Meals
Where: On its impeccably designed site or with one of its stockists
What It Is: If you crossed Mao Zedong’s suit with a clown’s but made it rugged, U.S. hand-crafted workwear… this is how I’ve described Meals whenever I get a compliment while wearing the outre-yet-wearable LA label’s clothing. I have no fewer than four “suits,” including a new F.D.A. set in “black sesame” that reads as vintage Issey Miyake (at a fraction of the price).
Why It’s Worth a Look: They are top of mind for me ever since they had offered to replace the clothes of any customers who lost them in the recent LA fires. More of whatever they are frying up at this chef-inspired, gender-indulgent label.
— John Vincler, Co-Chief Art Critic
Airless Spaces by Shulamith Firestone
Where: Your local independent bookstore
When: Originally published in 1998, alarmingly out of print for years, finally reissued at the end of last month by Semiotext(e)
What It Is: Airless Spaces is billed as a collection of short stories, quietly graceful yet caustically witty portraits of patients caught in the clutches of a callous mental healthcare system. But to attempt to categorize this enigmatic, elegiac experiment would be to fall prey to the very classificatory, de-individualizing forces the book condemns in its bracing vignettes. Shulamith Firestone—a radical feminist organizer, firebrand philosopher (excuse the pun, it’s too accurate a descriptor to resist) and painter, who died in 2012––wrote what we might call prose paintings. Or tracings, precise yet distanced depictions of her years in and out of mental hospitals in the wake of her expulsion from the feminist movement she helped provoke into existence.
Why It’s Worth a Look: The stories in Airless Spaces are gut punches and exhausted sighs, crystalline distillations of lives curtailed and constricted by what she calls the “loveless institution.” Firestone’s final book is both a poignant indictment of our mental healthcare system’s mundane cruelty and a tender, elegant requiem for those who could not survive it.
— Emmeline Clein, Books Editor
"Luck Carpentry" at Seventh House
Where: 7001 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles, CA, 90038
When: Through March 31
What It Is: A debut solo exhibition by Los Angeles-based woodworker and furniture designer Andrew Luck, showcasing nine pieces that blend sculpture and functional design using materials like hard maple, white oak, and anodized aluminum.
Why It’s Worth a Look: Luck’s meticulous craftsmanship and intuitive approach to design blur the lines between art and furniture. The show celebrates his evolving process, unique techniques, and the beauty of wood in thoughtfully crafted, one-of-a-kind pieces.
— Colin King, Design Editor-at-Large
Moneyball by Dutch Interior
Where: Your preferred streaming service, or (gasp) you could pay actual money for a vinyl or CD
What It Is: Women have been dominating the charts for so many years now I actually kind of forgot men could make good music, but discovering Dutch Interior was such a treat. The LA-based indie sixpiece have been friends since childhood, and it shows in the easy blend of their instruments and vocals. Putting on their tracks feels like listening in on an intimate jam session.
Why Its Worth a Look: You have four days to start listening if you want to say you were a fan before the drop of their new record, Moneyball. I’d start with the single “Beekeeping,” my personal favorite.
— Sophie Lee, Associate Digital Editor
“MIRACLE” by Joël Andrianomearisoa
Where: Almine Rech, 78th St location in New York
When: Through April 19
What It Is: The Antananarivo- and Paris-based artist’s immersive ode to—and exploration of—a material that’s widely known but rarely dissected: raphia. Though the trained architect surfaces the socio-cultural topography of his native Madagascar (where raphia is indigenous) in the works on view, he told CULTURED in a recent tour of the show that the only geography he truly believes in is that of emotions.
Why It’s Worth a Look: This is Andrianomearisoa’s first commercial gallery showing Stateside and an excellent excuse to get to know an artist whose work has popped up everywhere from Madagascar’s first Venice Biennale pavilion to a Lady Dior bag.
— Ella Martin-Gachot, Senior Editor
BDDW by Tyler Hays
Where: 5 Crosby Street, New York and 1032 N. Highland Avenue, Los Angeles
What It Is: BDDW—Bury Your Dead Downwind—is Tyler Hays’s store/showroom based in New York and Los Angeles, and it’s nothing short of obsession-worthy. Hays doesn’t just paint; he builds worlds that blend a strange magical realism with classic American motifs and just the right touch of childlike wonder. Think intricately tattooed guitars, tile-clad fireplaces, sculptural trench coats, ceramic cups—every object a testament to craftsmanship and ingenuity. And here’s the kicker: Everything at BDDW is sold via weekly online auction.
Why It’s Worth a Look: I discovered the artist, sculptor, and carpenter extraordinaire about two months ago when I passed by his store on Crosby Street and caught sight of a painting in the window: a fragmented bather glowing like a puzzle come to life. I was in a rush, so I didn’t step inside, but weeks later, I spotted more of his work through a gallery in Mexico City that I love called JO-HS that had just closed a show featuring several pieces from his “Bathers” series. I love how identifiable his figures are; they look like real people I know!
— Cristina Macaya, Editorial Assistant
The Visitor by Maeve Brennan
Where: Peninsula Press
What It Is: The earliest known work by celebrated Irish American writer Maeve Brennan, written in the 1940s and found sitting in the University of Notre Dame archive. After its initial posthumous runs in the early 2000s, Peninsula Press is giving the novella new life with an introduction by fellow short story writer Lynne Tillman.
Why It's Worth a Look: Brennan's careful prose elucidates the growing pains, confusion, and oftentimes loneliness of one's 20s, when new relationships must be negotiated with family and community. In this story, written when Brennan herself was a 20-something, a young woman returns home after the death of her father to find that her presence unearths long-buried family secrets and resentments.
— Mara Veitch, Executive Editor
