Now Open: Tuleste Factory

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By DARYL RASHAAN KING, February 2020

Former versions of design and art were synonymous with each other when more wasn’t exclusive to monarchs and their lives.  Minimalism appeared and captured that essence. Tuleste Factory’s "inspiration” is a function.  The theme is the collision of mixed media, design a quintessential New York loft, known as The Factory Room.  The Factory Room revives the untraditional art gallery with a preview of work made by Atra, Facture, Amanda Richards, and Fernando Mastrangelo.  Chelsea’s standing as the epicenter of the New York art industry is questionable.  The Factory Room is part of a new, concerted movement that investigates the shortage of galleries run by women.  Or for that matter, single women, who are not attached to a richer spouse or family name.  

Drum by Fernando Mastrangelo, Courtesy of TL Magazine

Artists are actively working against this. It is the perfect time to investigate the items in place. The Factory Room was well-curated enough to feel like a lived-in space. Comfort was not sacrificed, in sharp contrast to the pollution and toxicity overflowing on the streets. It hits you in the face as soon as a jolt that leaves you disillusioned. The Factory Room gracefully makes the predicament something really simple, but can metaphors go that far? There are issues and problems with classification. Anxieties, concerning boldness and being daring, have also pushed the fields of art and design. Transfiguration also makes a mess out of the uncommon combination of art and industrial design.

Table and Stools by Facture

Atra’s design team carries a group of artists, matched by their strong affinity for artisanship.  The founder and creative director, Alexander Díaz, believes that it allows him the privilege of seeing things on a fine line between that present, the complete and the comprehensive design.  Signs of technical experimentation and practice are hidden.  He plays with fire, conducting tests to study the effects that fire has on various materials.  What has allowed so many fires to spread beyond human control?  In areas where a piece particularly negates its own usefulness, we would not expect such pieces of design.  We would, as it may seem, talk about the missing peculiarity.  When oddity becomes a prop, displayed for the sake of saving face, deep thinking makes it possible for the audience to enjoy a greater sense of Freedom. 

It is missing from some patterns in the creative industry.  Yesterday’s curse words now compliment the art and make it possible for today’s art to exist.  Consider the commercial celebration of Frida Kahlo, without any active discussion on how to inspire a new feminist rebellion against the measures used to define the space between two points on the block.  There would be clamor.  Facture Studio can, therefore, mimic life, whereas Amanda Richards has started to create work that explores how great design veils knobs, handles, and other fidgets.  The process of bluntly taking on the offensive gets us to a more balanced sense of equilibrium, where neither art nor design dominates.    

Pearl Scones by Amanda Richards, flanked by furniture from Atra

The institutions, on which we depend on for elevating our lives, come with their own circumstances.  The art institution was challenged and celebrated without getting into a richer lexicon.  As fascinating as good art is, its deviations can take us to the point where art gets married to design, where we can see both Facture Studio and Amanda Richards playing with the concept of light.  Are we to take it in the form of energy, like Richards?  Or the theoretical work of Facture, which investigates a lot of colors and optical illusions?  Even if they were to use other ideas as the foundation of their work, they both stand out as the amplification of common features, every day.  Amanda Richards recently branched out of the studio of Fernando Mastrangelo, leaving viewers more excited to see who else graduates from his instruction.

Eclipse Sofa by Atra

We are still trapped in some forms of investigation and representation, but also lucky that Fernando Mastrangelo, the head of his own studio, has been working to also produce a generation of new creators.  Everything is pronounced by heavy content and pure exercise in technicalities.  It doesn’t trace the development of art and some substantial matter is lost.  Mastrangelo’s mirrors are playful.  As we unravel what is going on around the studio, it’s clear that Mastrangelo can provide a safe conversational place.  It is one where futuristic characters were once children during the 1990s.  Although some principle ideas weren’t fully explored, Mastrangelo upheld the principles of art.  An abundance of beauty still resonated from each design piece inside of The Factory Room. WM