{"id":222422,"date":"2026-01-08T01:30:28","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T01:30:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/222422\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T01:30:28","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T01:30:28","slug":"salon-94-founder-jeanne-greenberg-rohatyn-takes-us-inside-her-upper-east-side-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/222422\/","title":{"rendered":"Salon 94 Founder Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn Takes Us Inside Her Upper East Side Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, photographed by Matt Weinberger.<\/p>\n

During a walkthrough of Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn\u2019s<\/a> Upper East Side townhouse last month, she described her home as something of a laboratory: a testing ground for her curatorial fixations and artistic affinities, some of which make their way over to Salon 94, her nearby gallery, and others she keeps for herself.\u00a0 Steering me through her personal collection, the 58-year-old curator lingered at a corner where a vase by the Kenyan artist Magdalene Odundo rests on a \u201cfrou-frou\u201d antique Beaux-Arts French wine cooler (an heirloom she\u2019s just inherited from her parents, seasoned art dealers themselves). Just beside it, a faintly humorous, gloopy sculpture gifted to her by the architect Gaetano Pesce sits by its lonesome. The grouping feels charming and assertive, emblematic of Greenberg Rohatyn\u2019s commitment to discord. \u201cI don\u2019t ask anybody what they think the Pesce looks like with the Odundo. I actually don\u2019t care,\u201d she laughs. \u201cThat\u2019s kind of rude to say, but it\u2019s very specific. My job is to think in a much more forward manner about putting unlike objects together\u2014of different speeds and different sensibilities\u201d It\u2019s a job she\u2019s been doing, and a skill set she\u2019s been refining, for over three decades. And though Greenberg Rohatyn is most often cited as a pioneering force merging the worlds of design and fine art, she\u2019s held in equally high regard for having championed the careers of artists like Huma Bhabha, Marilyn Minter, and Laurie Simmons<\/a>. Who else, then, might this art world tastemaker have her eye on? As we glided from floor to floor, she delved further into the pieces that inspire and continue to reframe her own vision, including works by Karon Davis, David Hammons, and the french designer Maria Pergay. <\/p>\n

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\"Jeanne<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we did Beauty Must Suffer<\/a> by Karon Davis at the gallery, we had so many Black dancers come by and tell us their stories. One sat down with her legs wide open, her elbows down on the ground just crying, talking about pancaking, and her toe shoes growing up. You can only get brown toe shoes special order, so most of the Black ballerinas still have to pancake their shoes to match their skin. And in ballet, you want that full extension, so your toe shoes are supposed to match whatever stockings you\u2019re wearing. Karon grew up in a household where her mother and sister were constantly dyeing their stockings brown. This shows you the one pair of pancaked shoes with the other used slippers or toe shoes. The frame itself we made for the exhibition. It has these cotton flowers which reference cotton-picking, and also the cotton that the ballerinas fill their toe shoes with. When you take them off, most of the cotton is all bloodied from being on their toes. It\u2019s one of the last art forms to adjust to multiculturalism. The fact that this is such a glaring indication of that, there\u2019s a bit of a heartbreak there, but it\u2019s also incredibly beautiful. I love this idea that you dance one performance and then your toe shoe is done. There\u2019s this element of performance that\u2019s so fleeting. A dance troupe goes through something like 8,000 toe shoes in a year.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s the perfect collaboration between [Andy] Warhol and female artists as well. These actually come from the pictures of John F. Kennedy\u2019s funeral. The first time he showed the flowers was when he showed the Jackie O. pictures from the funeral where there\u2019s her crying and he\u2019s the smiling. They\u2019re actually part of his Death & Disaster Series. They\u2019re really kind of funeral\u2026 They\u2019re an American event.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe tray is a Sterling Ruby. The story\u00a0 is that when he went to take his first ceramic class, they said, Okay, we\u2019re not making pinch pots, because the pinch pot is the first thing you learn when you\u2019re manipulating clay. Of course, he spent the entire class for the next several months making pinch pots. This is an extension of that. There is a sense of the handmade and the used that is a through line throughout my collection. But it\u2019s so elemental, too. And his glaze is so good.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis Maria Pergay chair is new. We just started working with her estate a few months ago. The rings either come in threes or fours. One of the famous stories of Maria Pergay is that she got the idea of this ring chair by peeling an orange for her son. I always love this idea of being inspired by a simple domestic activity. The way I learned the story was through A.I. I asked it, Can you tell me a story about Marie Pergay as a mother that relates to her design? and that\u2019s the story it gave me. I love asking it kooky questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis is the most iconic piece in the house, don\u2019t you think? It\u2019s actually the first work of art that we put in here. David [Hammons] chose it when we were building the house. It\u2019s called Basketball Chandelier. He sat right there [gestures to couch] and there were these riggers, these guys with these big hands. But they couldn\u2019t quite get a handle on where to grab on to the basketball because there\u2019s all this other stuff there, and he was directing them where to go. It was great. I wish I had pictures of the installation day. It must have been 23 years ago. He did a big show with Hauser & Wirth, but he\u2019s the OG of self-representation. In fact, he famously put a basketball chandelier himself into auction.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis is a David Wiseman bronze chair. All of his work is related to nature. The upholstery that you see is imitating a body of moss. This almost looks like a branch and then there\u2019s a little signature on the back, a little fish here. We\u2019ve been working with David for a while, but one of the things that I love about his practice is how artisanal it is, and everything is made in his studio in Frogtown, L.A. He has his own foundry and does all of his porcelain work there. And he has this beautiful garden that\u2019s part of the inspiration. It\u2019s a very singular chair, but a lot of the work is lonely.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe gorilla by Daisy Youngblood is very much about being alone\u2013or being alone and facing a gorilla in nature. It\u2019s about mortality in a sense. It\u2019s is so otherworldly and human, and yet so much a gorilla. It\u2019s kind of anthropomorphized. I\u2019ve always been in love with Daisy Youngblood. She doesn\u2019t make that much work, so I pursued finding the exact one that I wanted for many years. He\u2019s amazing, very human. But is he very gorilla? Or are you just reading into it because a gorilla is part-human? What\u2019s so uncanny about it is, you\u2019re never face to face with a gorilla, but I imagine if you were, that gorilla might look like this. Is that a good way describing it? You definitely feel your own mortality next to it. It\u2019s called Little Gorilla, but it\u2019s got such a huge presence in my world.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis is a gift Gaetano Pesce gave me [right], next to the Magdalene Odundo ceramic vase [top left]. He gave it to me about maybe four or five years ago. It\u2019s so gloppy. I bring home works as individual objects that have moved me, but when they exist in my living space, they definitely share a dialogue with something else. I\u2019ve always imagined putting something special on my parents\u2019 Beaux-Arts French frou-frou pedestals [bottom left], and it took me many years to imagine what would be the right objects to go on top of them. This room is a test in a sense that, if something can hold their place, and be autonomous and have its own integrity, then that means it\u2019s a working object. It\u2019s communicating at its own speed with its own language, but that it\u2019s able to carry on a conversation amongst other very charismatic objects. Each object has its own speed and charisma and attitude. I\u2019m only talking about how the objects function amongst other objects. I don\u2019t ask anybody how they think that the Gaetano looks with the Odundo. I actually don\u2019t care. I only care about how I feel with them. I\u2019m sorry, that\u2019s kind of rude to say, but it\u2019s very specific. It\u2019s very specific because my job is to think in a forward manner about putting unlike objects together, and taking different speeds and different sensibilities and allowing them to exist together and have a conversation together. If I can\u2019t do that, then I\u2019m not doing my job. Because, my job is to present you as a viewer with something that you haven\u2019t seen before\u2013and at the gallery, especially.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis space is just a small laboratory where I can do that. A lot of people will say, Pesce, oh, my gosh, you can\u2019t put that with anything. He\u2019s a radical designer. But it\u2019s my job to take these things and put them together and say, No, they can coexist in a space. Look at the different textures and materials. You have different processes. You have resin, which is a poured process which is very quick, whereas the Odundo vase is literally years of work and practice. She builds her ceramic vessel through a coil-based work, and then a burnishing. The impossibility of hand-making a vessel with this beautiful tall neck\u2013I mean, talk about anthropomorphic. It\u2019s almost like a woman with her hands on her hips. You\u2019ve got these wonderful nipples or belly buttons. You know it\u2019s holding something special inside. You just feel how special this is as being a female, as a vessel, and the handmadeness and every detail on it. The other thing is, when I talk about different attitudes\u2013something that has humor, something that\u2019s very serious, something that\u2019s lonely\u2013we want to cover all of the emotional spectrum when we\u2019re looking at art. You don\u2019t want it all to have the same measure, or the same volume. I want to have things that represent different emotional states. When Pesce gave it to me, I just plopped him in the corner, and he\u2019s stayed there ever since. But feel him. Feel it. It\u2019s silicone. It\u2019s soft, but it looks like it\u2019s supposed to imitate glass, which is really funny as well. Well, that\u2019s the other thing with sculpture, a lot of it is meant to be touched. I have objects that you can touch, you can sit in, you can put flowers in. But the Odundo is clearly ceremonial. I want you just to look at it. I want you to be able to look around it, I want you to be able to experience it, but I don\u2019t want you touching it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis is a new Rick Owens antler chair. It\u2019s a new material for him. It\u2019s called tigerwood, which is not a real wood. It\u2019s rather a treatment of a simple piece of plywood, and then it\u2019s stained and shined and stained and shined to create this tiger print. So it\u2019s very artisanal, and very upscale, but a also very modest material, which I love. And then of course the moose antlers are shed. They get them mostly in Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis is styrofoam and cork sculpture by Huma Bhabha. It is very light, and I can move it around myself. When she\u2019s carving cork, it\u2019s actually incredibly soft bur it looks super violent and hard, and like it\u2019s burned, but it\u2019s not. It\u2019s actually just charcoal. It\u2019s very malleable, that material. Smell the cork. Styrofoam doesn\u2019t smell, but the cork, doesn\u2019t it smell delicious? Don\u2019t you love things that play a little bit with gravity and weight? Alev [Eb\u00fczziya Siesbye], who has a vessel upstairs, is the exact opposite. She says any object should look like its weight, which is something to think about.\u201d<\/p>\n

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