Federico Solmi: From the Uterus to the Grave with No Happy Ending

Combining luridly hand-drawn animations, paintings, mechanical sculptures and more, 2009 Guggenheim Video Art Fellow Federico Solmi continues to explore his controversial interests in sociopolitical affairs—last year his native Italy charged him with obscenity, blasphemy and offense to religion—in his second solo exhibition "From Uterus to Grave With No Happy Ending," which opens tomorrow at NYC's LMAK gallery. The entrance to the show, marked with a …

Betsy & Iya Jewelery

by Adrienne So Betsy Cross, a Portland-based jewelry designer working under the label Betsy & Iya, creates shamelessly sentimental necklaces and earrings, kept boldly of-the-moment with techniques like upcycling curtain rings and repurposing vintage materials. Boutique shops nationwide carry the line (named after herself and her older sister-slash-muse), yet she continues to handmake each item—from small details such as her signature earring hooks, hand-formed from …

Rat Table

Honing in on a rat's fine ability to gnaw, 25-year-old Londoner Jeeves Basu makes use of the efficient carpenters by keeping them hard at work crafting a piece of furniture. “It is an experiment to see if something beautiful can come from destruction,†Basu explains, while declining to reveal how exactly he coerces the rodents into organized eating. After experimenting with smaller models, Basu recently …