Last night the art world convened at the Wooly to celebrate Grey Area, a new website by Kyle Dewoody, daughter of contemporary art collector Beth Rudin DeWoody, and web entrepreneur Manish Vora of Artlog, that aims to blur the lines between art and design with home accouterments designed by artists.
As the party started, the younger Ms. DeWoody could be seen laying out some of the website’s offerings on a table that looked like Thanksgiving dinner for the hippest family on earth, complete with plates smeared under their glaze, human figure-shaped candles and a centerpiece that recalled Marie Antoinette’s wig. Women with iPads wandered the room so that attendees could shop during the party, along with the standard waiters carrying trays laden with hors-d’oeuvres.
“Basically this started from an idea we had after talking to artists we loved who were producing all this stuff but who didn’t have a marketplace for it,” Ms. DeWoody said. “This is actually a very populist thing. We’re making it more accessible so that people who are intimidated by the art world can interact with it in a much easier way, and can afford it.”
“It’s definitely pushing in areas that I think even make artists feel uncomfortable,” said the sculptor and jewelry-and-furniture designer Orly Genger. She rolled her eyes at those people. “‘Shop? Art? Don’t shop my art!’ Well why not? It’s an object. Add to my cart!”
She was standing near the table and lifted off of it one of her small sculptures to brandish it, a coil of aluminum-coated ropes designed to have the heft of a hand-held firearm. One of the iPad checkout women almost stopped her, but didn’t.
“There’s always been a great crossover,” said wallpaper designer Temo Callaghan. “Think of Picasso, think of Raoul Dufy, think of Christian Bérard, think of goddamn Michelangelo! He decorated walls. There’s always been a great desire to coax artists to get down and decorative, if you know what I mean. Look at the Rockefeller apartment at 740 [Park Avenue]. The fireplace was decorated by Matisse! Come on!
“Matisse!” he repeated.
That said, whenever art and commerce are discussed so openly it’s bound to make some people feel uncomfortable. The artist Rob Wynne’s discomfort took the form of exaggerated self-effacement.
“Blood jewelry?” said Mr. Wynne, who’d designed for the site a series of jewelry that looks like blood spatters. “Who wants blood jewelry? I don’t think it’s going to be a hot seller. You walk out with, like, blood dripping off you? It’s so stupid.”
But being an artist means this sort of anxiety about paychecks is a given. Even Jenna Bush Hager knows that.
“I have a lot of friends who are artists,” said Ms. Hager, invited by Mr. Vora. “And obviously we have to support our artists, because they have to make a living too.”
“This is coming from a former schoolteacher!” she added with a laugh.
She then hugged The Observer three times in farewell and told us she was taking some time off in August to work on her novel.
Update 3:50 Corrected the spelling of Ms. Hager’s name.
