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Feb 15 2023
Surface
Design Dispatch
A museum of failed relationships, Pharrell Williams to lead Louis Vuitton Men’s, and the weirdness of Bing’s AI chatbot.
FIRST THIS
“I’m happy if I can be the one that gets it poppin’.”
HERE’S THE LATEST

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Inside the Museum Dedicated to Relationships in Ruin

What’s Happening: The Museum of Broken Relationships collects souvenirs from failed romances of all types, speaking to how everyday objects can be invested with the full spectrum of emotional intensity.

The Download: When a relationship disintegrates, your first instinct might be to chuck your partner’s belongings out the window. When Olinka Vistica and Drazen Grubisic broke up more than 20 years ago, however, the Croatian couple came up with a different idea. A computer, television, and vacation souvenirs all proved easy to sort, but one particular object was too painful: a small fluffy rabbit, which the couple would often wind up and send hopping around their house. They decided it was inappropriate for either of them to keep it, sparking a lightbulb moment for Vistica: “Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a place where everyone could send objects after a breakup?”

The Museum of Broken Relationships, a global archive of mementos from failed romances, was born. Since opening in the Croatian capital Zagreb in 2010, the museum has become one of the Eastern European country’s quirkiest—and most visited—tourist attractions. Lovesick donors anonymously mail in objects invested with human emotion ranging from mundane and humorous to gripping and poignant. One person submitted a toaster spitefully pilfered from a former partner. Another sent in a 37-year-old slice of wedding cake. Other donations include a garden gnome chucked at an ex-husband’s car, unused acupuncture pens, and even a surgically excised gallstone caused by a stressful paramour.


The museum maintains a permanent outpost in Zagreb but has embarked on global tours to mount satellite shows, sharing stories with and amassing new objects from Argentina, Germany, the Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, and the United States. Grubisic delights in the donations’ similarities across regions. “It doesn’t matter about religion, race, culture, or economic situation,” he tells Westword. “[The objects and stories] come down to people and feelings, and those are mostly the same. If you’re in a happy relationship, you’ll feel even better about it. If you’re in a broken one, you’ll see that you’re really not alone.”

Beyond symbolizing love lost, the objects can also provide a personal lens into a country’s social or political context. While fighting for Croatia’s independence from Yugoslavia in the early ‘90s, a soldier was admitted to a Zagreb hospital after losing his leg. There he fell in love with a “beautiful, young, and ambitious social worker” from the Ministry of Defense who helped him gather materials to create a below-knee prosthesis. “The prosthesis endured longer than our love,” his testimonial reads. “It was made of sturdier material.” Other objects can extend beyond romantic relationships, some echoing self-love: one woman hoped her post-mastectomy donation of two bras might “recover the relationship with my body.”


When the museum emailed one donor to let him know they were displaying two pebbles he and his former lover found, he said the couple had fallen back in love after seven years apart. (Vistica and Grubisic have a policy against returning items, but the donor didn’t want them back.) The museum itself is a testament to how relationships evolve over time: Grubisic admits he and Vistica are much better off as business partners.

In Their Own Words: “In the beginning, we were worried we’d just get items from summer flings, but the stories soon went deep,” Vistica tells the New York Times. “We’ve got items from the Second World War, about terrorism. Some of it’s heavy, but life’s heavy.”

Surface Says: Here’s where you can go if Valentine’s Day didn’t go as planned.

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What Else Is Happening?

Check-Circle_2x Banksy confirms he completed a new mural depicting a battered housewife in Margate.
Check-Circle_2x LACMA receives a gift of 22 blockchain artworks allegedly donated by Snoop Dogg.
Check-Circle_2x Cartier reissues the Tank Française timepiece, a favorite among influential women.
Check-Circle_2x Barcelona’s perennially delayed Sagrada Familía basilica faces even more roadblocks.
Check-Circle_2x A group of Native artists protested the use of racist NFL mascots at the Super Bowl.
Check-Circle_2xRobert Geddes, the influential dean of Princeton’s School of Architecture, dies at 99.


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FASHION

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Pharrell Williams Will Lead Louis Vuitton Men’s

Fashion fanatics may have anticipated KidSuper’s ascension to the top creative position at Louis Vuitton Men’s after it named the Brooklyn-based artist as guest menswear designer for the recent Paris shows, but it seems the French house is thinking even bigger. Yesterday, the LVMH-owned brand announced Pharrell Williams will take the role instead, filling a hole left behind when his predecessor, Virgil Abloh, unexpectedly died in late 2021. “His creative vision beyond fashion will undoubtedly lead Louis Vuitton towards a new and very exciting chapter,” Pietro Beccari, Louis Vuitton’s chairman and CEO, said in a statement.

Pharrell’s ties with luxury brands run deep, from splashy collabs with Chanel, Moncler, and Adidas Originals to launching Billionaire Boys Club and a skincare line called Humanrace. He also brings star power—a key focus for LVMH, whose sweeping rebrand of Tiffany involved a high-profile campaign fronted by Beyoncé and Jay-Z. Louis Vuitton is also dialing into the culture, blanketing its boutiques with Yayoi Kusama’s polka dots and tapping Rosalía to perform at its Paris runway shows.

The brand has lately proven adept at spectacle, but less so at consistency. Someone as busy as Pharrell producing two quality collections per year across bags, accessories, and ready-to-wear will require an immense amount of focus. No matter: as Dior Homme jewelry design director Yoon Ahn observed, “fashion [is] a platform now.”

DESIGN

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A Brand-Founded Design Journal Unlike the Rest

Content platforms bankrolled by brands are increasingly common, but run the risk of simply coming across as venues for shameless self-promotion. So when Scott Hudson envisioned a thought-provoking journal for Henrybuilt, the Seattle purveyor of kitchen systems he founded in 2001, there was only one rule: don’t mention the brand. Its newly unveiled publication seems poised to succeed.

Untapped, a monthly journal edited by Surface alum Tiffany Jow, eschews product placement for incisive, ideas-driven stories that wrestle with one big question per issue. Up first: “Are things moving fast enough?” Throughout the inaugural issue, which features profiles on dancer Michael J. Love and designer Stephen Burks, one of Henrybuilt’s core values may come into full view: it’s worth looking back to look forward.

CULTURE CLUB

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New York’s Culturati Turned Out in Force to Fête “Helmut Lang: Cowboy”

Over the weekend, the Standard East Village hosted cultural tastemakers for an evening of art, conversation, and drinks at Nobar in celebration of Helmut Lang’s “Cowboy” exhibition curated by Antwaun Sargent. The evening kicked off with a panel about the show, featuring Sargent, gallerist Hannah Traore, and exhibiting artist Turiya Adkins, moderated by founder Hannah Gottlieb-Graham. Post-panel, guests were treated to a preview of the show at Hannah Traore Gallery before returning to the hotel for a dinner hosted by Sargent and an after-party in the Penthouse.

When was it? Feb. 10

Where was it? The Standard East Village and Hannah Traore Gallery

Who was there? Jeremy O’Harris, Lucien Pages, Tyler Mitchell, Grace Wales Bonner, JiaJia Fei, Beverly Nguyen, and more.

ITINERARY

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Daata:
ASMR:
Video Art

When: Until March 4

Where: Times Square, New York

What: Anyone traversing Times Square could use a touch of relaxation. Digital art platform Daata and Infinite Objects are bringing a dose of calm to the commotion with a pop-up group showcase of ASMR video art. Rashaad Newsome, Damien Roach, and Petra Cortright are just a handful of the artists behind the 48 works on display, which were curated with the goal of inducing sensory quietude in one of the world’s busiest arts and entertainment districts.

DESIGN DOSE

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Contardi: Air Suspension Light

With Adam Tihany’s Air fixture for Contardi, two major creative forces have come together to envision lighting that positions good design as the solution to urgent environmental questions. Made of 100 percent recycled—and recyclable—acrylic materials, the double emission LED Air suspension light, which lights both upward and downward, features groups of intricate laser-cut perforations on its circular form, diffusing a warm, inviting glow wherever it’s placed.

“Air as a design inspiration is as broad as it is elusive,” Tihany says. “Invisible, equally light and heavy, and essential for life on our planet. The pendant lets the air around it flow freely through its artful perforations. The glowing light sources, facing up and down, create an effortless floating sensation.”

DESIGN

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ICYMI: Gaetano Pesce Dwells in the Future

Gaetano Pesce’s revelations still illuminate today. As a major force in the Italian Radical Design movement, which saw designers turning from stiff Modernism and towards the loose and peculiar, Pesce has spent half a century making furniture that makes rooms different. His signature resins and other synthetics let the light linger within his creations, which can veer in form towards the childlike, the creepy, the sexy, the strange, recasting the chair as a stage. He embraces the artificiality of Pop but rejects its cynicism, and deploys the theatricality of Memphis without falling for its brainiac peacocking.

The fact that design shops from Tokyo to Topeka are cluttered with work that seeks to emulate his effortless weirdness shouldn’t dim the joy of seeing the real thing, which makes “Dear Future,” a new survey show at The Future Perfect, a good reason to visit the gallery’s new flagship in the Hollywood Hills. “With the recent opening of the Goldwyn House, and with the gallery celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, it felt like something truly grand was in order,” founder David Alhadeff tells Surface. “Pesce laid the foundations for what we now call collectible design. The show presents the expansiveness of his practice, both a depth of thought and a simple desire to bring joy through his objects.”

THE LIST

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Member Spotlight: Suite NY

Suite NY is a midcentury-modern and contemporary furniture showroom open to the trade and the public. The brand’s 8,000-square-foot showroom in New York City’s NoMAD district displays a meticulously curated collection of iconic European designs alongside pieces from up-and-coming international designers.

Surface Says: Bringing together international designers across all disciplines, Suite NY’s curated showroom puts forth the very best of the best in midcentury and contemporary design.

AND FINALLY

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Today’s Attractive Distractions

This new loofah-like device can purify water using the power of the sun.

Bing’s gregarious AI chatbot is serving up both glitches and ethical dilemmas.

The super-rich are setting up exclusive island enclaves for their art collection.

Slime molds can provide insight into the vast possibilities of life on Earth.

               


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