The Brazilian artist Wanda Pimentel’s “Envolvimento” paintings (1968-84) are hard-edged domestic vignettes — kitchens, bathrooms, the insides of cars — rendered in a lean, almost festive palette of mostly reds, greens and yellows. In these claustrophobic spaces, feminine-seeming thighs, ankles, feet and hands make fetishistic cameos, jutting out at awkward angles or lingering near water puddles and toilet-paper rolls. Sometimes, they’re framed by thick, windowpane-like lines that cast the viewer as a peeping Tom. “The house is not only a space of intimacy but also of fear,” says Alexandre Gabriel of São Paulo’s Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel gallery, which will present Pimentel’s work at the Independent 20th Century art fair in New York City next month.
If Pimentel’s scenes deliberately suffocate, those of the American abstractionist Mildred Thompson, who died in 2003, catapult us outward. Her show at Independent 20th Century, curated by Mary Sabbatino of Galerie Lelong & Co., will be the first time the public sees her 1970s “Window Paintings.” Thompson’s best-known canvases are crammed with marks resembling confetti explosions and colliding tornadoes, meant to show what is unseen in our world — particles, energy, the vibrations of sound — as a great cosmic funk. The motifs in the “Window Paintings” are more easily recognizable: Made in Tampa, Fla., they seem to be psychedelic beachscapes. In one from 1977, a vast green sky and block of sand are framed by beach-towel-bright curtains. It’s an idyllic, open vista, without a person in sight. Independent 20th Century runs from Sept. 7 through Sept. 10, independenthq.com.
Eat Here
Korean Coffee and Delicate Home Goods at a New Cafe in Brooklyn’s Carroll Gardens
On a sunny corner in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, Suea and Carol Song have opened Dae, a space inspired by Korean cafe culture. With backgrounds in food and fashion, respectively, the duo wanted to create a casual meeting place for coffee, cocktails and small plates, while also highlighting their favorite housewares creators. A window seat in the entryway is cozy beneath a white pillow installation by the artist Terry Park that cascades from the ceiling. Music plays softly from transparent acrylic speakers that were created especially for the space by the Seoul-based designer Erika Cox. For refreshments, you can choose coffee from the Korean roaster Anthracite, teas harvested on Jeju Island by the company Osulloc or cocktails like the Maesil Spritz (fermented green plum liqueur and yuzu). Dae’s seasonal menu also currently includes milk bread and butter, and pita with kimchi labneh. And for those who want to take some of that serene aesthetic away with them, Dae sells a selection of home goods such as incense from the Toronto-based Korean bathing brand Binu Binu and hand-hammered metal coffee filters and forks hung with charms by Studio YeoDong Yu. daenewyork.com.
Loro Piana, the Italian tailor and textile producer, is known as one of the world’s foremost manufacturers of cashmere wool. Every year, the company harvests it from the longhaired goats that reside in Central Asia, usually in early spring when the animals naturally shed their fur. Almost a century after its founding in 1924 in the Piedmontese village of Quarano, Loro Piana is introducing Loro, a seven-piece capsule collection of clothing and accessories made from recycled cashmere fibers extracted from the house’s knitwear production surplus, a fabric that the brand refers to as re-cashmere. The process, conceived to reduce waste and salvage material, begins with the manual removal of zippers, closures and stitching on leftover garments and accessories like sweaters, gloves and scarves. The fabric and knitwear scraps are sorted by color, washed, unraveled, then blended with undyed cashmere, resulting in a quality indistinguishable from that of an all-new knit. The yarns are not overdyed (a common technique to achieve bright color), resulting in an earthy palette that includes shades of oatmeal, rust and a smoky gray. Pieces include turtlenecks, V-neck sweaters, scarves and hats in an expansive size range running from a child’s M to 4XL. The whole collection is gender-inclusive; after all, loro translates from Italian to the neutral “they.” From $450, loropiana.com.
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A Sprawling French Brasserie Opens in Detroit
Detroit has sometimes been called the Paris of the Midwest and, as of last week, the city has a new brasserie that might easily suit the French capital: Le Suprême, located in Book Tower, a recently restored mixed-use building downtown. Method Co., the company behind the Pinch hotel in Charleston, S.C., and the Quoin in Wilmington, Del., among others, oversaw the concept and design, which includes a green-tiled cafe and barroom, a main dining room accented with oxblood leather booths and antique sconces and a 24-seat private dining room. The breakfast menu includes housemade pastries and bread, which guests can eat while sitting on wooden benches designed to mimic the seating at Paris Metro stations. The eclectic artwork displayed on the walnut-paneled walls includes old jazz concert posters from Detroit and photographs inspired by France’s Le Mans car race. The restaurant’s menu features seafood towers as well as a range of Parisian specialties, such as moules frites, soupe à l’oignon gratinée and steak au poivre. lesupremedetroit.com.
For the past decade, the Paris and Marrakesh-based communications consultant Pierre Collet worked with the Swiss art patron Maja Hoffmann while she oversaw the transformation of an old rail yard in Arles, France, that would ultimately become the 27-acre Luma museum complex. As he helped establish a new cultural center for the city, Collet noticed something else was missing. “For some reason it was hard to find good bread in Arles,” he says. When he proposed launching a bakery, Hoffmann signed on as partner, and Le Sauvage opened this August, offering a short menu of artisanal breads and pastries, all made with organic flour. Soon Le Sauvage will also offer bouquets of local, seasonal wildflowers, as well as baking classes to local schoolchildren. The New York City-based Labo Design Studio created the interiors — a contrast of natural stone surfaces and a modern curved white terrazzo counter, with a wall of colored glass panels by the artist duo Aurélie Abadie and Sauques Samuel. “We want to celebrate original craftsmanship in all forms,” Collet says. instagram.com/le_sauvage_arles.
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