What’s Happening: Cartier unveils its revamped Parisian boutique on the elegant rue de la Paix, marking the final redesign of its three “temples” after London and New York.

The Download: For the past two years, those passing through Paris’s fashionable rue de la Paix may have noticed something amiss along the street’s elegant sandstone buildings. Where Louis-François Cartier opened his namesake jeweler’s Parisian branch inside a Neoclassical-style facade clad in black and gold Portoro marble, passersby were actually looking at a simulacrum. The maison mounted a trompe-l’œil storefront while its history-laden flagship underwent a top-to-bottom makeover that honors its Parisian roots and forges an inviting atmosphere, a redesign that CEO Cyrille Vigneron describes as “a metamorphosis, like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly by recomposing the same molecules in a new way.”

It’s an apt metaphor. Besides the distinctive facade, Cartier regulars won’t recognize the new boutique whatsoever. Light soars through the airy 32,000-square-foot building, which centers on a skylit atrium that mimics the courtyard of a Parisian building. Stripped of an imposing central staircase and rooms clad in dark wood panels, the intervention invites visitors to roam freely throughout the boutique’s six floors while browsing offerings in plush nooks and crannies. Vigneron enlisted 12 artisans and 40 workshops to realize the abundance of decorative elements and bespoke furnishings, including patina treatments by Atelier Pierre Bonnefille, gilded sundial motifs by Lison de Caunes, and textured glass by Jean-Daniel Gary.

Though buyers can ogle at exclusives like two Panthère watches and three limited-editions of its Tonneau, Tank Asymétrique, and Cloche timepieces, the real crown jewel sits on the top floor. There, the esteemed Parisian interior designer Laura Gonzalez envisioned “The Residence” as a stately living room, dining room, and winter garden, where VIP customers and friends of the house can congregate. Her signature harmonious layering of contrasting materials and prints is on full display thanks to Lucie Touré textiles and mosaics by Pierre Mesguich.

It’s not the first time Cartier has teamed up with Gonzalez, an ascendant force in the global interiors landscape, whose star rose after landing such prestigious local projects as the lavish nightclub Régine’s and five-star Saint James Hotel. Most recently, she reimagined the French jeweler’s mansion in New York City this summer. Like its Parisian counterpart, Cartier’s revamped New York boutique is a convivial affair that imparts the brand’s backstory through subtle winks.

Gonzalez achieved her vision of a romantic apartment by enlarging windows, whitewashing woodwork, and sprinkling sinuous seating elements throughout. “I try not to feel trapped by the history of a place but embrace it and build from it,” Gonzalez tells AD, noting how every element tells a story. The pouncing panthers emblazoned on its emerald carpet, for example, nod to Cartier’s beloved Panthère watches; a wall sculpture by Brooklyn ceramic artist Peter Lane is adorned with hovering pearl-like orbs that evoke the necklace that Pierre Cartier traded socialite Maisie Plant for the property’s deed in 1917.

In Their Own Words: “In some ways, [the renovated flagship] is a global trip in time and space,” Vigneron tells WWD. “It respects all the periods without being anchored in any. Timeless, or eternity, isn’t what ages well—it’s what goes out of time.”

Surface Says: After taking over in 2016, Vigneron signaled his intentions to change the homogenous look and feel of the brand’s retail experience for more original expressions that reflect their locales, exude a more residential ambiance, and cater to VIPs. Mission accomplished.

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Though digital art has been around for more than 60 years, major cultural institutions have only recently started embracing the medium thanks to the rapid rise of NFTs as a financial boon. Even as the market cooled this past year during “crypto winter,” museums are continuing to explore Web3 possibilities to attract younger, tech-savvy audiences and crypto millionaires interested in donating. The latest example comes from the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), which recently announced a partnership with Refik Anadol, whose immersive, swirling abstractions have won over viewers at Artechouse and Art Basel.

MoMA first teamed up with the Turkish-American digital artist this past year when curators Michelle Kuo and Paola Antonelli invited him to plug more than 138,000 images and text materials from two centuries of the museum’s archives into a machine-learning model to create hundreds of colorful abstractions called “machine hallucinations.” He sold them as NFTs and programmed smart contracts so he and the museum will get a cut whenever the blockchain artworks sell on the secondary market.

Starting on Nov. 19, three of those digital artworks will go on view on a large-scale media wall in the museum’s ground-floor Gund Lobby and continuously generate new forms based on real-time input and changes in light, movement, volume, and the weather. “This project reshapes the relationship between the physical and the virtual, the real, and the unreal,” Kuo says. “Often, AI is used to classify, process, and generate realistic representations of the world. Anadol’s work, by contrast, is visionary: it explores dreams, hallucination, and irrationality, posing an alternate understanding of modern art—and of artmaking itself.”

Sarah Tracton uses experimental ceramic techniques to handcraft one-of-a-kind lighting fixtures made from architectural porcelain slabs whose marbled chromatic surface resembles landscape topography. When paired with LEDs, they emit an exquisitely luminous glow that the Melbourne-based talent and Australia’s Next Top Designer finalist describes as “ethereal, translucent, and celestial.”

Capturing the haziness seen and felt after sunset in a dimly lit room, the Queens-based painter shrouds fleeting moments in a cloak of chiaroscuro.

Here, we ask an artist to frame the essential details behind one of their latest works.

Bio: Kevin Brisco, Jr, age 31 and 11/12ths, Queens.

Title of work: Bring Me My Change (2022).

Where to see it: Albertz Benda, New York, until Nov. 12.

Three words to describe it: Just go see… (it).

What was on your mind at the time: The piece was loosely inspired by a still from the Nina Menkes film Queen of Diamonds, in which young boys exchange something with an elderly woman in a Las Vegas doorway. The scene itself seemed inspired by Velázquez, but the action of the scene transported me to my childhood—back to memories of being handed cash by my mother to run some basic errand, always with the demand that I bring back the change. It reminded me of Eddie Murphy’s ice cream skit. It felt like a collapsing of experiences and influences, childhood via baroque painting.

When: Nov. 3–6

Where: Park Avenue Armory, New York

What: New York’s premier nonprofit art fair returns to the Park Avenue Armory for the Art Dealers Association of America’s (ADAA) 60th anniversary, supporting its longstanding philanthropic mission of aiding the Henry Street Settlement. This year’s edition will feature a record number of booths from 78 ADAA member galleries. Among the highlights are new paintings by Raúl Guerrero at David Kordansky Gallery, Nara Roesler’s presentation of historical works by op-artist Julio Le Parc, and an intergenerational survey of female artists from GAVLAK’s roster.

Philanthropy has long played a defining role in shaping how the public perceives the distribution and purpose of enormous wealth. The notion of the ultra-wealthy compensating for their advantages by funding everything from museums to charitable foundations is being questioned—and supplanted—by the beliefs of a rising generation who have earned (or will inherit) massive fortunes.

A growing sentiment among certain high-net-worth individuals in Silicon Valley is a resentment of being perceived by the art world as little more than the sum of their assets. The status quo of champagne-soaked galas to fête the generosity of those who lend their collections to an exhibition—or whose donations fund institutional operations and renovations—doesn’t sit well with this crowd. “The art world sees us as a bunch of bank accounts,” lamented Ethan Beard, a founder in the Web3 space and a former Facebook and Google employee, who jumped at the chance to donate his time and mentorship to San Francisco’s new Institute of Contemporary Art.

Since founding Dinosaur Designs more than 30 years ago, designers and artists Louise Olsen and Stephen Ormandy have created a mini-art movement synonymous with luxury. Creating jewelry and homewares from resin and precious metals, their unique pieces are characterized by a warmth and tactility only possible by making each piece by hand in their studio.

Surface Says: Dinosaur Designs has created a distinctly punchy and colorful point of view with its statement-making fashion and home accessories.

A New Mexico home is entirely covered in foam to blend in with nature.

Italian craftspeople rethink the era-defining Fendi Baguette in a new book.

This spider-watcher is rekindling new appreciation for eight-legged friends.

New diaries reveal that Francis Bacon almost lost an eye in an amorous brawl.