On View

Revelers escaping regular life in Las Vegas still can’t fill their tank at the abandoned gas station on Fremont Street, but its sight alone will transport them. Digital artist Abigail Dougherty, better known by her art name Neon Saltwater, recently re-envisioned the 1930s relic, traveling from Seattle to Sin City this September to complete her ten-day install just in time for the city’s annual Life Is Beautiful Festival.
The revamp came at the request of local creative firm JustKids, which has handled the festival’s art curation since 2013. “I have always seen this structure abandoned,” JustKids director Charlotte Dutoit told Artnet News. “Previously it was a gas station, then a repair shop, and even a taco drive-through.”
Now, it’s a technicolor portal to simpler times titled Mystery Cruise 1990, in reference to Neon Saltwater’s birth year and “a feeling of surrendering and trusting the beautiful unplanned experiences that are around the corner,” the artist told JustKids. Authentic neon gleams from the overhang that once shielded gas pumps. Dougherty’s stage name crowns a single column painted atop the multicolored gradient that wraps the building proper.
A digital work by Neon Saltwater. Courtesy of JustKids.
The structure’s actual owner wasn’t involved, which meant the artist couldn’t set up a psychedelic minimart inside. Instead, magenta lights at once sensual and ominous illuminate the silhouettes of tropical plants against appropriately fogged windows.
If you’re still curious what’s inside, look no further than Neon Saltwater’s digital oeuvre. The artist, who’s also created IRL pop-ups for Barneys and hairclips for cult company Chunks, discovered 3D modeling while studying interior design. “I was too much of a designer to be a traditional artist and too much of an artist to be a traditional interior designer,” she told JustKids. “I always loved rooms and would rearrange my furniture as a kid by myself.”
Thus, most know Neon Saltwater for her digital scenes of ATM machines, malls, and offices rendered in neon tones—and entirely bereft of people. “The energy that exists in spaces feels spiritual to me and is my biggest muse,” she has remarked. Mystery Cruise 1990 marks her first time working with real neon.
Neon Saltwater, Mystery Cruise 1990. Courtesy of JustKids.
“In an era where many artists go from the physical to the digital space, we thought it would be interesting to actually export Neon Saltwater’s cyber wonders into a non-virtual art experience,” Dutoit said in a statement.
“I see Mystery Cruise 1990 as a nostalgic reinterpretation by the artist of the vintage neon pieces and tourist extravaganzas still visible in the old Vegas, but with new energy,” she told Artnet News. “I hope this artwork will spark curiosity and slow down the passerby, inviting them to escape for a moment in a weird glowing time travel.”
The portal is on view indefinitely. Don’t miss it the next time you’re on the lam from reality.
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Famous for concepts like Shell Seat and Loop Rocking Chair, among other furnishings, luminaires, and accessories, the late Willy Guhl was a strong proponent of simplicity—what for many is a hallmark of Swiss design. The prolific talent was known for saying design must “achieve the most with the minimum effort.”
And yet the task of perfecting a unified shape that is as aesthetically pleasing as it is functional, or engineering the armature of a chair so that it uses as few connections as possible, is no small feat. Works like Flower Box (1954) or his circulatory bathtub design of 1956 are emblematic of this enduring philosophy. The comprehensive “Willy Guhl — Thinking with Your Hands” show currently on view at the Museum für Gestaltung in Zürich seeks to uncover what made this 20th-century master tick. 
Willy Guhl’s Circulatory Bathtub compared with conventional bathtubs (1956). Illustration: Willy Bärtschi, courtesy of Museum für Gestaltung Zurich, © Heirs of Willy Guhl.
Possessing an appreciation for rationalism, as well as an inherent understanding of people’s needs, Guhl (1915-2004) was a pioneer of ergonomics, accessibility, and durability. The designer was an early proponent of hands-on learning and experimentation. The idea that to truly comprehend a problem, or gain implicit skills, one has to physically engage with the material and form of a potential solution, and not rely on a drawing board. As an instructor at the Zürich School of Art and Craft, Guhl required his students to make physical models and work directly with craftspeople, an approach that has again become a virtue in the industry, and perhaps its saving grace.
The designer was one of the first to develop flat-pack furniture during and soon after World War II. These affordable, easily transportable designs were instrumental in helping to rebuild war-torn Europe, especially when materials were scarce. Throughout the 20th century, Guhl adapted to changing movements and rapidly advancing technologies yet always held true to his fundamentals. 
Willy Guhl, Garden Chair (1954). Photo: U. Romito and I. Šuta, courtesy of Museum für Gestaltung Zurich, © Heirs of Willy Guhl.
The exhibition—on view from December 19, 2022, through March 28, 2023—delves deep into extensive archival research conducted by the Swiss National Science Foundation, along with a slew of original designs, drawings, maquettes, and photographs from Guhl’s estate. Part of the showcase, a 1985 film includes testimonials from former students—such as Robert Haussmann, Carmen Greutmann, and Alois Rasser—who went on to establish their own successful practices. Immersive displays conceived by design students from the University of Art and Design in Lausanne provide further insight into his creative process. Visitors can even experience Guhl’s iconic Shell Seat for themselves.
Willy Guhl on a Bench Chair (ca. 1960). Photo: Bill W. Guhl, courtesy of Museum für Gestaltung Zurich, © Heirs of Willy Guhl.
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The current exhibition “Zalszupin 100” at Sean Kelly Gallery in Los Angeles celebrates the furniture works of late Polish-Brazilian designer Jorge Zalszupin on what would have been his centenary on earth. A pioneer of Brazilian modernism, Zalszupin died in 2020, two years before turning 100.
Many of Zalszupin’s pieces on display have been procured from private collections. Over the last two years, the gallery painstakingly sourced the custom furniture he made for offices and homes across Brazil between the late 1950s and early ’70s. Some pieces belonged to Zalszupin’s loved ones, like the Ina armchair, which he made for (and named after) his sister. 
Zalszupin worked as both a furniture designer and an architect, ran one of the largest furniture factories in Brazil, and in his later years explored painting. His oeuvre is connected by his use of sensuous lines, a modernist sensibility, and an affinity for working with nontraditional materials and woods native to Brazil. His work contains references to both global design trends and his own experiences, such as Tea Trolley, a bar cart inspired by the baby strollers he saw growing up in Poland. 
Jorge Zalszupin, Tea Trolley (ca. 1960s). Brazilian jacaranda, rosewood, metal. Courtesy of Sean Kelly Gallery.
Jorge Zalszupin was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1922. In 1949, he made his way to Brazil, where he fell in love with the landscape and the architecture, and lived the rest of his life, becoming one of the definitive designers of Brazilian modernism.
His foray into furniture design began soon after he launched his architecture practice in Brazil in 1951. Clients began requesting pieces to match the aesthetic of their buildings and Zalszupin was ready to meet their demand. In 1959, he created his first work of furniture—Poltrona Dinamarquesa, or Danish Chair. The seat’s curved wood frame and modern Scandinavian sensibility set the tone for Zalszupin’s prolific career. That same year he founded the L’Atelier, a carpentry firm that grew into one of Brazil’s largest furniture manufacturers.
Installation view, “Zalszupin 100.” Photo: Brica Wilcox, courtesy of Sean Kelly Gallery.
Zalszupin thought creatively about materials and techniques. Early on he developed a signature patchwork rosewood pattern that allowed him to use leftovers from other productions. He would cover the surface of a piece of furniture with rectangular scraps of rosewood in various shades and patterns.
While Zalszupin is known for his use of native Brazilian woods like jacaranda, rosewood, and ironwood, he also researched and experimented with new machinery and technologies throughout his career, including his plastic laminate series. His innovative use of materials paved the way for the modernism movement that characterized Brazilian design in the decades to come.
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A kinetic sculpture of 700 illuminated cords unveiled yesterday before the fountain at Lincoln Center’s Josie Robertson Plaza, courtesy of British artist Es Devlin. Moët & Chandon commissioned her rotating, immersive spectacle in partnership with the Endangered Language Alliance as part of the champagne house’s global holiday celebrations, taking over 20 cities worldwide.
“We were looking for an artist who is known for creating extraordinary, immersive spaces and shares the values of Moët & Chandon,” the champagne house told Artnet News of their selection process. “We were, of course, familiar with British contemporary artist Es Devlin and her spectacular works from around the world, like the London Olympics and stage design for prestigious fashion houses and iconic performers.”
Titled Your Voices, Es Devlin‘s installation honors New York as the planet’s most linguistically diverse city. It will host several multilingual choral groups while on view through December 18. Each of the work’s 700 industrial ratchet straps represents one of over 700 languages actively spoken on New York’s streets, from Algerian Arabic and Ashanti to Zarma and Zulu. The Endangered Language Alliance has mapped them all.
Aerial view of Your Voices.
Strung across intersecting vertical and horizontal steel armatures, those metaphorical language straps form a mesmerizing, interconnected nautilus, affirming that disparate tongues still share commonalities. They all coexist in the Big Apple, for instance.
“In addition to individual lighting units there are rows of Neoflex,” Lincoln Center’s Jenni Klauder told Artnet News of the glowing installation. Between 12 p.m. and 10 p.m. every day, visitors can enter the work free of charge, letting its pulsating light wash over them along with a soundscape by contemporary composers Polyphonia, which translates passages from E.M. Forster’s 1910 novel Howards End into numerous languages.
Four choral groups will sing in languages other than English within Your Voices too, scheduled for seven total performances at 6 p.m. on weekend nights during its run. Devlin and Lincoln Center hand-chose each group.
Choral groups rehearsing in Your Voices.
Devlin first visited New York City 25 years ago. “I specifically remember the crescendo of energy that I experienced as I walked across Brooklyn Bridge onto the island of Manhattan,” she told Artnet News. “I’d grown up with an idea of New York as something finished and complete as I’d seen it on TV. It was only as I first walked its streets that I experienced New York as a constant work in progress, always threading new layers of language, steel, light, cement and brick into its ever unfinished text.”
Your Voices arrives on the heels of Come Home Again, Devlin’s 16-meter choral sculpture outside the Tate Modern, which drew over 7,000 viewers per day while on view, and hosting musical performances, in London last month.
Devlin’s latest sits atop a motor-powered pedestal that rotates all four cardinal directions. “With opinions and points of view becoming evermore polarized, especially through digital reverberations, I aimed to make a work that gathers community choral groups from all over New York City at the cultural heart of the city,” she continued, “to allow visitors to step inside the work, to experience the layers of languages and perspectives from within a revolving series of tensioned lines that splice their viewpoint as it turns.”
Check out a free performance while Your Voices is on view. Dates below.
December 6: Cardinal Hayes Singers, The Jalopy Chorus, and the Schiller Institute NYC Chorus (CANCELED DUE TO WEATHER)
December 9: Cardinal Hayes Singers, The Jalopy Chorus, and the Schiller Institute NYC Chorus
December 10: Schiller Institute NYC Chorus, Ukrainian Village Voices, and the Cardinal Hayes Singers
December 11: Cardinal Hayes Singers, Our Chorus NYC, and the Harlem Japanese Gospel Choir
December 16: Ukrainian Village Voices, Harlem Japanese Gospel Choir, and Our Chorus NYC
December 17: Harlem Japanese Gospel Choir, The Jalopy Chorus, and Our Chorus NYC
December 18: Ukrainian Village Voices, Our Chorus NYC, and the Harlem Japanese Gospel Choir
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There’s always a hint of unintended irony in the name of the National Mall. America’s great green space in the center of Washington, D.C., is not, in fact, a place where America’s favorite pastime—shopping—transpires. Rather, it is a space for monument and protest. 
In this vein, today at 10am during a live-streamed event, details will be revealed for the new public art initiative “Beyond Granite,” a series of artist prototypes for installations that will be unveiled throughout 2023, centered on the National Mall. The series aims to serve as an experiment in how public art can transform the National Mall into “a more inclusive, equitable, and representative process for commemoration,” according to the organizers. 
Titled “Pulling Together,” the first show, curated by Monument Lab’s Paul Farber and Salamishah Tillet, features artists including vanessa german, Derrick Adams, Paul Ramirez Jonas, Tiffany Chung, Wendy Red Star, and Ashon Crawley. The selected cohort are all “contemporary artists who think about American history, engage at scale in public art projects and represent the diversity and breadth of our country since its inception,” Tillet said.  
An artist visit to the National Mall with Salamishah Tillet, co-curator of “Pulling Together,” Paul Ramirez Jonas, Vanessa German, Ashon Crawley, and Paul Farber, co-curator and director of Monument Lab. Photo: courtesy of A.J. Mitchell, 2022.
The final works won’t be revealed until next fall, and the specifics of each individual project are also being kept under wraps, but according to the curators, the show took its overall inspiration from a stirring 1939 performance by the Black opera singer Marian Anderson on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on the Mall’s western end, after she was barred from singing in Constitution Hall. This in turn spurred the Civil Rights activist Mary Mcleod Bethune to write that the public concert “told a story of hope for tomorrow–a story of triumph–a story of pulling together, a story of splendor and real democracy.” 
Perhaps for obvious reasons, the Lincoln Memorial steps have become a symbolic space in American history, hosting other memorable events, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and the AIDS Memorial Quilt project.  “We wanted to pull on those histories.”  Tillet said. “What are the ways in which people have been able to gather on the Mall in a form of dissent and democracy?”
Artists Derrick Adams and Tiffany Chung visiting the D.C. War Memorial on the National Mall, Washington D.C., ahead of their participating in “Pulling Together.” Photo: courtesy of A.J. Mitchell, 2022.
Funded by a $4.5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation, in partnership with the Trust for the National Mall, the National Capital Planning Commission and the National Park Service, the project is “the result of federal and local agencies who are invested and compelled in how the past/present/future of our monuments live together, and see art at the core of that,” Farber said. He added that “part of the mission is to have a coalition effort to imagine art as a way forward.” 
“To do a public art project of this scale and magnitude, with sensitivity, really encourages us to think about how we can be together as a people again,” Tillet said. “It feels like often there isn’t a lot to be optimistic about. I think when people come together and see themselves in monuments and understand other histories and people they hadn’t before, with compassion and a sense of community, with this creative backdrop, it’s really inspiring. At least for me. I hope it inspires all of us to see each other as a citizenry through these gatherings.” 
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It’s been a slow build, but interest in French designer Line Vautrin appears to have hit critical mass with the show “Poetic Refléxion” at Carpenters Workshop Gallery in midtown Manhattan, on view through December 15.
A contemporary—and former employee—of Elsa Schiaparelli, Vautrin (1913–1997) shared the better known designer’s self-taught uniqueness of approach, whimsy, and popularity in postwar Paris, both socially and commercially. Yet somehow Vautrin, a metalworker’s daughter who prolifically turned out distinctive bronze and brass jewelry, accessories, lamps, small boxes, and, most notably, mirrors, was almost lost to history.
Line Vautrin, Roi Soleil (ca. 1960). Courtesy of Carpenters Workshop Gallery.
In the past 25 years, however, fans and auction houses have brought Vautrin back into view. Instantly recognizable, her accessories (and lost-wax fabrications) nod to ancient Egypt yet remain current, decorated with winking rebuses and riddles of images, letters, and words. Entire poems or prayers are carved into box tops. Suns, and the city of Paris, are recurring motifs. One compact holds a type-written note inside that reads, in French, “If this mirror breaks, don’t worry. You won’t have seven years of bad luck. Believe in Line Vautrin.”
Vautrin was the subject of a 1999 retrospective at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, and Yves Saint Laurent paid homage to her with the radiant sun on the bottle of his 2006 fragrance Cinéma. More recently, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen have stocked their London fashion boutique The Row with vintage Vautrin pieces for sale, having used them in their pre-fall 2023 runway show.
Line Vautrin, Folie ou le Soleil a Rendez-Vous avec la Lune (ca. 1965–1970). Courtesy of Carpenters Workshop Gallery.
“Poetic Refléxion”—one of a new series of art shows by Carpenters Workshop Gallery featuring designers from the past—showcases 10 of Vautrin’s mirrors from the 1950s and ’60s brimming with her lighthearted optimism and inventiveness. Collectible and rare, these mirrors are available for purchase, ranging in price from €55,000 to €400,000. 
Most of the mirrors on display feature convex mirrors surrounded by sun-like rays made of talosel—a cellulose acetate material that Vautrin invented—which was malleable and allowed for pieces of colored glass and mini-mirrors to be inset. Vautrin manipulated the frames by bending and scarring the talosel with pliers and scissors.
Line Vautrin, Huître (1958). Talosel resin, mirror. Courtesy of Carpenters Workshop Gallery.
Two pieces in particular underscore the hailing of Vautrin as the “poetess of metal” and her work as “jewelry for walls”—a layered, curvaceous mirror titled Huître resembling its namesake oyster, and the 32-inch Folie ou le Soleil a Rendez-Vous avec la Lune, whose asymmetric rays curve out from the walls and a small “moon” mirror orbits the central “sun” one.
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Though stunning in its natural beauty, the Pacific Northwest takes on a mysterious undertone with its jagged coastlines, temperate rainforests, and emerald-green river valleys. The sullen yet cozy environment has served as an ample source of inspiration for various creatives; think David Lynch’s Twin Peaks or the grunge movement.
Tapping into a similar sentiment is multifaceted artist Ellen Pong with her latest collection of organic, slightly architectonic sculptures and furnishings. On view at Superhouse Vitrine in Chinatown, New York City (through January 8), her exhibition “Middle Fork” is an ode to the wooded mountains just outside Pong’s hometown of Seattle.
Presented against a dramatic crimson-red backdrop, a prolific offering of glass-blown tables, hand-textured ceramic lamp shades, and treated-steel sconces stem from different moments of “ecological creativity” in this “harsh, powerful, and indifferent” setting.
Installation view, “Middle Fork,” Ellen Pong. Photo: Sean Davidson, courtesy of Superhouse.
“The landscape derives its beauty from a sense of foreboding mystery,” the artist told Artnet News. “These works take inspiration from those moments of brief hallucination when you can’t help but see what the forest wants to show you.” The exhibition as a whole comes together as a kind of simulated woodland.
With this latest endeavor, Pong was interested in exploring how seemingly dissimilar elements can bypass each other, clash, meld, and co-exist harmoniously. Bridging amorphous shapes with rectilinear planes, as in the Lake side table or the Lichen (Bow) wall mirror with candleholder. Blending two typologies, for example Light Post bench with lamp, also demonstrates this preoccupation. 
“Ellen challenged herself to go beyond her traditional medium of ceramic for ‘Middle Fork,’” said Superhouse principal Stephen Markos. “The resulting work is a moving testament to the designer’s growth and demonstrates her prowess at harnessing material to evoke a mood, a memory, a sensation.” Pong is particularly adept at channeling tried and true craft techniques in unexpected and playful applications. Her work often situates between the serenity of untouched nature and the chaos of urban life.
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No matter what holiday traditions you keep, the Museum of the City of New York in East Harlem has assembled a show of crowd-sourced gingerbread houses to unite Big Apple residents around sweet treats, a baking competition, and the five boroughs themselves.
“Gingerbread NYC” opened November 11 and remains on view through January 8, 2023, presenting seven winners of a citywide “Winter in New York” themed bake-off. The idea took shape this summer and kicked off in the fall, when the museum launched its open call.
Professional and amateur bakers across New York applied for a chance to compete. Six judges, including Magnolia Bakery CEO Bobbie Lloyd and restaurateur Melba Wilson, awarded two competitors from each borough $500 to recreate sites in their neighborhoods in gingerbread.
Gingerbread house by historic Bronx bakery Egidio Pastry Shop.
From there, the judges picked winners in seven categories: Best Overall, Good Enough to Eat, Best Borough (Most Representative), Most Intricate, Sweetest, Grandest, Only in New York, and Most Resilient. All decorations had to be edible, and 75 percent of all structures had to be gingerbread.
John Kuehn, an architect who transitioned into food blogging during the pandemic, drafted blueprints for his first-ever gingerbread house using AutoCAD software. He rigorously tested dough samples to determine the strongest structural recipe, which skips butter for molasses and spices to enhance both sturdiness and smell. Kuehn spent 160 hours assembling Madison Square Park, the Flatiron building, and the Metropolitan Life Insurance Tower from individual gingerbread bricks. His efforts won Grandest in the competition.
John Kuehn’s towering gingerbread complex.
Staten Island nabbed Best Borough, thanks to an expansive scene crowned featuring its famous ferry, crafted by Bruno’s Bakery in Dongan Hills, operated for more than 40 years by the Settepani family. Sherry Kozlowski, an amateur baker from Astoria, Queens, who also appeared on Food Network’s Christmas Cookie Challenge in 2018 won Best Overall for recreating her favorite neighborhood shops from fondant, gum paste, isomalt, and candies. Egidio Pastry Shop in Belmont represented the Bronx, winning the Sweetest category.
It wouldn’t be New York without world-class art. Professional photographer and lifelong recreational baker Ida Kreutzer of Clinton Hill, Brooklyn won the Only In New York Award for her gingerbread replica of a Fort Greene brownstone where she once lived—including the Swoon artwork that graced its exterior.
After “Gingerbread NYC” closes, bakers will retrieve their creations. The show is perhaps the last to be overseen by outgoing director Whitney Donhauser, who’s leaving this month to serve as Deputy Director and Chief Advancement Officer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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