I had a dismaying conversation yesterday about a young, up-and-coming designer who has secured a frighteningly large pair of commissions for himself. His work is fine. It projects good taste to people who have ok taste. That’s always kind of the taste problem: if you can recognize “good taste,” then you kind of already have it. So whoever you think has better taste can only ever have marginally better taste: if the gap is too large you simply wouldn’t see it. The client base already necessarily shares some sensibility with the designer.
What’s dismaying about the young designer is how clearly he shows that the world of interiors is really governed by a lizard-brained thirst for hot gay guys. And yes, on some level, this governs the world (though, like—go to an academic conference for a study in contrasts). The interiors world is, I guess, rooted in surface considerations (it’s literally superficial) and divorced from the avowed conceptualism and political considerations that shape the art world. So what’s left is just “Me want kitchen in book-matched marble” or whatever. On the one hand, I support this (that is, there’s nothing wrong with making considerations of surface paramount; there’s also a lot less conceptual and political content in the art world than it likes to tell itself). And yet I have seen some insanely shitty work coming from some pretty hot gay guys and that does give me pause. The shitty work is invariably some lazily altered retread in some needlessly more expensive material.
This will all end up with me getting the full WeHo giga chad surgery and some very unnatural looking hair plugs in Turkey, (“Brendan and Todd let me do the powder room in verde marble!”) but let’s take this moment to call a spade a spade. It’s shameless! Your designer should look like the Elephant Man!
If you missed it, I had the HONOR of being a guest on what is genuinely one of my fave podcasts, Celebrity Book Club. It’s paywalled, but like, the cost of about 1/3 of 1 drink, so maybe cough up the cash. I also want to say thank you to all of you who have reached out about Maiden closing. It’s been heartening.
For my treasured new subscribers: Landed cost (the final cost you pay) = the hammer price (the highest bid) + the premium (a set percentage added to the hammer price that the auction house takes) + shipping (you’re almost always on the hook for this) + sales tax
To the listings!
Claes Oldenburg (1929-2022). I have a real soft spot for him. Pop Art, but that kind of demonstrates what’s misleading about grouping artists by resemblance: he really doesn’t share interests with Lichtenstein, for example, even though they both made big Pop sculptures. I like the polemic in his monuments (they’re satirical without being nihilistic). The mouse was important to him. This piece about it/him is very nice.
This is work from John Chamberlain (1927-2011) that’s news to me. Glitchy and kind of interesting.
I am so into hooves on furniture right now. Also it is a joy to type “Chinoiserie.”
Creepy! Love.
Can you imagine having the gumption to design this? To wear it? It gives me strength in a world of plumped design gallerists in brocade occasion blazers.
70”x70” so nice size. I would buy this for myself.
Ken Price (1935-2012). This is cool. It may end up being crazy expensive but that’s not a me problem.
OK, of interest to me here: it’s actually two different finishes—mirrored and brushed. I dont know how I feel about it but why not?
So random that there was the other similar daybed last week. This one is even better. It has a built in glass shelf. In LA for my West Coast arcadesnistas.
I had no idea Issey Miyake made lamps but it turns out he does and they look like what you’d think they look like—cool and nice.
BONUS HOT GAY GUY PAINTING
By John Lear from 1949. I was going to bid but some annoying gay guys are already bidding it up. Maybe you? Happy Pride!
May the hammer fall ever in your favor!