Old and New Worlds Mingle at Innovative Design Space Artemest Galleria – WWD

A cross-cultural arts and crafts experiment is taking place in Manhattan’s Chelsea with the opening of a new gallery space that fuses the traditional skills of Italian artisans with the fresh ideas of contemporary artists, designers and curators.

Artemest Galleria, which opened earlier this month at 518 West 19th Street, is the first physical gallery and showroom from Artemest, a high-end interiors and lifestyle website.

The site, which launched in 2015, connects more than 1,400 Italian artisans with an international audience of designers, architects and private clients who are looking for luxury furnishings and handmade items ranging from something as small as a marble cake stand up to leather sofas and Murano glass chandeliers. 

The new, 5,000-square-foot, multipurpose space functions as an art gallery, with exhibitions changing every three months; an events space, and an office where architects, interior designers and other clients can plan projects and source home decor, furniture and lighting.

Artemest Galleria is currently hosting a show called “Blow,” meant to highlight the skills and craftsmanship of Murano glassblowers as seen through the eyes of the Caribbean-born artist Bradley Theodore.

The space is filled with Theodore’s large and small-scale works, which have a Pop Art feel — and look nothing like anyone’s idea of a traditional Murano glass chandelier. There are giant pineapple and palm installations, a colorful glass sculpture of Frida Kahlo and skull-adorned mirrors hanging on a backdrop covered in hand-painted wallpaper.

Theodore’s works have been created by the Italian glassblowers Ongaro e Fuga; Fratelli Tosi; Luci Italia; Specchi Veneziani; Multiforme; Venice Factory, and Covi e Puccioni.

“Blow,” first presented in June at the Salone del Mobile in Milan, demonstrates just how different Artemest is from other furniture and interiors showrooms.

Artemest Galleria, and the exhibitions it plans to host, are the cofounders’ way of telling the world that traditional craft isn’t dead, dying or dusty and that millions of Italian artisans continue to use centuries-old skills to make everyday objects.

“The whole point is to reinvigorate the world of craft without dumbing it down,” says Ippolita Rostagno, the cofounder and creative director of Artemest.

“We are trying to get people’s notion of craft out of the dusty closet, cast a new light on it, and show what being contemporary really means. Craft is not only tied to tradition, or to a specific sort of old world, maker culture. It can also be reinvigorated with the influence of artists, designers and people who traditionally have not had access to this incredible wealth of craftsmanship and design,” she adds.

Artemest Galleria plans to tap a different artist, curator or maker every three months who will align with different artisans and create new work for a series of exhibitions.   

The New York-based Rostagno, a fine jewelry designer who grew up outside Florence and studied sculpture in the Italian city, is passionate about the country’s traditional crafts.

Rostagno was originally going to call the website Italy.com, so eager was she to promote the country’s artisans who were having trouble surviving in a fast-moving digital world.

“This whole adventure started as a passion project for me. I could see all of these artisans closing their businesses and I was so disturbed by this fact because I knew the customers were out there,” Rostagno says.

She teamed with cofounder Marco Credendino, who had worked on the corporate and strategy side of Yoox Net-a-porter Group. Their aim has been to aggregate Italian crafts-based businesses on a single, curated platform and present them to the rest of the world.

Artemest aims to do for Italian artisans what Farfetch has done for small, multibrand retailers, taking care of international marketing and offering a sales platform, as well as digital and client services.

Italy is estimated to have more than 1.3 million small arts and crafts companies, many of them mom-and-pop businesses, that employ more than 3 million people. According to Rostagno and Credendino, many of these businesses were left behind by the internet boom.

In the beginning, when Credendino was setting up the technology and the logistics side of the business, Rostagno was “going around Italy on trains looking for all the little artisans in nooks and crannies. I was telling them, ‘There’s going to be a website, and we’re going to sell your beautiful things.’ And some of them looked at me like I had two heads,” she says.

Artemest sells across categories including home and living, decor, art and furniture. The highly curated site has its own magazine, with articles and profiles of the artisans, interior design features and lush editorial-style shoots.

Opening Artemest Galleria was the next step in the journey, a way to cater to the existing community and promote the Italian artisans to a new audience.

Credendino says opening Artemest Galleria was crucial to the development of the brand as it allows the business to “tell many different stories, engage and reengage with clients” and build a like-minded community that’s passionate about, and supportive of, high-end craftsmanship.

“E-commerce is always going to be our core but in markets where we already have a strong client base we want to be in the community. We want to build physical spaces where we can meet our customers and invite them to see new collections,” he says.

Rostagno adds that New York was a natural place to open the first Artemest Galleria because “it is the mecca of all design firms. The architects and interior designers are based here and the U.S. is our first market, so it made sense to have a physical space where we can really meet with our community.”

The new space is located on the ground floor of a building designed by Annabelle Selldorf of Selldorf Architects. It is located across from David Zwirner Gallery.

Rostagno says she and Credendino preferred the downtown arty neighborhood to New York’s furniture district because they wanted to focus on the intersection of art and craft rather than pitching themselves as another furniture and interiors store.

The new space also has a garden, where Artemest plans to host events and showcase outdoor furniture starting next spring. In addition to the garden and the gallery, there is a project room, a sample room and an office space for meetings.

Going forward, there will be a workshop space for architects, interior designers and private clients to work on residential and commercial projects and preview finishes, fabrics and materials.

Credendino adds that New York is just the beginning. The business partners plan to open three more showrooms in the next three years, most likely on the West Coast of the U.S. and in the Middle East.

Their ultimate goal is to expand beyond Italy, tap artisans and craftspeople worldwide and help them to market and sell their designs using Artemest’s technology, services and logistics.