DESIGN DISPATCH

This Vivid A/W Collection Is the Best of Both Stellas, and Other News

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Stella McCartney A/W 2022 Collection. Images courtesy of Stella McCartney

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This Vivid A/W Collection Is the Best of Both Stellas

Besides championing vegan materials and ethical manufacturing in fashion, Stella McCartney is known for her namesake house’s artist crossovers. The British label recently presented its Autumn/Winter 2022 collection on the upper floor of Paris’s Centre Pompidou, which was showcasing one of Europe’s most comprehensive exhibitions on Frank Stella. His rebellious minimalist abstractions across painting, printmaking, and sculpture inspired the collection, which sees some of the American artist’s most recognizable works—Spectralia (1994), V Series (1968), and Swan Engraving (1982) among them—printed faithfully onto the garments or used as a jumping-off point for McCartney to gently riff on their patterns and shapes. 

The Stella-meets-Stella affair unfolds across the label’s signature faux-fur coats, viscose dresses, and an exclusive vegan Frayme bag, which employ sustainable materials like grape leather, recycled nylon, and regenerative wool. McCartney entrusted Stella with final approval on the collection—a welcome throwback given how his mother initially studied painting and fashion design. “When she dressed up,” he recalls, “she was glamorous.” —Ryan Waddoups

Kō'ula by Studio Gang. Image courtesy of Studio Gang

Studio Gang completes a skyscraper in Hawaii with a sugarcane-inspired facade.

“Studio Gang has completed a residential tower in Hawaii called Kō’ula with an undulating facade that takes cues from local ecology. Kō’ula, which means “red sugar cane” in Hawaiian, is a local plant with a twisting structure that became a major influence on the tower’s facade. Studio Gang took the plant’s twisting structure and applied it to the facade so that the windows of the 41-floor tower could have maximized views of the ocean.” [H/T Dezeen]

The Studio Museum in Harlem has announced this year’s three artists in residence. 

“The Studio Museum in Harlem, renowned for shepherding artists of African descent, has announced its latest artists in residence, in a program that has fostered creative greats like David Hammons, Kerry James Marshall and Njideka Akunyili Crosby. They are Devin N. Morris, Charisse Pearlina Weston and Jeffrey Meris. The residency comes with a $25,000 stipend, studio space, developmental guidance and a group exhibition at the end of the program. The three artists will work from a temporary space, Studio Museum 127, as the new building is undergoing construction designed by David Adjaye, one of the architects behind the National Museum of African American History and Culture. This year, the foundation of the Glenstone Museum endowed $10 million toward the program.” [H/T The New York Times]

The Philadelphia Museum’s striking workers ratify a contract and will return to work. 

“Striking members of the first union in the storied history of the Philadelphia Museum of Art overwhelmingly approved their first contract Sunday evening and prepared to return to their jobs Monday morning, concluding a historic 19-day walkout. The PMA Union, an affiliate of AFSCME DC47, had been negotiating a deal with museum management for two years. In the end, the museum agreed to virtually all that the union wanted, approving a 14% pay hike over three years (retroactive to July of this year), an increase in the minimum hourly wage from $15 to $16.75, “longevity” pay increases that would grant workers an additional $500 for every five years of employment, four weeks of paid parental leave, and help with the high cost of health insurance.” [H/T The Philadelphia Inquirer]

“THIS BURNING WORLD” (2022) at ICA San Francisco. Photography by Impart Photography, courtesy of the artist

The ICA San Francisco opens after two years with a solo exhibition by Jeffrey Gibson.

“The Bay Area art scene is getting a major boost, thanks to the recent opening of the Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco, a new museum in the city’s Dogpatch neighborhood that has come together with remarkable speed. The ICA’s director Alison Gass came up with the idea for the new institution in Jan. 2021, when venture capitalist Andy Rappaport, cofounder of Minnesota Street Project, asked her if San Francisco would benefit from a non-collecting art museum. They immediately started fundraising, secured a space, and announced the ambitious project in September. The ICA is opening in phases, starting with a show by Jeffrey Gibson, and welcomed 835 guests on its first day earlier this month.” [H/T Artnet News]

A Dune subreddit group bans AI-generated art from DALL-E for being “low effort.”

“In the world of Frank Herbert’s Dune, the Butlerian Jihad’ led to the destruction of ‘thinking machines’ across the known universe, and the birth of a civilization that focused on enhancing human intellect. In the online community on the subreddit of r/Dune, the birth of AI art has led to a similar, albeit smaller, war on technology. There, users who number almost a quarter of a million fans of the novel series, as well as its two film adaptations, moved to ban AI-generated art this week, after a wave of automatically generated content flooded the boards. The ban “applies to images created using services such as DALL-E, Midjourney, StarryAI, WOMBO Dream, and others,” the moderators wrote in a post.” [H/T The Guardian]

Art by Kiki Smith and Yayoi Kusama will grace Manhattan’s Grand Central Madison.

“At 700,000 square feet, Grand Central Madison, the new Long Island Rail Road terminal opening in December, has an impressive scale: It is costing the Metropolitan Transportation Authority more than $11 billion, and the project, its largest ever, has been underway since 2006. The terminal will also be an underground gallery of sorts, featuring enormous mosaics by two female artists with strong New York City connections, M.T.A. Arts & Design, which commissions art for the transit authority, is announcing Friday: Kiki Smith, a longtime resident known for her figurative work, and Yayoi Kusama, the Japanese sculptor and installation artist who lived in the city from 1958 to 1975.” [H/T The New York Times]

Today’s attractive distractions:

Mr. Doodle covers his entire 12-room house in doodles, inside and out.

Issey Miyake’s new gridded bag can adjust in size to suit different outfits.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, divers leap from a picturesque high bridge.

Is popcorn becoming the latest low-effort cocktail garnish du jour?

All Stories