Sketch’s Famous Pink Interiors Reimagined for Its 20th Anniversary, and Other News

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Sketch’s Famous Pink Interiors Reimagined for Its 20th Anniversary

Since it crashed onto the scene in 2002 with a monochromatic bubblegum pink design, Sketch has been a fixture of London’s dining and culture circuit. Part art gallery, part gastro brasserie, part boutique, Iranian-French architect and designer India Mahdavi’s immersive design replete with 250 David Shrigley cheeky drawings became an Instagram sensation.

To celebrate the restaurant’s 20th anniversary, she has returned with British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare to give the space a dapper makeover: Solar yellow hues, banquettes lined in fabric by Senagalese designer Aissa Dione, and handwoven lighting designed by Inès Bressand and crafted by Ghanaian artisans. Replacing Shrigley’s artworks are 14 pieces by Shonibare that pay tribute to the African diaspora. The influencer class is already planning their selfies.

Sondra Perry’s audiovisual landscape of dreams goes on display at Fondation Beyeler.

Sondra Perry, the Rolls-Royce Art Programme Dream Commission’s inaugural winner in 2020, has finally completed her audio-visual work called Lineage for a Phantom Zone. Currently on show at Fondation Beyeler in Basel, Switzerland, the multimedia installation immerses visitors in orange scents and cypress trees hanging from the ceiling as they stand beneath a sofa watching a film on a screen attached to its base. The film explores the childhood of Perry’s grandmother when she worked as a sharecropper in North Carolina.  

To support Ukrainian citizens, people are booking Airbnbs there without staying.

A cohort of good samaritans has discovered a unique way to support Ukraine: book empty Airbnbs with no intention of staying the night as a gesture of solidarity to the hosts. More than 61,000 nights were booked in Ukraine from around the world—bookings that grossed nearly $2 million—on Wednesday and Thursday of this past week.

Activists launch paper planes in the Guggenheim’s rotunda and call for a “no-fly zone.” 

Over the weekend, visitors to the Guggenheim in New York witnessed hundreds of paper airplanes descend through the museum’s famed rotunda. Launched by a group of 15 artists and activists not involved with the museum, the paper planes were actually folded flyers calling for a no-fly zone over Ukraine. “We want to draw attention to the Russian war in Ukraine,” the group told Hyperallergic. “The military brutality of this war waged by Vladimir Putin affects Ukraine, all of Europe, and ultimately every country that’s continuously decimated by Putin’s violence. We believe that the importance of asking NATO to close the sky, establish a No-Fly zone and humanitarian airspace, to prevent a potential worldwide nuclear catastrophe, is urgent and critical.” 

Katharina Fritsch and Cecilia Vicuña receive the Venice Biennale’s Golden Lion award.

The Venice Biennale has named two winners for its Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement Award: Katharina Fritsch and Cecilia Vicuña. Both artists will be participating in the upcoming exhibition’s main show curated by Cecilia Alemani. In a statement, Alemani noted that Fritsch’s sculptures, which render familiar objects in bold color and large sizes, give her a sense of “awe and dizzying attraction,” while Vicuña had “travelled her own path, doggedly, humbly, and meticulously, anticipating many recent ecological and feminist debates and envisioning new personal and collective mythologies.” The prestigious honor, which is often awarded to artists in the later stages of their career, has previously been given to El Anatsui, Jimmie Durham, and Carolee Schneemann, among many others.

Today’s attractive distractions:

This electric “infinity train” can charge itself using gravity on downhill stretches. 

Dapper Dan reworks Gap’s famed arched logo hoodie in a muted salmon color. 

Peru’s Museo Larco is using its erotic ceramics collection for cancer prevention.

Amp, a newly unveiled app by Amazon, lets users DJ their own radio shows.