In this week’s newsletter, we drop in on a sprawling Svenskt Tenn exhibition in Stockholm; talk to the curators of the new “Making Home” triennial at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, in New York; enter the latest, weirdest frontiers of A.I. via Evan Ratliff’s Shell Game podcast; and more.
Good morning!
Welcome to our newly refreshed newsletter. Here, and in each issue going forward, you’ll find an inspiring quote from a recent Time Sensitive guest, three things in the cultural sphere we’re paying attention to (and think you should, too), a brief interview (or, in some cases, a Media Diet; we’ll be bringing that beloved column back from time to time), and five carefully selected links to stories, podcasts, and other great stuff we’ve come across online. Up top, I’ll also continue writing this behind-the-scenes note, offering reflections on each Time Sensitive episode and sharing meaningful moments along this journey that is The Slowdown.
Speaking of meaningful, for this week’s episode of Time Sensitive, I sat down with the novelist Jonathan Lethem, of Motherless Brooklyn (1999), The Fortress of Solitude (2004), and Brooklyn Crime Novel (2023) notoriety. Having lived in Brooklyn Heights for the past 14 years, it was rather surreal (that is to say, incredibly special) to spend time with Jonathan, who famously grew up on Dean Street in the nearby northern Gowanus (now Boerum Hill) neighborhood; who is himself a living, walking memory map of this area, a place I know so well, but nowhere near as deeply as he; and who has written so beautifully and copiously about these streets. To me, Jonathan personifies “Brooklyn time.”
Even more surreal was the fact that, in preparing for our interview, I discovered that he and I share a heartbreaking biographical fact: Both of our mothers died prematurely at age 36—his when he was 14, mine just before I turned 4. (I first spoke publicly about my loss in 2019, on a special episode of Time Sensitive.) I contemplated beforehand whether or not to mention this coincidence to him, but in the moment, I decided that I absolutely had to. As an interviewer, I tend to avoid bringing my own life into the conversation and won’t do so unless it may help illuminate something profound. That was certainly the case here.
In the days following our conversation, I realized that, actually, a large part of the impetus to start Time Sensitive in the first place was this motherless void. My mom’s death has unilaterally reshaped my life and how I think about time, and in that sense the show serves as a means for me to untangle and better understand the incredibly complex, layered, and nuanced experience of what it is to be a human being in space and time.
I never imagined such a coincidence as this would arise in an episode, but thankfully, it did, and it was an incredibly moving, teary-eyed moment for both of us. “Now I’m going to weep copiously for you as I try to tell you what I think you mean,” Jonathan told me when I brought up the time-shifting nature of losing a mother. He went to do exactly that, and magnificently so.
—Spencer
“When a novel is working for the writer or the reader, time disappears in a way that’s different from it either speeding up or slowing down. It actually disappears. It goes away.” —Jonathan Lethem
Listen to Ep. 121 at timesensitive.fm or wherever you get your podcasts
“Svenskt Tenn: A Philosophy of Home” at Liljevalchs
On view at Stockholm’s Liljevalchs gallery (Djurgårdsvägen 60) through Jan. 12, 2025, “Svenskt Tenn: A Philosophy of Home” immerses visitors in the whimsical world of the legendary, century-old Swedish interior design store Svenskt Tenn. Spanning 13 rooms, this scintillating presentation features the label’s signature eye-popping prints, quirky but tasteful color palette, and classic-with-a-twist furniture pieces, bringing to life founder Estrid Ericson and architect and designer Josef Frank’s design philosophy of the home as a place of both comfort and play.
“Still Life with Remorse” at Mary Ryan Gallery
Inspired in part by the still lifes of the French artist Jean Siméon Chardin that she saw on a recent trip to Paris, the artist Maira Kalman (the guest on Ep. 48 of Time Sensitive) has created a series of interior and still-life scenes, on view through Nov. 30 at New York’s Mary Ryan Gallery (515 West 26th St.), that may at first glance seem tender or even cheerful, but also contain within them hints of sorrow and wistfulness. Exploring the solace and pain imparted by objects left behind by lost loved ones—a hat, a diary, a fan—the pieces invite a range of emotional responses. As Kalman writes in the accompanying book of the same name, “Vast skies full of remorse. Oceans of remorse. But enough. There should be merriment. And good cheer. Good tidings. Well wishing.”
The Four Horsemen: Food and Wine for Good Times (Abrams)
This highly anticipated cookbook from the Michelin-starred Williamsburg restaurant The Four Horsemen—written by the lauded chef Nick Curtola; owner James Murphy, of LCD Soundsystem; the late James Beard Award–winning wine director Justin Chearno; and co-author Gabe Ulla—is officially ready for consumption. In it, Curtola breaks down his approach to warmth and simplicity through 100 elevated home-style recipes—burrata with thinly sliced speck and grilled peaches, roasted squash with brown butter and vincotto, and flourless chocolate cake with zabaglione among them—interspersed with wine notes by Justin Chearno and appearances by Murphy and Chearno’s fellow “horsemen” Christina Topsøe and Randy Moon.
Alexandra Cunningham Cameron, Christina L. De León, and Michelle Joan Wilkinson—the curators of the “Making Home: Smithsonian Design Triennial” at New York’s Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (on view today through Aug. 10, 2025)—discuss the illuminating, impressively arranged exhibition, which features 25 site-specific, newly commissioned installations that consider (and reconsider) how design shapes conceptions of home across the United States, its territories, and its tribal nations.
How did you land on the “Making Home” theme?
ALEXANDRA CUNNINGHAM CAMERON: We decided to focus on home as a means of speaking about all different types of design at once. “Making Home” grew out of the “in-process” nature of many of the projects and an acknowledgment of the fact that home is never a finite state.
What are each of your personal definitions of home?
MICHELLE JOAN WILKINSON: A place or feeling of ease, an environment in which I am able to make myself comfortable and enjoy time with loved ones.
ACC: I think a lot about the relationship between space—the physical realm—and the imagination. For me, home is the place that protects the dreamer, as Gaston Bachelard said.
CHRISTINA DE LEÓN: The definition has changed for me throughout my life. When I was a child, it meant safety and protection, and when I moved into my very first solo apartment, it signified freedom and self-expression. Nowadays, I define home as an environment that brings me peace.
The exhibition is divided into three sections: “Going Home,” “Seeking Home,” and “Building Home.” Can you highlight one installation from each that embodies its spirit and intention?
MJW: In “Going Home,” on the first floor, there’s an installation titled “The Offering,” by Nicole Crowder and Hadiya Williams. The space is designed around a dining table outfitted with elaborately patterned but intimately constructed place settings and seating. The handmade, homespun elements in the room suggest the labor and care of the makers, who imagine the room as a welcoming place to stop and gather. For Crowder and Williams, the focus is the Great Migration and how objects were passed through generations and migrations, from one home in search of another.
CDL: In “Seeking Home,” many of the installations present expansive and perhaps unconventional proposals on the theme. I think “Unruly Subjects” by Natalia Lassalle-Morillo, Sofía Gallisá Muriente, and Carlos J. Soto is an interesting take, because it examines the Smithsonian Institution as a home for Puerto Rican cultural heritage. Their installation includes a series of films, objects from Smithsonian, and works made by contemporary artists from Puerto Rico presented in a space that reimagines a museum storage facility. They also trace these objects back to their places of origin in Puerto Rico, contrasting institutional spaces with the living histories and practices preserved by countless individuals in the archipelago.
ACC: “Hālau Kūkulu Hawaiʻi: A Home That Builds Multitudes” is an incredibly compelling interpretation of the “Building Home” element. The installation is organized by Dominic Leong and Sean Connelly, in partnership with traditional builders, community members, and engineers, and presents a hale (building) that embodies grassroots efforts to care for ʻāina, a Native Hawaiian term for land, meaning “that which feeds.” Their design adapts Indigenous Hawaiian architecture for contemporary architectural construction, evolving to meet new scales and needs, and demonstrates the value of engaging in collaborative building using native knowledge systems as a means of supporting cultural, ecological, and political recovery.
What do you hope visitors will take away from the show?
MJW: Respect and insight. Respect for experiences and perspectives that may differ from their own. Insight into how their own conceptions of home may have been created, and a willingness to learn about what home can mean at different scales, in different regions, or through different eyes.
ACC: A reinforced appreciation for the extraordinary creativity, wisdom, and spirit across the country—and new curiosity about your neighbors.
CDL: I hope they will leave feeling that they experienced a very different type of museum exhibition—one that was inviting and illuminating yet challenged their preconceived notions of what a museum exhibition can be.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
Our handpicked guide to culture across the internet.
Michael Kimmelman (the guest on Ep. 14 of Time Sensitive) distills the complicated life and legacy of the modernist architect Paul Rudolph, as exhibited in a recently opened show at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art [The New York Times]
Former Longform co-host Evan Ratliff takes a deep dive into the world of A.I. in the first seven episodes of this eerie, fascinating new podcast series [Shell Game]
Bianca Bosker, the author of the new art world exposéish book Get the Picture, discusses “art literacy” on this highly entertaining show hosted by the comedian-aesthetes Dan Rosen and Brian Park [Middlebrow]
In the latest dispatch of Herman Miller brand creative director Kelsey Keith’s newsletter, various high-taste designers and creatives share some of their most transcendent architectural experiences [Ground Condition]
The painters Francesco Clemente (the guest on Ep. 118 of Time Sensitive) and Ed Ruscha talk shop (and marijuana) [Interview]