What’s Happening: Controversy has erupted over AI finishing Keith Haring’s intentionally blank Unfinished Painting about the AIDS crisis, renewing ethical concerns about image generators.

The Download: The title of Keith Haring’s Unfinished Painting (1989) says it all. On the canvas, the Pop artist’s exuberant purple figures frolic in his rhythmic visual language in the upper left quadrant but end abruptly, only leaving a few streaking paint lines dripping down the untouched canvas beneath it. A gripping memorial to the millions of lives cut short by the AIDS crisis and the void their absence left behind, the painting became one of Haring’s final completed works before he succumbed to AIDS-related complications himself the following year, at age 31.

What Haring poignantly left blank on Unfinished Painting, one X user sought to complete using generative AI. It began when @peachlybeloved posted Haring’s artwork and asked fellow users to share examples of visual art that “never fails to destroy” them. (“Just heart-stopping grief every time I see this one,” she wrote.) In response, @DonnelVillager posted the AI-generated version. “The story behind this painting is so sad! 😢” they wrote. “Now using AI we can complete what he couldn’t finish! ❤️” The backlash was swift and intense. Critics quickly scorned the AI-generated version as “cruel,” a “desecration,” and “an act of sacrilege,” and besides being an affront to Haring’s message and legacy, noted how the AI failed to recreate his evocative figures, reducing them to mere abstractions without heads or limbs.

The controversy brings up serious implications as AI companies face scrutiny over copyright infringements. Last month, a database of artists used to train the Midjourney AI generator leaked online, fueling the flames of a class action suit against the company alleging it scraped artistic material to train AI tools without the creators’ consent. (Keith Haring was one of the 16,000 names on the list.) Artists have responded by filing more lawsuits and using new tools that “poison” image-generating software. If Haring were still alive, though, ChatGPT says he wouldn’t bat an eyelash.

In Their Own Words: “This is the actual use for AI,” Molly Crabapple, an artist, writer, and vocal critic of AI who penned an open letter this past spring asking for the restriction of AI-generated illustrations in publishing, told Hyperallergic. “It’s a way for witless dullards to suck every bit of anima, pathos, and humanity out of art. It lets screen-deadened consumers turn the artists they claim to love into undead sock puppets churning out content slop, and it lets them pretend they are the real creators while doing it.”

Surface Says: We’re inclined to agree with the critic who implored @DonnelVillager to “go out and speak with people, real people. Not just your computer screen and all of us within it.”

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Beginning on Jan. 18, FOG Art + Design will return to the Golden Gate City for its 10th edition. This year marks a major milestone for the fair that burst onto the scene only ten years ago: the fair is a participant in the inaugural SF Art Week, a longtime “unofficial” tradition brought together this year with a program, participant list, and map of art week happenings around the city. The current edition also features Fog Focus, an invitation-only showcase of work by young and underrepresented artists from nine global galleries. Surface readers are invited to purchase tickets to the 2024 edition, as well as its preview gala, which takes place this evening.

Coqodaq is not your run-of-the-mill fried chicken joint—unless you happen to live in the Flatiron District and are a bonafide regular at Cote, Simon Kim’s Korean steakhouse. For his latest venture, Kim teamed up with Rockwell Group to create a worthy home for his champagne and fried chicken concept. An abundance of dark walnut carpentry, along with hunter green leather banquettes, brass accents, and leathered soapstone create a lush ambiance that carries to the menu.

The direction is fried chicken, but “better for you,” according to the restaurateur, whose executive chef Seung Kyu Kim sources from Pennsylvania’s Amish and Mennonite communities and pairs with a vibrant selection of pickled vegetables. While the restaurant’s considerable champagne list merits acclaim, botanical-forward cocktails and non-alcoholic libations provide refreshing alternatives.

Attendees of this week’s Maison et Objet and Paris Déco Off will have the rare chance to enter the storied rooms of Féau & Cie, the French woodwork purveyor that has supplied designers and architects with period paneling since 1875. There, an assortment of limited-edition pieces from Mobilier National’s 2022 Campagne d’Acquisition—a program that administers furniture by homegrown talents to French institutions and embassies—will be on display thanks to the design marketplace Invisible Collection, which will also showcase the pieces online. Among the highlights are the sculptural rattan Spline chair by Fritsch Durisotti, Ludovic Roth’s leather-sheathed Cosse pendant, and the bronze Elan shelf by Pierre Salagnac.

Last week, gallerist Jack Shainman hosted well-wishers at the opening celebration for his newest location, The Hall. The space, housed in Tribeca’s storied Clocktower Building, was inaugurated with “Broken Spectre,” a timely video installation by Richard Mosse that captures the destruction of the Amazon between 2018 and 2022. Guests milled between the exhibition room, housed in a Gilded Age bank hall, and its cozier adjoining spaces to page through the gallery’s coffee table books, catch up with fellow culture vultures, and offer their congratulations to Shainman and Mosse.

When was it? Jan. 12

Where was it? Jack Shainman Gallery, Tribeca

Who was there? Carlos Vega, Hank Willis Thomas, Rujeko Hockley, Wendy Goodman, Miles Greenberg, Carla Shen.

When: Until Aug. 4

Where: Resnick Pavilion, Los Angeles County Museum of Art

What: More than 250 works ranging from recipe manuscripts to dining garments and dinnerware illustrate the longstanding history of haute culinary traditions in Islamic courts. A cornerstone of the show is the 17th-century Damascus reception room, whose carved wooden walls, stone fountain, and plaster archways will be accessible to visitors for the first time. Along with the exhibition’s sections of centuries-old artifacts and traditions, a newly commissioned installation by Sadik Kwaish Alfraji offers insight into contemporary familial rituals.

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Founded in 2008, AUX Architecture designs the future for people, institutions, and communities. Led by Brian Wickersham, the Los Angeles–based practice brings craft and clarity to designs at every scale from hearth to urban realm. Collaboration is the soul of the studio—the 40-person team works closely with clients to produce sophisticated environments ranging from single and multi-family residential homes to commercial and cultural buildings.

Surface Says: Since AUX Architecture opened 15 years ago, the firm’s star has risen continuously. It’s a rare treat to see a home-grown studio so deftly rise to the occasion of projects spanning residential, the arts, civic spaces, and beyond.

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