Today is the soft opening of Carpenters Workshop Gallery’s first New York City space, on the top two floors of the Takashimaya building in Midtown.
This is the collectible design gallery’s fourth outpost globally; the 693 Fifth Avenue space joins spaces in London and Paris and a workshop space outside of Paris.
Owners Julien Lombrail and Loïc Le Gaillard represent Johanna Grawunder, Wendell Castle and Rick Owens, among others.
The space, in a perhaps unlikely neighborhood and with no retail frontage, was meant to emulate a European gallery setting, Mr. Le Gaillard told the Observer. “I didn’t want yet another white box in Chelsea,” he said.
Why now? “We were doing 40 percent of our business with the American market,” Mr. Le Gaillard said. “It was obvious that the American market was savvy for what we were doing and it was time to come to states and open the space.”
The new outpost’s inaugural show includes work from Ingrid Donat, Vincent Dubourg, the duo Studio Job, Random International, Robert Stadler, Nacho Carbonell and Vincenzo De Cotiis.
“It’s been in the back of my mind since the early days,” to have a New York presence, Mr. Le Gaillard said. And when he saw this space he knew it was the one he’d lease. Even though “it’s probably too big, and too expensive.”
The gallery opens to the general public next week.
