Hasta La Ideas

New York Landmarks Conservancy honorees Graydon Carter, Phil Donahue, Marlo Thomas, Larry Silverstein, Bunny Williams, Jonathan M. Tisch, and Howard Dodson with gala co-chair Liz Smith (Photos: Ben Gebbe/Patrick McMullan)

Renowned interior designer Bunny Williams was among the honorees at this year’s New York Landmarks Conservancy Living Landmarks Celebration, held earlier this month at the Plaza Hotel. The annual celebration recognizes New Yorkers who have made outstanding contributions to the City. Joining Williams on the dais to accept their awards and offer heartfelt (and occasionally musical) tributes to New York and its landmarked buildings were Vanity Fair editor-in-chief and restauranteur Graydon Carter; real estate developer Larry Silverstein; actor, author, producer, and philanthropist Marlo Thomas and her talk show icon husband Phil Donahue; Loews Hotels Chairman and CEO Jonathan M. Tisch; and Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Director Howard Dodson, who received the Lew Rudin Living Landmark Award for Public Service. Hosted by New York Landmarks Conservancy president Peg Breen and Conservancy board chair Stuart Siegel, the event drew approximately 400 guests and raised just over $800,000, a twenty percent increase from last year’s $640,000 tally. Meanwhile, Williams is not one to rest on her laurels. She’s been busy as a bee (her signature insect) creating buzz around her new book, A Scrapbook for Living (Stewart, Tabori & Chang), a room-by-room approach to creative and practical interiors. And, of course, she’s on Twitter.

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Artist Cory Arcangel, who you may know best for having hacked Super Mario Bros. to create a meditative cloudscape free of crusading plumbers, is gearing up for a solo show at the Whitney next year. In the meantime, he’ll join the likes of Claire Danes, Lily Donaldson, and Jessica Stam in hosting the museum’s Studio Party on October 26. Like any good host, he’s whipped up some treats for the guests. Arcangel has created “HP Photosmart C3180 All-In-One Test (Forward and Back Again)” (at right, click image to enlarge) a print that will be given to the first 50 people who purchase Artist Sponsor ($500) tickets to the party. “There are certain parts of our technological lives which tend to come and go without ever having the chance to be archived,” says Arcangel. “My print for the Whitney is inspired by these missed opportunities.” The work consists of the test pattern that his printer (an HP Photosmart C3180) initiates automatically when a new ink cartridge is inserted. The pattern is printed twice, once upside down, on a sheet of letter-sized paper. “To make the edition, ink cartridges had to be taken out and inserted into my C3180 100 times thus forcing the test pattern to print twice for each print,” he adds. “In the future when printers have different, or no test patterns—or even when there are no more printers—it is my hope that these prints will serve as a reminder of how far we have come and at the same time what little progress has been made.”

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Fresh from their collaboration with author Neil Gaiman at Comic-Con, the gothic fragrance mavens at Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab are gearing up for their next ghoulish meeting of the minds. On the afternoon of August 23, Black Phoenix teams with illustrator Gris Grimley for a party at Dark Delicacies in Burbank to celebrate the launch of Tales of Death and Dementia (Atheneum), a new book that matches the spine-tingling tales of Edgar Allen Poe (in this, his 200th anniversary year) with Grimley’s darkly whimsical drawings. Original artwork from the book will be on display and for sale, along with silkscreened event posters and t-shirts. Partygoers will also be treated to the debut of Black Phoenix’s new line of scents inspired by Grimly’s illustrations of Poe’s prose. The four fragrances are under wraps for now, but we’re hoping that “The Telltale Heart” has inspired a chilling chypre.

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The ides of April isn’t just for income taxes anymore. We cordially invite you to ditch that mound of receipts labelled “Misc,” file an extension, and join us at Highbar in Manhattan for a celebration of American design, by which we mean both design that is American and a new book on the subject. UnBeige and D-Crit (the new MFA program in Design Criticism at the School of Visual Arts) are hosting a party next Wednesday evening to celebrate the publication of American Design by Russell Flinchum, design historian extraordinaire. The book, part of the Museum of Modern Art Design series, traces the development of American design from the work of early American machinists through mid-century “design for modern living” to the branded, consumer-oriented design of the present day. Care to join us? RSVP here. We promise book signing, drink specials, and complimentary hors d’oeuvres shaped like Bertoia chairs (or at least they will appear as such after a few drink specials!).

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