Every two years, the Whitney Biennial sows chaos among about-town art enthusiasts. Controversy seems to be an inevitable outcome of the show’s efforts to make assertions about the state of American art in any given year. Sometimes, institutional clumsiness takes the focus off the art completely. It was just two biennials ago, after all, that former Whitney director Adam Weinberg asserted the museum’s inability to “right all the ills of an unjust world” in response to outrage over the institution’s unsavory ties to the military industrial complex.

This year, it’s the art and not the institutional politics that has onlookers talking. For that, the museum can thank Chrissie Iles and Meg Onli, who organized the show with guest curators Korakrit Arunanondchai, asinnajaq, Greg de Cuir Jr., Zackary Drucker, and Taja Cheek. “We wanted to fold different voices into our curatorial process, to create a deeper and fuller texture to the exhibition,” Iles and Onli said. “Each of the five curators—artists, performers, writers, and producers—created a program of film and performance whose ideas are interwoven with many of the larger themes of the show, and articulate them in cinematic form.”

Cheek was the sole curator working with Iles and Onli on its boundary-pushing performance program. There, she brings the same embrace of genre-bending, category-defining sound that has set her apart as an indie musician to watch under the stage name of L’Rain. And while the performance program includes works from six artists—Holland Andrews, JJJJJerome Ellis, Alex Tatarsky, Debit, and Sarah Hennies—Cheek’s impact resonates across the show’s other categories too. Tatarsky’s performance uses miming and clown theory to interrogate America’s enshrined power structures; yet musician Holly Herndon, of AI Baby fame, and Mat Dryhurst dive further into their explorations of the digital versus physical selves; Holland Andrews’ ethereal soundscapes aren’t constrained to galleries, but spill down the Renzo Piano staircase.

Surface spoke with Cheek about sound as art, a liability, and its power to shake the walls of institutions like the Whitney.

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Cini Boeri always believed that furniture should be able to engage with its users and evolve according to their needs. That philosophy is embedded in the DNA of the late Italian master’s most celebrated pieces, such as the Strips sofa system for Arflex, whose endless modularity revolutionized the furniture market and emerged as an instant classic upon its 1972 debut, even snagging the prestigious Compasso d’Oro accolade in 1979. Strips is now taking center stage at one of Milan Design Week’s most highly anticipated exhibitions thanks to Loro Piana, which mounted an expansive tribute to Boeri on her centenary year in the soaring atrium at its historic Cortile della Seta location.

Conceived in collaboration with Archivio Cini Boeri, the showcase brings her greatest pieces to the fore: the plump Pecorelle sofa, the curvy Botolo high chairs, the blocky Strips bed. All are upholstered in refined Loro Piana Interiors cashmere, but at no cost to Boeri’s cheeky irreverence toward established design norms. She found boundless joy in that subversion, and attendees likely will too. In the back, an array of bright red Boborelax loungers are perched under a giant oblique mirror, providing the perfect selfie op. “Cini taught us to practice joy in life’s choices and future expectations,” say Giulia and Antonio Boeri, her grandchildren and the founders of her archive. They’re currently piecing together Boeri’s first major retrospective, which is slated to debut at Triennale di Milano in 2026.

Tucked in the rocky Swiss village of Mürren, Drei Berge hotel would seem to be one of the world’s unlikeliest boutique hotels. A cable car or train are intrepid explorers’ only options for reaching one of the 19 rooms within Ramdane Touhami’s technicolor wonderland of an alpine getaway. Touhami’s passion for design reverberates through the property, which greets visitors with a sign reminiscent of the Welcome to Twin Peaks sign that steals the scene in a certain Surface cover star’s cult-favorite TV series. A mix of custom furniture from his creative agency, Art Recherche Industrie, compliments a trove of antique finds and midcentury pieces from the likes of Charlotte Perriand, Carlo Mollino, and Toni Zuccheri.

An accomplished furniture designer, journalist, and professor based in Milan, Ilaria Bianchi believes that design is all about listening: to what the planet needs, to the issues around us, and to the narratives embedded within materials and forms. Her mindful approach may explain why her furniture has won several awards and Dimore Gallery enlisted her to design a table, which was also published in Phaidon’s recent volume on stellar women designers. At this year’s Milan Design Week, she’s presenting a selection of her artworks and furniture at the newly opened gallery Mini Spazio, where her narrative-driven approach comes into full view.

It’s not often that New York Times articles from the 1960s inspire contemporary interiors, but Madrid’s Salon 27 is a testament to the power of the unexpected. After years spent working for fashion industry titans in New York City, founder Sarah Barney left for Madrid with aspirations of creating a shop that brought together independent designers such as Altuzarra, Wales Bonner, A.W.A.K.E Mode, and Bibi van der Velden. While bringing the space to life, Barney recalls, she read the fateful article that described Stein’s Parisian salon at 27 Rue de Fleurus as being “a mecca for the bon vivants and lovers of the good life to meet, argue, and discuss the world of art, literature, and life,” she says. “That felt like the right place to start with inspiration.”

We’re in the midst of gala season, which touches the worlds of art, culture, and philanthropy well outside of New York City. One striking example of that is the University of Chicago’s Renaissance Society gala, which brought together a crowd of local and New York-based artists, educators, patrons, and gallerists to fundraise for the university’s free contemporary art museum. When all was said and done, the night raised more than $400,000 and featured performances from L’Rain and Uniting Voices Chicago.

When was it? April 10

Where was it? The Former Church of Epiphany, Chicago

Who was there? Brooke Kantor, Monique Meloche, Dawoud Bey, Hyung Jung Jun, Miao Wang, Nicole Caruso, Caroline Kent, and more.

Istituto Europeo di Design (IED) was founded in 1966 from the vision of Francesco Morelli. Today, IED is the only higher-education institution in the creative field to have maintained a completely Italian identity over time. IED Group is internationally recognized and it is located in three countries: Italy, Spain and Brazil. Every year, IED launches innovative training projects in the fields of design, fashion, visual arts, and communication, developing new forms of learning and designing new models for interpreting the future.

Surface Says: Behind many school-trained creatives is an institution that gave them the framework for their practice—and in Italy, Spain, and Brazil, IED is a top institution for aspiring artists and designers.

The Lebanese-American artist and poet Etel Adnan receives a Google Doodle.

A poll indicates younger Americans are sleeping less and are more stressed…

…while Gen Z has recently stoked somewhat of an erotica novel renaissance.

New research suggests Roman wine tasted much better than we once thought.