Castles in the German and Austrian Alps are known for their fairytale atmosphere. The iconic turret silhouette in the background of the Disney logo is actually modeled after Neuschwanstein Castle, the palace of King Ludwig II of Bavaria, located near the border between the two countries. Located 20 minutes outside of Salzburg on an emerald glacial lake surrounded by evergreens, Fuschl Castle is no exception. Built in 1461, the vast stone mansion served for four centuries as a luxurious hunting lodge for guests of the prince-archbishops and royal families of Salzburg, who ruled the region under the rule of the Holy Roman Empire. After World War II, the Schloss (German for “castle”) was converted into a hotel and operated primarily seasonally, from April to October, until Rosewood Hotels & Resorts purchased the property in 2022 and began restoration work. Schloss Fuschl reopened on July 1 and features 98 rooms, including six standalone chalets.The hotel has six restaurants and bars, indoor and outdoor infinity pools, a spa with three saunas and eight treatment rooms, and access to Lake Füschl. Fishing, boat tours, and nature walks led by herbalists can also be arranged. While the castle has never been home to the likes of Cinderella or Rapunzel, it has hosted its share of movie princesses. Midcentury film buffs may remember the place from German-French actress Romy Schneider's “Sissi” series (a historical trilogy about the young Elisabeth of Austria), which was filmed here in the 1950s. Today, the Sissi Tea Salon bears the character's name and offers afternoon tea service with a selection of homemade pastries, including Schloss Füschl torte, a chocolate hazelnut truffle cake first made in the house's kitchens more than 30 years ago. Prices start at around $695. One night, Rosewood Hotels.
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Two painters in dialogue across the ages at the New Michael Warner Gallery in Beverly Hills
The Los Angeles branch of the Michael Warner Gallery opens in Beverly Hills on June 22 with a show featuring works by 19th-century French artist Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and postwar German painter Markus Lüpertz. Gallery co-owner Gordon Veneklassen chose these artists in part to surprise his audience. “Nobody expected to see these two artists in an exhibition in Los Angeles,” he says. The show speaks to Lüpertz's long-standing respect for his predecessor. The works on display date from 2013 to 10 years later, taking images from Puvis's work and putting them in a new context. For example, “Study for a Poor Fisherman,” a charcoal sketch of a fisherman and two figures from 1881, is rendered into an empty scene in Lüpertz's painting “Pierre's Visit” (2018). Veneklassen hopes that the interplay between the two eras will be a feature of the gallery's future exhibitions. “We wanted to show that we have a love of history and at the same time a love of modernity and the contemporary,” he says. Other exhibitions planned for the minimalist spaces surrounding the courtyard include works by 20th-century American conceptual artist James Lee Byers, British painter and musician Issie Wood, and German artist Florian Kluwer. The gallery also hosts a series of events, including a spoken-word performance by California poets on September 7. “Markus Lüpertz, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes” will be on view from June 22 to September 7 at the Michael Warner Gallery in Beverly Hills. Michael Werner.
For Rotterdam-based designer Bert-Jean Pott's most satisfying experiments often come from unexpected junk. Wire strainers, plastic jugs, and golf balls appear in his ongoing lamp series “Crafty Light,” while a high-back sofa set created for the TextielMuseum in the nearby city of Tilburg features bright polypropylene strings crisscrossed around a spare metal frame. “I don't even have a sketchbook,” Pott says, reflecting on his improvisational approach to design. “Most of it is hands-on, playing with materials.” His latest collaboration with New York-based textile house Maharam reflects Pott's longtime interest in marine ropes (high-performance sailing ropes), which he is known for fashioning into whimsical masks. Two new rugs, “Pop,” wrapped in oval or circular shapes, and “Groove,” a checkerboard arrangement, are made of multicolored ropes that create a mesmerizing, three-dimensional effect. Suitable for indoor and outdoor use, the rugs have a stylistic affinity with American culture. “What I love about folk art, and maybe tramp art or outsider art, is that there's always a clear connection to the hand that made it,” the designer says, a quality also present in Groove's macramé knots. (An Indian weaver learned the technique by studying one of Pott's handmade samples.) Objects that bear the human touch “are something to put on a pedestal,” Pott says. “And it doesn't have to be a pedestal; it could just be a nice place: the floor.” From $258, Maharam.
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A painting exhibition depicting office life in New York
Puerto Rican-raised artist Jean-Pierre Villafañe fell in love with painting while working on a series of community murals in San Juan's Rio Pedras neighborhood. The project also sparked his interest in architecture and how decoration impacts public spaces and how they are used. In 2019, he left his job as an architectural designer to pursue painting full-time. This week, he opens a show of new work, “Playtime,” at the Charles Moffett Gallery in Manhattan's TriBeCa neighborhood. Villafañe is halfway through a year-long studio residency at 4 World Trade Center, next to New York's Financial District. His new work explores the austere, repetitive environment of the corporate world and the way people tend to blur their private identities in office settings. The series of oil paintings on linen features exaggerated, curvaceous characters reminiscent of the figures of early 20th-century French painter Fernand Léger, but their muscular bodies are heavily contoured with makeup. In Villafañe's Overtime (all works cited, 2024), three such faces emerge from across a maze of cubicles, peering out at an embracing couple, their breasts and fishnet-clad legs bared. It depicts a group of executives seated at a conference room table, gazing at a distorted figure. “Clocking in,” my favorite of Villafañe's new paintings, depicts a hallway where employees stream out of various doors, all dressed identically in white shirts, ties and slacks, except for one brave soul in a cocktail dress. “Playtime” will be on exhibit at Charles Moffett in New York from June 21st to August 2nd. charlesmoffett.com.
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New guesthouse with extensive natural wine list opens in French coastal countryside
A longing for nature, clean air and tranquility led Anaïs Fillot and Bertrand Decou to found La Maison de Majesque, an elegant four-room guesthouse in southwestern France. The couple – Fillot is a furniture designer and public relations professional, and Decou an engineer – spent 10 years living in Singapore, Hong Kong, Hanoi and Bangkok. During a visit to France in 2022, they came across an abandoned 18th-century stone house surrounded by a vast pine forest in the small village of Majesque, in Les Landes, a little-known region on the Atlantic coast between Bordeaux and Biarritz.
The house they bought hadn't been lived in for 30 years and needed a complete renovation. They decided to preserve many of the original elements, from the round stained-glass windows to the cement checkerboard floors and plaster moldings in the entryway. “The idea was to revive the house as a backdrop for the contemporary furnishings we favor,” Philau says. She designed much of the earth-toned furniture as part of her bespoke furniture line, Manifesto (almost everything in the house is for sale). Though there's no restaurant, the couple has curated a selection of more than 70 varieties of mostly natural and organic wines for guests to enjoy in the lounge or on the terrace. A variety of activities are also offered, including surfing lessons, horseback riding, yoga, meditation, in-room massages, and dinners prepared by a private chef. Room rates start from approximately $235. Maison des Majesques.
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Manhattan group exhibition examines artists' crossing paths
Sarah Charlesworth was a conceptual artist who used photography to reflect on society, first collaging found images and later creating her own photographs. Her 1981 work, Tabula Rasa, is a white-on-white silkscreen print that reinterprets one of the earliest still-life paintings. It is the title of Tabula Rasa, a group exhibition at Paula Cooper Gallery that focuses on Charlesworth’s relationship with fellow conceptual artists Douglas Huebler and Joseph Kosuth. The exhibition traces a lineage that stretches from Huebler, Charlesworth’s mentor, to Kosuth, her peer and collaborator, and the many artists they later influenced, including Charlesworth’s close friend Laurie Simmons and her former student, photographer Deena Lawson. Placing the work of the three artists alongside that of their mentors, friends, students, and contemporaries, Tabula Rasa explores the overlapping creative trajectories that connect the 23 participants. “We have to recycle the work of those who have come before us,” says artist Lucy Charlesworth Freeman, whose work is on view alongside her mother's companion piece, “Tabula Rasa II” (2024), “and that's a beautiful, necessary, and inevitable part of culture.” “Tabula Rasa” is on view at the Paula Cooper Gallery in New York until July 26th. paulacoopergallery.com.
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