A Salon of Dialogues: Inside Ashlee Harrison’s Thirty8East
Brute Force, her recent show, explores masculine force in design and art
On a quiet block of Manhattan’s Upper East Side, behind the preserved facade of an 1880s brownstone, curator Ashlee Harrison is rethinking how and where collectible design and art is experienced. After nearly a decade helping establish the U.S. presence of Carpenters Workshop Gallery and serving as Curatorial Director for Design Miami, she stepped away from conventional formats to launch Thirty8East, a private, appointment-only space where collectors, advisors and decorators can connect with the work in a more personal and experiential way. Walking up generic stairs from the street to the second floor parlor entrance enhances your arrival once you walk through the door, with the beautiful details of the space, the placement of the work, and the light that helps bring it all to life.
Harrison’s model is centered around highly curated installations in the brownstone’s various living and entertaining spaces, showing fewer works with more context than you’d likely see in a gallery or retail environment, in a setting encouraging people to spend time with the works, typically with her guiding you through the experience. The spectacular townhouse is itself worthy of a visit for its original details, maintained by the same family for generations. Its original moldings, doorknobs, hardware and lived-in floors function as both backdrop and collaborator.
The current presentation, Brute Force, (which closes at the end of March 2026) focuses on ambition, competition and strongman energy. At the center is a long-time friend of CH’s, Chilean artist Sebastian Errázuriz, who blends beautifully executed works with often provocative underpinnings. His Nike Antiquity bookshelf (2018) commands attention in the installation’s opening parlor with its classical sculpture contained within a structural scaffold sets the tone for reverence and utility. Fallen (2022) is a maple wood bench engraved with the phrase “Every nation gets the government it deserves” while a life size statue of Robert E. Lee is suspended underneath; it sits in front of a fireplace. A Warhol electric chair painting hangs with quiet authority, its presence larger than the physical work (it’s on loan from the collection of Richard Prince, who acquired it from Alice Cooper). It’s a powerful and engaging contrast.
In another room a bronze version of Errazuiz’s Monument to the Battle of Corporate Nations (2025) is nestled between Richard Prince’s Untitled (Cowboy) (1997) and under Errazuiz’s Shit Show I chandelier, alongside a table, a large photograph, table lamp and more, further demonstrating the tension between the works.
Harrison stages contemporary work alongside established voices creating tension and dialogue. Nearby, modern functional furniture blurs into sculpture with impeccably milled aluminum works with thick upholstered surfaces by Brett Robinson. The juxtaposition is deliberate. Rather than illustrating a theme, the works push each other—disciplined industrial fabrication alongside hand-pounded metal, refinement against aggression. There are lighter moments, but they don’t dilute the thesis. Harry Nuriev’s Trash Bag Chair nods to New York’s visual vernacular, while Erazuiz’s bronze Post-it Notes hint at the private, often chaotic origins of ideas.
Thirty8 East operates outside the standard gallery model—no fixed hours, no public opening schedule. Visits are intentional, often social, sometimes built around dinners or conversations that extend beyond the work itself. That structure mirrors Harrison’s larger aim: to create an environment where design and art aren’t segmented or over-explained, but encountered more intuitively, which seems to suit her and her clients quite well.
After the Garden, the next show, opens 15 April 2026. The group exhibition “reinterprets the psychological structure of Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights through contemporary art and design and features “works by Salvador Dalí, Tracey Emin, Cecily Brown,
Leonora Carrington, Leonor Fini, DRIFT, Lola Montes Schnabel, Irene Cattaneo, Atelier Van
Lieshout, and Sebastian Errazuriz, among others, the exhibition unfolds across three rooms as
Paradise (Formation), The Garden (Compulsion), and Aftermath (Reckoning) – three spatial
states tracing a progression from order to desire to consequence.”
What are your thoughts?