Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays Everyone! And thank you Ian Schrager for bringing all this gorgeousness into our neighborhood.
The only information available on this tree is that Ian Schrager personally came up with the idea and oversaw its creation for the garden at the Public Hotelon Chrystie Street in NYC.
It consists of 100 glowing LED orbs, programmed in different colors and patterns that change over the course of 24 hours.
During daylight hours it glows white and as the afternoon progresses it becomes more and more colorful.
Scroll down for more photos of how it changes throughout the day as well as pics of other popular festive trees in NYC.
Has anybody else noticed how brightly lit some stores and restaurants are getting?
I first noticed it at 10 Corso Como (the store and the cafe – pics above). Every time I go there, somebody invariably comments on how bright it is. I’ve always sloughed it off as being an “Italian thing” but there may be more to this.
Carla Sozzani, the store founder, has been quoted as saying: “the Internet is about fast shopping, and 10 Corso Como has always been about slow shopping—enjoying life, taking your time.”
I’ve read that bright lights are more stimulating and create a more energetic vibe. Something I would translate as meaning they want me in and out fast. However, 10 Corso Como has never made me feel like I should be hurrying – either in the store or at the cafe.
The vibe is just so pleasant there I can linger under the bright fluorescents all day long.
I’m sticking with my initial idea that Italians, like a moth to a flame, like brightly lit cafes and stores. It makes them feel alive and they have big enough personalities to stand up to bright lights (all conjecture on my part).
Read on below for two more examples of retailers giving the dark mood lighting the heave-ho.
Charlotte Dutoit first got on my radar in 2013 when she curated the art walls for Rehan Choudhry’s inaugural Life Is Beautiful Festival in Downtown Las Vegas. I’ve been shamelessly fangirling her ever since.
The public arts program for LIB was, and continues to be, absolutely STELLAR – it’s what attracted me to the festival in the first place and has kept me coming back year after year.
Justkids’ projects include major public art installations all over the world, as well as brand events and experiences. They are renowned for their work with top tier urban artists.
Thrilled to have Charlotte Dutoit participate in our Q+A series.
Outstanding retail tour of Soho this week organized by strategic design firm, Beardwood & Co. and led by an expert from a major retail/display/experience company.
We visited many great stores but the knockout for me was the Google Hardware pop-up.
As always, Google delivers exceptional design. Their attention to detail and overall aesthetic is first-rate.
The pop-up also includes lots of fun, interactive experiences. My fave: the selfie station in the tree house that’s voice activated. Your photo is delivered to the mail box attached to the tree house ….need I say more? Mindblowing!
The tour also included the new Amazon 4-star store which, by comparison, looks even more wretched.
I wrote about Amazon 4-star in September when it first opened. And let me just add, after a few months, the store looks even more run-down and depressing.
Amazon has no feel for brick and mortar retail. They have the money to do extraordinary things but they seemingly don’t care. That’s what makes it even more sad.
Our expert also asked us to consider – for each store we visited – how successful the brand was on 3 attributes: attract, engage, connect. The Google pop up scored 100% while Amazon 4-Star gets 30% on a good day.
No Christmas Party this year, but I did buy a Christmas Tree – albeit a small one.
It’s a 3- footer and I got it at Whole Foods. It was $20 which I think is kind of expensive.
Hopefully, if I treat it right, it will remain vibrant and healthy through mid-December.
That’s when I’m doing my Holiday brunch followed by what I hope will be a very lively afternoon of Cards Against Humanity.
In the past, I’ve always bought a 6-ft. tree – and always on Thanksgiving weekend, which is apparently the worst time to buy a Christmas tree.
Only Cyber Monday is more expensive according to a survey from Square and the National Christmas Tree Association.
Read on below for all the tree stats that matter – including info on horrid people who return trees for refunds after Christmas. Who does that? Totally bad karma.
I first met Aaron Rose shortly after he opened Alleged Gallery on NYC’s Lower East Side. The group of artists he assembled (many of which I was fortunate to collect) became known as the Beautiful Losers. In looking back, they were less street artists than a community of “outsider” artists. Many are now represented by leading galleries and are in major collections around the world.
Aaron and I reconnected recently when he was in NYC to host an exhibition at The Hole in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Beautiful Losers documentary (first released in 2008).
As part of Archtober (NYC’s architecture and design month), I was notified about this architect-led boat cruise around Manhattan.
I booked the 10am tour and it was absolutely one of the very best Manhattan things I have ever done. You all know how much I love the High Line and Governor’s Island. This ranks alongside both. It’s a must-see for people who live in NYC as much as for tourists.
There are a variety of options (see in the link) – some are shorter, some have a slightly different geographic focus but if time allows, I would go with the 2 hour 45 minute signature tour I went on.
While there are many ways to see the city by boat (Circle Line being the most popular), this is the cruise for NYC’s brainiacs.
You can also book a custom cruise for your team or company which I imagine would be spectacular – especially for creative and design business.
The boats are smallish, built like 1920’s yachts!
Here’s the blurb from their website:
This 2-hour-and-45-minute cruise circumnavigates the island of Manhattan via the Hudson, East, and Harlem rivers, and is AIA New York’s signature tour experience.
Enjoy expert narration by an AIA New York guide as you explore the architecture, infrastructure, and urban planning of New York City.
Tour highlights illustrate the recent transformation of an industrial waterfront, ecologically-driven landscape design, and resilient infrastructure.
Learn about historic engineering marvels, adaptive reuse, progressive waterfront parks, and recent buildings by local, national, and international award-winning architects.
Light hors d’oeuvres and a complimentary beer, wine, or champagne is included.
By the way, I will be doing a similar architect-led cruise in Chicago when I am there in November.
Yup!! And it was one of my top 5 art trends in March 2017 based on that season’s art fairs in NYC.
Now confirmed as legit by FT and the major auction houses of Europe.
I’m also surprised we haven’t seen anyone make the connection between Yayoi Kusama and the ceramics boom. She deserves full credit. Without her ceramic pumpkins, I doubt we would have such a hot market for the ceramics category.
The Kusama pumpkins have been extraordinarily high profile since early 2017 when her Infinity Mirrors exhibition kicked off at the Hirshhorn. These are the same ceramic pumpkins, by the way, that have been getting destroyed by museum visitors who can’t seem to control their selfie sticks. One of the reasons ceramics make me nervous.
No matter the origins of the ceramics craze, the Financial Times has now legitimized it as a hot new trend for collectors ….
Ceramics are all the rage this season as both Christie’s and Phillips have dedicated auctions this week (October 2 and 5 respectively).
Gagosian’sGeneva gallery opened a show of contemporary ceramic vessels last week (Fire and Clay, to December 15).
“Contemporary collectors ask me almost daily where you can find value and I point them in the direction of Modern and contemporary ceramicists,” says Henry Highley, Phillips’ 20th-century and contemporary art specialist, adding that he sees the area as a “new collecting category”.
This week, Phillips offers 32 unique items (total estimate £2.5m to £3.7m), including familiar fine artists such as Roy Lichtenstein and Lucio Fontana alongside 19th- and 20th-century ceramicists such as George Ohr and Lucie Rie.
In December, Phillips made a record for a 20th-century ceramicist when Peter Voulkos’s sculpture “Rondena” (1958) sold at a design auction for $915,000 (with fees) — not cheap, but considerably below the prices paid for prime postwar paintings. ‘
Scroll down for pics from the March 4, 2017 blog post identifying ceramics as a top trend at the fairs.
