Zaha Hadid in ‘Killer Heels’ at the Brooklyn Museum

Brooklyn Museum’s eye-popping ‘Killer Heels’ exhibition isn’t just for ladies who teeter. As well as design feats (pun intended) and works of art, the show includes architect Zaha Hadid’s NOVA shoe, created from vacuum-casted fiberglass with chrome plated external uppers. Vaguely resembling the sloping exterior of her first New York building currently under construction on the High Line in Chelsea, the shoe might be seen as a mini architectural rendering. (Through Feb 15th).

Zaha Hadid X United Nude, chromed vinyl rubber, kid napa leather, fiberglass, 2013 (left). Tea Petrovic, Wings/Variation, polyamide, faux leather, rubber, 2013 (right).

Isabella Kirkland at Feature, Inc.

Isabella Kirkland, Nova:  Canopy, oil paint on polyester over wood panel, 2008.
Isabella Kirkland, Nova: Canopy, oil paint on polyester over wood panel, 2008.

Titled ‘Nova: Canopy,’ this meticulously detailed painting by Isabella Kirkland (an artist and a research associate in the department of aquatic biology at the California Academy of Sciences) brings together plants and creatures found in the rainforest canopy, though not all in the same geographic location.  All discovered in the past twenty years, they’re a powerful testament to earth’s profusion. (At Feature, Inc’s group show ‘Punt’ on the Lower East Side through Dec 22nd.)