Introducing our latest Destination Luxury Tastemaker, Kenny Schachter. You might not know him, but the art world certainly does. An American living in London, Kenny Schachter has been curating contemporary art exhibits in museums and galleries for in excess of 20 years and has taught art history at the graduate level at New York University, The New School for Social Research, and lectured and organized an offsite exhibition for the first graduating class of Columbia University’s Masters of Fine Art program. Schachter is currently lecturing at the at the University of Zurich, and writing for Artnews.com, British GQ Magazine and economist Marc Faber’s Gloom Boom and Doom Report. He will be curating two upcoming exhibits at Inigo Philbrick Gallery in London in February 2015, and Leila Heller Gallery in New York in March 2015.
(Image courtesy Kenny Schachter/Rove Projects)
The most glorious room I’ve ever eaten in belongs to The Wolseley, a former car showroom, bank and Chinese restaurant, with a ceiling so super-high as to be always flooded with light; and, with London’s infamous weather issues, that is no small thing. Though many private clubs claim to cater to artists and media types, I don’t think there is another establishment that could boast of hosting Lucien Freud seven nights a week—until his recent death, after which his corner table sat empty for a week draped in a black tablecloth. The food is simple, hearty, reasonably priced and the atmosphere friendly and pleasant from breakfast till dinner 7 days a week.
I adore Tate Britain because it’s beyond cozier than the Modern iteration down the river, where there are always the most glorious mixtures of old and new from the recent exhibit of late J.M.W. Turner paintings to the Turner Prize exhibitions, there’s inevitably something engaging to see in a building not so big as to swallow you whole. While many art institutions micro-focus nowadays on niche areas of specialization, it’s heartening to see such a grand museum cover such a wide gamut, putting the contemporary into a more historical context.
Inigo Philbrick Gallery, run by the namesake young American ex-pat, ex-White Cube Gallery staffer; I love working with the dealer and his new Mayfair space. Philbrick dwells in the land of secondary market dealing where recently made art is resold, but still displayed in super high caliber exhibition settings featuring amazing juxtapositions like the recent pairings of market high-fliers Tauba Auerbach and R.H. Quaytman and Sterling Ruby and Joe Bradley. The prices are sure to be more than the first time around, but so is the quality of the fare you are certain to see.
As I am an admitted hardcore car fanatic having been drawn to the industrial design of vehicles before art, a symptom of growing up in the suburbs and not being exposed to galleries, http://www.pistonheads.com is one of my favorite websites for unwinding from the art world, a perfect cyber locale to scour the Internet for classic metal from the 1970’s and 80’s, especially old Porsches and rally cars like Peugeots, Renaults, Lancias and Alfas. It pains me somewhat to share this car resource where used vehicles are featured from the world over, along with editorial and auction previews. A great, relatively harmless, diversion.
Harrods. As cheesy as it sounds, nothing beats the most convenient shop that transcends the notion of shops, Harrods, a place that has reached iconic international (tourist attraction) status recently resulting in the mega sale to the Qatar Holding Company. Out of character you might think for someone in the famously snooty fine art industry but the ease and practicality of finding everything under the sun under one roof—from an optician, shoe repair and key making kiosk to a pair of Prada shoes, staples in the art world, I can’t think of a place better suited to one’s all around shopping needs.