What’s Happening: In Ayón’s first posthumous gallery exhibition at Miami’s David Castillo Gallery, the dealer and the artist’s estate chart a new chapter of her career with a show of 15 works—none of which are for sale.

The Download: Belkis Ayón should need no introduction, but for the uninitiated, the late Cuban artist created a prolific body of work that articulated her perceptions of her culture, its folklore, her perceptions of gender roles, and broader societal hierarchies, just to name a few predominant themes. She worked, to great acclaim, largely in the medium of collographs created amid the scarcity and turmoil of Cuba’s Special Period. Collographs, essentially multimedia collages adhered onto printing plates, is a medium Ayón popularized through her depictions of eerie scenes from the lore of Afro-Cuban secret society Abakuá. Following the Soviet Union’s dissolution in 1991, the remainder of the decade was characterized by the rationing of food, power, and other vital resources in the face of severe scarcity.

To this day, there is a larger-than-life mythos surrounding Ayón’s achievements and her family’s unending support during this period: when public transit failed the artist, her brother, husband, and father used bicycles to transport Ayón and her art for the 45th Venice Biennale across the island to make her flight. Their support, along with her talent, determination, and the haunting mysticism of her oeuvre endeared her to the global art world before her untimely death in 1999, at just 32 years old. Since then, her work has continued to captivate the market. Her legacy has been honored with exhibitions at UCLA’s Fowler Museum, Madrid’s Museo Reina Sofia, the 59th Venice Biennale, the 34th Bienal de São Paulo, Art Basel (where David Castillo facilitated a MoMA acquisition), and Art Basel Miami Beach, where the gallery sold another work to the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.

It feels reductionist to call Castillo a “dealer.” His impassioned support of keeping Ayón’s legacy alive and discoverable—both for a rising generation of art enthusiasts and an evolving society that is gradually making sense of her visionary talents—is not motivated by profit or other market-driven capitalist machinations. Since 2015, he has worked with Ayón’s estate, which was founded in 2003 by the artist’s late older sister Katia. Together, they facilitated exhibitions of Ayón’s work and sales to public institutions. But private collectors are not permitted to acquire her art. Instead, Castillo and Ayón’s estate have focused their efforts on international biennials, museum acquisitions, and shows at academic institutions, or what Castillo sees as “all the categories that affect the long-term legacy of the artist: major institutions, critical acclaim, ongoing museum retrospectives, and establishment of a firm international market.”

In Their Own Words: The gallerist has continued to collaborate with Belkis’s surviving relatives Ernesto Leyva, Yadira Leyva Ayón, and Yaisa Leyva Ayón, who now oversee her namesake foundation. “It has been a bringing together of my background as an art historian with 30 years of experience as an art dealer, 20 years with the gallery,” he says. “Bringing Belkis’ work, in collaboration with the Belkis Ayon Estate, to more and more international audiences is one of my personal great achievements.”

Surface Says: In a swaggering art market focused on one-upmanship and collecting as a means of access to works of progressively grander value, Castillo’s philosophy represents a change of pace we can get behind.

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Canadian architecture and interiors firm Ivy Studio is known for creating color-rich spaces that radiate both warmth and indisputable style. At Hayat, a new Middle Eastern restaurant overseen by chef Joseph Awad, the main point of inspiration was the beauty of Syria’s deserts. Striated marble is something of a studio signature for Ivy, and at Hayat its earthy hues of orange, taupe, black, and maroon evoke the play of sun and moonlight across the desert. Exposed stone walls impart a sense of place and time rooted in the history of the surrounding Old Port neighborhood.

On the menu, too, chef Awad—an alumnus of Momofuku, Massimo Bottura, and more—evokes the cuisines of Syria and Lebanon. His menu’s mix of familiar staples, like the hummus and baba ganoush, or short ribs and Hayat fries seasoned with aleppo pepper, are complemented by inventive creations like vegetarian-friendly Impossible meat dumplings, as well as spicy and hearty mains. Top it all off with a Rose Garden cocktail of gin, lime, grapefruit, and rosewater—we’ll cheers to that.

Last year, when Kelly Wearstler released her debut tabletop collection with Serax, it gave us pause. Design enthusiasts may be most familiar with her energetic interiors that capture California magic and become Instagram fever dreams, but the robust series of glassware, flatware, and servingware revealed the interior designer excels in the art of subtlety, too. The same applies to her newly released Echo Collection, a succinct group of wooden furnishings inspired by the vast California landscape and the natural repetitions it contains. “It remains a core source of inspiration,” she told Surface, particularly being moved by the “ripples from a raindrop, the bluffs of a Malibu shoreline, and the echoing sound of calls into a mountainside.”

Each piece seemingly freezes capillary waves in motion, whether on the base of a stone-topped table, the surface of an elongated bench, or a totemic sculpture. They originated as pencil drawings, but to bring the pieces to life, seasoned timber artisans hand-carve and remove the rippling layers on carefully selected pieces of wood in Wearstler’s workshop near Downtown Los Angeles. “We have a longtime artisan partner who works exclusively in wood that we worked with to develop these pieces,” Wearstler says, noting how they blend raw, organic forms with Brutalist gestures. “He was able to bring our pencil drawings to life in such a natural and cool way.” Each is offered in natural Douglas Fir, white gesso, and ebonized Douglas Fir.

Soho House’s full-steam-ahead expansion has yielded new locations in Mexico City, Nashville, and São Paulo in the past year alone, not to mention sister company The Ned’s long-awaited (and well-received) arrival in Manhattan. The creative-minded social club has now pulled back the curtain on an elegant new clubhouse in Portland, which may strike some as unexpected given the Pacific Northwest city’s reputation as a blissfully offbeat hipster haven. The club occupies two floors of the restored Troy Laundry Building, a century-old brick structure in the Central Eastside that housed a scrappy artist collective for three decades.

Beyond a stylish members-only lounge and co-working space outfitted with veined marble surfaces and Victorian-inspired furnishings against a backdrop of exposed brick, amenities abound for the club’s 500 founding members. They can access daily fitness programs, a sauna and steam room, and a 62-foot-long rooftop infinity pool sporting panoramic views of the city, as well as an Italian-centric menu by Chef Matt Sigler (Il Solito, Renata) that melds open-fire cooking with local flavors. Works by more than 60 local artists root the club in the area, from the second floor’s pastel hand-painted mural by Salomée Souag and the restaurant’s custom room dividers by Jess Ackerman to a Julian Gaines painting modeled on a Jet Magazine cover depicting the first Black flight attendant.

Since James Cherry moved to the West Coast four years ago, he began stopping at his favorite beach and collecting driftwood during scenic drives along Highway 1. In his latest solo exhibition, at Schlomer Haus Gallery in San Francisco, he’s presenting expressive driftwood carvings embedded with memories of friends, relationships, and loneliness that required him to listen closely and respect the idiosyncrasies of each piece. They sit alongside—and are illuminated by—his buoyant handmade lamps created using recycled materials, illustrating his clever grasp on balancing light and earthly materials.

Last week, the New York City nonprofit hosted its annual benefit in support of arts education and mentoring for the city’s youngest, burgeoning artists. The evening honored multidisciplinary artist Christopher Wool—who has previously hosted workshops with high school students of Free Arts NYC—with an auction of his work in support of the evening’s cause. In addition to New York’s arts community, the fashion world had a strong showing at the dinner, auction and after-party. With the help of Artsy’s auction oversight, Wool’s work sold for more than $500,000.

When was it? March 13

Where was it? WSA, New York

Who was there? Beth Rudin DeWoody, Kim Shui, Sarah Driver, Elizabeth Glassner, Futura 2000, Allison Zuckerman, Audrey Hilfiger, and more.

Established in 1586 in the forest of Moselle, France, Saint-Louis escapes the ephemeral with more than 430 years of mouth-blown and handmade creations, ranging from tableware and decoration to lighting and beyond.

Surface Says: One of France’s most venerated crystal manufacturers, Saint-Louis skillfully reconciles 19th-century artisan know-how with contemporary style. Some of our favorite designers—Paola Navone, Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance, Kiki van Eijk—have created unforgettable pieces for the company.

The ghost of a little girl continues to haunt this deadly San Francisco highway.

Iain Treloar explores the history of his family through a timeworn red bike.

An especially incisive docent puzzles over the identity of this dated altarpiece.

A Nobel Prize winner claims that we may have “misunderstood the universe.”