For Sale in New York For Rent in New YorkThis article originally appeared in the December 2014 issue of Architectural Digest.At a quick glance, the large, mirrored 1968 glinting in the entrance hall of a 19th-century London townhouse could be mistaken for a party decoration, carelessly cracked and splintered, from a New Year’s Eve revel. The number is, in fact, a wall sculpture by artist Doug Aitken—and a poignant daily reminder to the homeowners, an energy executive and his wife. It was in 1968, after all, that Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated, student riots rocked Paris, the villagers of My Lai were massacred, Andy Warhol was shot, and the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia. The work’s fractured glass suggests a shattered world, but the material is also sparkly, even frivolous."My husband and I don’t take ourselves too seriously, and we don’t like art that takes itself too seriously either," the wife explains of the provocative collection housed in the Queen Anne residence, which she and her husband share with their two sons and two daughters.

"Most of the works deliver their message lightheartedly." The expansive scale of the Aitken piece also appeals. The wife adds, "Anything that’s supposed to be big but is miniature or is supposed to be small but is gigantic attracts me." Hence another entrance-hall installation: a pair of tiny, delightfully banal stainless-steel elevator doors by Maurizio Cattelan that was a 24th-wedding-anniversary gift. hookless shower curtain liner extra longAt the push of a button, the lifts open and close, floor-indicator lights blink, and chimes ping, as if an office tower staffed by Lilliputian drones were hidden behind the wainscot.curtains haslingdenThe couple’s narrow six-story house—converted from apartments into a single-family home by architectural designer Maha Kutay and furnished by decorator François Catroux—is filled with works by contemporary talents from around the world. blackout curtains in cairo

A Mickey Mouse–inspired figure by the American artist KAWS sits slumped on a landing, while a perky scarlet statuette by Chinese sculptor Ren Sihong strikes a Tai Chi pose atop the dishwasher, playfully referencing the mass exercise routines broadcast during the reign of Chairman Mao. Indian artist Subodh Gupta created the dining room’s giant fiberglass skull, haloed by humble metal kitchenware. graber curtain rod bracketsThe piece looms feet from an animated LCD portrait of a monotonously blinking woman by British luminary Julian Opie. 4 pics one word curtain ticket spiralIn the library, meanwhile, dozens of drawings by Cuba’s Esterio Segura are compiled in a discreet leather-bound album. white sheer 100 cotton gauze tab curtain

"They’re not for the kids’ eyes," the wife cautions, as she opens the volume to reveal dreamily explicit images in the manner of Japanese shunga erotica. Each illustrates Fidel Castro violating a Hispanic beauty who embodies El Comandante’s Communist nation.The Segura series is called "Cuba: Scenes Behind the Scenes," and that title—hinting at uncomfortable truths exposed—epitomizes the subversive spirit of the couple’s collection, which is guided by instinct rather than professional advice. "ikea cable curtain rod reviewWe’re not very good with art advisers, because we’re not very good at listening," admits the wife, who was born in Saudi Arabia and is part Turkish. As her Lebanese husband notes, "We were both brought up in very political atmospheres." Reflecting the pair’s enduring interest in geopolitical issues is the library’s wall-size canvas by West Bank–based artist Khalil Rabah: Conceived as a rebuttal to the argument that Palestine never existed, the photo-realist painting depicts open shelves packed with the filed records of thousands of historic Arab properties in the region."

At the end of the day, politics is a bit of a joke," the wife says, shaking her head. "What we see on TV is not reality, nor is what we hear from politicians. But art comes from the people, from the ground up instead of from the top down."The couple’s cutting-edge treasures are a world away from the Picassos, Chagalls, and Légers the wife grew up around, in homes that Catroux, a longtime family friend, outfitted with ancien régime antiques and yards of silk. After she and her husband acquired the London townhouse, they enlisted the Parisian designer, a stylistic virtuoso described by the wife as "young at heart and up-to-date about everything." His concept, instantly accepted, called for a simple, restrained decor. "It would have been difficult to make their interiors anything but absolutely modern, since they collect only the latest art," Catroux says, observing with a laugh that the wife "isn’t influenced by her parents at all."Conscious of his clients’ appreciation of classic Asian design—they spend part of the year in Singapore—Catroux fashioned a largely black-and-white environment that has a reductivist attitude but is also invitingly sensual.

Boomerang-shaped sofas by Jean Royère and Vladimir Kagan, Guy de Rougemont dining tables, Philippe Starck chairs, and a multitude of bespoke designs are deployed like serene sculptures, creating perfect counterpoints to the highly charged collection that is accumulating around them."They are very excited about art and go to all the fairs," says Catroux, who admires the pair’s sense of adventure and how deeply they fall for particular works. So deeply that they have already added some 20 pieces since their home was photographed earlier this year. The largest of those acquisitions is a resin extravaganza by Ugo Rondinone that was cast from an ancient olive tree. Standing more than 12 feet tall, the sculpture will occupy a corner of the living room, its bare branches sheltering the two intrepid collectors while serving as a grounding presence amid a trove of works that address our complicated, troubled world with a playful wink.Some people think Robert Greene is evil. They're the ones that read The 48 Laws of Power, his bestselling 1998 debut, saw the world depicted as a writhing snakepit of treachery and mind games, and felt that the author must be part of the problem.

Other fans think he's the solution, including Will Smith, American Apparel CEO Dov Charney (who calls it "the Bible for atheists") and so many rappers, from Jay-Z on down, that the New Yorker dubbed him "hip-hop's Machiavelli". But when you advise your readers, "Discover each man's thumbscrew" (Law 33) or "Pose as a friend, work as a spy" (Law 14), some are prone to expect the worst. "I'm not who people expect me to be," says Greene, an earnest, thoughtful 53-year-old with a somewhat tense smile. "I'm not Henry Kissinger." In conversation at his London publisher's office, as in his books, he always has an apt quotation to hand. "Charles de Gaulle said, I realised that when people met me they were expecting to meet Charles de Gaulle. I had to learn to be the man inside the quotes. But generally I prefer to be myself. I don't have to pretend to be this mastermind." Greene doesn't think he's evil, obviously, but nor does he consider himself particularly good. He says he's just a realist.

"I believe I described a reality that no other book tried to describe," he says. "I went to an extreme for literary purposes because I felt all the self-help books out there were so gooey and Pollyanna-ish and nauseating. It was making me angry." Even if The 48 Laws of Power can be read as a bastard's handbook, he wrote it to demystify the dirty tricks of the executives he encountered during a dispiriting period as a Hollywood screenwriter. "I felt like a child exposing what the parents are up to and laughing at it," he says. "Opening the curtain and letting people see the Wizard of Oz." Greene is accustomed to defending his first book, but I suspect he's trying to move beyond it with his latest, Mastery, which studies how talent is developed, using a heavily researched slew of examples including Einstein, Darwin, Goethe and John Coltrane. "I was a little worried that young people would think the only game was being political and manipulative when really the bigger game is being so good at what you do that nobody can argue with your results," he says.

Mastery is an illuminating book but its message (the secret of success is working incredibly hard for many years) is much tougher and more exacting than the follow-your-dreams manuals with which it will share the self-help shelves. "I hate them," he says. "I was under a lot of pressure to write something faster and shorter and easier for people to consume and I resisted that. So maybe this book won't sell because I've loaded the donkey with all that baggage, but I do at least try to debunk the idea that it's all about your parents and education and wealth." On that subject, Greene himself had an "insanely middle-class" upbringing in Los Angeles. His father sold cleaning supplies while his mother was a housewife with thwarted artistic ambitions. After studying classics at college, Greene travelled around Europe, working dozens of menial jobs while trying to find the right outlet for his writing. Back in the US, he meandered through journalism and into Hollywood, before finally publishing The 48 Laws of Power in his late 30s.

His bestsellers (including the similarly gimlet-eyed The Art of Seduction and The 33 Strategies of War) have made him a wealthy man, but he could be even richer if he took all the offers that came his way. For one thing, he doesn't think he's a great public speaker. "I'm not like Malcolm Gladwell, who makes millions from that kind of thing. Maybe it's a shortcoming. I'm so earnest in trying to give people so much information that I overdo it." He laughs almost inaudibly. "I need to get a shtick." He turns down a lot of consultancy work because he is only drawn to people with interesting life stories, whether Charney (he's on American Apparel's board of directors), 50 Cent (they collaborated on 2009's The 50th Law) or Barack Obama. He is now working with labour organisers in Latin America, and his liberal politics disappoint some of his fans in the business world, who expect him to be a champion of the ruthless go-getter. "I'm a huge Obama supporter," he says. "Romney is satan to me.

The great thing about America is that you can come from the worst circumstances and become something remarkable. It's Jay-Z and 50 Cent and Obama and my Jewish ancestors – that's the America we want to celebrate. Not the vulture capitalist. These morons like Mitt Romney, they produce nothing. Republicans are feeding off fairytales and that's what did them in this year and hopefully will keep doing them in for ever, because they're a lot of scoundrels." Greene claims that most of the emails he receives are from readers who used his first book to understand and outwit manipulative people, but surely he has inadvertently created a few scoundrels himself? "There are people on the borderline and maybe the book helps them to move into that sociopathic realm so then I feel bad," he concedes, "but mainly it's positive." Mastery is so much warmer and more encouraging than its predecessors that I wonder if his view of human nature has softened. Instead of backstabbing brutes, are we in fact marvellous creatures?