Visiting “At The Luss House: Blum & Poe, Mendes Wood DM + Object & Thing”
In Ossining, New York, this trio of organizers returns with another stunning site-specific immersion
When he was 25, in the year 1955, designer, architect and clockmaker Gerald Luss imagined and then constructed a mid-century modern home in the town of Ossining, New York, for his family. It would be their residence for roughly three years, during which time Luss was also working on another milestone as the design mastermind behind the 350,000 square feet of interiors at the Time-Life building. That project would debut in 1959, the same year he’d sell the Ossining home. Today, the structure still meticulously adheres to Luss’ original vision.
Now through 24 July, this masterpiece home becomes a gallery for At The Luss House: Blum & Poe, Mendes Wood DM and Object & Thing, an exhibition where the works converse with the compound itself, both inside and out. This site-specific dialogue follows last year’s stunning At the Noyes House: Blum & Poe, Mendes Wood DM, and Object & Thing in New Canaan, Connecticut. Similarly, a home of architectural merit has enveloped both of these iterations; and yet the aesthetic experiences diverge from there. Whereas the Luss house was cleared of belongings prior to the exhibition, lending it a more minimal sensibility, the Noyes house had retained all of its original art and furniture, for a maximalist union of the past and present.
“We decided to work with fewer artists. There are 18 artists here, there were 34 at Noyes,” Object & Thing founder and creative director Abby Bangser tells us on our walk through. “It allowed us to go more in depth with each artist.”
Some of the same artists have been represented at both iterations (as well as the inaugural Stone Barns exhibit that Bangser curated), but perhaps the most captivating contributions this time are from Luss himself—be it the 12-foot sofa he designed, which never left the house, or the transparent clocks (including one grandfatherly one that stands in a bathroom shower). The home itself even offers a very specific visual representation of time that Luss built in: a circular skylight about a stairwell that allows light beams to project upon the wall and shift throughout the day.
Works by Green River Project LLC, Frances Palmer, Johnny Ortiz, Paulo Monteiro, Ritsue Mishima and others speak in harmony with their surroundings. That said, they do not fail to surprise and delight. Once again, Bangser and her gallery partners invite guests into something that’s so much more than an art and design fair, rather it’s a lively design discourse between a mid-century modern home and diverse, masterful makers.
Slideshow installation images of At The Luss House: Blum & Poe, Mendes Wood DM and Object & Thing by Michael Biondo
