The New York Times sees how the Kip’s Bay Decorator Show House on Park Avenue signals the full fusion of art and decorating with this year’s inclusion of lots of art including street artists like Aakash Nihalani:

“It’s more about curating a room than decorating it” is howWayne Nathan describes his job. Mr. Nathan, who brought in Mr. Nihalani, is one of 21 designers participating in this year’s show house. You could call him an art fair veteran (Art Basel Miami Beach and Frieze, in London, are his habitual shopping grounds). Nonetheless, on this room he collaborated with Helen Varola, an art adviser and curator, though the slick pink disk that looks like a giant Skittles at the foot of the stairs here — a Matteo Bonetti coffee table — is his own.

Ms. Varola noted a long tradition of artists playing with domestic objects or, as she put it, of “artists exploring how design functions as a subversive tool and expanding their practice into domestic settings.” She ticked off examples, from Surrealists like Méret Oppenheim (who made that furry teacup) and Warhol (who made wallpaper) to, say, contemporary artists like Andrea Zittel (who makes entire rooms). So it seemed intuitive to Ms. Varola, who was asked by Kips Bay organizers to lead an art tour of the rooms next Tuesday, that decorators would be overtly acknowledging that tradition with interactive pieces like Mr. Nihalani’s or with video art.

“It’s all about reinvigorating space,” she said. “Transforming décor into a matrix of associations.”

Kips Bay Decorated, and Curated (New York Times)