Nina Chanel Abney’s Upbeat Graphics Enliven a Pediatric Hospital, and Other News

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Nina Chanel Abney’s Upbeat Graphics Enliven a Pediatric Hospital

When the pandemic broke out in 2020, Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, New York, was the country’s hardest hit medical facility. So enlivening the pediatric unit was top of mind for Diane Brown, the founder of RxART, a nonprofit that breathes life into sterile medical spaces through vibrant installations by big-name artists. (Previous collaborators: Takashi Murakami, Jeff Koons, and Nicolas Party.) At Elmhurst, she enlisted Nina Chanel Abney to spruce up a waiting room with an array of exuberant characters, shapes, and interlocking graphics in contrasting colors. The intervention is a welcome salve for patients anxiously awaiting care—and a symbol of the neighborhood’s status as one of the world’s most diverse communities. —Ryan Waddoups

A new art space in the Catskills is opening with works by James Turrell and Sol LeWitt.

“On Oct. 22, a stretch of Main Street in this hamlet in New York’s Sullivan County will join the list of often unexpected and rural places to see art installations by James Turrell. The Catskill Art Space, a local arts nonprofit celebrating its half-centennial with a rebranding as a new art destination, will include not just a Turrell work, Avaar, but also two Sol LeWitt wall drawings. The three artworks are semi-permanent loans that will be on long-term view alongside rotating shows of works by artists with connections to the region.” [H/T The New York Times]

Hermès will hike prices up to 10 percent amid rising costs and currency fluctuations.

“Birkin bag maker Hermès flagged plans to hike prices by 5 percent to 10 percent in 2023 on rising costs and currency fluctuations, much more than in the past, after a sharp rise in sales over the third quarter with no signs of any slowdown yet. Echoing upbeat comments earlier this month by rival Louis Vuitton owner LVMH, Hermès brushed off concerns that the industry’s post-pandemic boom could be cooling due to a looming recession, as U.S. shoppers took advantage of the dollar’s strength in Europe and China rebounded sharply. The company had so far been more conservative than peers, which have aggressively raised prices during the pandemic.” [H/T Business of Fashion]

Alexander May unveils a permanent space in Hollywood for creative advisory Sized.

“Alexander May, the founder of creative advisory Sized, has opened a flexible studio space in a former industrial building in Hollywood that will host photoshoots, events, exhibitions and more. Sized Studio was designed over 5,000 square feet in a former industrial space. The space will host commercial projects, events, dinners, performances and other experiential marketing, as well as public-facing programming. A variety of spaces in the former industrial building can be booked for photographers to shoot campaigns, galleries to put on exhibitions and brands to host activations.” [H/T Dezeen]

Mimosa Echard scoops this year’s Marcel Duchamp Prize, France’s top art award.

“This year’s Marcel Duchamp Prize, France’s top art award, has gone to Mimosa Echard, whose multidisciplinary practice bridges the surreal, mechanical, and terrestrial in pursuit of plant and human symbiosis. The annual award carries a prize of €35,000 ($41,000) and is administered in partnership with the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Echard has a research-led practice that spans assemblage, painting, ceramics, and video games. Her projects often plunge the viewer into richly imaginative worlds where ecological concerns are indivisible from the effects of desire, hunger, and humor.” [H/T ARTnews]

Carpenters Workshop Gallery plans to open an all-encompassing flagship in London.

“Since it first launched in 2006, literally out of an old carpenter’s workshop in London, Carpenters Workshop Gallery has both bridged and expanded the worlds of art and design. This week, it has not one, but two booths at PAD London, with the second presenting one of its latest ventures, Carpenters Workshop Jewellery, featuring pieces designed by artists such as Cindy Sherman, Rashid Johnson, and Robert Longo. The gallery also announced its biggest project yet, one that will stretch its own boundaries in a new way: Ladbroke Hall, a 43,000-square-foot space scheduled to open in Notting Hill next spring, devoted not only to collectible design and functional art, but to creativity in all forms.” [H/T Artnet News]

An SOM-designed CUNY life sciences campus is headed to Manhattan’s east side.

“New York City has announced its plans for a new $1.6 billion life sciences campus to be located on the east side of Manhattan and administered in partnership with CUNY. SOM has been attached as the project lead for the SPARC Kips Bay development, which will transform the Brookdale Campus of Hunter College into a 1.5-million-square foot center for research, entrepreneurship, and education geared at local economic benefits and training young New Yorkers for careers in tech and the health sciences.” [H/T Archinect]

The Chicago Architecture Center names Eleanor Esser Gorski as its new leader.

“The Chicago Architecture Center (CAC) has revealed that it has a new leader. Late last week, the CAC announced that Eleanor Esser Gorski, a licensed architect and major player in the realms of planning and historic preservation in the Windy City, is filling the role of the nonprofit organization’s chief executive officer following the departure of longtime president and CEO Lynn Osmond this past April. Osmond, who joined CAC in 1996, left to serve as the first president and CEO of Chicago’s official tourism agency, Choose Chicago. Her departure sparked a rigorous, nationwide search for a successor led by a CAC Board–appointed search committee in partnership with Koya Partners.” [H/T The Architect’s Newspaper]

Today’s attractive distractions:

Two decades later, this Montreal apartment continues to haunt its tenant.

Will the versatile prickly pear cactus become the next great specialty crop?

Lowe’s and Samsung are turning refrigerators into bona fide works of art. 

This physicist made 1,750 Wikipedia pages for overlooked female scientists.