14 februari 2014

Walter De Maria #2






















Walter De Maria’s home and studio.

"A former Con Edison substation on the Lower East Side reimagined by the internationally renowned artist/sculptor/composer Walter De Maria as a cavernous home studio, storage facility, and dedicated laboratory for the gestation of his monumental works, is about to enter the market at $25 million.

Enticed by spectacular ceiling heights (13 to 32 feet) and exceptional privacy, Mr. De Maria, who died last summer at age 77, bought the hulking four-story building at 421 East Sixth Street, and an adjacent lot at No. 419, between First Avenue and Avenue A, in 1980. He lived (modestly) and worked (on a grand scale) there.
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In the heart of the East Village historic district near Tompkins Square Park, the 16,400-square-foot substation was built in 1920 and ’21. Before its acquisition by the artist, the brick building — it runs a full block north to its alternate entrance on East Seventh Street, where there is a curb cut and garage — was used as a photography studio. The annual property tax is $94,407. The sale also includes an unimproved lot at 419 East Sixth, a 7,920-square-foot expanse of grass and gravel partially enclosed by a chain-link fence with the potential to be repurposed into gardens, a noncommercial gallery, a garage or townhouses; the tax on that is $13,643. Both the building and the lot are now zoned for residential or community usage.

Mr. De Maria was private about his work, typically closing the shades of the third-floor studio at night. The south windows have one-way glass: people outside cannot see the interior during daylight hours.

In keeping with his Minimalist philosophy, Mr. De Maria left the substation’s industrial origins intact: An impressive grittiness prevails throughout the raw space. Major improvements were confined to the overhead lighting that illuminated his room-size installations. Even the elevator is a vintage artifact, as is the Viking stove in the bare-bones kitchen where he cooked steak and vegetables. But mostly he worked, dreaming up installations like Bel Air Trilogy, an assemblage of three classic, two-tone (red and white) 1955 Chevrolets, each with a silver stake embedded in its front and rear windshields. A two-story ramp at the back of the property made it possible to take the cars, and other huge objects, up to the second-floor studio.
....
The building is arranged almost as he left it. On the first floor, whose dimensions are 44 by 80 feet (not including a garage addition in the rear), the space is shared by a main office, Ms. Childress’s office, and the kitchen, the coziest room in the place. Upstairs, the main studio retains a cyclorama left behind by the photography studio. The artist’s tiny bedroom and bath are at the back of the third floor, and the fourth is used for storage. From the roof, there are panoramic cityscape views.

The property is being sold by the artist’s estate. Helen Hwang, Karen Wiedenmann and Nat Rockett of Cushman & Wakefield are the listing brokers. The brokerage faced a conundrum when pricing the studio and lot: “There really wasn’t anything quite like it,” Ms. Hwang said." (bron: The New York Times, foto's: Katherine Marks)
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