5.22.2011

the collector joseph holtzman

I've started digging through my
"gold mine"
of nests today.
My stash of all
26 issues.

This spread is from issue #2.
(I dug into issue #1 a while back....)
I believe this is Jonathan Holtzman's home.
It is, but it's not stated that it is, but it is.
And yes the Kandinsky, Dubuffet and Picasso are real.

The mix of styles and eras is staggering,
as is the art and decoration.
I think this is the only home in the world where there is a
Higgins glass screen next to a Rothko.
(Behind a Dalpayrat ceramic and a Matisse bronze...)
Also, check out the miniature Florence Knoll sofa and chair.
Is that a Donald Judd on the floor???

A dust ruffle on the concert grand?

Dr. Christopher Dresser holds court with
Delacroix, Rembrandt, Degas, Moore 
and very busty Giacometti.

All I have to say for this mishmash is WOW!

Humping turtles....
Table by Studio Alchimia????

Yeah, that's a Miro being lit by a Serge and a Paavo.
Bed by Herter Brothers.

nest 
a quarterly magazine of interiors
issue #2
fall 1998
(unique cover by Rosemarie Trockel)

UPDATE:
I am seriously high from having this magazine
open on my lap for the last 30 minutes or so,
 the inks, the dyes, the glue,
it not having been opened in 13 years....
I am sooo lightheaded and dizzy....
I was wondering what that smell was....
DON'T TELL THE KIDS!!!
They will be selling the back issues on the streets!!!
"Hey, wanna huff my nest??? 5 bucks huff....."
Wow....!
Gotta go lie down, if I don't wake up
at least y'all will know why....

3 comments:

  1. Anyone know how much a complete set goes for these days?

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  2. I remember reading this issue as a sophomore in HS and going absolutely nuts, salivating over everything and finding justification for my overarching desire for design objects, across all eras. I drove my mother nuts, whose own area of collecting is tightly edited and seldom deviates from late 19th/early 20th century.

    It used to be (and sadly is no longer the case) that you could see this apartment in motion on a weird youtube video produced by Troma -- it was used as a set for some production, and the Klieg lights lit all of Holtzman's glorious oddities, narrated by a woman in garish makeup. I remember her pointing out the Dubuffet (though a different one, perhaps?), as well as a funny looking Courbet portrait of a man in fancy military dress. Somehow, this weird collabo between Holtzman and Troma seems to have faded into the ether.

    People always talk about eclecticism in interiors, but generally what they are referring to is nothing of the sort -- the same sorts of related objects from a few periods grouped together. What I find most electric about Holtzman's pairings is how little they have to do with status or good taste in the conventional sense. All that aesthetic and English arts and crafts stuff he has tucked in there, brilliantly -- usually relegated to period rooms and declared quaint or ugly.

    Time for Nest, redux!!!

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  3. And I just ran into this in a recent story on 2thewalls -- seems apropos:

    "Though his passions are legion, there are some things Mr. Holtzman does not like. 'I'm tired of found objects, people just assembling things,'' he said, adding snobbishly that the stylish eclecticism practiced by flea-market shoppers is nothing more interesting than 'just good taste.'" - Joe Holtzman in conversation with David Coleman [The New York Times, 9.10.98]

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