What’s Happening: The first major display of Carolee Schneemann’s work since her death in 2019 explores the impact of the people she loved and the work she hated.

The Download: Long before the world went gaga for Carolee Schneemann’s Meat Joy and Interior Scroll, those fun, fleshy works in which human forms were both the media and the message, she was developing a body of work of her body at work. At 16, she began studying art at Bard College, which quickly suspended her for the temerity of making a self-portrait in the nude. (She was free, of course, to pose nude for other, male painters.) An untitled watercolor from 1957 in PPOW’s welcome retrospective, “Of Course You Can’t/Don’t You Dare,” shows what the administration was so afraid of: a woman finding herself interesting, and in that interest making something astounding that, in its bold execution, doesn’t wait for a response.

PPOW’s show takes its name from the damned-if-you-do patriarchal bind Schneemann unknotted, and fast. Six years after that portrait, she had made her way through art schools and encounters with a group she called the “Art Stud Club”—artists Stan Brakhage and Joseph Cornell, and poet Charles Olson—whose artistic strategies she already integrated and whose sexism became a muse. Or, as she called it, “anti-inspiration.”

PPOW’s gallery is stocked with boxes equal to Cornell’s blockbuster work, but with boundary-pushing power all their own. During a walk on the beach with Olson, during which he said some dumb things about how women ruin art, she collected the materials from which she made the spiky assemblage Maximus at Gloucester (1963), including lobster traps and broken glass. In the back, PPOW has installed the 1963-65 masterpiece Fuses she made with longtime lover and collaborator James Tenney, a film that proves what Brakhage’s gorgeous if sometimes cold experimental films might have needed was more dick pics.

Of course, Schneemann’s work is far from misandrist. Her drawings and paintings of Tenney that open the show radiate with erotic and amorous interest, and her drawings of Brakhage and his wife Jane, shown here for the first time, are, in their own ways, equally intimate. But herself was Schneemann’s greatest subject. (Apart from darling cat Kitch, who makes several appearances that demand their own show.) Don’t you dare miss the epic show closer, Eye Body: 36 Transformative Actions for the Camera (1963), a collaboration with photographer Erró in which her body and her setting, a former fur factory, merge and shimmer and upset and beguile their way into art history. She moved on to even bigger achievements, but here’s where it all began, in worlds of men saying yes or no to her, and her replying just watch me.

In Their Own Words: “Works that I hate have also been inspirational,” Schneemann once said. “They helped me know exactly what I wasn’t going to do.”

Surface Says: In a world with so much to hate, knowing what not to do is half the battle.

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If you ask these editors what they would most like in the lead-up to the holiday season, chances are that time—more of it, more selectively spent—would factor into their answers. More hours in the day remain as elusive as ever, but for the similarly hard-to-shop-for, perennially booked tastemakers for whom the perfect gift seems impossible to pin down, we might suggest the next best thing: Clase Azul Tequila Ultra.

Every batch is more than 11 years in the making from when its agave piñas are harvested in Jalisco to when the amber-hued extra añejo tequila is finally bottled in its platinum, silver, and 24-karat gold decanters. While distilling standards mandate that extra añejo tequila age more than three years to earn the use of the title, Clase Azul México goes beyond that to age tequila Ultra for five years in American whiskey and sherry casks. The result is a one-of-a-kind sensory experience, with aromatic notes of sherry, dried plums, apricot, ripe cherries, maple syrup, hazelnut, and oak.

The Fifth Avenue Hotel unites a new, 24-floor glass tower and a restored five-story McKim, Mead & White building of brick and limestone into 153 graciously sized suites and rooms, all conceived with Martin Brudnizki’s signature maximalist flair. Chandeliers glitter with gem-toned crystals, elevator lobbies shimmer in blushing silk, and wild beasts clamber across the rugs and wallpaper. Rooms are well-appointed: The Baudelaire Suite is rung with tasseled paisley curtains, leather accessories, tables glowing with inlays of shell, and a massive terrace overlooking NoMad.

Delicate marquetry defines The Cellar, a private dining room just off the hotel’s titular avenue that hosts receptions of up to 130 people, or a culinary adventure in smaller, six-course dinners. For true Gilded Age reverie, however, rent out The Mansion Ballroom, which can accommodate 200 guests below 12-foot ceilings illuminated by Brudnizki’s chandeliers, golden candelabra, and royal blue accents. Locanda Verde and Lafayette’s own Chef Andrew Carmellini helms the Café Carmellini in the original five-story building. Its kitchen is in view from both the blue velvet banquettes and the balconies that float among trees grounded in room-dividing planters.

The neoclassical architecture melds with Carmellini’s rethinking of classic Italian and French cuisine, including Artichoke Florentine and Cannellini of Lobster and Golden Osetra. And the intimate Portrait Bar is an ideal spot for a nightcap: dark wood paneling backdropping decades of portrait paintings offers respite from city streets, while the menu devised by bar director Darryl Chan finds urbane influence everywhere from New Orleans to Kolkata with Indian-inspired concoctions of rum, sotol, mango, coconut, Bombay Spice Blend, and more.

After transforming the membership-based co-working landscape in Manhattan and Brooklyn, The Malin is heading west. Its newest space, a welcome entry in Nashville’s burgeoning Wedgewood-Houston neighborhood, takes over the second floor of the Nashville Warehouse Co., the first mass timber building in Music City. More than 16,000 square feet accommodates not only The Malin’s signature mix of eclectic furnishings, from open tables and plush booths to dedicated desks and private offices, but also new media mainstays including a pair of libraries, a listening room and podcast studio, a screening room, and a trio of meeting rooms.

Custom-built woodwork makes each space feel one-of-a-kind, while the exposed ductwork tucked between the ceiling’s soaring wood beams nods to the area’s industrial roots. The end result evokes a high-end hotel rather than a traditional office. “This is by far our most brilliant workspace to date,” says Ciaran McGuigan, CEO of The Malin. “We carefully tailor each location to fit the needs of the neighborhood and professional community. Not only are we providing the highest level of hospitality, but we’re doing it in a refined and beautiful space that contributes to a productive work flow.”

Earlier this month, WePresent and Russell Tovey celebrated the release of their documentary Life Is Excellent with an intimate dinner at Ella Funt in the East Village. The documentary follows Tovey as he uncovers the life of his artist hero, the late British artist and poet David Robilliard, who died of AIDS in 1988 at age 36. Preceded by a one-night-only screening at SVA Theatre, the dinner was attended by a multitude of creatives and figureheads from New York City’s queer arts scene. Tables were adorned with Diptyque candles and flower arrangements by FDK Florals, which picked pink lilies similar to those found near Robilliard’s birthplace of Guernsey.

When was it? Dec. 6

Where was it? Ella Funt, New York

Who was there? Ryan McGinley, Honey Dijon, Amy Sherald, Slava Mogutin, Charles Renfro, Ira Sachs, Andy Baraghani, Quil Lemons, Jacolby Satterwhite, Alyssa Nitchun, and more.

Let’s make one thing clear: this is not your parents’ Uno deck. On the heels of Barbie’s art house glow-up à la Greta Gerwig, the toymaker’s line of collectible objects has partnered with Kartell on a stylish offshoot of the classic card game. Instead of cartoonish numerals, each card is fashioned with one of the Milanese mainstay’s cult-favorite furnishings, like the oft-copied Componibili storage unit and its super squiggly Masters chair. $30

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Studio PCH is a creative studio located in Venice, California, that designs warm, exciting, and sophisticated spaces, with a focus on high-end hospitality. Encompassing both architectural and interior design, Studio PCH has completed recent projects such as Nobu Los Cabos, which was shortlisted for a World Architecture Festival award.

Surface Says: This California-based studio, led by French architect Severine Tatangelo, continues to bring the characteristics of home to hotels, restaurants, and commercial spaces.

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