Salone del Mobile Scraps Branded Booths, and Other News

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Stefano Boeri plans for this year’s Salone del Mobile to demonstrate that “Milan is alive.”

This year’s Salone del Mobile will look and feel drastically different than in years past. Called “Supersalone” and featuring products displayed on walls instead of branded booths, the concept “gives the general public a possibility to see, and then buy online, an incredible variety of furniture products,” curator Stefano Boeri tells Dezeen. “I believe that this will be a way to take a risk in the right direction and demonstrate that the Salone is alive, that Milan is alive, and that generally, our field is still dynamic and open to new conditions.” The fair, taking place Sept. 5–10, will be open to the public all week and will feature QR codes next to displayed products for easy purchase. News of Supersalone follows a tough period for the fair, the last two editions of which were delayed twice due to the coronavirus pandemic and longtime president Claudio Luti resigning after rumors surfaced that key brands wouldn’t be participating. 

A street artist sues the Vatican for using her artwork on an Easter stamp without permission. 

Roman street artist Alessia Babrow is suing the Vatican for $160,000 after it issued a stamp using her street artwork without permission. The Vatican’s coin and postage agency used the image, which depicts a painting by 19th-century German artist Heinrich Hofmann of Jesus with her own tag of a heart reading “just use it” written across his chest, on a special-edition Easter stamp in 2020. (The work resides near the Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II bridge close by.) “I couldn’t believe it. I honestly thought it was a joke,” Babrow told the Associated Press after finding out about it on Instagram. “The real shock was that you don’t expect certain things from certain organizations.” Before filing the lawsuit, Babrow turned down the Vatican’s offer of free stamps and a meeting with Pope Francis as payment. 

Joe Biden seeks to replace several Trump appointees on the Commission of Fine Arts.

The Biden administration has asked four of the seven members of the Commission of Fine Arts, which advises on “matters of design and aesthetics, as they affect the federal interest and preserve the dignity of the nation’s capital,” to resign or face termination. Normally a non-controversial agency, the group’s advocacy of Donald Trump’s executive order establishing classical architecture as the prefered style for new federal buildings drew widespread criticism from prominent architecture and preservation groups who opposed a strict national style. 

A slender supertall in Manhattan may soon be home to the world’s largest NFT museum.

For better or worse, the pencil-thin 111 West 57th Street on Billionaires’ Row has already become somewhat of a fixture on the New York City skyline. In a recent interview, Guggenheim Partners co-founder Todd Morley announced he was looking to build a “blockchain tower” in the area that would house the world’s largest museum dedicated to non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Morley, the current chairman of the cryptocurrency company Overline Network, has reportedly partnered with 111 West 57th Street developer JDS Development Group to set up the NFT Museum and a new wireless network in which users can trade crypto. Work on the project is supposed to begin at the end of this year. 

Laurence des Cars will become the Louvre’s first female director in its 228-year history.

Laurence des Cars, the current leader of the Musée d’Orsay and the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris, has been selected by French president Emmanuel Macron as the next leader of the Louvre. She becomes the first female director in the museum’s 228-year history and will succeed Jean-Luc Martinez, who has served in the role since 2013. “She will make a dialogue between ancient art and the modern world one of her priorities, with the constant concern of reaching the greatest number [of people],” the French cultural ministry said in a statement. The appointment of des Cars, who was acclaimed for outré exhibitions at Musée d’Orsay, perhaps signals a larger shift taking place at the museum, which falls on the more conservative side. Des Cars’ appointment follows news that the Louvre opened an enormous conservation center in northern France.

Today’s attractive distractions:

Archaeologists unearth an enormous (and scary) 3,300-year-old fleshy bird claw. 

Yinka Ilori 3D prints a vibrantly colored basketball court in London’s Canary Wharf.

Here’s the story behind OXO Swivel, the vegetable peeler that changed the world.

Viral videos of plastic surgery are reducing stigmas about the medical procedures.