Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/162531
DECORATION Bathing Beauties SEAL of Approval F THE SEQUEL Christofle, the elegant French purveyor of tableware, has teamed with equally chic French atelier THG Paris. Together they have created Malmaison, drawing its French Empire inspiration from Château de Malmaison near Paris. Christofle first created this historic collection utilizing intricate lotus leaves and delicate palmettes in 1967 as flatware. Forty-seven years later, it's chicly reimagined as bath fittings and accessories in metal, crystal and Portoro marble. At Elegant Additions, Fixtures & Fittings, Hollywood Builders & Hardware, Westheimer Plumbing & Hardware. nce again, fall's obsession is art — everywhere. For evidence, look no further than Houston's dual (dueling) fairs, as year three unfolds. This month's gone-global Houston Fine Art Fair opens the season, returning to the George R. Brown Convention Center Thursday through Sunday, September 19 through 22. (Peruse the lineup, Latin American modernists to new Joaquín Torres-García's Constructivo, 1942, at Sammer Gallery, Houston Fine Art Fair Korean talents, page 22.) We're also enthralled by next month's raucous roll-out of the Texas Contemporary, again at the George R. Brown, which mirrors our town's messy, independent vitality. Calendar these dates: Thursday through Sunday, October 10 through 13. What we're most excited about at the TC? Installations sprinkled throughout the public spaces, such as the Clayton Brothers' Laundromat as political statement; the return of the Glasstire booth, which doubles as watering hole on opening night and is stocked with collectible goodies during the run of the fair; and, of course, the $10,000 Texas Contemporary Award (last year's winner was the very worthy Rachel Hecker). More details to be revealed on these pages next Clayton Brothers' Wishy Washy, 2006, at Texas month. houstonfineartfair.com; txcontemporary.com. Contemporary's public spaces (represented Catherine D. Anspon Mark Moore Gallery) GRAY MATTER Photographer Gray Malin of Maison Gray: The House of Gray Malin Photography, is particularly known for his bird's-eye-view photographs of beachscapes in Portugal, Dubai and Africa, which become vivid patterns of beach umbrellas. The new wallpapers, taken from his À la Plage aerial series, are rendered in both abstractions of these scenes or as photorealistic scenes. In collaboration with custom wallpaper company Black Crow Studios, the traditional realm of wallpaper is pushed into the realm of art. The wallpaper series, titled Gray Malin xo Black Crow Studios, is $350 to $499 per roll, 52" x 120" trimmed size, printed as Type II Class A Matte vinyl, PVC-free wallcovering, or removable wallcovering. Through Black Crow Studios; shopblackcrow.com. Holly Moore Pëna pattern on linen in Carmén color NEW DIGS for Arena One of our favorite designers and artists, Rusty Arena — who for 25 years has created swoon-worthy hand-printed, hand-painted wallpapers and textiles — is entrusting Jim Williamson, proprietor of ID Collection, with showcasing the extraordinary goods. Arena Design, to the trade at ID Collection. Holly Moore COURTESY THE ARTIST AND WADE WILSON ART COURTESY MARK MOORE GALLERY, LOS ANGELES O COURTESY SAMMER GALLERY, MIAMI Fair Fever, JENNY ANTILL or those of us who much prefer sealed with a dog head than sealed with a kiss, late-19th-century and early-20th-century seals from an English estate. $325 to $525, at Area. Jenny Antill Michael Crowder's Mariposa mori, (detail), 007 11, at Wade Wilson Art 2 - Very Cabinet of CURIOSITIES Malibu Stripe (left), Lisbon Patterned (above), $350 per roll The haunting vapor trail of butterfly wings alights at Wade Wilson Art, come September, with Houston sculptor Michael Crowder's very ambitious and oh-so-Victorian installation, Mariposa mori, a magnum opus presented in an exhibition appropriately titled "Retro-spectacle." The works on view, spanning more than half a dozen years, conjure a gentleman's library, circa 1890, with its mahogany-cased display of hundreds of delicate cast-glass butterflies formed from the pâte de verre technique; the order Lepidoptera is rendered in perfect lacy splendor, as gossamer thin as its actual subjects' dainty wings. "The series can be seen as a visual meditation on ideas of the fragile, the fleeting, beauty lost and memory transformed," the artist says. Opening Friday, September 6, 6 to 8 pm; gallery talk Saturday, September 7, 2 to 3 pm; through October 25. Catherine D. Anspon