It's Not a Gallery. It's Not a Fair. It's the Place To Sit on a $1.9m Couch
In the former SoHo headquarters of Estée Lauder, there is an enormous bottle of olive oil. And a few cactuses. And a listening room framed by enormous speakers previously utilized to pump out the tunes at MoMA PS1. Basic.Space’s first physical activation in New York feels like a subtle form of nominative determinism, with a truly inspired spate of wild goods transforming a formerly basic space.
Italian furniture company Gufram brought its latest crop of Andy Warhol-inspired cactuses; downtown NYC label Eckhaus Latta and Substacker David Lê curated a selection of collectibles new and old; Carpenters Workshop Gallery sourced chairs as disparate as Rick Owens' primative slabs and Campana Brothers' literally plush perch; and former Dior artistic director Kris Van Assche is presenting his bronze sculptures (retail: anywhere from $33,000 to $41,000) alongside one of Jean Royère's early “Polar Bear” sofas. Priced at $1.9 million, it's Basic.Space NY's biggest ticket item.
Because, yes, everything here is shoppable both in-person and on Basic.Space’s website. But founder Jesse Lee insists that Basic.Space NY is not a "fair." It’s also not a gallery. Nor a shop. But maybe it’s all of those things.
“My ideal way to describe it would be that it's an ‘IRL-to-URL shopping experience,’” he says, as we sit atop the nearly $2 million Royère couch. “We talk a lot internally about how we were never meant to be only an online marketplace, and we're certainly not a brick-and-mortar retail store. But to have a truly curated shopping experience, you have to do both online and offline really well.”
Basic.Space was founded in 2017 as a semi-exclusive secondhand digital marketplace, where anyone can shop but only invited sellers can list their wares. Initially, the platform was flooded with clothes but its selection quickly expanded to just about everything as members began offering up furnishings, books, vintage tech, pottery, and just about anything else that came to mind. Basic.Space NY is that kitchen-sink — literally — approach made tangible, curated by a select few but open to all.
The variety in the stuff seen here reflects Lee’s aim to create “serendipitous” encounters with unexpected product. This is reflected in Basic.Space NY’s location, tucked away on a single floor of the otherwise nondescript building at 575 Broadway that's arguably most notable for being adjacent to a Prada store.
“We purposely didn't want ground-level,” Lee says. “Most people would want something visible and open because that's what people are used to. I prefer to be somewhere a little bit hidden but still central. You have to come up through the entrance, take the elevator up, get checked in, and then have this sort of private shopping experience.”
Even the building mirrors the intent at play. It's owned by Peter Brant, a paper-mill heir and a big enough deal in the art business that ArtNet considers him one of the world’s top 200 collectors, which feels appropriate given that Lee’s cites American Psycho and Wall Street as stylistic inspirations for the weekend-long event. But it’s not necessarily about money men on the brink. Beyond the murderous inclinations of the former film and the glistening capitalist fantasy of the latter, Lee was attracted to how both movies portray hustling and bustling in downtown New York. Okay, there's maybe a little bit of that glistening fantasy here. But fantasy is born of reality, and reality is Basic.Space NY's raison d'être.
“People still want tactile experiences,” says Lee. “Whenever you're spending, to be blunt, a lot of money on furniture, design objects, or pieces that you really care about for your home, you need to see it, touch it, maybe even smell it.”
Basic.Space NY offers plenty of opportunities for a whiff, jam-packing nooks that once housed Estée execs with so much stuff that it can barely be contained. La Terra Di Neena’s $75 olive oil is framed by $5,000 tables cocreated with Crosby Studios (the former was founded by Crosby’s CMO). Kidsuper clothes are framed by enormous lip-shaped couches and a $3,500 table in the shape of Tom from Tom & Jerry. MSCHF’s Phaidon tome is framed by never-sold-before objects that include the sword it made from melted-down assault rifles and its globe-spanning handbags. There’s merchandise as approachable as $250 sunglasses produced by Samuel Ross’ SR_A and sub-$100 art books and rare art objects that range from six to seven figures.
“We hate the term gatekeeping —so many people love to gatekeep. That's not our intention," says Lee. "These are all things that people should enjoy, whether they buy it or not. We say this a lot: we're exclusive but inclusionary. We're the cool table but you can sit with us.” On a $1.9 million couch, no less.
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