What’s Happening: At the El Paso Museum of Art, a summer show brings to light the resilience of Indigenous artists in the wake of nuclear power.

The Download: In a dozen years spanning 1946 through 1958, the United States, flush with a World War II victory secured in part through the dropping of atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and hurtling itself into the Cold War with the Soviet Union, pummeled the Marshall Islands in Micronesia with some 67 nuclear bombs. The attacks—or rather the atomic testing program—destroyed some of the islands entirely, and saddled others with millions of cubic feet of radioactive soil and plutonium. From 1952 to 1963, Britain detonated a dozen major and 200 minor nuclear devices across Maralinga in Southern Australia, home to the southern branch of the Pitjantjatjara people.

The exhibition “Exposure: Native Art and Political Ecology” gathers together art made by Indigenous artists from those areas and around the world, in work that explores the ongoing effects of nuclear testing, the mining such weapons require, and the accidents that sometimes result from them. Originating at the Institute for Indian American Arts in Santa Fe, the show is now on view at the El Paso Museum of Art, arriving just in time for conversations about the erasure of Native Americans from the biopic Oppenheimer and other ways we tell the history of nuclear weapons.

Indeed, the museum partnered with Alamo Drafthouse in August for a screening of the film, which it characterized as having an “opposing” viewpoint to the exhibition. The show’s point of view asserts the reality of native peoples’ presence on the land in which nuclear testing was conducted, and the disastrous effects of nuclear power on their bodies and homes. In Daniel Lin’s short Anointed (2018), for example, the Marshall Islander poet, performance artist, and educator Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner traces ways the people of Runit Island have wrestled with the legacy of a radioactive waste repository the United States left on the region’s Enewetak Atoll, and the legends that still linger around it.

In much of the work, the mythopoetics of man-made disasters glow. Destruction I, (2002), a dot painting made by Pitjantjatjara artists Hilda Moodoo and Kunmanara Queama, utilizes the traditional Aboriginal technique for a portrait not perhaps of their homeland, but of the mushroom cloud that bloomed monstrously upon it. It’s a striking reminder that nuclear war isn’t a threat—for much of the global population over the last century, it’s real life.

In Their Own Words: ““We are proud to host “Exposure,” an exhibition that speaks to the power of collective reflection and healing through art from across three continents, including neighboring Indigenous communities in the Southwest,” Edward Hayes Jr., director of the El Paso Museum of Art, said in a statement.

Surface Says: As Sun Ra said: “Nuclear War/It’s a motherfucker, don’t you know.”

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Name: Ella Funt

Location: New York City

Designer: Annabel Karim Kassar

On Offer: Club 82, run by mob wife Anna Genovese with a performing staff of female impersonators, was among New York’s most infamous and fabulous nightclubs from its opening in 1953 until it closed 20 years later. The club is soon to return to its underground location in the East Village, but this summer its first floor becomes a new restaurant named for a Club 82 superstar, who was given the stage name Ella Funt by none other than Salvador Dalís. The restaurant is designed with dramatic flair by Annabel Karim Kassar, with tiled walls allowing the various zones—a French salle à manger playing the part of a main dining room; a shadowy bar; private booths and “whispering bar”—to play peek-a-boo with guests.

For its latest Marimekko Artist Series, the venerable Finnish company has partnered with Sabine Finkenauer, whose colorful oil pastels offer geometric arrangements that both compliment and soften Marimekko’s characteristically graphic sensibility. The German-born, Barcelona-based artist created seven original artworks for the series, which then became a capsule collection of ceramics and textiles. “My artistic method,” she says, “can be defined as a game whose rules I establish by playing and, above all, an inspiration for simplicity in which I believe the greatest beauty resides.”

In the collection, a trembling, colorful grid hugs the curves of a coffee cup and stretches out across a tray; a more minimalist iteration of it also forms a bed for the larger diamond shapes emblazoned on mugs, scented candles, kitchen towels, and bowls. Rectangles, meanwhile, undulate with soft corners on pillow covers, a tablecloth, and a blanket perfect for the incoming fall.

Fine jewelry boutiques rarely get mistaken for industrial kitchens, but that’s precisely the point of Avgvst’s new Crosby Studios–designed storefront in Berlin. Seeking to differentiate itself from stereotypical jewelry stores, the brand enlisted Harry Nuriev’s enigmatic studio to imbue the shop with the playfulness that underscores its key pieces. Anastasiia Pestrikova, a project manager at the firm, sought inspiration beyond fashion and retail to inform the space, landing on the industrial ghost kitchens used by takeout joints. Touches of yellow—Avgvst’s signature color—in the form of camp chairs and floral arrangements soften the brick and stainless steel interior. An inaugural collection of cutlery-shaped jewelry is thoughtfully draped across the food-prep surfaces and appliances throughout the display room.

Our new weekly scoop on industry players moving onwards and upwards.

Didier Fusillier has been named the president of Réunion des Musées Nationaux-Grand Palais, the cultural body that runs the Grand Palais and the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris. He replaces Belgian art historian Chris Dercon, who departed for Fondation Cartier. In other museum director news, Gabi Ngcobo will lead Rotterdam’s Kunstinstituut Melly and Aziz Isham will lead the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens.

Gia Biagi, Chicago’s former transportation commissioner, is heading to Studio Gang as the award-winning firm’s first Principal of Urbanism, where she’ll spearhead planning and urban design work nationally. Walter Hood, meanwhile, will take over as the chair of UC Berkeley’s Department of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning. He first joined the university as a professor in 1993.

YoungArts, the national foundation for the advancement of artists, recently announced new additions to the executive team: Lauren Slone will join as senior director of artistic programs and Emily Waters joins as senior director of innovation and impact. Over at the United Talent Agency, Harrison Tenzer was named senior director of UTA Fine Arts and UTA Artist Space. Sarah Levine recently made the leap from Lehmann Maupin to Pace, where she’ll help develop strategic initiatives as a senior director.

When: Until Sept. 4

Where: Stroll Garden, East Hampton

What: Jane Yang-D’Haene makes the jump from exhibiting to curating with this summer spotlight of sculptures by Yoonjee Kwak, Jaiik Lee, Re Jin Lee, Eun-Ha Paek, and Jinsik Yoo, along with photography by Peter Ash Lee. According to Yang-D’Haene, the transfer of “generational memories and culture” is a common thread in this showcase of Korean artists, which is staged in the former home of late Abstract Expressionist painter Adolph Gottlieb. Each uniquely connects their work with the setting, but one commonality, says Yang-D’Haene, is their ability to “reframe traditional Korean arts within a contemporary context.”

Studio SFW is a New York–based architecture and interior design firm, co-founded by Erin Fearins, Ward Welch, and Rachael Stollar. A design trio with southern roots, SFW brings more than a decade of collaboration togetherwith an approach that imbues lived-in luxury to interiors and lifestyle projects.

Surface Says: Whether in jewel-box apartments or expansive brownstones, Studio SFW brings to life eclectic homes brimming with personality and every client’s unique point of view.

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