Living with Art

I have art on the brain this week. Fall in New York is filled to the brim with gallery openings, new exhibitions and huge auctions and since I can't get away from it, I thought I would embrace it with a few more art related posts.

I was checking out The New York Times Magazine online and came across a great article about New York gallery owner Marianne Boesky entitled Living Over the Store. Turns out Ms. Boesky lives above her new gallery on West 22nd Street in a building she commissioned from architect Deborah Berke. While the gallery space is what you would expect, white and modern, the upstairs living quarters are rather ornate and homey. The gallery space is about looking at art, while the apartment is about living with art.

Above the giant honey onyx fireplace, a painting by Yoshitomo Nara hangs on a wall of what looks like striped wallpaper but is really an installation by the artist Daniel Buren.

Adam Helms’s ‘‘4 Untitled Portraits’’ hang above the doorway in the living room while a pink Yves Klein coffee table anchors the seating area.

In her husband's library off the living room, sculptures by Nara and Robert Gober adorn the dark wood bookcases, while Gober’s cast, silk-screened “Rat Bait” stands guard just outside the door. It also reminds me of a great article in the new November Art Issue of W magazine about how sometimes the maids of art collectors mistake art for trash and accidentally throw away priceless objects.

There are traditional chairs in the dining room, but they are two different types that alternate along the custom-made table, which sits under a large butterfly painting by Damien Hirst.

In the powder room, what looks like art, drawings of bare trees, is actually wallpaper from the venerable British firm Cole & Son. I love the way the mirror picks up the tree theme with it's branch frame. While below, a Nara dog guards the roof terrace which also has a garden designed by Paula Hayes.

I have to say that I am impressed and delighted that Marianne Boesky decided to create an apartment that feels like a home and not a gallery. It also just goes to show that living with art can be fun and exciting in a traditional setting not just a big white gallery space.

Photo by Jason Schmidt