At Tiffany’s Flagship, Luxe Art Helps Sell the Jewels

Now that tickets to the Museum of Modern Art are priced at an astonishing $30 apiece, you could be forgiven for timing your visits carefully, making sure that they count.

So, let’s say you find yourself in Midtown Manhattan with an hour or two to spare, and you are yearning for some culture. Perhaps you have already seen MoMA’s latest exhibitions, or perhaps you are not quite in the mood to fork over that kind of money. May I instead suggest stopping by Tiffany & Co.’s flagship store on Fifth Avenue?

No, there are no “Demoiselles d’Avignon” there, and no “Starry Night,” but what The Landmark (as it is called) does offer is a heady fusion of contemporary art and luxury retailing that is as relevant, and discomfiting, as anything you could hope to find in a museum.

After a renovation by the leather-clad architect Peter Marino that debuted last April, 58 pieces that he selected by major artists — many of them blue, or silver, or both — now fill the 84-year-old building. A color-shifting James Turrell oval is embedded in a wall near one set of elevator doors. Hanging by another is a shiny Damien Hirst cabinet filled with rows of cubic zirconia. Hovering next to the engagement rings is one of Anish Kapoor’s eye-bending mirrored discs. On the ground floor, 14 arched window frames glow with a state of the art animation byOyoram Visual Composer, of the Manhattan skyline and Central Park — the city is immaculate, with no people, just birds.