James Lee Byars, British painter and musician Issy Wood and German artist Florian Krewer. The gallery will also host a series of events, beginning with a spoken word performance on September 7 featuring California poets. “Markus Lüpertz, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes” will be on view at Michael Werner Gallery, Beverly Hills, from June 22 to September 7. michaelwerner.com.
For Rotterdam-based designer Bertjan Pot, the most rewarding experiments often stem from unexpected possibilities and extremes. Wires, plastic jugs and golf balls appear in a continuous series of lamps called Crafty Lights, while a suite of high-back sofas created for the TextielMuseum in the nearby city of Tilburg features luminous polypropylene cord criss-crossed around a spare metal frame. “I don’t even keep a sketchbook,” says Pott, reflecting on his improvisational approach to design. “Most of it is done hands-on by playing with materials.” His latest collaboration with New York-based textile house Maharam declares a long-standing fascination with marine line (high-performance sailing rope), which Pott is known to fashion into whimsical masks. Two new rugs — Pop, coiled into an oval or circle, and Groove, a riff on the checkerboard — are made from colorful rope that lends a mesmerizing, dimensional effect. Suitable for both indoor and outdoor use, the rugs have a stylistic affinity with Americana. “What I love about folk art, and maybe bum art and outsider art, is that there’s always a clear link to the hands that made it,” says the designer – a quality also found in Groove’s macrame knot . (Weavers in India learned the technique by studying one of Pot’s handmade samples.) Objects encoded with the human touch are the ones you “put on a pedestal,” Pot says. “Or it might not even be a podium. Maybe just a nice spot: That could be the floor.” from $258, maraham.com.
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In New York, an exhibition of paintings examining office life
Growing up in Puerto Rico, artist Jean-Pierre Villafañe fell in love with painting while working on a series of community murals in the Río Pedras neighborhood of San Juan. The project also sparked his interest in architecture and how decoration can affect public spaces and how people use them. In 2019, he left his job as an architect designer to pursue painting full-time. This week sees the opening of “Playtime,” an exhibition of new works at the Charles Moffett Gallery in Manhattan’s TriBeCa neighborhood. Villafañe is about halfway through a one-year studio at 4 World Trade Center, next to New York’s financial district. His new work explores the spare, repetitive environments of companies and how people tend to hide their personal identities in office environments. A suite of oil paintings on linen shows an excessively curvaceous cast of characters whose rotund musculature recalls the early 20th-century figures of French artist Fernand Léger, but with heavily contoured makeup. In Villafañe’s Overtime (all works cited, 2024), three such figures peer over a maze of booths to watch a couple locked in an embrace, one exposing a breast and a leg in a fishnet stocking. “Tar” depicts a group of executives sitting at a boardroom table looking at a disfigured figure. A favorite of Villafañe’s new paintings, “Clocking-In,” depicts a corridor where workers emerge from various doors in unison, dressed identically in white shirts, ties and slacks — except for one brave deviant in a cocktail dress. “Playtime” runs at the Charles Moffett, New York, from June 21 to August 2; charlesmoffett.com.
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A new guesthouse with a large natural wine list in the French coastal countryside
It was a longing for nature, fresh air and silence that motivated Anaïs Fillau and Bertrand Decoux to found La Maison de Magescq, a stylish new four-room guest house in south-west France. The couple – she a furniture designer and journalist, he an engineer – had lived for a decade in Singapore, Hong Kong, Hanoi and Bangkok. On a trip to France in 2022, they come across an abandoned 18th-century stone mansion surrounded by a vast pine forest in Magescq, a tiny village in Les Landes, a little-known region on the Atlantic Ocean between Bordeaux and Biarritz.
The mansion they bought hadn’t been lived in for 30 years, so it needed a complete renovation. They decided to keep many of its original features – from the round stained glass windows to the concrete floor in the entrance and plaster mouldings. “The idea was to bring the house back to life as a backdrop for the modern furniture we prefer,” says Fillau. He designed many of the earth-toned pieces as part of his Manifeste custom furniture line (almost everything in the house is for sale). There is no restaurant, but the couple has curated a list of more than 70 mostly natural and organic wines that guests can enjoy in the lounge or on the terrace. A variety of activities are also offered, including surfing lessons, horse riding, yoga, meditation, in-room massages and dinners prepared by a private chef. Rooms from about $235, maisondemagescq.com.
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A Manhattan group show examining the intersecting paths of artists
Sarah Charlesworth was a conceptual artist who used photographs to examine society — first pasting found images and later creating her own. Her 1981 work ‘Tabula Rasa’, a white-on-white screen print, redefines one of the first still lifes ever taken. It is the namesake of Paula Cooper Gallery’s group show Tabula Rasa, which focuses on the relationship between Charlesworth and fellow conceptual artists Douglas Huebler and Joseph Kosuth. The show has a lineage from Huebler, Charlesworth’s teacher, Kosuth’s partner and collaborator, and the numerous artists who went on to influence her, including Laurie Simmons, Charlesworth’s close friend, and photographer Deana Lawson, her former student. Placing the work of the three artists alongside that of their mentors, friends, students and contemporaries, ‘Tabula Rasa’ explores the overlapping creative trajectories that unite the 23 participants. “We have to recycle from the people who created before us,” says artist Lucy Charlesworth Freeman, whose work is displayed next to her mother and opposite “Tabula Rasa II” (2024), a reinterpretation of her artwork of the same name performance by his friend Charlesworth. Sara VanDerBeek. “And that’s a beautiful, necessary and unavoidable part of civilization.” “Tabula Rasa” will be on view at the Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, until July 26. paulacoopergallery.com.
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