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Benjamin Moore Announces 2022 Color of the Year
Selecting the color of the year is an annual tradition at Benjamin Moore, the venerable North American paint company whose palette consists of more than 3,500 colors. What few know is that the decision, which may feel arbitrary to outsiders, involves intensive research—attending exhibitions, canvassing trade shows, and traveling internationally to meet with experts and tastemakers. Fate intervened this past year, of course, so director of color marketing and development Andrea Magno and her team conducted much of their research remotely, which meant looking internally instead of externally.
Magno likens this year’s color of the year, October Mist 1495, to a flower stem. “One of the team members did a floral study,” she tells AD Pro. “That green stem of the flower becomes this connector—this enabler, almost. It’s able to bring together all these other colors.” That’s precisely why they chose the subtle sage green, an understated hue that can mesh well with just about every other color on the roster. “As the spaces in our homes continue to evolve, we uncover more opportunities to express our individuality and leverage the power of color to design environments that serve different functions and styles.”
A Modernist Masterpiece in NorCal Is Restored to Its Original Splendor
For nearly half a century, architect Al Boeke’s utopian community of 2,200 private homes along California’s windswept Sonoma Coast has stood as an emblem of holistic living, with a modernist design in harmony with nature. The Sea Ranch Lodge has served as its beating heart and after a two-year restoration, it’s primed for another run.
Local general contractor David Hillmer assembled a team of design talent to give the property a facelift: architectural design firm Mithun, landscape architects TERREMOTO, and interiors studio The Office of Charles de Lisle. The update stays true to the 10,000-square-foot structure’s legacy with an abundance of natural wood and glass throughout that sublimely frames the landscape of cypress hedgerows, redwood forest, and rolling meadows. New features include a solarium, bar and lounge, cafe, general store, and farm-to-table restaurant, turning out locally inspired dishes such as homemade pappardelle pasta with foraged mushrooms and Sonoma duck with wild rice, beets, and huckleberries.
Energy-hungry NFTs could undo the art world’s recent strides toward sustainability.
The pandemic forced the art world to cut its carbon footprint as virtual showrooms replaced big-production fairs and openings. The NFT craze, however, has halted the trajectory toward sustainability. Bitcoin takes a massive amount of energy to mine––it uses more than Argentina—and transactions on the Ethereum blockchain, which hosts the vast majority of NFT sales, are huge energy suckers. The Guardian estimated that the sale of 303 editions of Grimes’s Earth NFT “used the same electrical power as the average EU resident would in 33 years.” Emerging blockchains claim to cut the current energy usage by 99.9 percent, but until they become widely adopted, NFTs will remain a hindrance to the art world’s green ambitions.
In L.A., Crenshaw Boulevard will be decorated with the biggest names in Black art.
Destination Crenshaw has been greenlit by the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Commission. The public art showcase, blueprinted as an empowerment initiative situated in the heart of L.A.’s Black community, will decorate Crenshaw Boulevard with seven permanent installations from an all-star team of Black artists such as Kehinde Wiley and Alison Saar. As it works toward amassing $100 million in funding, the project’s current sum of $61.5 million is being bolstered by Chicago Bulls player DeMar DeRozan and $3 million from the Getty Foundation.
Lina Bo Bardi’s modernist residence in São Paulo reopens with a woodwork exhibition.
Casa de Vidro, the late Italian-Brazilian Modernist architect’s first project and now home to Instituto Bardi, has finally reopened its doors after pandemic setbacks with a showcase by furniture designer Rodrigo Silveira. Channeling the surrounding rainforest, Silveira debuts seven wood sculptures that explore the relationship between nature and human construction.
This creative project uses predictive policing data to predict victims of police violence.
In the wake of 30,990 cases of police brutality and fatal incidents, a duo of anonymous creators is using artificial intelligence to forecast individuals who may fall victim to a callous law enforcement, as well as the location of the encounter and likely method of death. Called “Future Wake” and completed by the winners of Mozilla’s 2021 Creative Media Awards, the program uses human-based storytelling to subvert traditional police prediction mechanisms by switching the focus of who commits the crime to who will most likely suffer from mistreatment.
Ghanaian art “giant” and geometric painter Atta Kwami has passed away at 65.
The painter and printmaker’s enrapturing geometric works evoke architecture and textiles of West Africa and explore themes of migration and assimilation. The art historian and curator spent his career dedicated to preserving Ghana’s art history and his 2013 volume, Kumasi Realism, 1951–2007: An African Modernism took an important stance against the notion that “authentically” African art is embodied only by traditional styles. Kwami passed away on October 6 at the age of 65.
Chanel is tightening its exclusive clientele with even more restrictive sale protocols.
The advent of the second-hand market is catching the eye of luxury retailers, especially those in which limited drops are resold at higher price points. As such, the French fashion house plans to restore its financial pipeline with increased prices on its coveted items, including up to a 17 percent markup. Similar to a policy by Hermès, Chanel has also established a purchase limit in which clients may only purchase one item from their prized inventory.
Today’s attractive distractions:
Ancient footprints suggest that humans arrived in America long before the Ice Age.
The structure of this restaurant by Whitaker Studio unfolds and closes like a flower.
Netflix will start selling Squid Games and Stranger Things swag online at Walmart.
A massive and illegal renovation is happening inside a seminal Adolf Loos building.
