Welcome to the T List, a newsletter from the editors of T Magazine. Each week, we share things we’re eating, wearing, listening to or coveting now. Sign up here to find us in your inbox every Wednesday, along with monthly travel and beauty guides, and the latest stories from our print issues. And you can always reach us at tmagazine@nytimes.com. GO HERE A Mexico City Home Goods Shop Devoted to Local Design
In 2021, the Mexico City-based designer Esteban Caicedo Cortes and his partner, Ignacio Vázquez Paravano, launched a vibrant, joyful furniture line called Azotea, which operated from a walk-up showroom behind the frenetic Tacubaya metro stop and soon built a following among the city’s creative community. In September of last year, Caicedo and Vázquez, Azotea’s commercial director, found a 538-square-foot retail space on the ground floor of the Edificios Condesa, an emblematic 1911 apartment block named for its surrounding neighborhood, where they decided to open a dimly lit cocoon of a shop called Caldo. Intimate and warm, Caldo was designed, Caicedo says, to feel like “the home of someone who travels, who collects, but who doesn’t negate the history of the place where they live.” Rather than fetishizing tradition, like so many crafts shops across Mexico, Caldo focuses on inventive design objects at the intersection of utility and ornament. The offerings — including the artist Fernando Aldama’s geometric stoneware and tables by the artist Victoria Chávez with slender legs scaled in delicate ceramic petals — are made by friends and collaborators, nearly all based in Mexico City. The goal, Caicedo says, is to create “a platform that can show part of what’s happening in Mexico now.” instagram.com/______caldo. SEE THIS African American Quilted Art, on View in Harlem
“ Even the simplest quilts tell a story,” says the artist and curator Carolyn Mazloomi, noting that, in her grandmother’s relatively “utilitarian” quilts, relatives could identify patches of clothing they’d worn at various points in their lives. “When you look at a quilt, you can get a glimpse into what was happening in that quilter’s family, or the community or the nation as a whole.” Mazloomi, a former aerospace engineer, has been acquiring African American-made quilts since the 1970s, and her collection has grown to become a notable archive of Black textile art. This month, 22 highlights from that impressive trove will be on view at Harlem’s Claire Oliver Gallery, including narrative quilts by Marion Coleman, who used digital tools to translate photographs into hand-sewn designs, and Wendell Brown, who depicts Black families and includes 3-D elements in his pieces. Now nearing 80, Mazloomi is eager to share the pieces she’s spent a lifetime amassing. “I don’t collect for myself,” she says. “I may have bought the work, but it belongs to the public.” “Masters of the Stitch: Threaded Stories” will be on view at Claire Oliver Gallery from May 29 through Aug. 8, claireoliver.com. STAY HERE An Eclectic Portuguese Retreat With a 17th-Century Palace
The French nightlife and hospitality entrepreneur Lionel Bensemoun has made a habit of turning neglected European estates into art-and-nature-focused retreats. In Tuscany, he helped open Villa Lena, and in the French countryside he founded La Folie Barbizon, both of which regularly host artist’s residencies. Now, on a 74-acre property planted with vegetable and flower gardens in Portugal’s rural Alentejo region, he’s launched Calipo, a retreat on the grounds of a 17th-century palace. The property opened last August with 26 apartments spread between two single-story, L-shaped outbuildings and a farm-to-table restaurant serving dishes like piri piri chicken and citrus Pavlova. The interiors, designed by Bensemoun with help from the Belgian interior designer Lionel Jadot, feature a mix of vintage furniture and colorful, locally sourced ceramics and textiles. Next month, 14 more rooms will debut in the palace itself. There, the French set and costume designer Pauline Jacquard covered headboards with ikat fabrics from the Balearic Islands and installed bamboo desks she found in a Parisian flea market. A barn has been outfitted with a stage to host music and theatrical performances, as well as private parties. Bensemoun and his team have already hosted an exhibition of artists and artisans in residence, a music festival and seed planting workshops for children. “Here at Calipo,” says Jadot, “something is always happening.” From $175 for a one-bedroom apartment, calipo.pt. READ THIS New Books Highlighting Queer Art
This spring brings a wealth of new books featuring the work of queer artists, with a particular emphasis on photography. Concurrent with a retrospective at London’s National Portrait Gallery that runs through the end of May, “Catherine Opie: To Be Seen” catalogs 40 years of work by the Ohio-born artist, including studio portraits of friends, and photos taken at the 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama. “Shoot: Paul Mpagi Sepuya” compiles all seven issues of Shoot, a photographic zine produced by the Los Angeles-based Sepuya between 2005 and 2008, featuring his experiments with portraiture and combining imagery of collaborators with collaged outtakes and text. Two books cover the life and work of Peter Hujar, the New York-based photographer who was active from the mid-1950s to the time of his death from AIDS-related complications in 1987. Andrew Durbin’s “The Wonderful World That Almost Was” chronicles Hujar’s decades-long professional and romantic relationship with the Brooklyn-born artist Paul Thek, while “Hujar: Contact” amasses hundreds of contact sheets and job books (daily logs kept to track a photographer’s assignments) that are held in the archives of the Morgan Library and Museum, many of which will be included in an exhibition there running from May 22 to October 25. In “Fire Island Art: 100 Years,” the historian and longtime Fire Island resident John Dempsey chronicles the community’s rich artistic output. Oil paintings by David Hockney and ceramics by Leilah Babirye are juxtaposed with essays, including Richard Meyer’s remembrance of the art collective PaJaMa and Carl Little’s piece about the photographer George Daniell’s time on the island. VISIT THIS Akinsanya Kambon’s Depictions of Black Resistance, on Display in Two New York Exhibitions
The California-born ceramist and painter Akinsanya Kambon, 79, was still a teenager when, in 1966, he was deployed to the front lines of the Vietnam War as a member of the Marine Corps and a combat illustrator. While overseas, he joined what were called Soul Sessions, regular meetings organized by other African American servicemen, in which he learned about the United States’ violent imperial history. Upon his return to the United States, Kambon joined the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense and eventually became the lieutenant of culture for the Sacramento chapter. Around the same time, he began making art that reveals hidden parts of American history, some of which will be on view later this month in a two-venue exhibition in New York. SculptureCenter in Long Island City, Queens, will present Kambon’s figurative ceramics, which draw on African mythologies; in the West Village, the Center for Art, Research and Alliances will show his paintings and drawings, some featuring Black soldiers and cowboys, alongside archival materials such as press clippings and photographs of Kambon with figures like Huey P. Newton and Toni Morrison. “Akinsanya Kambon: Soul Sessions” will be on view from May 28 through Aug. 16, sculpture-center.org, cara-nyc.org. DRINK HERE An Artist’s Take on a Chinese Teahouse in Lower Manhattan
Last year, when the artist Juno Shen began seeing a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine for help with chronic health issues, she also developed a ritual of drinking tea to help her slow down and pay attention to smaller moments in her life. This month, she’ll open Soft Hours, a teahouse on Manhattan’s Lower East Side that she hopes will provide a similar respite for customers. The New York-based interiors firm Iitem Studio channeled a Song dynasty mountain retreat with textured plaster walls, basalt and limestone tile and a window shaped like a crab apple blossom. Shen, who is primarily known for her neon artworks, created a glowing installation in her signature twisted shape behind the banquette seating. The menu showcases a range of teas from across China, including a green jasmine variety from Qianwei, Sichuan, that features deeply fragrant flower buds harvested just before they bloom, and Wuyi Dahongpao, an oolong from the Wuyi Mountains in Fujian that’s charcoal roasted over many months to impart notes of toasted chestnut, amber and dried plum. The drinks are offered alongside confections developed with the Brooklyn-based pastry chef Janice Sung, such as red bean chestnut yokan (a jellylike dessert) and rose-water meringues. Soft Hours opens May 22; instagram.com/softhours.world. FROM T’S INSTAGRAM Men’s Fashion’s Big Idea? Muscles.
From the compression shirts at Demna’s Gucci debut in Milan to the influencer Clavicular’s cameo at the Elena Velez show in New York, men’s fashion is in its bodymaxxing era. But how did we get here? For the latest episode of Anatomy of a Trend, T’s editor at large, Nick Haramis, explores the relationship between muscles and men’s clothing, beginning in the 16th century with Henry VIII’s calf-enhancing garters. Click here to watch the video and follow us on Instagram.
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