What’s Happening: A program called Spazi Capaci organized by anti-Mafia organization Fondazione Falcone brings poignant public art to Palermo, reminding locals of its not-so-distant entanglements with organized crime.

The Download: With its alluring mix of architectural styles and scenic bay setting nestled within Sicily’s Monte Pellegrino, the city of Palermo teems with energy and vitality, its charming streets bustling with tourists and alfresco trattorias. But it wasn’t always that way: Palermo was once a stronghold of organized crime, with quarreling mobsters whacking one another in the streets, using public funds to build unsightly high-rise apartments, and leaving its historic city center unpreserved. Things changed after the 1992 murder of anti-Mafia judge Giovanni Falcone in a bombing, a watershed moment that galvanized the reeling populace into organizing against the mob with mayor Leoluca Orlando.

Three decades after Falcone’s murder, Fondazione Falcone has unveiled four public artworks throughout the city to remind locals of Palermo’s grimmer years and encourage them to resist the creeping influence of organized crime. Founded by the late judge’s sister, Maria, the organization seeks to circumvent the Mafia by marking its territory: “In the last few years, we Palermitans have demonstrated that the city is ours,” she told the Art Newspaper. “This was not so easy during the lockdown, so we filled the city with art to show we’re still here.”

Spazi Capaci’s art installations both memorialize Mafia victims and seek to instill strength in locals. Among the highlights is Gregor Prugger’s Tree of Everybody, which brings a tall fir tree with wooden figurines of Mafia victims affixed to its bare branches into the roofless Church of Santa Maria della Spasimo. It joins a poignant vignette of wooden figurines depicting Falcone and fellow victim Paolo Borsellino hand-carved by Peter Demetz. Across town, where Falcone’s tomb resides in the Church of San Domenico, Velasco Vitali installed more than 50 life-size canine sculptures evoking “the contrast between the sublime and the profane” made from rusted metal, concrete, and paper.

In Their Own Words: “We’ve always known that culture is one of the best weapons against the Mafia,” Falcone tells the New York Times. “Repression alone is not enough. You also need social and cultural work for that.”

Surface Says: Spazi Capaci coincidentally came to light on the same day as the untimely death of actor Ray Liotta, known for his unforgettable role in the gangster classic Goodfellas. We’ll pour out a glass of Etna Rosso in his memory.

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When we last caught up with Cat Snodgrass, the founder and lead designer behind Bi-Rite, she had turned the buzzy Brooklyn design emporium into a one-stop shop for Memphis Milano must-haves. “We view design as an opportunity to be adventurous,” Snodgrass said at the time. “That’s what Postmodernism was about: rejecting the classical approach.” She applied that same logic when designing Bi-Rite’s first-ever rugs, an understated and clever series that forgoes ornamentation in favor of negative space and looking between the lines.

Hand-tufted with one-inch New Zealand Wool and featuring a gridded array of round holes, the Perforated Rug draws inspiration from the tie holes found in concrete structures, architectural panels, and perforated sheet metal. “I became interested in the concept of a rug that wouldn’t compete with a space,” Snodgrass says. “The default to a motif or color pattern on a rug has been amply explored, and I felt this lacked versatility for many interiors.” Versatile indeed—it’s available in two variants, five sizes, and six colors including ivory, rust, and black.

The serene coastal getaway Marram made waves when it first opened in 2019. Its beachfront locale in front of a silky surf break and proximity to Shadmoor State Park made it an ideal spot for travelers looking for more of the South Fork’s natural beauty and less of its rowdy nightlife scene. Just in time for Montauk’s prime season, Marram is giving guests even more reason to visit with the addition of two expansive suites designed by Post Company, a revamped open-air lounge at its Uruguayan-style café, and a fresh slate of programming.

Like the property’s well-appointed standard rooms, the new suites are adorned in Brian Bielmann’s surf photography and paintings by musician-artist Sean Spellman. Light sculptures by Isamu Noguchi complement the warm tones of the custom Suar wood furnishings in the living rooms, dining nooks, and wet bars. Located on the second floor, the Terrace Suite offers expansive views of the ocean, while the Garden Suite is equipped with its own private outdoor dining space.

Mostrador’s fire-grilled specialties are back courtesy of Argentine chef Fernando Trocca, whose acclaimed restaurant Parador La Huella, in José Ignacio, is a regular on the 50 Best list. New this year: a new cocktail menu showcasing South American flavors with classics such as the Brazilian caipiroska and Cuban mojito. Returning this year is the property’s fireside chat series, hosted in the new lounge, with an eclectic lineup in the mold of past speakers like futurist Zac Waldman.

The decorative painter Gijs Frieling and psychedelic penmanship practitioner Job Wouters first teamed up in 2008 and enjoyed quick success after Dries van Noten commissioned them to design prints and a large-scale mural inspired by Frank Zappa visuals for his Fall/Winter 2012 runway show. A decade later, the Dutch duo now known as FreelingWaters has zeroed in on a niche that merges the finest qualities of their respective strengths: applying ultra-matte paint in dazzling colors and patterns to upcycled antique cabinetry, totally transforming them into eclectic statement pieces that ripple with phantasmagoric verve.

Our weekly roundup of the internet’s most preposterous headlines, from the outrageous to the outright bizarre.

Seth Green’s Monkey NFT Was Stolen and Now He Can’t Make His TV Show [Artnet News]

Bald Eagles Dying, Egg Prices Rising: Bird Flu Spreads to More Than 30 States [NBC]

Eruption of Underwater Volcano Home to Mutant Sharks Pictured by NASA Satellite [Metro]

TikTok Star Accused of Setting Fire to Nature Reserve for Fashion Video [Newsweek]

Tesla Owner Breaks Window to Escape After Car Bursts Into Flames [Input]

Anna Delvey’s Biggest Scam of All Might Be Her Art Show [ARTnews]

Meet the Man Who Has Eaten a Big Mac a Day for 50 Years [The Washington Post]

OnlyFans Star Says She REPEATEDLY Tracked Down Meta Employees and Had Sex With Them to Get Her Account Reactivated When It Was Locked for Explicit Content – and Reveals Insta’s Shadowy “Review Process” [The Daily Mail]

Last week, Surface and Lauren Rottet welcomed New York City’s design community to a cocktail party in celebration of the newest collections from the architect and designer’s eponymous decor studio, Rottet Collection.

Held at Rottet Collection’s ICFF booth, guests mingled and enjoyed an exclusive preview of the brand’s newest offerings, including select furnishings inspired by the visual intrigue of kinetic sculptures and the ease of indoor-outdoor living, and releases from a forthcoming collaboration with Austin-based rugmaker Kyle Bunting. “The additions to the Rottet Collection include pieces that we needed and couldn’t find in the marketplace,” says Rottet of the new dichroic side tables, mohair chairs, midcentury-style sofa, and even a fire pit.

Footwear has evolved considerably over the past few decades, from charting new aesthetic territory to game-changing strides in materials and sustainability. Though some innovations may have been predictable at the turn of the millennium—stepping up the green factor with reclaimed ocean plastics or using 3D printing to create inventive forms—few would have predicted that sneakerheads are now shelling out thousands in cryptocurrency on exclusive drops to dress up virtual avatars in the metaverse.

Now, an all-encompassing exhibition that opened at Toronto’s Bata Shoe Museum is shedding light on how footwear has evolved through the years—and predicting where the category is headed next. According to the museum’s director and senior curator Elizabeth Semmelhack, who co-authored Future Now: Virtual Sneakers to Cutting-Edge Kicks (Rizzoli) that will accompany the exhibition in June, footwear’s foray into the metaverse is carving out new possibilities for its next frontier.

Norman Kelley is an architecture and design collaborative founded by Carrie Norman and Thomas Kelley in 2012 with offices in Chicago and New Orleans. The firm’s work ranges from interior alterations and exhibition design to bespoke furniture.

Surface Says: Tasked with telling the backstory behind Chicago’s rich comics history through exhibition design, Norman Kelley deftly employed color, scale, and proportion, finding a kinship with cartoonists in the process.

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