THIS DYNAMIC GROUP DREAMS BIG, DARES GREATLY, AND, AS A RESULT, INSPIRES US TO DO SO OURSELVES. REPRESENTING A VARIETY OF FIELDS—FROM FASHION TO FURNITURE DESIGN, ARCHITECTURE TO ARTISAN CRAFTS—THESE EXTRAORDINARY TALENTS OFFER A CREATIVE VISION THAT PUSHES BOUNDARIES, CROSSES MEDIUMS, AND BELIES TRADITIONAL CONCEPTS. FRANCESCO LAGNESEFRANCESCO GALERIEMAGAZINE.COM 71 “A Flower Flash has to almost be guttural, so it has this exuberance and doesn’t read as overly perfect,” says Lewis Miller Lewis MILLER From a trash can overflowing with sherbet-colored peonies, tiger lilies, tulips, and sweet peas to a cape of blue blossoms cascading over Wall Street sculpture Fearless Girl, Lewis Miller’s floral arrangements began popping up in New York (and subsequently on Instagram) in October 2016. “I’ve always been slightly tortured about how I could give back in a way that wasn’t just sending a check,” says Miller of his motivation behind the project, which he JR calls Flower Flashes. “Also, I was feeling a bit bored after being in this For the past two decades, the elusive industry for over 20 years and wanted something to rejuvenate me.” More yet ubiquitous French artist and activist than two years later, the floral designer, who was recently appointed creative known simply as JR has transformed director of online flower-delivery service UrbanStems, continues to be buildings in New York, walls in inspired by how much “authentic joy” Flower Flashes bring people, which Palestine, slums in Kenya, and favelas motivates him to create in Rio de Janeiro with his monumental more, resulting in what he black-and-white “pastings” of everyday describes as “a lovely loop.” people. It all started when he was a A Flower Flash needs to be a teenager in Paris and began tagging his combustion of joy: “It has to name on rooftops; after finding a happen when inspiration camera on the Metro, he started taking strikes. It has to almost be portraits and pasting them around the guttural, so it has this city. Most recently, he has focused on exuberance and doesn’t read issues of immigration and national as overly perfect.” borders, making headlines for It has to be ephemeral: “If it his Kikito installation, where a stays there and people take larger-than-life giggling toddler pictures, that’s great, but appeared to hover over the U.S. border ultimately, I want it to be with Mexico. And while he’s most taken apart.” comfortable working outside the It has to stay authentic: “What traditional art system, JR regularly really energizes me the most is shows with museums and galleries. that I’m using leftover flowers Last year, his buzzworthy exhibition at or those from the market that Perrotin New York included a series of my vendors would throw out thought-provoking prints and films as because they’re past their prime. Or I’m supplementing well as a poignant rooftop performance on my own dime, so I’m free to with singer Alicia Keys. Next up is a do whatever, and that’s really secret project at the Louvre in Paris, liberating.” lewismillerdesign the details of which will be unveiled in .com —JILL SIERACKI late March. jr-art.net —LUCY REES FROM TOP: GUILLAUME ZICCARELLI, COURTESY OF PERROTIN; IRINI ARAKAS GREENBAUM ARAKAS IRINI PERROTIN; OF COURTESY GUILLAUME ZICCARELLI, TOP: FROM 72 GALERIEMAGAZINE.COM “The places and spaces in which we live and entertain help craft the experiences that we carry with us forever,” says Ken Fulk Britton, and Lupita Nyong’o lined up to Instagram it. His recent venture, Saint Joseph’s Arts Society (below), for which he transformed a blighted 22,000-square-foot Romanesque-revival church in downtown San Francisco into an art gallery with boutiques and performance space, has WEST 8 become a lesson in how From revitalizing riverbanks in down- town Madrid to reviving the monumen- adaptive reuse can transform a tal fountains at Pennsylvania’s historic neighborhood. “I hope this will be a resource Ken Longwood Gardens, the environmental to build a community around,” says Fulk, who FULK experts at West 8 have been drawing divides his time between the East and West attention—and foot traffic—to over- “It’s not just about design for design’s sake,” Coasts. “I’m constantly drawn to folks whose looked landscapes since 1987. After says designer and event planner Ken Fulk, minds work utterly differently than mine. winning the coveted 2006 commission whose creations for clients such as Instagram They look at the world through another lens. to transform Governors Island (above) cofounder Kevin Systrom, Sean Parker, and It’s intoxicating to go on a journey with in New York, the groundbreaking Alexis and Trevor Traina help turn the real them.” kenfulk.com —JENNIFER ASH RUDICK Dutch firm established its first U.S. into the surreal. “The places outpost in Manhattan. (It also has and spaces in which we live offices in Rotterdam and Brussels.) and entertain help craft the Upcoming projects: “The gardens of experiences that we carry One Manhattan Square in New York with us forever. Every capture influences from around the moment matters.” world, offering enclaves of closeness Fulk’s work at this year’s and a calm natural environment,” Golden Globes is a perfect says Daniel Vasini, creative director for West 8’s New York office. “We’re example: He decorated the also excited about the first phase of elevator that took attendees Houston Botanic Garden—Botanic from the ceremony to the Beginnings—opening in 2020. after-party, tricking out the lift Houstonians from all walks of life will with a Stark Leopard carpet soon have the opportunity to learn and a fully stocked vintage about and enjoy plants from around Aldo Tura bar. The result: Stars the world.” west8.com like Debra Messing, Connie —GEOFFREY MONTES BAAN IWAN DOUGLAS(2); FRIEDMAN TOP: FROM COUNTERCLOCKWISE 74 GALERIEMAGAZINE.COM our projects,” she says. “It’s not that it’s just good for business, it’s good for the soul.” Subsequently, she has expanded the family’s holdings to Olafur include galleries as well as Goldman Global Arts, which ELIASSON helps match corporate clients Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson’s works often bring with artists to create site-specific, natural phenomena—like light, moisture, heat, large-scale installations, including ice—into unusual settings, suggesting a medita- the massive murals at Hard Rock tion on our perception of the world. He’s poured water-soluble dye into rivers, turning them green, Stadium, commissioned by and once created four faux waterfalls in New York developer and Miami Dolphins City to explore the properties of water. In early owner Stephen Ross after he December, he installed 24 blocks of ice, which were visited Wynwood. taken from the Nuup Kangerlua Fjord in Greenland, This year, Srebnick’s company outside Tate Modern as a visceral reminder of the celebrates the ten-year anniversary effects of climate change. “We hope that Ice Watch of Wynwood Walls and the recent created feelings of proximity, presence, and rele- opening of Wynwood Garage, a vance of narratives that you can identify with and sculptural 428-car garage with retail that make us all engage,” he wrote on his blog the JESSICA GOLDMAN and office space. Next up is a day in early January that the ice fully melted. still-under-wraps real-estate project in Texas Last summer, he completed his first permanent SREBNICK to be announced this spring. building—a fortresslike office in the Vejle Fjord in Denmark—which applied the artist’s experience “Creativity is a core component to the Srebnick is also a cochair of the working with light, perception, and nature to a func- DNA of our company,” says Goldman committee for the Miami Super Bowl, in tioning architectural structure. And in September, Properties’ CEO, Jessica Goldman 2020, and plans to add more artistic he and his sister, Victoria Eliasdóttir (a chef who Srebnick, the civic-minded entrepreneur elements to the big game. “Real estate is worked with Alice Waters at Chez Panisse), opened who took over the Miami real-estate firm still the foundation of everything that we SOE Kitchen 101, a pop-up culinary and event of her late father, Tony Goldman, the do,” she says, “but our philosophy is if space in Reykjavík where local arts organizations will developer and arts patron who launched you’re going to put new things into the present a series of lectures, poetry readings, and the massive street art project Wynwood world, put things that are more beautiful, musical performances. The aim is to enable people Walls. “I recognized just how meaningful it more thought-provoking, and more to understand that “eating isn’t just about passively ROZALIA JOVANOVIC is to incorporate large-scale public art into h op e f u l .” goldmanproperties.com —J.S. consuming.” olafureliasson.net — PRICHETT JACK ELLIOT; SHANE FORGHAM-BAILEY; CHARLIE PROPERTIES; GOLDMAN OF COURTESY LEFT: TOP FROM CLOCKWISE KULAPAT YANTRASAST New York. Most recently, Yantrasast made a splash Kulapat Yantrasast honed his timeless aesthetic under by crafting the temporary pavilion for the inaugural the watchful eye of celebrated Japanese architect edition of the art fair Frieze L.A., which launched in Tadao Ando before striking out on his own in 2004. February. He found this commission a particularly His uncanny ability to create buildings as understated encouraging sign of the growing influence of cultural as they are compelling (like this Indiana office park movers and shakers: “I hope in the future that art and art gallery, right) has landed his architecture gets to play a larger role in empathy and diplomacy firm, wHY, two of its highest-profile commissions: for the world,” he says.