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The renowned art dealer Richard L. Feigen has died at the age of 90. Feigen set up his first gallery in Chicago in 1957, later opening in New York where he forged a reputation as one of the worlds leading dealers of Old Master paintings. During his lifetime, Feigen assembled an extraordinary private collection, with particular strengths in Italian paintings, British landscapes and 20th-century German art holdings that he opened to Apollo in March 2014 when Susan Moore visited him at his apartment in Manhattan. That profile is reproduced in full below.

The veteran New York dealer Richard Feigen would probably claim, like many art dealers, that he is a collector manqu. What distinguishes him from most of his peers, however, is that he has in fact amassed a great private collection. While some dealers who collect have studiously focused on areas outside their commercial interests the Chicago contemporary art dealer and Old Master drawings collector Richard Gray is a case in point Feigen collects the types of pictures he deals in but, as he tells me, once they enter the apartment, they almost never leave.

There have always been several facets to the Feigen taste, which is at once catholic and specific, so it is hardly surprising to find a personal collection of paintings that form three distinct groups. The lions share is predominantly Italian or Italianate Old Masters, but even here the focus is particular: either baroque and mannerist painting, or early Sienese and Florentine gold-ground panels. Next comes a bravura group of British Romantic landscapes. A once larger holding of 20th-century German art is now confined to a small but visceral group of works by Max Beckmann, including the excoriating, anti-Nazi Birds Hell of 1938 [editors note: Feigen sold the paintingin 2017].

Birds Hell (1938), Max Beckmann

Richard Feigen has not changed much over the decades that I have known him. He is still lean, tanned, urbane, impeccably dressed and outspoken. After more than 50 years in the art world, he has assumed the role of elder statesman, and as such can be relied on to tell uncomfortable truths. Several of the targets in his sightlines are outlined in the opening paragraph of his memoirs, Tales from the Art Crypt (Alfred A. Knopf, 2000), which is worth quoting for its flavour: Arrows of barium nitrate pierce the black sky, tracings of invisible bullets aimed at the heart of what we have known as connoisseurship, the love and study of objects fashioned by men. Bit by bit, year by year, the ghostly missiles find their mark and the art crypt fills with casualties of the old order, museums, collectors, artists, those who already love art and those who could have. Anciens combattants, veterans of the culture wars, elitists who thus far dodged the bullets, still wander about in daylight hours as the legions of darkness sleep hack political opportunists, affirmative culture activists, guardians of family values, Bible-belting fundamentalists, strategic planners, management consultants, museum headhunters, box-office impresarios

Here is someone who evidently cares passionately about works of art, as well as his and our engagement with them, and who laments the corporate takeover of US museums as much as he abhors the diminished role of connoisseurship in current art history. Certainly his own eye the ability to determine a paintings authorship through a sensitivity to its aesthetic qualities, like the recognition of a persons handwriting, as he defines connoisseurship has played a critical role in his success as a dealer and as a collector. Unexpectedly, it was a fascination for the activity of art dealing that came first, as Feigen explains when we meet in his Manhattan apartment.

It began when I was about 11 or 12, when a neighbour of ours in Chicago who had an art collection I remember a major drip Pollock lent me a book about Duveen. Then when I was about 14, I bought a painting from an antique shop that I thought then and still think now was a Jan Brueghel the Elder. That was when I realised that things could be other than what they purported to be, and I began buying things that I thought had quality. Another early acquisition was a Ludovico Carracci drawing. He pauses before resuming: Frankly it was the commercial aspect that interested me when I was a youth, but later it developed into a passion where I bought things as a collector. You ask me now how I can do both? I am a collector in dealers clothes. Id rather collect. The only reason why I ultimately went into dealing was because I didnt have enough money to just buy and buy and keep everything. My gut is in the collecting.

It took a while to get round to the dealing. After Yale and Harvard Business School, his family encouraged him to go into the insurance business in California. My primary interest was in buying art, but while I was in Los Angeles I was far away from the art centre in New York so I started buying paintings for the chairman of the company and going back and forth, he explains. Eventually, in 1956, he bought a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, selling it after six months to set up a gallery back home in Chicago. His own collection of German Expressionists had to serve as the first show: Masterpieces of 20th Century German Art. The term masterpieces was no exaggeration, given that most of the paintings and the single sculpture ended up in museums. He staged the second show of Francis Bacon in the US, in 1959. In 1965, he opened the first art gallery in New Yorks SoHo, and moved to the city a year later.

Back then I even represented one or two artists something I gave up long ago, Feigen chuckles. In order to promote something you have to be totally committed to one period you cant be all over the place otherwise you have no credibility. I also remember trying to straddle the two worlds being downtown in my SoHo clothes and then rushing uptown [to a second gallery he had already opened in 1962, devoted to Impressionist and early modernist masters] and putting on a tie. Also, I just wasnt very good at it.

Revealingly, all of his contemporary artists from the Surrealists and Joseph Cornell to Claes Oldenburg and beyond were in revolt against the cult of abstraction preached and practiced in New York. Says Feigen: I represented artists who I felt were saying things that hadnt been said before. In fact, the only things that Im interested in whether they were painted 700800 years ago, or seven or eight years ago are by artists who are saying who are cutting edge. Its my theory that nothing great was ever painted that was not on the cutting edge when it was done, and that if it was on the cutting edge when it was done, its on the cutting edge today.

He draws no distinctions between buying works of art for his gallery, a museum or himself. I am not going to recommend something to a museum or a private client that I would not like to own myself, he exclaims, shocked by the suggestion, and explaining that he spends most of his time these days working with museums trying to fill what I perceive to be holes in [their] collections. Evidently, he is a frustrated would-be museum director too. Whatever I am doing, I am collecting.

Deciding whether to buy something for myself or for my gallery is often just governed by where I happen to have any money at the time, he continues. It is also governed by which areas are basically neglected by the market, and therefore afford me opportunities to get things of the first order and if there are areas here that I like a lot, I have an insatiable appetite. Look at all those Boningtons, he says, gesturing to the wall behind me. I love Bonington I tried to interest the Metropolitan Museum of Art in them but they werent interested. They were so Francophile at the time. My only competition then was Paul Mellon.

Richard L. Feigen photographed at his apartment in Manhattan in January 2013. Photo: Anna Schori for Apollo

The Boningtons flank an impressive Turner: Ancient Italy Ovid Banished from Rome of 1838. When I was lucky enough to get that Turner in 1974, would you believe that there were people who even questioned whether Turner was a great artist or not? His incredulity remains. I would have loved to have bought that great Constable that came up recently, The Lock [1824], he continues. If I had the kind of money that some of my friends have, I would have snapped that painting up and it would never have left my home. He shakes his head. I exhausted myself trying to persuade the Met to buy it because it was a transformational painting. That will be the last great Constable to come on to the market. He is particularly fond of one of the artists consummate sky paintings on the adjoining wall.

Feigen was able to form an impressive collection of baroque and mannerist pictures because, he explains, a lot of the directors of the great US museums were Calvinists who did not much like the Sturm und Drang of these paintings. New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Chicago, Boston and Cleveland are weak in this field to this day. He adds: there were more people interested in baroque pictures 25 years ago than there are now. His group ranges from a small Domenichino landscape picked up for 160 [pounds sterling] at an antique shop in Stow-on-the-Wold in 1973, and jewel-like oils on copper, to Orazio Gentileschis monumental Dana and the Shower of Gold of 162122. This tour-de-force of surface and texture is currently on loan and filling a gap at the Met [editors note: the work was acquired at auction by the J. Paul Getty Museum in 2016].

As for the gold-ground paintings: I had never looked at them intensely enough when I started out, but Ive come to find them increasingly compelling. When he began acquiring these panels, there were just two Italian competitors who then passed away. Now two new dealers have entered the fray, as well as one collector, Alvaro Saieh, who has become the greatest of them all. If Alvaro wants something, I just cant compete with him. I can only get something now if he doesnt spot it.

14th-century Italian panel paintings displayed in Richard L. Feigens dining room in January 2013. Photo: Anna Schori for Apollo

Vision of Saint Lucy (c. 142729), Fra Angelico

Any sympathy one might have evaporates when Feigen opens the door to the climate-controlled dining room downstairs. Against dark mahogany panelled walls, gleaming trecento and early quattrocento panels hang in serried ranks on all four sides (four more panels are still in conservation). The breathtaking, magical effect is akin to being inside a jewelled casket, with the gems fixed to the wrong side. Here, for example, are no less than three panels by Fra Angelico, including an infinitely beguiling Vision of Saint Lucy of c. 142729. This had turned up unannounced at a secondary sale at auction in London. I had worked out where and when it was painted Florence, around 142530. Whoever the artist, he was fully aware of Brunelleschis perspectives, which were brand new at the time. How many artists could have absorbed this by then? He had owned it for a year before Laurence Kanter, now Chief Curator of Yale University Art Gallery, identified it as Fra Angelico and a missing panel from a famous predella. (Kanter, along with John Marciari, subsequently catalogued the Italian paintings from the Feigen collection when they were exhibited at Yale in 2010.)

Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints Peter and Paul, and Ten Angels (c. 133035), Lippo Memmi

Another favourite is the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints Peter and Paul and Ten Angels of c. 133035 by the artist that Vasari called Barna da Siena but who is now generally agreed to be more correctly identified as Lippo Memmi, one of the most original and expressive artists of the period. These young girls are all gossiping and the artist is very explicit about his sexual preferences, so he is pretty far out. It is a remarkable painting in a remarkable condition by an extremely rare artist. Other powerful, emotive panels include Giovanni di Paolos Christ as the Man of Sorrows (146065) and the pair of panels by Orcagna, The Deposition (c. 136068) and The Entombment (c. 136065).

Above the chimneypiece is another highlight: Annibale Carraccis tender Virgin and Child with Saint Lucy and the Young Saint John the Baptist. Unusually, it is also on panel, executed c. 158788, after the artist had worked in Parma and come under the sway of Correggio. He had bought it catalogued as a work by Sisto Badalocchio. Im gratified if a discovery is endorsed by other specialists or scholars, says Feigen, noting that the jury is still out on the attribution of what he believes to be two early works by Poussin.

Virgin and Child with Saint Lucy and the Young Saint John the Baptist (c. 158788), Annibale Carracci

I like to see my taste vindicated, he goes on to admit. You know, I went out to Minneapolis recently and I see what is the pride of their contemporary collection, an outstanding Francis Bacon pope of 1953, one of the big ones and one of the best, which I sold to them from the show in 1959 for $3,500. Now someone might say you must be kicking yourself. No, Im very proud of the fact that the then curator [of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts] Sam Hunter listened to me. He continues: In Berlin recently I saw a magnificent red Rothko [Reds no. 5] juxtaposed very intelligently with two works by Giotto, an artist Rothko particularly admired. I looked back and found I had sold the Neue Nationalgalerie that Rothko in 1967 for $22,000 a painting I would estimate now at least at $50m-$60m. It was an important acquisition for the museum.

He is relaxed about the art he has failed to buy, but he deeply regrets the rare instances only around five when he has sold works of art from his own collection. My reasoning for selling more or less escapes me I didnt ever need the money but I sold things around the time I was divorcing or remarrying and I must have thought that I wanted some liquidity. Among them was the great Metropolis painted by his friend George Grosz in 191617, which he sold to the late Baron Thyssen in 1978; another was Turners Temple of Jupiter Panellenius Restored (exhibited 1816). The smart guy is the one who bought it, the idiot is the one who sold it. Every single time I sold something out of my collection it was a blunder. I couldnt possibly find anything comparable with the money. I had to pay almost 40 per cent of the money for the Turner in tax anyway.

Great objects have become scarcer and scarcer in the marketplace and it is not a question of money. If you asked me to buy a great Matisse for you, I couldnt produce one, no matter how much money you had. In every Old Master paintings sale in the past, there would have been one or two world-class paintings. Now there are none. Even so, he believes that the number of potential buyers will increase across all fields. He talks of the tremendous influx of liquidity in the art market, as people are assured that it is a good place to park money. Every time theres another contemporary auction, theres an escalation in price for Bacon, Warhol, Koons and people feel it will just keep on, and so they dump more money in it. People are buying with their ears. Even in the early 21st century, people are less discerning and seem prepared to put a great deal of money into a late Picasso or a late de Kooning, painted either when their imaginations had long since evaporated or they were gaga. It doesnt matter what the thing looks like. It becomes fashionable because its expensive.

Intelligent people see what else they can buy for their money, but they are rare. Most people have no knowledge of any other market, and even if they do, they dont know whom to ask although there is very good counsel to be found in the museums in New York. He adds: There are areas now that are still neglected, citing a recent multi-million dollar sale of a great medieval tapestry to a contemporary collector, and his own recent medieval art shows, organised in collaboration with London dealer Sam Fogg. A number of contemporary artists are stashing their loot in Old Masters or medieval, and I have been able to convert one or two contemporary collectors, but it is a slow process. There will, at least, be more opportunities for Richard Feigen to add to his inventory.

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Richard L. Feigen (19302021) a legendary art dealer whose own private collection was the toast of New York - Apollo Magazine

Topeka Capital-Journal

Sen. Marshall has a legacy already. One of a few senators who objected to the electoral college results because his constituents "have concerns over voting irregularities" in other states. Strangely these irregularities only happened in states where Joe Biden won. Don't get cute, Senator, if you really believe the votes were fraudulent, say so.

Apparent acceptance of the big lie fits the pattern you established as a representative. Beat the culture war drums and appeal to irrational fear of "losing our country" while taking good care of Charles Koch and the investor class.

What are you going to do to help the average Kansan? Here's an idea. Vote for the coming COVID-19 relief bill. Lower the minimum eligible joint income level to less than $70,000 (pick a number). Pick another number for small business but get it down fast.

Here's another idea, fix the loophole that allows for unlimited subsidized crop insurance. While you are at it, push the USDA to fully support research that helps regenerative agriculture. Every Kansas farmer and rancher knows that the weather is getting more extreme and erratic even if the Farm Bureau pooh-poohs it.

If Obamacare is such an abomination, come up with an alternative. Get specific, no more generalities. Rural Kansas doesn't have the problem of too much and too cheap health care.

Dr. Marshall you have a choice. Help Kansans form a conservative viewpoint or keep milking the culture war cow. The latter will get you re-elected, the former will get you remembered as a statesman. Your call.

Paul Conway,Leavenworth County

Excerpt from:
Sen. Roger Marshall can choose to be a statesman or cater to culture wars - The Topeka Capital-Journal

SEOUL: Hamzy, a South Korean YouTube personality, has amassed more than 5.3 million subscribers by posting videos of herself eating.

A recent YouTube video starts with her unboxing a delivery of fried chicken smeared in multicoloured sauces.

Throughout much of the video, there is little audio besides her breathing, biting and swallowing. Hamzy layers sound effects over those sounds to exaggerate the chickens crispness and the crunch of each of her bites.

Then, she pairs the chicken with kimchi.

Kimchi, a dish of vegetables fermented after having been marinated in salt, shrimp paste and red pepper, have come under the spotlight.

Consumed as a side dish with nearly every meal in Korea, kimchi is depicted as both a superfood and the pride and joy of Korean culture.

Koreans returning home from abroad often eagerly dig into kimchi as the first thing they eat after landing.

Hamzys videos dont appear in any way political or likely to engender controversy. However she recently got herself into a pickle in a comments section, where she appeared to take sides in a roiling dispute between Chinese and South Korean netizens over the origins of kimchi.

BEGINNINGS OF A FOOD FIGHT

All Hamzy did was click like on a comment complaining that some Chinese social media personalities were appropriating Korean dishes. In referring to the Chinese, the comment used a crass Korean word.

Hamzy was quickly accused of hurting the feelings of Chinese netizens and was dropped from the agency that represents her in China.

This wasnt the first. Korean netizens were incensed by several incidents this month, including popular Chinese food vlogger Li Ziqi uploading a video on how to make kimchi.

Separately, the Chinese ambassador to the United Nations tweeted pictures of his homemade kimchi earlier this month.

Both these prominent personalities did not identify kimchi as a Korean dish, which is what most Korean netizens took issue with.

Their ire appears to have been building since December, when China acquired certification from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for pao cai, a Sichuanese dish with some similarities to kimchi.

An official Chinese news outletdescribed the certification as an international standard for the kimchi industry led by China".

However, ISO made clear that the standardisation is only for pao cai and does not apply to kimchi.

Some have suggested that perhaps this spat boiled down to a simple mistranslation. Korean kimchi is often served in China, and is also referred to as pao cai.

SOUTH KOREAS INSISTENCE ON WHO OWNS WHAT

When it comes to pressure-point issues of who gets to claim ownership of something that carries some historical significance, Koreans can be quite passionate.

Their insistence on convincing the world of what they see as history has partial origins in Koreas positionas a smaller country located between bigger powers, and a national narrative of Korea getting repeatedly victimised, particularly throughout the 1910 to 1945 colonial occupation by Japan.

Anyone who has ridden the train from South Koreas main airport in Incheon into Seoul has had to sit through a video informing passengers of the history of the Dokdo islets.

Those rocky outcroppings in waters off the eastern coast of the Korean peninsula are also claimed by Japan, where they are called Takeshima.

The slickly produced video stridently describes Japans claims as baseless.

In this context, even small infractions can feel like a challenge to sovereignty when national pride feels at stake.

And in this case, the kimchi controversy has been internationalised. On Monday (Jan 17), as the kimchi controversy raged, a South Korean professor took out a full-page advertisement in the New York Times featured a tidy pile of kimchi beneath a message describing kimchi as an iconic food of Korea, while pointing out that UNESCO listed the culture of making kimchi as an item of intangible cultural heritage in 2013.

While the advertisement does not mention China, the subtext was obvious. The final line of text, in bold for emphasis, reads:

Kimchi is Korean, but it belongs to everyone.

ZenKimchi, a Korea food blog, called this weeks New York Times advertisement awkward while adding, I understand why it's being done. China is trying to claim a kimchi-like pickled cabbage as its own. China, don't you have claim to enough things? Let Koreans have kimchi.

LETS EAT IN A CLIMATE OF CIVILITY

Hamzy appears to have weathered the controversy and is continuing to create content and eat kimchi.

A few days ago, she uploaded a statement to her YouTube account where she apologised for any misunderstanding, clarifying that she did not intend to endorse any harsh or insulting comment about Chinese people.

She added that her videos get thousands of comments and sometimes she scrolls through them liking without reading thoroughly.

However, on the crucial question of which country gets to claim kimchi, Hamzy doubled down, writing that of course she believes kimchi is Korean and that, If to work in China I have to say that kimchi is Chinese food, then I wont work in China.

Also, there is no need for Chinese people who want to work in Korea to say that Chinese foods are Korean. I think Chinese people will understand that.

Perhaps this issue was much ado about nothing? While a line in the sand must be drawn when it comes to insulting nationalities of people and stoking hate, the issue isnt as zero-sum as the fire and fury online suggest.

Kimchi and pao cai are distinct dishes and there is no reason to lump them together. Chinas Sichuan province has an illustrious culinary history, distinct from Korean cuisine.

The Chinese medias claims that China leads the kimchi industry is true in the sense that the country is the worlds largest producer of kimchi.

But making such a claim without noting that kimchi is a Korean dish has been clumsy at best, and at worst, may even have been intended to fire up nationalist fervour.

Better than making unfounded claims would be to encourage the people of both countries to enjoy each others food in a climate of civility.

Otherwise, next time things could really go sour.

Steven Borowiec is a writer, journalist and broadcaster based in Seoul.

Originally posted here:
Commentary: Kimchi controversies and culture wars: What's South Korea's and China's beef? - CNA

Downing Street sought to redefine the word woke this afternoon amid increasing confusion at the top of government over the wisdom of its culture wars strategy.

When asked about Boris Johnsons stance on racial equality today, the prime ministers official spokesman insisted that he wanted to level up across the country [and] to ensure everybody, wherever they come from, can reach their potential.

It came after Mr Johnson stumbled repeatedly when asked during a television interview whether President Biden, who was sworn in yesterday, was woke. It was a sign of Downing Streets awareness that populist stances on questions of patriotism and national identity risked alienating the new White House.

Boris Johnson says Biden inauguration a step forward for the US

In a lengthy exchange with reporters, the official spokesman declined to say whether Mr Johnson

Continued here:
Tories in a culture war of their own over the meaning of 'woke' - The Times

When Andi Owen took over the furniture company Herman Miller, in 2018, she didnt expect to get caught up in politics. But these days, it seems no chief executive is safe from the culture wars.

Over the last year, Ms. Owen, a former executive at the Gap, has had to mollify a work force shaken by the same polarizing forces straining the nation. On her factory floor in the battleground state of Michigan, wardrobe choices from Make America Great Again hats to Black Lives Matter T-shirts have provoked arguments among employees. In response, Ms. Owen has tried to hold together a company already tested by the pandemic and slumping sales.

Weve tried to create opportunities for people to have frank conversations, for them to get together and discuss the hard topics of the day, she said. I dont think these are new problems. But whether its about race, or inclusiveness, or whether its about whats happening in the world today, these are all things you have to talk about.

At the same time, Ms. Owen has been steering Herman Miller through a pandemic that closed offices worldwide an existential threat to a company that makes office furniture and owns Design Within Reach, an upscale retailer.

Ms. Owen went to Interlochen Arts Academy, a Michigan boarding school focused on the arts. It was there that she first learned about Herman Miller, which produces iconic pieces by famous midcentury designers such as Isamu Noguchi and Charles and Ray Eames, and modern office staples like the Aeron chair.

Ms. Owen then studied art history at the College of William and Mary, and started working in retail. A job at The Gap led to a series of senior roles at the retailer, culminating in her leadership of the Banana Republic brand, before she moved to Herman Miller.

This interview was condensed and edited for clarity.

Did getting a liberal arts degree have an impact on your career?

Its helped me in a lot of ways. I learned a lot about people. I learned a lot about history. I learned a lot about observation. Ive always approached any job Ive ever had as a generalist and an observer of human nature.

Some people would say Im not good at any one thing. Im sort of OK at a lot of things. And thats OK. Ive surrounded myself with people that are a lot smarter than me. But I have a little bit of a broader point of view, and an experience that doesnt necessarily pigeonhole me into thinking one thing or another.

I had a mom who was an educator and a dad who is this free spirit musician. And all my mom ever said to me was, When you go to school, learn what you love. Youll have plenty of time for a career and it wont matter anyway. So I really did spend time doing what I loved, and I think its been an advantage.

Unlike a lot of C.E.O.s, you never got an M.B.A.

I actually applied and got accepted. I was in my late 30s, and as I was talking to a woman in admissions and she said, Its great. We dont have that many middle-aged women that are interested in these programs because theyre all having families. And I was like, Not me. Im good. And then of course I got pregnant and didnt go.

You get to a certain point in your career where getting a standard M.B.A. is a little bit of a waste of time, because youve learned too much along the way. But I went back and got an executive M.B.A. at Harvard, which kind of filled in the gaps.

The Gap has obviously had its ups and downs. What did the company get right, and what did it get wrong over the years?

Business & Economy

Jan. 22, 2021, 7:23 p.m. ET

I was fortunate enough to be there for the really, really good years, when the stock was splitting every year. And I was there to watch the decline.

The Gap was at its best back in the day when the trusted editor was important, when you played a role helping people understand what they needed. We had a lot of success early on. But when youre super successful and you dont change, you get afraid. That ability to take risks to think about how the company could be different, to reinvent yourself from the inside it became impossible. And a lot of great people got fed into the wood chipper trying to bring The Gap back.

When the digital revolution hit I went into the online part of our business. And I remember one of my bosses telling me, No one will ever buy clothes online. This is going to be the biggest mistake of your career. What are you doing? That really was the way people were thinking back then.

We just didnt change fast enough. And we were really out of touch with the customer. When you rely on a playbook that was successful in the past, and you dont understand where your customer is going, its a prescription for disaster.

How did your time at The Gap shape your thinking about what you do at Herman Miller?

I interviewed a guy who became my head of digital. He had worked in retail, and he said, Do you know what excites me most about coming to this industry? I feel like Im going from making landfill to making heirlooms.

I feel similarly. These are products that you hope youre going to hand down. With some of the Banana Republic cashmere sweaters I made, I hope somebody hands those down. But I know the millions and millions of T-shirts we made probably arent getting handed down.

What happened when the pandemic hit, and how did you find your way out of it?

Wed never closed down our plants before, and there we were all of a sudden. We shut down all of our plants in 12 hours, and every day was a new lesson in crisis management.

There have been nights when I have sat down at the end of the day and shed a few tears because of it. The human toll from this pandemic has been not just the death toll, but peoples lives and jobs, whole industries wiped out. We capped out at 400 layoffs and people who opted out [about 5 percent of the work force], and weve done our best to keep that number where it is. But weve also designed a new product in times that we never thought we could. So its been a real balance of, Hey, right now is really crappy, and, Were going to get through it.

Your core business has held up surprisingly well during the pandemic. Who is buying so much office furniture right now?

Our international business is strong. The parts of the world that have gotten out of the pandemic certain parts of Asia, New Zealand theyve moved on.

Now the biggest questions that C.E.O.s and people that are planning space have are: Hey, what does the distributed work force look like? What does my new office need to look like? It certainly cant be what it was. People dont want employees to come back to what it was.

At first it was, How do I make it safe? How do I put barriers everywhere? Now the conversation has evolved to, How do I make it a compelling environment?

What are some of the answers to that question?

It is a fascinating variety. Financial companies are like, Were coming back to exactly what it was. Were not going to change much of anything. And then some of the tech companies in Silicon Valley are like, Who needs an office ever again?

Im not sure either one of those are necessarily the answer. Along that continuum, most people are landing in a place of, Gosh, what do people miss? So whether thats innovation, creativity or collaboration, how do you create environments where people can have those kinds of things? Depending on the industry, I think were going to see a whole lot of different solutions in this first year or two.

At Herman Miller, were taking all of our office environments and using this time while we have people working remotely to completely renovate them. Theyre our own little test labs.

Herman Miller isnt an inherently political company, so how do you deal with a moment like this, when there is so much rancor, including among your own employees?

We have got to unify, weve got to talk. We have to have respect and kindness and we have to listen. What happened at the Capitol was not OK. On the other hand, I have to make sure that were listening to one another, and are trying to find commonality.

Sometimes I yearn for the days when I was back in Berkeley, Calif., and I could walk down the street and everybody thought the same way. But you know, everybody is in Michigan. So you have to make the folks on the right feel comfortable, and you have to make the folks on the left feel comfortable. Thats a challenge as we get more and more divisive as a society. Sometimes you have to agree to disagree because youre so far apart. But for us, its been about encouraging respect and encouraging kindness.

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Herman Miller C.E.O. Grapples With Politics and Pandemic - The New York Times