I made the trek in the remnants of a rainy Nor’easter to the second edition of Basic.Space NY on opening morning. I liked that the inaugural year took over a former office space and it made for an interesting experience. This year the hybrid exhibition and retailing popup went a more conventional direction, occupying a storefront on Crosby Street in Soho. Inside was a maze of white partition walls showcasing art, design and fashion from independent and established brand exhibitors. With a few exceptions for pieces in the Silence Please listening room, everything exhibited is for sale.

Some of my favorites include the mixed media works by NY-based Drew Dominguez that isolate adhoc car repairs. With the addition of paint and tape to photographs, the works offer a critique of value association to consumer culture and in my view what humans do to either improve or degrade that perception. I like that these pieces have a very graphic first read and then upon closer inspection look hastily repaired themselves.

The circular grid mirrors from AB+AC Architects are quite cool and I think I’ve seen them before but not sure where. I like that reflections are precisely divided from straight on and become increasingly segmented as the viewing angle increases. A simple and elegant idea.

Lastly there’s some excitement over a landline phone. Three ENORME phones are on display and for sale. The phone was originally released in 1985 with the obvious design fingerprint of Memphis founder Ettore Sottsass. IDEO founder David Kelley undertook making it a real product and funding came from investor/art collector Jean Pigozzi. These three phones are from the famous time capsule collection of 500 found in California in 2025. Swap the colors and internals to digital and these seem ready made for a Teenage Engineering reboot.

Photos and Text: Dave Pinter