Salone del Mobile Postpones 2021 Edition, and Other News

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Originally scheduled for April, Salone del Mobile postpones its 2021 edition to September.

After delaying and subsequently canceling its 2020 edition, Salone del Mobile announced that it would take place April 13–18 at Milano-Rho fairgrounds. At the time, organizers thought the decision would give the world’s largest furniture fair enough breathing room to bounce back from coronavirus-induced closures that have effectively paused the cultural calendar, but it looks like a second wave will prolong the situation further. Organizers have now scheduled the show’s 2021 edition, its 60th anniversary, to take place Sept. 5–10. “Being able to hold Salone next year is an absolute priority for all of us whose lives depend on the design sector,” says Claudio Luti, president of Salone del Mobile. “We believe that moving the fair to September will leave enough time for the ongoing acute phase of the pandemic to subside and that this will provide a real chance to jumpstart the design sector on a global level.”

Vimeo presents the cream of 2020’s online video content from its Best of the Year Award.

The online video platform unveils nominees for its Vimeo Festival and Awards (VFA), which assembles standout videos created this year. Spanning 14 categories with five nominees each, the lineup serves as a fantastic resource for exploring top-grade film content, including advertising, live-streamed events, animation, social media, comedy, drama, streaming channels, documentaries, and experimental work. There’s even a category dedicated to quarantine videos, which highlights creative explorations of life in lockdown and videos for good causes. Our favorite, meanwhile, is Jim Jenkins’s second recreation of Groundhog Day, starring Bill Murray as a groundhog (there’s a tongue-in-cheek scene where they both play whack-a-mole). If you’re a film snob or not, check them out for prime viewing content.

New York auctions highly sought-after Air Jordans and other footwear seized in a drug bust. 

The holidays are coming early for sneakerheads. New York City is auctioning off nearly 200 pairs of highly coveted sneakers and 14 pieces of sports memorabilia that the NYPD snatched from a drug bust on Long Island. The bidding war will also include office furniture, filing cabinets, and other business paraphernalia (unfortunately, no water coolers) usually found on the eBay store run by the Office of General Services. Bidding starts on Wednesday with four pairs of shoes, but more offerings will roll out in the coming weeks. On Thursday, connoisseurs can snatch Air Jordan 7/6 Retro “Golden Moments Pack,” featuring two pairs of Michael Jordan-inspired sneakers that typically sell for more than $500. We’re most impressed with an unopened pair of Nike Jordan Ultimate Gift of Flight—the shoes have been in the state’s possession since 2017, when the police issued four search warrants in Suffolk County as part of a long-term investigation of Richard Figueroa and his wife, Joan, who allegedly sold cocaine from their house and auto repair shop. 

Minneapolis activists are preserving protest art from the Black Lives Matter movement.

A pair of activists are attempting to preserve the murals and public artworks created in the wake of George Floyd’s death. Six months after the police killing of Floyd set off a global protest movement, Kenda Zellner-Smith and Leesa Kelly have collected at least 593 plywood boards with colorful street art, portraits, and poems from around Minneapolis–St. Paul as part of their “Save the Board to Memorialize the Movement.” Their GoFundMe has raised enough money for a storage space where they’ve begun digitally archiving the art so it can be accessible to the masses. “I wish you could see what it’s like being in the storage space,” Kelly says. “When you look around, you just get this whole message of pain, grief, solidarity, you know, anger, like a need for change, a want for a better future for us all. It’s really, really powerful.” They plan to exhibit the art publicly for the first time next year at Phelps Field Park in Minneapolis, on the one-year anniversary of Floyd’s killing. 

An investigation reveals that beauty brands are linked to the palm oil industry’s abuse of women.

An in-depth investigation by the Associated Press has revealed the sexual abuse, human trafficking, and outright slavery of women in the palm oil industry, which ends up in the supply chain of the biggest corporations—L’Oréal, Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Avon, Johnson & Johnson—in the $530 billion beauty business. “Almost every plantation has problems related to labor,” says Hotler Parsaoran of the Indonesian nonprofit group Sawit Watch, which has conducted extensive investigations into abuses in Indonesia and Malaysia. “But the conditions of female workers are far worse than men.” Some of the most serious findings: hours spent waist-deep in poisonous water with chemical runoff, loads so heavy they can collapse a womb, and no benefits or even pay. Combined, the two countries produce 85 percent of the world’s palm oil, which ends up in nearly 75 percent of personal-care products such as mascara, bubble bath, and anti-wrinkle creams. 

Today’s attractive distractions:

Leading up to Thanksgiving, the presidential turkeys lived luxurious lives.

Marina Abramovic’s advice to soothe 2020 anxiety? Complain to a tree.

Melissa O’Shaughnessy captures New Yorkers in their natural habitats.

Trump gave a speech last week at what looks like an occasional table.