Store Front
March 11–May 16, 2021

Beginning March 11, Demisch Danant invites three creatives to design its storefront windows on historic W 12th St in the West Village.  Editor Dung Ngo, artist David Hartt, and floral designer Emily Thompson will each apply their unique design perspective on structure, form, and architecture to provoke the senses, instigate curiosity in passersby and contribute to the cultural experience of the street.

New York's storefronts constitute the city's vernacular architecture.
(New Yorker, 2009)

They are identifying fixtures of the neighborhoods they serve. 30 W 12th St was the home of legendary S.F. Vanni, the oldest Italian bookstore in America. Neighbors still remember the pale blue curtains that covered the storefront from 1940 – 2016.  One can still see the visual hallmarks indicative of Demisch Danant’s storied past, such as its door’s brass hardware and its letter box.

March 31 – April 18
David Hartt is an artist whose work explores how historic ideas and ideals persist or transform over time.  For the window he is including prototypes and process works that he lives with at his home in Philadelphia. The assembled pieces offer a diverse array of forms and materials: A vacuum formed planter, wooden bucks for blown glass works, a carpet fragment from the Johnson Publishing Company Headquarters in Chicago, a silk and wool jacquard tapestry sample, and a table carved in Africa, based on the altered form of a Tony Smith sculpture.  Also included in the gallery is a collection of Hartt’s ephemera; generated from working as an artist for over 20 years, it includes postcards, posters and multiples.

The display titled Ephemera is a reflection on an artist’s process and the status of objects conceived for one purpose and used for another; finding ways to become useful or souvenirs of the past, what remains at the end of the day.

On view from March 11 through May 16, 2021, Store Front continues Demisch Danant’s exploration of the intersection of architecture, design and art.