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See This
Household items from the 90s, recreated in clay
In “Domestic Bliss,” a tenderly realized portrait of American life in the 1990s at Alexander Berggruen Gallery in New York, artist Stephanie Shih draws us into a fraught family narrative. The ceramic objects seen play various roles in the inner drama: Cigarette butts and a crushed beer can signify temptations accepted. the complete “Buns of Steel” workout series on VHS and Suzanne Somers’ ThighMaster offer proof of an investment in personal improvement. Viagra tablets show lust, maybe hope. Frozen dinners — one for each member of the nominal “Nuclear Family” — Sit atop a white Panasonic microwave oven, suggesting an uncomfortable coexistence. On an ironing board, an iron hangs out with the ‘Prisoner of My Desire’ paperback bustier. The book that inspired this project? 1998’s “Divorce for Dummies,” which Shih rendered here as part of a self-help library. The artist constructs the pieces by hand, using a fine brush to decorate their surfaces. There are subtle hints that each item is handmade, evoking the crafted pop sensibility of Corita Kent or Liza Lou — a slightly mixed finish here, a hint of hand lettering. The net result is the uncanny sense that the entire room has been seen, recorded, lost, and then lovingly recreated, every element concocted by a man with a painful memory. “Stephanie H. Shih: Domestic Bliss’ runs at Alexander Berggruen, New York, from January 22 to February 26; alexanderberggruen.com.
Stay Here
A New Madrid hotel pays tribute to the city’s creative history
When French designer Philippe Starck was asked to design Brach Madrid, a hotel that opened earlier this month in a 1920s building on the Spanish capital’s central Calle Gran Via, he wanted to channel the city’s creative spirit. On the ground floor, the hotel’s cafe features woven leather ceilings and walls lined with handmade tiles, along with dozens of paintings by Spanish artists that Starck spent three years seeking out. The 57 rooms are decorated with flamenco shawls, vintage black-and-white portraits, leather headboards and tasseled pillows. Each bathroom has a large mirror with a terracotta frame and a breccia tiled floor. Brach Restaurant, which serves a Mediterranean menu with dishes like roasted eggplant with tahini and leg of lamb with za’atar sauce, is designed to feel like a large European cafe. Starck installed wood-paneled walls, large tilting mirrors and several portraits of the Spanish poet Gabriel Garcia Lorca, a reference to Madrid’s surrealist avant-garde era, when Lorca, Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí would gather at the city’s Café Gijón . From around $500 a night, brachmadrid.com.
When Elena Liao and Frederico Ribeiro started Té Company, a Taiwanese teahouse in New York’s West Village, in 2012, Liao knew she wanted to serve pineapple cake. But, not wanting to compete with her (and everyone else’s) memories of the iconic Taiwanese treat, “we thought we’d do some pineapple cake on the side,” she says. They created a linzer cookie consisting of pineapple jam and yuzu kosho between hazelnut cookies. Since then, several bakers across the country have introduced new versions of the classic dessert, which usually takes the form of a buttery loaf-shaped crust and is filled with pineapple, which is sometimes mixed with winter melon. For her California Bay Area pop-up, pastry chef Jessica Little Fu created the treat using a peach, nectarine and pineapple preserve, topping the bars with sour cream and a dusting of lime leaves. During the Chinese New Year season, Win Son Bakery in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is teaming up with nearby Taiwanese shop Yun Hai to offer a Parmesan shortbread filled with pineapple jam. And for a recent special, ice cream shop Caffè Panna, with locations in Gramercy Park and Greenpoint, sold a roll of crushed Win Son cookies with fior di panna soft serve and finished with grana Padano cheese and pineapple jam. At Foundry Bakery in suburban St. Louis, owner Raymond Yeh says making pineapple cake for his Taiwanese-inspired bakery “is a no-brainer because it’s really Taiwanese dough.” Pineapple cake is considered particularly auspicious for the Lunar New Year — in Taiwanese, the word “pineapple” is a homonym for “prosperity to come.” This year, Yeh is making a pineapple kumquat cake, doubling down by adding another random fruit.
Visit this
An artist’s experiments with color and light, overlooking Mexico City
Lately, Mexican artist Christian Camacho has found inspiration in the shadows of the colored vinyl tarps common throughout the country. They hang over market stalls and public squares, bathing anyone who walks beneath them in a variety of vibrant hues. His nearly 50-foot-wide work “Aquaplén o plano central flotante” (2022) evokes this kaleidoscopic experience with a patchwork of vulcanized canvas reminiscent of stained glass. Originally commissioned for the Macroplaza, a city square in Monterrey, Mexico, it was later installed at the bottom of an Olympic-sized swimming pool in the same city. Now, it’s one of four pieces that make up “Inmersión: Formas del campo líquido,” an exhibition at the Museo Universitario del Chopo in Mexico City. Incorporating various media such as water, acetic acid and an LED screen, Camacho’s work challenges the viewer’s perception of scale and light. “Inmersión: Formas del campo líquido” will be on view at the Museo Universitario Del Chopo, Mexico City, from February 1st to May 18th. chopo.unam.mx.
Covet This
Ceramic or cardboard? Vessels requiring a double take
With their slightly grainy texture and mottled brown hue, ceramist Jacques Monneraud’s stone pieces look so much like cardboard that when shoppers unwrap their purchases, they’re sometimes not sure where the packaging ends and the container begins. Online, the Bayonne, France-based ceramist says, “people were going through pictures of my work and thinking it was artificial intelligence. then they would realize that it actually exists and they would be really surprised.” Monneraud, who has a background in graphic design and grew up around painting and woodworking, often makes prototypes on real cardboard. She will then mimic the subtle waviness of the material in the clay, add wavy zigzags along the edges, and paint on milky strips of translucent glaze that look like tape. “We think about disposable cardboard,” he says, “so I really like the contrast of turning it into ceramic, which can survive for thousands of years.” For his latest pieces, Monneraud referred to classical Chinese, Iranian and Guatemalan forms and reworked them into his modern vernacular. They are on display this week at the Ceramic Brussels art fair, where Monneraud is represented by the Arsenic gallery in Paris. instagram.com/jacquesmonneraud.
