What’s Happening: Sofia Coppola’s latest film, an adaptation of Priscilla Presley’s memoir, lives up to the director’s reputation for world-building that positions aesthetic flourishes as a veritable supporting character.

The Download: The filmmaker behind the Academy Award–winning Marie Antoinette is no stranger to gilded cage coming-of-age stories, but there’s more to Priscilla (which Presley executive-produced) than that. In the film, glittering Graceland interiors and costume designer Stacey Battat’s extravagant wardrobe of mohair sweaters, silk taffeta evening dresses, and tweed skirt suits—complete with elbow-length gloves and matching capelets—play an active role in recounting the highs and lows of Presley’s married life.

From early on, Graceland is a foil to Priscilla’s comfortable life at home with her parents in Germany. Unlike some of her faithfully recreated ensembles, like her wedding day look, photos of Graceland during the 1960s and early ‘70s were rare. “​​We were walking that fine line between making it a beautiful place, a period place, and a place that exists in reality,” production designer Tamara Deverell recently told AD of where they landed. Initially, the teenager struggles to make sense of where she fits in Elvis’s life as he spends long stretches touring and filming. Without her own friends, Priscilla’s adolescence is largely spent waiting for his next call or trip home. Though some critics took issue with the film’s pacing, long stretches of Priscilla fully dressed and made-up, reading magazines alone in the soft light of her cream-colored sitting room are material.

One pivotal moment where costume and scenography collide is when Priscilla announces the impending arrival of their daughter Lisa Marie. The curtains to the couple’s glitzy and dark bedroom, which Deverell describes as “more Elvis’s space,” are thrown open. For the only time in the film, the room is bathed in the soft light associated with Priscilla’s domain. As her husband and his band of brothers clamor around in a panic, our heroine—swathed in a pastel pink chiffon nightie—tunes out the fray and applies false eyelashes and eyeliner so calmly as if to say “amateurs.” A24, the film’s production studio, has won its bet on the character’s sartorial power. An eye makeup merch collab with Half Magic, the beauty line started by Euphoria makeup artist Donni Davey, is already sold out. A co-branded Priscilla and J.Hannah silver locket like the one she wears as a teenager, rings in at $400—or $1,280 for 14-karat gold.

In Their Own Words: While Coppola’s adaptation strayed from Presley’s memoir in a few minor ways, the importance of serving looks was not one of them. In fact, Presley did apply eyelashes and a full face of makeup for her daughter’s birth. “Elvis had this idea of always looking good for each other, always making sure that never lapsed,” she recently told Vogue. “We cared for each other, we loved each other, had fun with each other, but never got so relaxed that it was sloppy.”

Surface Says: Priscilla is a balm for aesthetes who mourn what a great editor once described as “a famine of beauty.”

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Soon after Niamh Barry graduated from National College of Art and Design, she pivoted her practice from ceramics to metalwork—specifically bronze, a durable material that affords her more control. In the three decades since she launched her practice north of Dublin, the self-taught Irish talent has emerged as a bona fide trailblazer who incorporates LEDs into her experimental metalwork to forge transformative (and physically satisfying) design objects that transcend their utility. One in particular is sure to steal the show at this year’s Salon Art + Design: perhaps her breakthrough piece, a one-of-a-kind lighting sculpture formed from eight bronze components that took her and her team 1,400 hours to finish.

As a self-described child of the hip-hop era, the collage artist refashions historical photography from his own point of view.

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

Bio: Stan Squirewell, 45, Louisville and New York City.

Title of work: Mrs. Johnson’s Family Picture Day (2023).

Where to see it: Claire Oliver Gallery, New York, until Jan. 13.

Three words to describe it: Matriarchal, layers, permanence.

How the work reflects your practice as a whole: I love questioning histories that we accept as true. My source material is old photographs of anonymous Black and Brown people, where there is an assumption that these folks were voiceless or somehow disempowered. I don’t agree with that idea at all. Photography was expensive so folks who had their portraits taken were often of some standing in the world. In my family history, I grew up identifying as a Black man and later learned that I have Indigenous roots, which has fueled a lot of my desire to question narratives that we’re taught and that we often accept.

In this work, I create an identity for Mrs. Johnson and her family because I ultimately related to the image when I saw it. That’s key to my work as well: I choose my images out of a sense of familiarity with the subjects. I love that photography captures these snapshots that live on forever. Nothing can do what photography does—it holds time still.

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

Attendees at Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT Event Report “Severe Eye Burn,” Skin Irritation [Variety]

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Mysterious Green Slime Seeps Out of the NYC Sewer System [The Messenger]

Earlier this past week, New York City’s preeminent arts education organization rallied its friends and key supporters for a night benefiting the League’s scholarships and Seeds of the League initiative for the city’s underserved students. League instructor and painter Larry Poons and philanthropist Beth Rudin DeWoody were honored during a night of cocktails, dinner, and dancing at MoMA. During cocktail hour, guests were treated to live demonstrations of sketching, painting, collage, and other disciplines by League artists, while a post-dessert dance performance by Cassandra Rosebeetle and Tansy made a lasting impression before attendees dispersed into the night.

When was it? Nov. 6

Where was it? MoMA, New York

Who was there? Deb Kass, James Little, Frank Stella, JiaJia Fei, Anne Pasternak, Job Piston, Cristina Grajales, Jason Yarmosky, Sarah Gavlak, Almine Rech, and more.

When: Until Jan. 6

Where: Chart, New York

What: Oldenburg’s first solo exhibition in New York delves into contemporary society’s fixation on consumption, from the air we breathe and the shows we binge-watch to our smartphone addiction. She transforms superfluous everyday objects into sculptural protests against capitalism’s spurious suggestion that new items will quell psychological strife. One particularly striking piece, Feeding Frenzy, is crafted from thousands of red tickets encased in resin and transformed into churning tendrils, perhaps hinting at the psychological machinations behind Hollywood, screen time, and escapist entertainment.

Untitled is an innovative and inclusive platform for discovering contemporary art. It balances intellectual integrity with cutting-edge experimentation, refreshing the standard fair model by embracing a one-of-a-kind curatorial approach.

Surface Says: Through its relationship with curators, embrace of innovation, and collaborative, artist-run platform, Untitled is paving a new way for independent fairs.

Auction houses are experimenting with unconventional means of sharing results.

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