Last week, a friend and I got in our Zipcar and took a little field trip to the New York Botanical Garden. The Garden has always been on my New York City to-do list, but I’d never made it up there. I was not disappointed!

Founded in 1891, the Garden is now a National Historic Landmark and it is a true treasure. The grounds host numerous individual gardens including my favorites: the Irwin Perennial Garden and the Rockefeller Rose Garden, which was in full bloom and absolutely breathtaking. There are also hundreds of acres of natural landscape and forest, all with paths that encourage lingering strolls.

We were lucky to see the Moore in America installation, a collection of Henry Moore’s large-scale sculptures seamlessly placed throughout the gardens. It really felt like the sculptures had been specifically created for where they stood. I also loved admiring the architecture of the Haupt Conservatory—the largest Victorian-era glasshouse in America.

A definite stop on the trip was the Shop in the Garden. I’ve been told numerous times that the Shop is one of the best and a great resource for gifts and home accessories. Now, I can totally agree and make the recommendation myself.

For most, the planting season is over, but indoors or out, it’s never too late to fill some pots. Color was everywhere in the shop, and the garden pots were no exception. Here are some I loved (all available on their website):

Ceramic Herb Pots

These small pots add a pop of color to any patio, waterproof, $14

Tom Pots with Holes and Universal Orchid Pots with Slits

Made of terra cotta, I loved the washed white finish of these specialty pots, from $34

Glazed Ceramic Planters

Available in eight colors and a couple of sizes, these ceramic flower pots can be used indoors or out, from $16

Glazed Ceramic Cube Planters

A matte finish graces these contemporary 6-inch cubes, $12

Nova Eco Pots and Vase Eco Pots

Fabulous!! These colorful earth-friendly planters are made of renewable grain husks, resistant to freezing, and are heat-insulating, available in multiple sizes and eight colors, from $6

White Porcelain Pots

While they may look too pretty to use, these delicate beauties are ready to work with drainage holes and footed saucers, $58-$128

Don’t worry if you don’t have a green thumb. Whether shopping for yourself or a friend, there are plenty of other amazingly designed things to choose from. How fun are these?!

Bicycle Basket

Bright green bicycle basket, made of plastic in Sweden, $54

Light Bulb Oil Lamp

Designed and made in Germany, bulb is made of a special opal glass, which looks clear when filled with oil and frosted when empty, $98

Gingko Leaf Tray

Hand-printed fabric is laminated between vinyl sheets to create this pretty handmade tray, $110

Visit the Shop’s website to see all of their unique offerings and the next time you’re in New York, be sure to stop by the Garden.

—Jennifer Kopf

Technorati Tags: New York Botanical Garden, The Shop at the Garden, flower pots, gardening, color, ceramic pots, herb pots, home accessories, bicycle basket, planters, cachepots, Henry Moore

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The London-based Israeli designer Ron Arad has enjoyed a long and fruitful relationship with Italian manufacturer Moroso. Their first collaboration? The 12-piece Spring collection, launched in 1991–the avant-garde designer’s first production pieces. They’ve since dreamed up a number of other intriguing creations together, including the delightfully satisfying Misfits, which launched at Milan last year. Misfits is at once cleverly high-concept and wholly functional: it’s actually made of six separate units with sinuous seats that don’t quite fit together–very silly/fun–and that can be reconfigured into various arrangements. Genius!

A hotly anticipated retrospective of Arad’s work opens next summer at MoMA, but you can get a little taste of things to come right now at Moroso’s Soho store, which is currently staging an installation charting their 18-year collaboration. Now that’s a fit. –Jen Renzi

via Apartment Therapy and the New York Times

Two more configurations:

Technorati Tags: Ron Arad, Moroso, design exhibits MoMA, modular furniture, modern sofas

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One incredibly balmy evening earlier this week, I dropped by R Gallery’s opening of “Hugo França: The Story of the Tree.” It was a truly marvelous, don’t-miss-it show. The Brazilian designer carves stunningly elemental–and incredibly large-scale–furnishings from discarded Amazonian Indian canoes and fallen Pequi trees, some dating to 1,000 years old. Among the beautifully sculpted pieces on display were low-slung coffee tables, languorous chaises, and enormous room dividers.

The installation includes an insightful video that sheds light on França’s creative process, which is equal parts brute force (chain saws, chisels) and pure imagination (he has an otherworldly, almost spiritual communion with the trees and an ability to “see”–and then expose–their inner form). The utterly simple lines belie the complexity of the laborious handcraftsmanship that goes into making them.

Sadly–and unfairly–Brazil still gets a bad rap when it comes to earth-consciousness; deforestation and an active timber black market have marred the country’s reputation. The work of many contemporary Brazilian furniture designers goes a long way to correcting that. The ones I’ve met have been universally respectful of Mother Earth, embracing sustainable practices long before they came into vogue and celebrating nature’s inherent beauty with exquisitely poetic work. França included.

The show is up through June 14. If you can’t afford one of the pieces (which run into the tens of thousands!), order a copy of the catalog. Photographed by Tuca Reines, it’s a work of art in itself. –Jen Renzi

Technorati Tags: Hugo Franca, R 20th Century Gallery, best New York art exhibitions, luxury eco-friendly furniture, Brazilian wood furnishings

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Scared of auctions? Don’t know when or how to raise the paddle? Not sure how to sign up in the first place? Wondering whether you need a lot of money? Curious about how it works when you win?

Then get thee to Phillips de Pury + Co’s Saturday Sale pronto! The next one is tomorrow, April 26, with sessions at 10 AM and 2 PM. Go! Even if it’s just for an hour!

Really, I cannot say enough good things about this newish series, launched a year and a half ago as a sort of “starter” auction targeted at first-time buyers. Sales typically feature an assortment of lots from all departments–from modern design objects to jewelry to fine art–with lower starting bids than their usual fare. Tomorrow’s sale has an emphasis on art toys (think: limited-edition vinyl Godzillas) and watches, but still includes the usual complement of Thomas Demand photographs, Damien Hirst prints, Roy Lichtenstein art plates, and furnishings by the likes of Raymond Loewy and Terje Ekstrom (above). Check out the catalog for details on each item. (You can also bid online! Although that’s not as fun.)

My advice for auction neophytes: Go, register (very easy) for a paddle, then sit and enjoy. Don’t even bid the first time, unless you feel moved. Just get into the vibe of the thing and start to notice the tenor of how bidding escalates and get a feel for how closely estimates match selling prices. I always learn a ton, and discover all sorts of intriguing name and unusual furnishings I’ve never seen before.

Even if you are a well-seasoned art buyer, it’s a fun and lively event, with an unpretentious, feel-good vibe. And great bargains. –Jen Renzi

Technorati Tags: how to buy at auction, Phillips de Pury & Co Saturday sale, Saturday@Phillips, affordable modern furniture auction, collecting modern design

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Yes, the headline above is true.

Tonight I braved an interactive food-based art happening to see my friend Miwa Koizumi perform at the Umami festival in SoHo. The festival, which runs through April 18, is pretty intriguing stuff. Lifted from its website:

“Umami was created as a meeting ground to people who use food as a medium and who present their audience with a multi-sensory experience in the dining room, or gallery space. Our objective is to open avenues of collaboration between these artists and culinary professionals.”

Very cool. But also quite strange. Miwa was performing a “gastronomic interactive installation” alongside a wacky, carnivalesque troupe of ladies who were yelling and screaming while doing weird things with vegetables, I’m not sure what, exactly. (We think maybe they were commenting on early-20th-century Lower East Side culture but we could be totally wrong.)

Miwa, wearing an “Ice Love New York” (get it?) T-shirt of her own design, was serving homemade ice-cream based on immigrant foods. Last night it was borscht. Tonight it was smoked salmon and bagel, which she dished out in separate scoops. Rather than blend the two together, you were supposed to take a taste of one and then a little nibble of the other. I cannot describe what it is like to bite into a spoonful of creamy white ice cream, your brain expecting vanilla and tasting…the EXACT likeness of bagel. She made it by dissolving a bagel in milk, then whipping it up in her ice cream maker. Brilliant. Mad. Yummy. Totally screwed with my head.

Miwa has been incorporating food and eating rituals into her work since her art school days in Paris. She’s done a faux-spa with edible treatments and pieces based on pommegranite seed vapors and handmade soy milk–it’s all sort of Grant Achatz meets Rikrit Tiravanija. In France, she found gallery-goers more gung-ho to sample unusual creations; Americans, meanwhile, have proved a bit more timid–interested in looking but not always tasting, which means missing out on the full meaning of her art. Thus she cooked up the idea to use always-popular ice cream as her medium; who could turn down free ice cream? It’s high-concept art that goes down easy.

To read more about her work, check out her website. Or see below for teasers of some of her other noteworthy projects: lighting sculptures at BDDW plus eco-friendly sea creatures made from repurposed plastic bottles.

–Jen Renzi

Miwa and fan at a similar performance at Flux factory in December:

Her PET bottles, plus a poetic description from her website: “On trash: Since I moved to NY four years ago, I have started to see garbage as small creatures. Everywhere I go they are waiting for me. I pass by and they want to talk with me.”

Her porcelain lighting at BDDW:

Technorati Tags: Performance art, UMAMI festival, Miwa Koizumi, food-based artworks, bagel-flavored ice cream

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