Petzel is pleased to announce a new curatorial partnerships with Ahmass Fakahany and the Altamarea Group at the newly opened 53 Restaurant. Named after the architectural masterpiece in which it is located, 53 is a new Contemporary Asian restaurant opening in the 82-story, Jean Nouvel-designed residential tower at 53 West 53rd Street, adjoining the Museum of Modern Art in Midtown Manhattan. Given its iconic address at the base of the sculptural 1,050-foot-tall-tower, art is intrinsic to the DNA of dining at 53, with several MoMA gallery levels located directly above the restaurant. In the spirit of its location at 53 West 53, Fakahany entered into a unique curatorial partnership with globally renowned, Petzel Gallery. This special art collaboration intriguingly blurs the lines between gallery and restaurant, creating an immersive dining experience that showcases avant-garde artists. Friedrich Petzel will curate the art on view throughout the space and will concept a rotating installation of works every 3-5 months. The first artists to be in residence will be Jorge Pardo and Robert Heinecken. Some combination of additional artists will also be included periodically. “We are delighted to join forces with the caliber of Fakahany and Altamarea in such an exciting new venture where together we can reimagine the dining experience further through a program that draws from the special and eclectic collection of artists represented by our gallery,” said Friedrich Petzel.

Jorge Pardo’s lamps are one of his signature works—those categorical shifters that nod to the painterly image (light) one moment and sculptural object (form) the next, without ever ceasing to be the domestic appliances they basically are. Pardo transforms this everyday object to function as lighting, sculpture, and installation—blending the properties of each. Rather than being autonomous forms, Pardo’s lamps can be presented differently according to the context in which they are located.

Jorge Pardo’s flamboyant lightbox paintings use floral motifs, geometric patterns, paintings by artists admired by Pardo, appropriated images from the internet, and candid snapshots from the artist’s everyday life as their sources. Almagamating craftsmanship and computerized manipulation with a range of media, Pardo creates an intricate, hybridized fusion of painting, sculpture, and a source of light. The images are layered, collaged, engraved, laser-cut, hand-painted and back-lit with LEDs, to produce lusciously ornamental objects.

Robert Heinecken is widely considered a significant forerunner of appropriation art. A self-described ‘para-photographer’, Heinecken was interested in how mass-media was processed and consumed (or, alternately, how mass media processed and consumed its viewers with its “manufactured experience”). He was indebted to the Surrealist idea of chance and automatism as well as Barthes’ critique of photographic indexicality.

Heinecken’s “Daytime TV” works call attention to, and thus dismantle, the spectacle of the televisual. In these works, Heinecken takes still, decisive images of the TV’s image and makes two-dimensional dye sublimation prints. Created in an era when TV ads were largely oriented towards housewives, these works use the language of implicit and explicit exploitation as a means for forcing its viewers to confront the confining grasp of the heteronormative American Dream, a Dream powered and defined by an industry of commodification and consumption (whether of Arm & Hammer baking powder or the naked female body).

53 marks the fourth destination concept in New York City from restaurateur, Ahmass Fakahany, founder and CEO of the Altamarea Group, which includes the Michelin-Starred, Marea and Ai Fiori, and Morini branded restaurants. A passion project in mind for several years, with the opening of 53, Fakahany is artfully blending the varied taste profiles of Asian cuisine – from his almost 10 years living in Asia – with the ethos and artistic vibe of New York City, in a modern, three-level, lifestyle setting.