With “Voce,” Triennale Milano Embraces the Art of Sound

VISIT
With “Voce,” Triennale Milano Embraces the Art of Sound

A historic wing of Milan’s Palazzo dell’Arte, home to the Triennale Milano since 1933, has been reimagined as “Voce”—a permanent installation dedicated to sonic art. Designed by Luca Cipelletti as a “cathedral of sound,” the 330-square-meter space—once a dance hall—strips away imagery and invites visitors to engage through vibration, silence, and resonance. Modular green furnishings by Philippe Malouin allow the room to shift from intimate listening sessions to full concerts, part of a larger wave of listening rooms the world over. Acoustic design by Giorgio Di Salvo and lighting by Anonima Luci calibrate the environment with precision, while newly-installed columns echo ways in which the nave of a church organizes movement, framing experience without dictating it.

Open to the public beginning May 13, “Voce” launches with a robust calendar of programming that treats sound as a cultural material in its own right. Performances range from Beth Gibbons of U.K.-based indie band Portishead, presenting her first solo album, to electronic sets by Christian Löffler and The Raveonettes, alongside collaborations with Kappa FuturFestival and Polifonic. By repositioning a building once filled with rock concerts and television broadcasts into a site for acoustic experimentation, Triennale Milano taps into a broader rethinking of how architecture and music intersect.—Jenna Adrian-Diaz

OBSESS
Paola Sasplugas Might Just Be The Architect Of Fine Jewelry’s New Wave

Whether it’s a constellation of pavé diamonds gracing the likes of Kelly Rutherford or the Brancusi-esque silhouette of her sculptural brass and amethyst rings, her studio PDPAOLA is making her own mark on the world of fine jewelry—and where it can intersect with fine art. To that end, Sasplugas spoke with Surface about jewelry as a vehicle for storytelling, and materiality and craft as a conduit for expressing femininity. —J.A.D.

STAY
A Brutalist Sanctuary Along Jamaica’s Northeast Coast

Cruising along a winding jungle path, beneath canopies of Blue Mahoe and bamboo groves, where the scent of jasmine and hibiscus hangs in the humid air, one hardly expects to encounter a brutalist architecture-style monolith, world-class recording studio, yoga pavilion, horse farm, and design details sourced from around the world. Yet hidden deep within Jamaica’s Portland Parish—a far cry from the more predictable rhythms of Negril or Montego Bay—lies Pompey, a 50-acre sanctuary that redefines the modern luxury retreat.

Conceived by Thomas Wesley Pentz, better known as the Grammy Award-winning artist Diplo, Pompey isn’t merely a destination—it’s a convergence of nature, sound, and design. Part private residence, part creative refuge, the estate officially opened in 2024 and has already drawn a cloister of musicians, artists, and in-the-know aesthetes.—Ross Belfer

SAVOR
A Picture of Tropical Decadence, Gitano Opens at South Street Seaport

Following 2018’s concrete jungle in Soho and 2022’s lavish Governors Island escape, the much hyped hospitality brand settles into a permanent New York City home at Pier 17. Encompassing nearly 14,000 square feet, with 30-foot-high ceilings and a wall of hydraulic windows that opens to the water, Gitano NYC will greet guests for the first time today. The larger-than-life lightning rod of a restaurant and nightlife scene marks the first permanent New York City location of the international hospitality venture, which first opened in Tulum in 2013 and debuted in Dubai last year. This also follows years of seasonal outdoor pop-ups around the city.

“When the opportunity with Pier 17 at the Seaport came into view, we knew it was the perfect destination for the first permanent NYC location,” Grupo Gitano founder and CEO James Gardner shares with Surface. This he attributes to the environment. “You’re surrounded by water, with views in every direction, yet you’re tucked into your tropical hideaway. This allows us to anchor the Gitano experience in a permanent home without losing the feeling of impermanence and discovery.”—D.G.

SOURCE
Tappan Bursts onto Soho’s Art Scene

For more than a decade, the art discovery platform Tappan built its name by flipping the gallery model on its head—prioritizing digital discovery and turning Instagram-savvy collectors onto rising artists sans the art world’s entrenched gatekeeping tendencies. Its L.A. space, which debuted in 2023, marked the platform’s first foray into the brick-and-mortar world with a cheekily-titled group show, “Offline.” Now, with the addition of a Soho exhibition, “Proximities,” Tappan has staked its claim to New York. “Proximities” gathers works by Irinka Talakhadze, Gia Coppola, Umar Rashid, and more, offering a meditation on quiet gestures of intimacy—not as spectacle, but as manifestations of the intangibility of gesture, memory, and meaning.—J.A.D.

SHOP
With East Fork’s Latest Tableware Collection, an Inheritance and a Homecoming

Over the past 15 years, Asheville-based ceramics studio East Fork has cultivated acclaim among home cooks and food industry insiders like David Chang and Samin Nosrat for its kiln-fired and glazed ceramic tableware. Now, founder Alex Matisse is embracing his own artistic heritage with the launch of East Fork’s Matisse Collection—so-named for his great grandfather, Henri.
A new electric blue glaze—La Sirène—anchors the collection, which has launched on the occasion of the elder Matisse’s long-anticipated entry into the public domain. The collection, developed together with the Matisse family estate, features line-drawn portraits, botanical studies, and aquatint cutouts pulled from Henri Matisse’s oeuvre of late-career works. These adorn serving platters and side plates.—J.A.D.

SEE
Leica Stages an Exhibition by Enrique Badulescu and Marina Testino

To honor Earth Week 2025, fashion photographer Enrique Badulescu and sustainability advocate Marina Testino collaborated on “re:Frame,” a four-day exhibition of large-scale images spotlighting the detrimental environmental impact of clothing production and waste. Hosted within Leica Gallery NYC, the exhibit acted as a call to action, viewed through the lens of Badulescu, with Testino as the creative director and subject, under the surreal set design of stylist Romina Herrera Malatesta. “This exhibition started with an image: a vast mountain of clothing waste in Chile’s Atacama Desert, piled so high it can be seen from space,” Testino shared with Surface. “Thousands of garments—many of them never worn, not needed, already forgotten. An inversion of everything fashion is meant to be. ‘re:Frame’ is a response to that image.”

Testino and Badulescu looked to that image as a challenge to speak up. “If fashion has the power to influence how we think, feel, dress, protest, and express—why can’t it be part of the solution rather than part of the problem?” Testino asks. “Fashion has always been a force for change. It helped usher in women’s liberation, civil rights, LGBTQ+ visibility, and youth rebellion. Now, it has another revolution to lead: a transition to circularity—not only within the clothing industry, but across our systems of production and consumption.” Testino knows there is no simple fix but hopes that the conversations sparked through “re:Frame” can contribute to change.—D.G.