New York City’s Lower East Side hotel Sixty LES celebrated the start of Frieze in New York with the summer re-opening of its rooftop bar – the island-themed Tiki Tabu, featuring an immersive installation by Brooklyn artist Misha Kahn.
‘We immediately thought of Misha as an artist who would embrace the whimsical, retro tiki vibe, not change or fight with it,’ says Artsy curator Elena Soboleva.
Kahn dug into the tropical Americana aesthetic whole-heartedly, creating hand-painted wallpaper replete with fuzzy, crushed velvet peaches and painting resin floor tiles embedded with sand and glitter. ‘The bars I like going to are a little gritty and casual,’ says Kahn. ‘I didn’t want anything to feel too precious – people are meant to touch the walls and scuff up the floors.’
The warm, sunset-hued space is also outfitted with Kahn’s coil pot planters resembling hot dogs, colorful tentacular mirrors and primitive, totem pole-esque planters that the artist carved using a chainsaw. Oversize, hand-blown lava lamps were tucked into nooks and corners throughout. With their organic globular glass lamps and metal bases, the softly glowing sculptures are at once nostalgically familiar and space-age avant garde.
‘I love tiki bars, so this was a good opportunity to try out all these ideas I had,’ says Kahn.
At the renamed Tiki Tabu, Kahn dug into the tropical Americana-aesthetic whole-heartedly, creating hand-painted wallpaper replete with fuzzy, crushed velvet peaches
Kahn's eccentric aesthetic also came to life as primitive, totem pole-esque planters (pictured left) that the artist carved using a chainsaw, oversize, hand-blown lava lamps (right) standing on top of metal bases...
... and colorful tentacular mirrors hung throughout the space
The artist, pictured on the painted resin floor tiles, embedded with sand and glitter
INFORMATION
‘Artsy Projects: Tiki’ will be open until the end of September. For more information, visit the Sixty LES website
ADDRESS
Sixty LES
190 Allen Street
New York, NY 10002
-
Aarke has created the ultimate collection for caffeine lovers, the Aarke Coffee SystemThe new Aarke Coffee System consists of three elegant components, part of the Swedish company’s ongoing quest to reshape the world of appliances
-
The breathtaking runway sets of S/S 2025, from beanbag animals to a twisted living roomWallpaper* picks the best runway sets and show spaces of fashion month, which featured Bottega Veneta’s beanbag menagerie, opulence at Saint Laurent, and artist collaborations at Acne Studios and Burberry
-
Apple’s Alan Dye and Molly Anderson discuss the design of Apple Watch Series 10In addition to the Apple Watch Series 10, Apple has also introduced a new black titanium finish for the premium Apple Watch Ultra 2; here’s what’s new
-
Frieze London 2024: everything to see and doAs London gears up for Frieze Week (9-13 October 2024), here are the must-sees inside and outside the fair
-
'There’s an anxiety under all of it': Violet Dennison in New YorkViolet Dennison debuts abstract paintings with new show 'Damaged Self' at Tara Downs Gallery
-
‘Gas Tank City’, a new monograph by Andrew Holmes, is a photorealist eye on the American West‘Gas Tank City’ chronicles the artist’s journey across truck-stop America, creating meticulous drawings of fleeting moments
-
Mark Armijo McKnight’s bodily landscapes capture the tactile serenity of the American WestThe artist’s new exhibition at the Whitney Museum, which is organised by the museum curator Drew Sawyer, offers a succinct window into his contemplative suggestion of queering a landscape
-
Dark, glamorous and hedonistic: a photography book captures New York in the 1990sNew York: High Life, Low Life, by Dafydd Jones, goes behind the scenes of New York society
-
Derrick Alexis Coard’s portraits are a sensitive, positive testimony to Black menThe late artist Derrick Alexis Coard’s retrospective ‘I Am That I Am’, at New York’s Salon 94, honours his ‘symbolic expression for possible change for the African-American male community’
-
Intimacy, violence and the uncanny: Joanna Piotrowska in PhiladelphiaArtist and photographer Joanna Piotrowska stages surreal scenes at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania
-
First look: Sphere’s new exterior artwork draws on a need for human connectionWallpaper* talks to Tom Hingston about his latest large-scale project – designing for the Exosphere
