Hello. Snake is a vintage and furniture letter, ramblings up top, intelligence and sourcing below the jump.
The latest
Taix, the French restaurant in LA (nice ambiance, big) is DONE and are auctioning off its interiors. The auction is hinted atin this thorough LA Times piece about the restaurant’s last dayz. Here’s the auction link—take a look at what’s on the block. Chairs, Testament to the resto’s interior designer/owner since the pieces on auction look much different, removed from context, than they do when you’re in the hut. I was only there once with my friend Zach Crogan and didn’t get a single thing to eat. RIP.
New Museum reopened after a massive architectural addition. It’s like twice as big. There’s a good writeup on the Architects’ Newspaper about the changes on a technical level; thorough photography as well. My take? spaces like this—modern, futuristic, forward-arching metallic, pulsing places can only be complemented by hundreds and hundreds of centuries-old paintings of the crucifixion, rotting fruit, ships landing in Morocco, doleful art patrons, stern babies, things like that.
Outsider Art fair last weekend; this Times review captured it well, though what’s so outsider about the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative, in Nunavut? If that’s outside, what’s inside? It’s really just another example of the gate-keeping culturati making another damning—and fateful—decision against Canadian self-expression.
“Enough is enough”—Ferrari on new start rules. Tell me about it.
eBay corner: Versace Versace Versace Versace
Check out these Versace plating options here. Imagine eating spaghetti off this thing above.
Imagine eating exactly 48 grams of protein and 21 grams of fat and like 30 carbs (6 oz of chuck steak, 8 oz of kimchi and a little bit of rice and a glass of Black Coke) off this thing. Feels like a spiritually correct answer to GLP-1s.
Obs 145: The Gwyneth auction
Gwyneth Paltrow’s clothing auction ended earlier today—lots of pantsuits, some Tom Ford Dalai Lama glasses:
And these glasses she maybe wore during the trial? The more interesting lot starts Wednesday: her furniture/design bonafides. It’s a half-good set of furniture: tear-sheet stuff, much of it new, much of it automated, not very lively, not… piece-focused. Just like, things. But why be negative? There’s some good stuff in there. The best piece to me in the lot is this DS-201 chair by Robert Haussmann for De Sede. It’s classic De Sede, from they say 1957…. early. Perfect leather, simple lines, some flourish, and a flexibility that allows it to work with most styles. It goes for about $2,000 retail—never auctioned before. Haussman also did this sofa. Best of the auction—chairs, mostly—highlighted below the block. I feel like looking over the auction Paltrow is either a qua minimalist who never owned anything or she’s keeping the good stuff and not listing it. The Goop/ SNAKE SUPER HEALTH angle is that leather is Lindy, eternal, healthy, good for the skin, good for the brain.
Below—the best pieces from her auction, stuff from the pics below and above, a dozen dinnerware sets, incl. some Versace and Ginori, some museum-level lighting, the best Vladimir Kagan piece I’ve ever seen, and a De Sede sofa even better than Gwyneth’s bull-shit above.
