Summer in Summary

Cindy Allen -- Interior Design, 8/1/2009 12:00:00 AM

For those of us at this magazine, looking out our windows on the 17th floor, late summer does not conjure up visions of lazy afternoons lounging by the pool. (OK, with luck, there's some of that, too.) August means Art, and our '09 portfolio will not languidly creep up on you. We are talking some really strong stuff, with stories practically leaping off the pages. Nothing quiet here, thanks. Still, every interior more than stacks up against the artworks it contains—a ton of them, labeled, framed, and occasionally put high on a pedestal, the ultimate absolute. In sedate Greenwich, Connecticut, provocateur Peter Brant not only hired blue-chip architect Richard Gluckman to turn a stone barn into a gallery but also, right out front, installed a larger-than-life Paul McCarthy sculpture whose name certain publications wouldn't print. In Chicago, arguably this country's architecture capital, the Art Institute's Giacomettis and Matisses have some new friends named Mies, Piano, Van Berkel, and Denison. And then there are the French students shaking things up at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Versailles, behind a monumental facade by Platane Beres.

Of course, with the major blurring of lines where art and design are concerned, painting, sculpture, photography, video, you-name-it always overflow into the other 11 issues that fill our busy calendar. Art is so prevalent, so ubiquitous, that it really couldn't be kept out of the picture if we wanted to. (For the record, we don't.) Throughout the year, as we cover corporate, residential, hospitality, institutional, and even health-care projects, art is always in the foreground of designers' craft—and then some, when designers cross over to become artists in their own right.

The art-design partnership makes especially good summer reading for creative types busy retooling their future—perhaps by the pool. Please dive in.