The New Dealers
The 58th Annual Winter Antiques Show kicked off last Friday at the Park Avenue Armory featuring exhibitors from all over the globe showing items from the ancient world through the sixties. Thursday is this year’s Young Collectors Night, a cocktail party for the city’s emerging collectors and philanthropists to meet the exhibitors, chat with some of New York’s best-known design figures (including television star Nate Berkus and Design Hunting’s own Wendy Goodman), and mingle with each other. All ticketing proceeds for the show and the party go to East Side House Settlement, a family service organization in the South Bronx (643 Park Ave., at 67th St.; M-W, F-Sa, noon-8 p.m.; Su and Th, noon-6 p.m.; daily admission $20; through 1/29; Young Collectors Night Thursday, 7-9 p.m., $175; winterantiquesshow.com).
If These Walls Could Sing
The Vito Acconci and Steven Holl–designed Storefront for Art and Architecture is known for its boundary-breaking art, but its latest exhibition, by Dutch sound and installation artist Allard van Hoorn, pushes those boundaries even further. Van Hoorn’s work, entitled “007_Urban_Songline,” uses a network of strings attached to the walls to transform the gallery itself into an interactive musical instrument. As the title would suggest, this is Van Hoorn’s seventh “Urban Songline,” having previously exhibited in Amsterdam, Munich, London, and other cities. For the closing-night celebration on February 18, Van Hoorn will mix sounds from the installation (97 Kenmare St., at Cleveland Pl.; 212-431-5795; storefrontnews.org).
Design As I Say (And As I Do)
The Pratt Institute’s Communications Design Department begins its spring 2012 lecture series next Monday with a talk by John Thackara, author of In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World. Subsequent lecturers include Karin Fong, an Emmy-winning title designer and one of the founders of creative production company Imaginary Forces, and Khoi Vinh, one of Fast Company’s 50 most influential designers for 2011. Monday’s talk will take place on the institute’s Brooklyn campus before the lecture series moves to Pratt’s Manhattan home (Higgins Hall, 61 St. James Pl., at Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn; 6 p.m.; pratt.edu).
Beyond Baubles
A necklace can be more than a decorative accessory. The Museum of Arts and Design’s current exhibit, “Hanging Around: Neckpieces From the MAD Collection,” displays necklaces that refer to both modern and ancient traditions through material, through form, or through craftsmanship. Pieces like Mieke Groot’s Dieg Bou Diar, made from handblown glass and empty tomato-paste containers from Ghana, and Ted Noten’s A Siberian Necklace #1, with eighteen-karat gold and resin-encased insects, will make you reevaluate your concept of the form (2 Columbus Cir., nr. Eighth Ave.; 212-299-7777; madmuseum.org; through 5/12).