Latest news with #Picasso
Buzz Feed
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
Not To Toot My Own Horn, But I've Just Compiled A List Of 27 Of The Best Decor Pieces You've Seen In A While
A unique tripod floor lamp if a standard lamp isn't your vibe but your house is desperately lacking lighting. This will ~shine~ in the corner of your room while fitting in with that modern vibe you're going for. A "Normal Gets You Nowhere" digital download perfect for my fellow weirdos who aren't interested in fitting into any cookie cutter mold and wanna make sure the whole world knows it! A unique wavy corner bookshelf, because why would you get a standard version when this one can add so much more movement, whimsy, and intrigue to your room?! A cleverly designed slim side table perfect for smaller spaces where you *need* storage but can't fit a full-size side table. Plus no one is gonna believe this is from Amazon and not some amazing thrifted find. A wooden beaded garland that'll do for your vase what a necklace does for you — add a lil' somethin somethin. You can even drape it on the coffee table or bookshelf for a subtle farmhouse vibe. A charming marble pen cup where you can store your collection of writing utensils so they don't end up shoved in a junk drawer, or your makeup brushes so you never lose the eyeshadow one again. We love decor that's actually functional! 🙌🏼 An acrylic chandelier lampshade to easily (and affordably) transform your boring pendant light into one worthy of being in a palace. A charming flower bar that'll add the floral vibe you're going for without adding something to your house that you have to keep alive. The wooden shelf comes with an assortment of dried flowers that will bring some life and color to any wall. Some pre-made wall panels to elevate any room without all the measuring required to perfectly assemble and place handmade panels that take hours to get exactly the same size and distance apart. For homeowners ready to make the permanent leap, you can use glue or a nail gun, but if you need something renter friendly, Command strips are a great option! A decorative ceramic lips holder which will add a little spice to your side table. These are perfect for holding jewelry, lip balms, or other small knickknacks in a container that showcases your personality instead of boring ol' bowls. A super chic wavy mirror that'll give your wall AND your selfies a noticeable upgrade. Be warned, you may spend a lot more time staring at yourself once you have this. A contemporary, sculptural lamp if you're looking for a unique piece that will draw your guests' eyes and have them saying, "OK, I like it, Picasso." 👨🏼🎨 A decorative mirror tray with so many uses — keep it in your room for your perfume or jewelry collection, by the front door as your little catch-all, or really impress your guests by bringing out hors d'oeuvres on a ~mirrored~ platter. A trio of contemporary candle holders that'll make your guests do a double take when they think you have magical floating candles. Some arched rattan bookends to shrink down that trendy style from your chairs, cabinets, and headboards for the book collection that's been sitting on your shelf collecting dust. If you're not gonna read them, you may as well make 'em look nice. Or keep the pile you're actively reading separated so you always know where to find your next read. An ornate, arched mirror I'm sure you've seen similar versions of on an influencer's social media at least five times. Now you'll stop cropping the mirror out of your selfies and instead try to get as much of the detailing in them as possible. A mushroom table lamp that comes with an LED bulb so you can set it up straight out of the box. And this bad boy is dimmable so you can have it turned up when you're studying and turn it down while you get ready for bed. Farmhouse semi-blackout curtains with adorable lil' flowers all over because plain boring curtains are so last year. An elegant moon cycle garland designed to look like the phases of the moon are floating on your wall. A stunning floral coaster that'll add a dainty and beautiful natural vibe to your bedroom. A bed canopy to make your room its own special hideaway where you can nestle yourself into bed with your favorite book or TV show. A chandelier so you can swap out your boring old lights with a unique one. This small change can really make a huge difference in the aesthetics of your home, without having to put forth a ton of effort (or money). A 100% jute rug if you're still vibing with the coastal grandma aesthetic. The unique texture will add some much-needed dimension and the fact that it's low maintenance *and* super durable is the icing on the cake. An acrylic tray table, which is a great option for anyone low on space. You can use it as a side table and then when your stomach starts to growl, you can move it, because who knows the last time you lived somewhere with an actual dining table. And if you're *really* low on space it, folds up compactly so you can store it away when you aren't using it. A gorgeous statement checkered cutting board you can use to chop your chicken, serve a charcuterie platter, or if you're feeling fancy, just lean it up against the wall as a gorgeous decor option. A book-shaped flower vase for any book lovers who want to incorporate their favorite pastime into their gorgeous decor, but want something a liiiittle more unique than just color-coordinating their book collection. Or a crinkled "paper bag" vase that'll add a little pizzazz to your weekly flower collection instead of just a regular ol' clear vase.
Hindustan Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Cutlery, but make it art: The rise of sculptural spoons and forks
Move over, minimalist silverware—2025 is plating up a new wave of cutlery that's as bold as it is functional. From gold-dipped forks that double as art pieces to edible spoons that satisfy both your hunger and your conscience, quirky cutlery is getting a serious glow-up. This piece feature a leaf-shaped spoon, with intricate vein details visible on the surface. The cutlery appears to be made of metal, possibly with a polished or dark finish, creating a reflective surface, which just adds to its organic aesthetic. A regal- themed dinner party? This set is definitely worth a try. Well, this one is a bit unique. This set of spoons and forks have handles that are twisted and looped in a way that gives a sight of loosely tied ribbons. Very dainty. Very demure. The endings of each piece shapes like knotted ribbons. Their darkened-bronze finish adds an element of luxury, making them perfect for elegant dining settings. This spoon above might've been Picasso's dream. The handle is decorated with a colourful mosaic pattern featuring small squares of red, yellow, and blue, stones, all fitted by silver metallic borders. The bowl of the spoon is standard and metallic, serving functionality. This isn't just a cutlery piece. It's an artistic piece that merges practicality with artistic expression. Ever had that feeling where you think that an item is too beautiful to use anytime soon and you keep preserving it for a better time next? This cutlery set is an artistic collection decorated with perforated bowls of the spoons and ornately decorated handles which showcase a floral motif endings, bird figures and shell designs. While some of these have a twisted handle, one ends on a Mickey-Mouse motif. The designs have a geometric and sleek structured appearance. Like one can be seen purposefully bended to give an artistic approach. This one's a pure love for artistic vintage. The cutlery set features slightly curved, elongated handle and a rounded beginnings. The metal surface has a hammered texture, giving them an artisanal, handcrafted appearance. The overall aesthetic speaks an ode to organic and craftsmanship. This set would certainly add character to one's dining experience.
New York Times
3 days ago
- Politics
- New York Times
A Young Rockefeller Vanished in 1961. The Met's New Wing Celebrates His Memory
It's been said that Nelson Rockefeller, who as a grown-up managed the opening of Rockefeller Center, the real estate colossus in Midtown Manhattan, liked to play with blocks as a boy: the ones between 49th and 55th Streets. In fact, according to his most recent biographer, Richard Norton Smith, Nelson was 'less concerned with Rockefeller Center's commercial prospects than its artistic possibilities' (notwithstanding his eradication of a Diego Rivera mural there in 1934 after the artist defiantly superimposed a profile of Lenin). Rockefeller, who was elected governor of New York four times and was Gerald R. Ford's vice president, was infatuated with sui generis objects of art. He defined their value not by their provenance or price or the artist's cachet, but simply by what he liked. Inspired by Brasília, he created a new Capitol complex in Albany. He commissioned Picasso to produce tapestries, including one that hung in the boathouse of his vacation home in Seal Harbor, Maine, which he proudly showed off for visiting reporters after he was nominated to the vice presidency. His first childhood love, he once said, was a marbled Bodhisattva — a figure of a Buddha — from the Tang Dynasty. (At his request, his mother, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, left it to him in her will.) On his eighth birthday, he asked for Raphael's Sistine Madonna, one of the few objects on his wish list that proved to be inaccessible; the 16th-century painting remains in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden. What his mother did for her trove of underappreciated American folk art by establishing a museum in Williamsburg, Va., as well as helping to found the Museum of Modern Art, Nelson Rockefeller did for Indigenous paintings and sculpture. He triggered a cultural revolution that elevated so-called primitive art from objects relegated to discreet ethnographic collections to their proper place as an integral component of global human creativity. The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Michael C. Rockefeller Wing originally opened in 1982, celebrating the arts and culture of Africa, the Pacific islands and the Americas. In 2013, introducing a yearlong celebration of Nelson's artistic and cultural vision, the Met's director, Thomas Campbell, acknowledged, belatedly, that the museum had embraced 'a seismic shift' that 'changed the direction of the museum radically.' 'For the very first time,' Campbell said, 'the Met became truly global.' Smith, who wrote 'On His Own Terms: A Life of Nelson Rockefeller' (2014), said in an interview, 'I think he did as much to promote awareness of so-called primitive art as his mother did to make folk art respectable.' On Saturday, after over four years of repurposing and reconfiguring, the $70 million renovation of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing of the Metropolitan Museum will reopen, supported by contributions from 'the Rockefeller family and their affiliated philanthropies,' as the Met explains it. The incandescent exhibition space and its contents prodigiously proclaim the fulfillment of a legacy that was inspired by Nelson's mother. It was catalyzed by his first purchase of a carved wooden bowl in Hawaii on his honeymoon when he was 22 — the same age as Nelson's son Michael when he traveled to what was then Dutch New Guinea for the first time in 1961 with a documentary film crew. As much as the collection celebrates the incomplete career of Michael, a novice anthropologist who was lost on his second expedition to New Guinea later that year, it also salutes the steely determination of his fraternal twin sister, Mary Rockefeller Morgan, a psychotherapist who is the daughter of Nelson and his first wife, Mary Todhunter Clark Rockefeller, to preserve and display her family's patrimony. 'I'm a watchdog for the family. and the world,' Morgan, who is a spry 87, said in an interview. 'Like Father and Michael before me, I have developed an emotional connection to Indigenous art,' she explained. 'I love that this art so directly speaks to humanity's most basic needs and desire for safety, power, order, beauty and meaning.' A favorite example of 'the art's sophisticated patterns and echoing designs that often have symbolic meaning,' she said, is a 2,000-year-old wooden sculpture of a Mayan priest from Peru. 'He kneels, hands clasped to his breast; his head is back, and his mouth is open,' she added. 'To me, his face is filled with reverence and sheer awe of his gods. Whenever I see this ancient priest, I respond in stillness and with emotion. I am touched by Indigenous art's honesty and receive it as intimacy.' The 40,000-square-foot remodeled wing at the Met occupies the same footprint as the original, but feels more commodious and blazes with natural light. Its 1,726 artifacts represent about a quarter of the museum's trove of Indigenous art, about a third of which was collected by Michael and Nelson Rockefeller. But is the Met going against the grain by celebrating art from the Global South when 'inclusion' has become a dirty word? 'We think of this as great art from three-quarters of the world,' said Alisa LaGamma, curator in charge of the Rockefeller Wing and a specialist in African art (Joanne Pillsbury and Maia Nuku have curated the Ancient Americas and Oceania collections, respectively). 'We didn't think of this as a diversity project.' Provenance has been established. 'We are not a colonial collecting institution,' LaGamma said. (The museum said that Michael typically traded tools and tobacco pouches for the artifacts he collected, which, since most were ceremonial, would otherwise have deteriorated or been destroyed.) Smith, the biographer, suggested that the former governor's attraction to primitive art might have been rooted in his dyslexia, a learning disorder that affects the ability to read, write and spell, which Michael and Mary inherited. 'With dyslexia comes a real visual sense of how objects are placed,' Mary said. Michael's favorite painting was a whimsical collage by Georges Braque, she said, and recalled that her father once walked into Brooke Astor's living room and, without missing a beat, began rearranging the furniture. 'I think Nelson saw parallels between Indigenous art and the abstract forms he was forever having to explain to the uninitiated,' Smith said. 'Dyslexia may have been a factor in his enjoyment of both, but I think a greater influence was his globe-trotting for business as well as pleasure. Certainly his feelings for Latin America found expression in his collecting. Likewise, he showed interest in Africa in the 1950s, when most Americans were content to neglect the continent.' Nelson once put it this way: 'The more intellectual you get about art the less aesthetic you become.' In 1954, Nelson Rockefeller founded the Museum of Indigenous Art in a townhouse on West 54th Street between his boyhood home and the Museum of Modern Art. (He changed the name to the Museum of Primitive Art only after too many people associated the name with 'indigent' or 'indigestion.') Nelson recruited Rene d'Harnoncourt (who later became the president of MoMA) and Robert Goldwater to curate the art bought from New York dealers or acquired on his forays abroad — beginning with the Hawaiian bowl and including a feathered Peruvian textile, a Yam Mask by the Abelam people of New Guinea and a whale carved in ivory from Tonga — as coordinator of the Office of Inter-American Affairs in the early 1940s, which sought to strengthen U.S. influence in the region, and on his private philanthropic ventures. Michael Rockefeller first traveled to southwest New Guinea as the technician recording sound for a documentary film by the Peabody Museum's Harvard Film Study Center about the Asmat people who inhabited the uncharted jungles and rainforests of what they called 'the land of lapping death.' 'Michael had never been happier than in the nine months he spent in New Guinea,' Nelson recalled. But Mary wrote, in her wrenching memoir of losing a twin, 'When Grief Calls Forth the Healing' (2014) that she had a premonition that the 1961 expedition would be perilous and that her brother would not survive. 'I was dead set against your decision to go to such a dangerous and remote place,' she wrote in a post-mortem paean. 'Father championed the whole idea, so there was no way I could change your mind.' She wondered, though, why Michael hadn't rebelled when Nelson, a larger-than-life figure at home and in public, vetoed his intention to major in architecture at Harvard. 'God, I'm still getting out from under Father,' she wrote. 'Is that part of what you were doing by going to New Guinea? An unspoken agenda — but with his blessing? I have to admit, it was perfect for you, perfect for finding out about yourself without the family and for exploring your love of art.' Michael's love of art brought him and Nelson 'together in a special bond,' she wrote. After coming home to the United States briefly in a vain attempt to dissuade his parents from divorcing, Michael returned to Dutch New Guinea to collect and meticulously catalog artifacts, including nine 20-foot-high Asmat ceremonial poles to honor their ancestors, a 49-foot-long longboat canoe and fertility figures, ancestors, gods and spirits carved from mangrove trees. Michael had warned, though, that, 'many of the villages have reached that point where they are beginning to doubt the worth of their own culture and crave things Western.' He wrote his uncle John: 'There is a beauty in the simplicity and something compulsive about the way the Ndavi people have a grip on life' and recommended that Americans would benefit from the experience. When his catamaran capsized 10 miles from the coast, near the mouth of the Eilanden River, he decided to swim to land. He disappeared, either drowned (the official explanation) or killed by the Asmat, who had been known to practice head-shrinking and cannibalism. A partner on the expedition, a Dutch anthropologist who couldn't swim, was rescued from the boat 22 hours after Michael had dived in. 'I see now that you made your final choice, steeped in the Asmat environment where you'd found life and death exposed and intertwined with everyday reality,' Mary wrote. She accompanied her father to New Guinea to search for Michael, but his body was never found. Three years later he was declared legally dead. In 1974, after President Gerald R. Ford tapped Nelson as vice president, Mary became the last president of the Museum of Primitive Art. She also joined the board of the Met where she headed a joint committee that oversaw the transfer of the Rockefellers' collection — including some 400 objects that Michael had collected and were shipped to Westchester and stored in the old milking barn at the family's estate in Pocantico — to a new wing dedicated in his memory. Prolonged negotiations between d'Harnoncourt and Thomas Hoving, the Met's director, to transfer the collection to the museum had begun in the mid-1960s. In 1969, Nelson donated 1,400 artifacts, worth more than $20 million. He left the museum some 1,400 others valued at $5 million when he died in 1979. The wing finally opened in 1982. After Mary's fund-raising efforts and her insistence, supported by the museum's own conservators, the vast glass curtain wall facing south has been screened to protect vulnerable objects from the sun. 'Father wanted that collection in the Met and the collection being there is the stamp of approval,' she said. 'That wing being what it is today really impressed the world of the greatness of these art traditions.' The 1982 version of the wing cost $8.8 million to build and $9.5 million more to install the exhibits. Financing was supplied partly by members of the Rockefeller family, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Vincent Astor Foundation and other donors. The original catalog explained that describing the art as primitive was misleading. 'The art is not crude or rough, nor were the social or intellectual structures of the people who made it,' the catalog said. 'What then is primitive art? Properly it is the art of those peoples who have remained until recent times at an early technological level, who have been oriented toward the use of tools but not machines.' The new wing, Mary Morgan said, finally represents closure to a devastating episode for the Rockefeller family. 'Michael and I were lost,' (he literally, she figuratively) Mary wrote, but 'the thing that enabled us to accept Michael's death was that life really continues in this gift that he brought back from New Guinea. 'I feel like the reopening of the wing is the fulfillment of father's dream,' Mary said. 'And Michael's dream.' Nelson never got to be president. Nor did Michael fulfill his dream of becoming a professional anthropologist. But if any proof were needed of their commitment to art for art's sake it can be found in an alcove on the first floor of Kykuit, the Beaux-Arts mansion in Pocantico Hills that was home to four generations of Rockefellers and is now open to the public. A 30-inch-tall sculpture that Michael made in high school, of galvanized iron wires protruding from a stone base, is prominently displayed there — along with works by Gilbert Stuart, Alexander Calder, Andy Warhol, Robert Motherwell and Picasso. But it wasn't merely parental pride. Mary Morgan recalls that when she was in the third grade, she crafted a wooden wastebasket. Nelson kept it in his dressing room on Fifth Avenue, and never showed it publicly. 'Father would not have put that there,' his twin said of Michael's sculpture, 'if he didn't like it.'
Spectator
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Spectator
Douglas Cooper – a complex character with a passion for Cubism
The collector, art historian and critic Douglas Cooper (1911-84) relished conflict. He was a formidable man, loud in speech and dress, with forceful views and a taste for ridicule. He could also be very funny. John Richardson, Picasso's biographer, who knew Cooper better than most, said it was as though an angel and a demon child were perpetually fighting for control of his personality. Physically robust, Cooper survived being stabbed in the stomach when he was 50 after unwisely propositioning a French soldier. He is remembered today, if at all, for his legendary collection of Cubist art, focusing on the four greats of the movement: Picasso, Braque, Léger and Gris. His taste was backed by intense scholarship and he was one of the earliest collectors of Cubism, a rare passion for an Englishman. He was a man of independent thought and opinions, though prey to paranoia and self-indulgent tantrums. He was apparently asked to resign from the Reform Club four times because of bad behaviour. Francis Bacon, with whom he had a very typical falling out, called him 'a prissy old voluptuary'. This complex figure is the subject of a new book which claims to be an objective biography. It is enriched by having two authors, although there is inevitably a degree of overlap between their texts. The first part is more or less straight biography, by Adrian Clark. The tone is relentlessly disapproving, a clear dislike of Cooper extending to his quondam partner Richardson. Clark calls Cooper a sociopath, a malign, vindictive and wilful person. He claims that the book 'displays' Cooper's life, rather than judges it, but he repeatedly tells us how unpleasant the man was.
NZ Herald
6 days ago
- NZ Herald
Room Check: Hotel Casanova, Barcelona
Perfect for: Business travellers or tourists visiting this historic Catalan city. First impressions: The hotel was a cosy refuge on a day of rain in Barcelona. The hotel staff were extremely accommodating, allowing me to go to my room at 9am despite a 3pm check-in time. Rooms: My fifth-floor room overlooked an apartment block where people lived their lives oblivious to the nosy Kiwi watching them from across the street. The coffee machine was pressed into immediate use and the two coffees provided had disappeared by the time my companion arrived, delayed by an airport shuttle mix-up. They were lucky though that I saved the biscuit for them. Prints by local artists – mine was a Picasso - decorated the walls. Bathroom: The bath was never far from my thoughts during a wet, chilly day of sightseeing in Barcelona. I couldn't find the plug though, so had to get inventive with an upside-down drinking glass to luxuriate in bubbles and hotwater. Food and drink: A coffee machine produced immediate coffees and I was also provided with a biscuit. Neither was topped up during my brief stay. Facilities: Had the day been drier, we would have made better use of the rooftop bar. But even with the bad weather, we regretted our tight schedule precluded tapas on the rooftop with a glass of sangria as the sun sank (behind the clouds) over Barcelona's gothic quarter. In the neighbourhood: Just a 40-minute walk away was the glorious Sagrada Familia. We sampled a selection of tapas from Kurz&Gut seated at a table in the shadow of the great cathedral. The rest of the day we wandered down Barcelona's world-famous pedestrian mall La Rambla to finish for dinner at the Mercado de La Boqueria market. The hotel was a short taxi ride to the harbour, where we caught a cruise ship the following day. Family friendly: Although the hotel welcomes families, it is primarily geared towards business travellers. Accessibility: Ramps and lifts helped the less able move around the hotel. Sustainability: Just being so close to the centre of Barcelona's downtown area reduces your carbon footprint thanks to how easily accessible everything is on foot. Website :
