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See This
An Artist Known for His Expressive Vases Debuts a New Bird Series in TokyoImage
By Laura Regensdorf
In 2014, when the artist Dan McCarthy moved from Brooklyn into a converted schoolhouse in upstate New York, he decided the grand hall would be a future gathering spot for his many Facepots: large, wonky vessels decorated with a spectrum of grins and grimaces. The earliest ones, about a decade old, recall a time of emotional swings. “I hadn’t even found the clay that worked,” McCarthy says of that experimental phase, “so a lot of the pots were breaking in the kiln.” He learned to relinquish control, repairing the salvageable works using the Japanese technique known as kintsugi, in which mended seams are accented in silver or gold. The Facepots brought a new openness to McCarthy’s practice, as did the Hudson Valley. Absent the city’s pressures, he explains, “I was like a kid — on my hands and knees, lost in making a thing.” “Freedom,” a new monograph of McCarthy’s work, charts that arc, with nods to his Southern California upbringing, seen in rainbow-colored paintings of surfers and songbirds perched on guitars. Birds also animate new ceramic works in his solo exhibition at the Tokyo gallery Kosaku Kanechika, on view through Nov. 16. For McCarthy, these first faceless pots offer a shift in narrative. “Instead of a vessel, maybe it’s a nest,” he says, describing a fascination with his neighborhood birds. Kintsugi-like detailing appears on these pieces, too: Silver-leafed slabs camouflage the occasional split, while shiny rectangles evoke the little mirrors tucked inside birdcages. For the artist, fresh off his first flight to Japan, it’s a time of possibility. “I’m 62, which is old and not,” McCarthy says. “I think I’ve got another act in me. It should be an adventure.” “Dan McCarthy” is on view through Nov. 16 at Kosaku Kanechika, Tokyo, kosakukanechika.com.
Consider This
A Milanese Members’ Club Opens in a Historic Brera VillaImageThe Wilde, a new members’ club in Milan’s Brera neighborhood, was designed by Fabrizio Casiraghi. Its top-floor restaurant, Ava, will serve an array of Mediterranean dishes.Credit...Giulio GhirardiBy Laura May Todd
Milan is often derided as a gray city, all stone facades and treeless streets. But in reality, it’s a city of gardens — albeit private ones, locked behind gates and concealed within courtyards. Among them, hidden behind the hedges of Via dei Giardini (Street of the Gardens), are the verdant grounds of Villa del Platano — a 1950s apartment building turned private residence previously owned by Santo Versace, a onetime president of Versace and the older brother of Gianni and Donatella — where the Wilde, a members’ club, will soon open its doors. Founded by Gary Landesberg, a former chairman of the Arts Club in London, the Wilde spans four floors, with a rooftop terrace and outdoor tables in the garden for al fresco dining. The Italy-born, Paris-based designer Fabrizio Casiraghi planned the interiors, which channel the vintage charm of midcentury Milan. In the ground-floor restaurant, the Club Room, the most informal of the three dining spaces, a backlit ceiling resembling Art Deco-era stained glass casts a soft light onto glossy walnut club chairs, upholstered banquettes patterned with leaves and flowers, and a mirrored DJ booth for late-night soirees. Other gathering spaces include a library bar, a cigar lounge and several private rooms for meetings and intimate meals. One such room, attached to the top-floor Mediterranean restaurant Ava, features a hand-painted mural by the artist Assia Pallavicino depicting dancing couples and musicians — evoking the same feeling of bygone revelry that the Wilde hopes to bring to Milan. The Wilde opens Nov. 7. Prospective members can apply at portal.thewilde.com.
Visit This
Maria Pergay’s Stainless Steel Furniture, and Other Experimental Works, on View in New YorkImageA new exhibition celebrates Maria Pergay’s pioneering designs, including her 1968 stainless steel Ring chair (left) and 1967 lacquered Console (right).Credit...Thierry DepagneBy Zoe Ruffner
In 1968, when Maria Pergay debuted her collection of curved stainless steel furniture, bending the industrial material past its perceived limitations, the Moldova-born, Paris-raised designer changed the face of French interiors. But by the 1990s, when the collectors Suzanne Demisch and Stephane Danant happened upon one of her alloyed designs at a flea market, the once eminent matron of metal — whose discerning clients had included Cristóbal Balenciaga, Pierre Cardin and Salvador Dalí — had slipped into obscurity. This month, the pair’s namesake New York gallery, Demisch Danant, which helped set the stage for Pergay’s early-2000s revival, is once again showcasing her work. Opening a year after her death at 93, “Precious Strength,” celebrates Pergay’s expansive oeuvre with an emblematic collection of about 35 pieces. Accompanied by a trove of samples, sketches and personal objects, her seminal steel creations, including the Ring chair and Three-Tiered table, will be on display alongside her later experimentations with lacquer, mother-of-pearl and precious woods — all of which are best experienced with Pergay’s own words in mind: “The only thing I want,” she once said, “is that the work not leave you indifferent, one way or another.” “Precious Strength” will be on view Oct. 24 through Nov. 30 at Demisch Danant, New York, demischdanant.com.
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