DESIGN DISPATCH

Heron Preston Is Auctioning Some of His Most Prized Sneakers, and Other News

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Heron Preston. Image courtesy of eBay

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Heron Preston is auctioning some of his most prized sneakers on eBay this week.

“Heron Preston isn’t interested in hoarding shoes. The designer is willing to practically give away some of his prized sneakers to make that point, partnering with eBay for a charitable fire sale of sorts. Preston is the debut face of eBay’s From the Collection series, a new program that sees the digital auction site sell-off coveted grails from the archives of culturally savvy sneaker collectors. Just because this is the first installment doesn’t mean that Preston is taking it easy. Several shoes from Preston’s stash will be up for grabs on eBay’s Heron Preston website from October 3, each with a starting bid of only $0.99.” [H/T Highsnobiety]

The Whitney Museum taps Chrissie Iles and Meg Onli to co-curate its 2024 Biennial.

“The Whitney Museum of American Art has tapped two curators with vastly different profiles to helm its 2024 Biennial exhibition: Chrissie Iles, a longtimer at the museum, and Meg Onli,  who was most recently director and curator of the Underground Museum in Los Angeles. The museum’s director, Adam D. Weinberg, said he was struck by the fact that Iles’s and Onli’s ‘chemistry is great,’ in part because they represent different ‘generational viewpoints.’ Iles is in her 60s, and Onli in her 30s. Iles joined the museum in 1997, focusing on film and video. This will be her third biennial—she was a co-curator of the 2004 and 2006 editions. Before the Underground Museum, Onli was at the ICA Philadelphia, where she organized “Colored People Time” in 2019 and co-curated the 2021 retrospective of the video and performance artist Ulysses Jenkins, among other projects.” [H/T The New York Times]

KunstKerk in Dordrecht, the Netherlands, with stained glass windows by Studio Job. Photography by Jeroen Musch

In the Netherlands, Studio Job reveals a surrealist take on stained glass windows.

“Netherlands-based Studio Job has created a curved bronze-and-glass sculpture named The Embrace for Dutch art institute KunstKerk as a humorous update on traditional stained-glass windows. The largest sculpture ever created by Studio Job, The Embrace was based on the outline of the facade of KunstKerk, which is located in a former church in Dordrecht, the Netherlands. Smeets hand-crafted the 47-foot-tall sculpture, described by the studio as a ‘surrealist take on classical church windows,’ from bronze and pigmented glass. The final design features two undulating ‘windows’ that seem to stretch towards each other above a smaller, central window.” [H/T Dezeen]

Manchester will welcome Factory International with a major Yayoi Kusama exhibition.

“A contemporary dance show directed by the filmmaker Danny Boyle and designed by the British artist Es Devlin will officially open Factory International, the long-awaited arts center in Manchester, England. The new space, which has cost a total of $207 million and is designed by the firm Office for Metropolitan Architecture, will act as the permanent home for the Manchester International Festival, which next year runs June 29–July 16. The opening of the festival will be marked by an immersive exhibition of Japanese conceptual artist Yayoi Kusama, titled “You, Me and the Balloons” (June 29–Aug 28), showing three decades of her inflatable artworks. The cultural space will then officially open to the public in October with Boyle’s show, titled “Free Your Mind” (Oct. 18–Nov. 5).” [H/T The Art Newspaper]

Next year’s Met Gala theme will pay tribute to late fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld

Vogue revealed on Friday that the 2023 Met Gala theme will pay tribute to the late Karl Lagerfeld nearly four years after his death from pancreatic cancer at the age of 85. The exhibition, called “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty,” will explore the illustrious designer’s career, which spanned from 1954 to 2019 across multiple high-fashion brands, including Balmain, Chloé, Fendi, Chanel and his own eponymous line. In addition to being heavily involved in the 2015 Chanel-themed event, Lagerfeld was a fixture at the Met Gala over the years, as he was close friends with Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour and one of the industry’s most lauded names.” [H/T Page Six]

The Orange County Museum of Art by Morphosis. Photography by Mike Kelley

The Morphosis-designed Orange County Museum of Art officially opens next week.

“On Oct. 8, a new cultural landmark for modern and contemporary art, the Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) will open in its new home on the campus of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, California. The new museum building, designed by Morphosis under the direction of Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne and partner-in-charge Brandon Welling, provides the OCMA with a larger number of exhibition galleries, dedicated educational spaces, and public areas to enrich the lives of a diverse and changing community through modern and contemporary art. For the next ten years, OCMA will offer free general admission, further advancing its public mission.” [H/T Designboom]

An exhibition series at MoMA spotlights how NYC architecture tackles social issues.

“The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has announced a new exhibition series that will highlight contemporary New York City architecture addressing social inequities and issues related to shared space across all five boroughs. In its first iteration Architecture Now: New York, New Publics will showcase completed and speculative projects by 12 architects and designers. They include Adjaye Associates; Agency—Agency and Chris Woebken; CO Adaptive; James Corner Field Operations; Kinfolk Foundation; nARCHITECTS; New Affiliates and Samuel Stewart-Halevy; Olalekan Jeyifous; Only If—; Peterson Rich Office; SO – IL; and SWA/Balsley and Weiss/Manfredi.” [H/T The Architect’s Newspaper]

Today’s attractive distractions:

A rare diamond suggests Earth’s interior may be soggier than we think.

These newly unveiled insect-like drones can 3D print while in the air.

Depeche Mode shoots a roll of film for a fan who couldn’t make the show.

A whiskey-fueled meeting in the 1940s jumpstarted Berlin’s techno scene.

All Stories