Show notes and images available on our website.

In this episode of Decorated, Cotter and Will discuss Art et Industrie, the SoHo gallery that redefined what furniture could be. Founded in 1979 by Rick Kaufman and Tracy Rust, the gallery blurred the boundaries between art and design, object and expression. It created a new context for furniture as a conceptual practice, rejecting the rationality and uniformity of modernist design. Art et Industrie is often compared to the Memphis Group, and in fact it was the first gallery in the United States to exhibit work by Italy’s Studio Alchimia—including Ettore Sottsass—bringing radical ideas about what design could be to a New York audience.

Set against the backdrop of New York in the 1980s, this episode explores how the gallery championed handcrafted, one-of-a-kind design pieces—decades before art furniture became a recognized genre. With firsthand stories from artists, curators, and gallerists, we trace the gallery’s influence on the American design landscape and its lasting impact on how we think about furniture, interiors, and the relationship between art and design.

Interviews with key voices—including artists Howard Meister and Elizabeth Browning Jackson, historian and curator Glenn Adamson, and gallerists Stephen Markos and Hugues Magen—shed light on the cultural significance of Art et Industrie, its ties to Italian Radical Design and Memphis, and its role in shaping New York’s downtown art and design scenes.

In 1979, amidst the creative explosion of New York’s legendary downtown, everyday objects become conceptual statements.

Rewind back to 1979, when everyday objects became conceptual provocations, in the creative explosion of New York’s legendary downtown