Happy New Year! Here’s the year end picks for the Year of the Rat…onto the Ox!

Best use of store window stuffed animals:

Bergdorf Goodman. Bergdorf’s windows are typically stunning, made better with taxidermy.

Nice to discover, especially after finding out that Paris’s Deyrolle (the wunderkammer of fine and fantastic creatures) had a fire in February.

Best functional art-on-the-street:

David Byrne’s bike racks. This one is outside our office on 24th Street. I’ve named him Stan:

Best new museum:

California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, opened in the fall.

Renzo Piano architecture, fantastic indoor rain forest exhibit with free flying butterflies:

an aquarium that you can walk under:

a plant filled rooftop:

a Maya Lin sculpture of San Francisco topography floats over the patio:

Fortunately, for those of you who have fond memories of the old natural history museum (like me, who spent many a childhood summer in SF), they haven’t abandoned those big dioramas (more taxidermy!):

Funhouse art pick of the year:

The pre-fab house exhibit at MoMA, especially for the sample houses that were built in the lot next to the museum.

Most explosive:
Cai Guo-Qiang at the Guggenheim

Wired, not ever tired:
The Calder exhibit at the Whitney. Truly twisted.

Best TV moment:
Simpson’s version of the of Mad Men opening.

Best local NY discovery for free:
The Ikea water taxi to Red Hook, Brooklyn! Especially good when the waterfalls were up this summer. If you don’t go the meatball route, good eats can be found at The Good Fork, a couple blocks away.

The Best News…

Seen here on the streets of Paris, even before he won the nomination.
What fun now to be an American abroad!