The Artful Life: 7 Things Galerie Editors Love This Week

1. Fouquet’s Paris Reveals Lobby Renovation by Friedmann & Versace

Designed by legendary talent Jacques Garcia, the famed hotel Fouquet’s Paris occupies a glamorous triangle overlooking the bustling Champs-Élysées and Avenue George V. This spring, the landmark unveiled a renovated lobby by Paris studio Friedmann & Versace that carefully honors its aesthetic splendor while enveloping public spaces with a sumptuous grandeur. Stretching from the lobby, the new La Galerie serves as a convivial gathering spot with an exuberant carpet awash in a Madeleine Castaing pattern, plush barrel back chairs, and bistro tables that offer a cozy spot for morning coffee or midday bites, like king crab salad or a delectable croque monsieur. Having already revamped other Barrière Collection destinations, like Ciro’s restaurant in Deauville and La Baule, studio founders Virginie Friedmann and Delphine Versace imbued this refreshed interior with other sultry details evocative of Paris in the glamorous 1920s and 30s, including braid-edge watered silk wall coverings, custom Blundell & Therrien decorative artworks, Studio Gohard bas-reliefs, and an inspired mix of vintage and bespoke bronze and alabaster lighting. It’s a scintillating new addition that artfully appears like it has been a cherished part of the beloved hotel for all of its 127-year history.—Jill Sieracki

2. Simone Bodmer-Turner Debuts Ceramic Tableware Inspired by Her Farm Life

Since Simone Bodmer-Turner relocated from Brooklyn to a 36-acre farm in the rural Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts two years ago, the self-taught ceramist has consistently been charting new creative terrain. Beyond the graceful ceramic vessels synonymous with her name, the Bay Area–born artist pushed herself to create furniture and lighting sans her beloved kiln—and has been readying a collection of tableware under her newly established SB-T Studio. “Cooking, eating, and gathering has always been something core to the way I connect with people and care for myself,” explains Bodmer-Turner, who previously worked on farms and in restaurants before striking out on her own. The collection traces back to a single prototype: a tall, deep bowl sized to cradle in two hands while holding a full meal of soup or rice with pickled vegetables. 

From that starting point, Bodmer-Turner developed a suite of plates, mugs, and serving pieces that balance the heft of English ironstone with the delicacy of Japanese ceramics. She worked closely with her ceramic development director Justine Barrett Figura to refine each profile for symmetry and stackability. They also preserve the irregularities inherent to the maker’s hand, using layered slips and glazes that lend depth to their milky surfaces while making each piece collectible and one-of-a-kind. “Retaining a record of the hand is extremely important across all of the work we make,” Bodmer-Turner notes. “In a time so fueled by technology and mass production, feeling the gestures, compressions, and emotions of the maker in your environment brings depth and character.” The collection will be available for purchase online and from a pop-up SB-T Shop from May 15–20 during NYCxDesign. —Ryan Waddoups

3. Louis Vuitton Travel Book Collection Heads to Berlin 

Louis Vuitton is introducing a new title in its travel book collection as Croatian illustrator Miroslav Sekulić-Struja brings the scenes of Berlin to life through a journey of two characters. Available in a standard edition and a large-format collector’s edition, as well as a limited edition of 30 signed and numbered copies, the artist invites the reader to confront memory, pain, and healing through the characters’ respective journeys through the streets of Berlin. In addition to the title’s release, Louis Vuitton is presenting an exhibition at Festival du Dessin in Arles that will be dedicated to a selection of Sekulić-Struja’s drawings and will include the work of Gabriella Giandelli, who illustrated Australia (2021), and Miles Hyman, who illustrated Rome (2018). A video interview with Sekulić-Struja about his process is planned for a May release.—Alexandria Sillo

4. MoMA/PS1 Celebrates 50th Anniversary with Day-Long Block Party

Dancing on the steps at the MoMA/PS1 is a rite of passage for young New Yorkers creating a moment where their older selves can one day smile back and say, “Yeah, I was cool.” In honor of PS1’s 50th anniversary and the opening of its Spring/Summer “Greater New York” exhibit, the ever-fresh institution is hosting a day-long Block Party on Saturday, April 18, with a slate of events guaranteed to please New Yorkers from those who remember the first opening of MoMA/PS1 on down to those too young to count to 50. The vibrant community showcase will offer family-oriented workshops and demonstrations on subjects from collage quilting to dance battle, DJ sets from Discolocas NYC Fiesta Club and St. James Joy, curator talks in the galleries, and refreshment by some of Queens Night Market’s top food vendors. Inspired to shop? Head to the second floor for FAD Market to bring home work by some of the names featured in “Greater New York” or other rising talent in a 60+ roster of independent craftspeople, designers, and artists. —Rena Gross

5. Pace Surveys Chuck Close’s Works on Paper in Chelsea

Chuck Close made portraits in the late 1960s when portraiture was a dirty word. Minimalism and Pop owned the conversation. He went anyway—grid by grid, photograph to paper, one obsessive mark at a time—and gave a generation permission to paint faces again. His toolkit was deceptively spare: an airbrush blast, a stamp-pad square, an inked fingerprint. Now, several years in the making, “Chuck Close: On Paper” at Pace’s Chelsea flagship gathers five decades of watercolors, drawings, maquettes, prints, and large-format Polaroids of Close’s friends and fellow artists, including Jasper Johns, Agnes Martin, Kara Walker, Robert Rauschenberg, Kiki Smith, and Roy Lichtenstein, alongside his self-portraits. A 1976 watercolor of Klaus Kertess, the longtime Bykert Gallery director who gave Close his first New York solo show, hangs among them. “Chuck Close: On Paper” is on view through April 25 at 540 West 25th Street, New York, NY. —Gogo Taubman

6. Bar Rêve Reimagines a Cobble Hill Dive as a Parisian Cocktail Salon

What once was a local dive in Cobble Hill now stands as one of Brooklyn’s most transportive new cocktail destinations. Founded by hospitality veterans Alexander Buchholz and Victor Triebel, Bar Rêve evokes the salons and soirées of Belle Époque Paris owing to lavish interiors conceived by Studio Friedman with a layered material palette that balances opulence and intimacy. Murano glass chandeliers glow warmly over red velvet drapery, a working fireplace, and vintage fixtures. At the street, custom brass signage by Holzman Iron Studio signals the transformation with a crafted, tactile presence. The experience extends to the drinks program, presented as a bound volume that frames each cocktail as an “impression” of a classic recipe. The Scandale draws on the Naked & Famous while nodding to Édouard Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe, blending mezcal, Yellow Chartreuse, Aperol, and lime. —R.W.

7. Celia Rogge’s Architectural Photographs Transform Bergdorf Goodman’s Windows

This month, a landmark series of architectural photographs by Celia Rogge is transforming the iconic Bergdorf Goodman windows along Fifth Avenue and the second-floor rotunda. The series, titled “Enfilades,” transports readers to Europe’s grand palace interiors, ballrooms, and more while posing the question of “What draws us forward?” The photographs offer a peek inside another world, while also providing the framework for chic, custom-made fashion displayed alongside it. The experience continues inside, where installations promise unexpected thrills and moments of discovery. “Enfilades” will be on view through April 28.—A.S.