Installation created with Kritika Manchanda for the exhibition “Together Over Time”, at the Emma Scully Gallery.
In Rafael Prieto’s living room in New York, an antique-style statue sits alongside sculptural “Akari” lamps by Isamu Noguchi and a pendant light designed by the master of the place and Loup Sarion for Marrow. DWR (Design Within Reach) table. Painting by Pedro Friedeberg.
On the counter of Russ & Daughters, a well-known caterer on the Lower East Side, elegant Casa Bosques chocolate bars with Chiapas cocoa beans await gourmets. It’s a few steps away, in the loft of Rafael Prieto, founder and artistic director of the Savvy design studio, in TriBeCa, that they were designed. A place where form and content merge organically on a daily basis. The idea of combining professional and private life manifested itself in the fall of 2020, when the Mexican returned to New York after a long forced absence. “When I moved here, a lot of people had left the neighborhood. Little by little, I got to know it, as well as its inhabitants who often live and work at the same address. Many galleries have opened their doors in the surrounding area over the past two years. I like to escape there to think or, on the contrary, to clear my head and let myself be surprised by discoveries”explained Rafael.
In the living room, coffee table designed by Rafael Prieto, sofa from the 1970s, chairs by Gerrit Rietveld, wooden and antique fabric seat designed with Valerie Namé Bolaño, founder of Spoliā, and antique-inspired statue. Sculptural linen and steel lamps created by Rafael and his companion Loup Sarion under the Marrow label.
Apart from some minor work in the kitchen to prepare the chocolate of its confidential label Forest House, he has kept the premises, which he rents, as is. The loft, surrounded by large windows and punctuated by cast iron columns, has the charm of 19th century New York industrial buildings. Its high ceilings and generous volumes invite you to contemplate the designer’s collectibles and creations, such as the works of his first solo exhibition “Together Over Time”, at the Emma Scully Gallery, last spring. A poetic juxtaposition of furniture, sculptures and lighting, including the linen and steel “Marrow” model, imagined with his companion, the artist Loup Sarion. We also find this sculptural lamp, with lines inspired by bones saved from dinners, almost everywhere in the loft, available in different versions.
In the lounge area, sculpture in the shape of Sarion Wolf’s nose.
A garden stone table echoes the cast iron columns of the loft and a molding of the building that houses it.
In this avant-garde interior, where design icons (signed Gerrit Rietveld, Ettore Sottsass, Isamu Noguchi, etc.) rub shoulders with antique or surrealist sculptures, nothing is premeditated. “It reflects my evolution through my experiences and my travels. The dialogue between different styles and eras is due to the chance of life”, reports the esthete behind several sets in New York and Mexico. “If I have never actively sought out a piece of design, leaving it rather come to me, it is a little different for art. I constantly visit galleries, museums and consult a lot of specific works. So I can’t help but go in search of works that aroused emotions in me”, he specifies.
Stones were placed throughout the loft like sculptures. One of them serves as a nightstand.
Corner reserved for Studio Savvy with packaging of Casa Bosques chocolate bars on the wall.
The lounge area, close to the ground, echoes the traditional Japanese lifestyle that conquered Rafael during a stay in the Land of the Rising Sun eight years ago. “Japan is one of my main sources of inspiration. We encounter so much beauty and humility there”, he observes. “Sitting close to the ground also helps me keep in touch with reality, because I have an annoying tendency to have my head in the air.”, he adds. The designer likes to receive his friends there informally for festive meals or creative exchanges. Here, people and ideas come and go freely.
2024-04-11 10:05:07
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