What’s Happening: Nearly a decade after selfie stick mania swept the world, clumsy content creators are stoking what one fine art insurer has called a “pandemic of selfies.”

The Download: It turns out that soup-slinging climate activists aren’t the only existential threat to priceless artworks. According to a new report by specialist insurer Hiscox, selfie-taking museum visitors pose a grave danger to valuable paintings and priceless artifacts due to the risk of walking or falling into them backward. Robert Read, the company’s head of fine art and private clients, even described the phenomenon as a “pandemic of selfies” as the incidents occur with alarming frequency. “It strikes us as something that’s becoming a growing trend,” Read tells Hyperallergic. “We’re not going to change the whole way we underwrite, but it’s something that’s becoming concerning for museums and other public spaces as well.”

When centuries-old artworks are vulnerable to a single fingerprint, blunt-force trauma caused by butterfingered tourists can wreak irreparable damage. There’s a reason that major institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston swiftly banned the apparatuses back when selfie stick mania swept the world. The city of Milan even prohibited them to crack down on “anti-social behavior”—not an unreasonable precaution when horror stories emerged that clumsy content fiends were trampling California’s superblooms, getting crunched by crocodiles, and destroying $200,000 worth of Simon Birch sculptures in an incident the internet infamously christened as the Selfie Domino.

Don’t insurance companies benefit from selfie-inflicted oopsies? Half the losses incurred by Hiscox’s art underwriting business indeed arise from accidental damage, with a significant portion caused by selfie snappers. Artnet even chronicled the most egregious examples from 2018 alone. It’s easy to giggle at a boorish student entombing himself in a vagina-shaped sculpture or the Smashing Pumpkins references that result from a dizzied amateur losing his balance in a Yayoi Kusama Infinity Room, but the cultural losses we incur from hip-checked objects become far less comical when put into perspective. It’s also simply a nuisance. “Even if it’s not causing damage, there are those of us who don’t want to take selfies every two seconds and actually want to see the art,” Read told Hyperallergic. “It is an annoyance that you’re looking at something, and someone sticks a camera in front of your face to try and get a picture of it.”

In Their Own Words: “Pre-mobile phones, people had a sense of what was acceptable and what wasn’t,” Read says. “Now when people have a phone in their hand, it’s as if they have no inhibitions. Somehow, that feeling of getting a picture means whether it’s damaging a painting or damaging yourself, those barriers no longer seem to exist.”

Surface Says: Still, it doesn’t seem as misguided as rooftopping.

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Meat the Fish, the Beirut-based destination for Mediterranean fare, recently opened its doors in London’s posh enclave of Cadogan Gardens with a sprawling bar, lounge, and dining room brought to life by interiors firm MariaGroup. Walnut paneling channels the neighborhood’s coziness, while a custom tapestry from Bokja depicts blooming gardens and farm animals lends a surreal charm to the space.

Animal influences abound elsewhere, too. A ceramic relief installation by Souraya Haddad depicts the tentacles of an octopus emerging from over the fireplace. The light-bathed cocktail bar, meanwhile, takes the shape of a crab. The bold touches are tempered by earth-toned leather barstools, C-back dining chairs, and cane-backed bar seating. As its name suggests, the menu spans seafood with caviar service and a sashimi counter, while dry-aged ribeyes and Japanese wagyu anchor its heartier main dishes.

Just before New York Fashion Week, FX’s highly anticipated Feud: Capote vs. the Swans debuted with a Black and White Ball–themed premiere party at the Plaza Hotel. In the show, Ryan Murphy chronicles the writer’s infamous fallout with his “swans,” a coterie of society dames who Capote considered friends and muses. A star cast, including Naomi Watts, Diane Lane, and Chloë Sevigny, along with incomparable costuming and searing one-liners— “that’s too much sandalwood for a woman with her face”—have made the show an instant hit.

Viewers have Lou Eyrich, the series’ costume designer and a longtime Murphy collaborator, to thank for the Swans’ sumptuous rotation of vintage Bill Blass, Saint Laurent, Courrèges, and Mainbocher. Zac Posen, Gap Inc’s newly minted creative director, lent his talents to the production by designing ball gowns for the characters’ Black and White Ball ensembles.

By all accounts, the culture seems to be taking cues from the show’s chosen period of society ladies. Lee Radziwill, a card-carrying Capote swan, featured prominently on Marina Moscone’s latest collection moodboard. “It’s hard to find a good cape,” she told Surface during a collection preview, in which she shared the upcoming season’s twist-front cloaks in silk satin and wool. Capes also featured prominently elsewhere on the New York Fashion Week runways, where there was no shortage of looks fit for a swan: from Bevza’s elegantly tailored black-and-white column dress to a plume of pink silk chiffon at Carolina Herrera.

Office of Tangible Space, the bicoastal studio founded by Kelley Perumbeti and Michael Yarinsky, is all about exploring design as a conduit for strengthening connection and community. Each of their projects, which range from East Hampton residences and tricked-out tech offices to curating group exhibitions, have one thing in common: they seek to reinforce our relationships with space and spark new reflections on how we approach the everyday.

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

Google Apologizes for “Missing the Mark” After Gemini Generated Racially Diverse Nazis [The Verge]

Doctors Remove 150 Big, Fat, Live Bugs From a Man’s Nose, and Here’s Video to Prove It [BoingBoing]

Kilt-Clad Man Seen Sticking Antiques “In His Rectum” Then “Placing Them Back on the Shelves,” Cops Say [Law & Crime]

NYC Men Paying Plastic Surgeons $5K for “Almond-Shaped” Nipples Like David Beckham’s [New York Post]

“Ryan Rodeo” in Texas Aiming to Break Record for Most People Named “Ryan” in Single Place: “No Bryans” [My Wabash Valley]

Frederick Law Olmsted reigns supreme as New York City’s dreamiest landscape architect to date. Together, he and Calvin Vaux rose to prominence as the minds behind the urban sanctuaries of Central Park, Fort Greene Park, and possibly their most successful commission, Prospect Park. It’s fitting, then, that the latter’s partner nonprofit, the Prospect Park Alliance, is the beneficiary of Art For Change’s latest collection, aptly titled Park of Dreams.

The collection features the works of 12 artists whose contributions explore verdant visions of leisure: Marcus Brutus, Kelly Beeman, Alyssa Klauer, Danielle Orchard, Cydne Coleby, Jules De Balincourt, Amy Lincoln, Bianca Nemelc, Maria Calandra, Jon Key, Kirsten Deirup, and Na’ye Perez, whose prints make fitting addition to the art holdings of anyone impassioned about urban greenspace. What’s more, the 12 artists’ works are on view at the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Arch: a Civil War memorial that abuts the park and was built by Olmsted, Vaux, and Gilded Age architect Stanford White from a design by Grants Tomb architect John Hemenway Duncan.

This week, Tiffany & Co. and the Peter Marino Foundation came together to celebrate the launch of “Culture of Creativity,” the brand’s inaugural exhibition at the Tiffany Landmark in New York City. Friends of the house were treated to a special evening hosted by Tiffany executives Anthony Ledru and Alexandre Arnault and the architect Peter Marino, who recently reimagined the space’s interior architecture. As the evening unfolded, guests were treated to a dining experience in the exhibition space curated by Michelin-starred chef Daniel Boulud and viewed the 70 artworks and Marino’s collection of Tiffany sterling silver masterpieces on display.

When was it? Feb. 21

Where was it? The Tiffany Landmark, New York City

Who was there? Lauren Santo Domingo, Dasha Zhukova, Larry Gagosian, Vito Schnabel, Rashid Johnson, Julia Fox, and Bella Massenet.

The Future Perfect is a platform for distinguished and emerging contemporary designers. With locations in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, The Future Perfect works closely with designers to commission limited-edition pieces and to develop special exhibitions.

Surface Says: The Future Perfect put forth a new paradigm for the design showroom: a curated commercial space that felt like home, only far ahead of its time. As an early adopter of current superstars, founder David Alhadeff has proven to be a bellwether for greatness.

Miuccia Prada makes for an unexpected (but not unwelcome) Vogue cover.

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