Ryan McGinley’s Menagerie

The last time the 34-year-old photographer Ryan McGinley had a show in New York City, the scene was more like a rock concert than any gallery opening. Inside, the crowd swelled to the point where you could barely make out the work on the wall, at which point it spilled into the streets, obstructing traffic, until the Police Department arrived and shut down the whole operation. This year the law will be on McGinley’s side: “We’re getting the police to block off the street, it’s gonna be like a fun block party,” he promises of “The Animals,” an exhibition of new work that opens at Team Gallery on Wednesday. I stopped by McGinley’s Canal Street studio for a sneak peak of the colorful photographs, in which naked models — of both the two- and four-legged variety — commingle playfully.

This new photographs are uncharacteristic for you in many ways. What made you shift your focus from youthful nudity to exotic animals?

I slowly began making a few photos with animals over the years, and I liked how people reacted to them. When I would have the animals on set, I’d notice the way the models would interact with them and there was so much true emotion that you rarely see between two human beings. It was fun for me to watch; the people were really just props for the animals to climb on. Read more…


Finger on the Button

Photographs by Bibi Cornejo BorthwickThe checklist for the CNNCTD+100 project.
A selection of CNNCTD’s Playbuttons will be available for listening at the New Museum Store.

As far as New York City kids go, Bibi Cornejo Borthwick, who is the daughter of the fashion designer Maria Cornejo and the artist and T photographer Mark Borthwick, and Roman Grandinetti, a D.J. and the founder of the creative agency CNNCTD+, are pretty well connected. But just how connected even they couldn’t be so sure until they reached out to 100 of their cultural heroes and, using a Playbutton as a platform, loaded their words of wisdom, favorite songs and even the occasional recipe onto the wearable MP3 devices. The artist Cindy Sherman, who claimed not to like public speaking, curated a playlist; the legendary art director George Lois read from his new book, “Damn Good Advice“; Pharrell Williams rapped philosophic on his personal otherness (his new record label is called I Am Other). Starting tonight, and for the next three weeks, 10 different MP3 buttons will be available to the listening public at the New Museum Store as part of CNNCTD+100. Additional buttons have been planted throughout the city at special Sound Graffiti stations. (Hint: the Jason Woodside mural on Kenmare Street between Bowery and Elizabeth has something to say for itself.) Cornejo Borthwick and Grandinetti’s plan is to take the project global, bringing the buttons — and their collective good will — to cities like Paris and Tokyo and adding new names to the roster along the way. “In New York City people are always so competitive,” Cornejo Borthwick observes. “The way to succeed is to collaborate.”


Vain Glorious | Miraval’s New Look and New Spa

 

What: Life in Balance Spa with Clarins at the Miraval Resort in Arizona.

Where: 5000 East Via Estancia Miraval, Tucson; miravalresorts.com.

Why Bother? A favored retreat among overstimulated New Yorkers, Miraval’s acclaimed Tucson spa reopens today in grand form. The newly redesigned space has 23 treatment rooms (six of which are outdoor) plus a V.I.P. suite with private garden and outdoor fireplace, all of which are modeled in Clodagh style, with a focus on mindfulness, minimalism and sustainability — principles further explored in a menu of exclusive Clarins treatments that work to promote healing and self-awareness. Services of note include the Grounding Facial (complete with hot stones), Mountain Berry Clay Renewal Ritual (which includes a detoxifying, antioxidant-rich scrub, mask and scalp-to-toe-massage) and the Ultimate Pedicure (a decadent, 80-minute antiaging indulgence for legs and feet).

How Much: Prices range from $70 (20-minute massage) to $550 (facial and body care pairings).


Fête Accompli | Bomb Magazine Gala

With art fair upon art fair sweeping the city (Frieze opens on Friday), and New York magazine’s art world-centric cover story from last week still percolating through the spring air, the timing was right for Bomb Magazine’s 31st-anniversary gala and silent auction last night at the Beaux-Arts-style Capitale, on Bowery and Grand.

Cindy Sherman, Marina Abramović, Dorothy Lichtenstein and many other art-world luminaries assembled in the lobby for cocktails and to peruse auction offerings by the likes of Laurie Anderson, Lisa Yuskavage and Richard Artschwager. Patti Smith arrived wearing a white tuxedo shirt, long beads and a black blazer, her hair in two loose braids, accompanied by her friend Rosemary Carroll, an entertainment lawyer; they quickly huddled in a corner with Michael Stipe, who was carrying an oversize Goyard envelope pouchette. Skittering through the crowd, 8-year-old Clara Blue Cantor, granddaughter of the Bomb board member Paul Cantor, evaluated the art for sale with a precociously gimlet eye. She finally placed a bid on a pink Daniel Wiener watercolor. (Her grandfather said she bids every year: “We’ve been taking her around to galleries. She’s very aware of art.”) Read more…


Milan Flashback | A Light-Bulb Moment

One of the less-publicized product debuts of last month’s Milan design week was a line of L.E.D. bulbs from a new Dutch company called Booo Studio, which was displayed in the courtyard of Spazio Rossana Orlandi. Light bulbs, even L.E.D. bulbs — which are the next big thing, since they’re superior to compact fluorescents on most levels except price (and that should change soon enough) — aren’t exactly a glamorous design category. But the designers Front, Nacho Carbonell and Formafantasma produced L.E.D. bulbs that look like no other. Scheduled to be for sale by September, Booo’s bulbs will sell for between 40 and 80 euros ($53 to $106) each. This may seem like a lot of money, but not when you consider that each bulb is its own light fixture, no shades needed. Read more…


How Do Artists Say I Love You?


“One of my favorite works of yours is to throw an object from one country to another, and I just want you to know that I’m taking all the love from my country and throwing it into yours,” said Ed Ruscha to his friend and fellow artist Lawrence Weiner via video last Tuesday night. The occasion was the Drawing Center’s 2012 Spring Gala, where Weiner was being honored for his contributions to contemporary art. Ruscha, who was on vacation in Jamaica, created a three-minute tribute in the form of a parody of Bob Dylan’s legendary music video for “Subterranean Homesick Blues” with placards featuring Weiner text pieces like “stars don’t stand still in the sky” and “water in milk exists.” The mash-up soundtrack, sung by Ruscha himself, was composed by the longtime Ruscha collaborator Mason Williams, while the film was shot in Ruscha’s studio by Gary Regester, another old friend. Weiner and Ruscha both showed at Leo Castelli’s gallery in the 1970s and even teamed up for a book, “Hard Light,” in 1978, so there’s a deep personal history far beyond benefit-circuit sendups. “At the end of the video,” commented Brett Littman, the executive director of the Drawing Center, “Ed begs Lawrence’s wife, Alice, to bring him into the 21st century by teaching him how to drive a car, but Lawrence is a true New Yorker and I don’t think honorees are expected to do homework.” See the video here.


Borough Inn

Mark Mahaney

Has Brooklyn finally gotten the hotel it deserves? The $32 million Wythe Hotel is a grown-up sanctuary on the Williamsburg waterfront and a chance for a local restaurant guru to spread his wings. Also, you know, you get more space for your money.

>>See the interactive slideshow


The App for That | The Food Lover’s Guide to Paris

Save for fanny packs and sneakers, little is as anti-chic in a city like Paris as lugging around and exposing weighty travel tomes, practical and valuable as they may be. It’s true that until recently, navigating the city’s vast culinary enclaves and judiciously selecting the right spots for a short trip required such material. But for Francophile gastronomes everywhere, knowing where to eat just got a lot easier (and far more discreet).

After over a year of testing addresses with the help of a small team, Patricia Wells, the award-winning author and former food critic for The International Herald Tribune, condensed her favorites into The Food Lover’s Guide to Paris, the digital version of her pre-eminent culinary bible of the same name last updated in 1999. Read more…


Photos of The Moment | RWB

Sonny Vandevelde’s Australian fashion week photo diary.

See all of our Photos of The Moment


T Summer Design | Must Haves

On our design list this summer: a bar trolley, illustrative wallpaper, timely clocks. More…


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