Tribeca Citizen | Loft Peeping: Janis Provisor & Brad Davis

Loft Peeping: Janis Provisor & Brad Davis

May 22, 2013 • Real Estate

New York Social Diary visited the eclectic Laight Street loft of artists Janis Provisor and Brad Davis. While in China 20 years ago, they “found themselves taking over a state-run factory and establishing a carpet making business in Hangzhou. They went on to found the Fort Street Studio and, using their skills and ideas as artists, began to design painterly luxury wild silk Chinese-made carpets that sell both in the US and overseas. […] Janis also makes and sells gorgeous jewelry.”

As you might expect, they like art. The apartment includes works by Ed Ruscha, Alex Katz, Chuck Close, Kiki Smith, John Cage, Evgeny Antufiev (including one, we’re left to infer, based on his penis), Anna Sew Hoy, Jared Davis, Klara Kristalova, James Surls, Liu Zheng, Arlene Shechet, Jin Wei Hong, Jed Bark, Lois Lane, Elliott Greene, Tom Nozkowski, Wilson Shieh, Paloma Vargas Weisz, Patricia Blanchet, Catherine Opie, John Torreano, Curtis Jere, and Gu Luo.

They also have a wide-ranging eye for furniture. Among the loft’s contents: a Moroccan Boucherouite runner, a Brazilian 1960’s cabinet by Carlo Hauner, a Fornasetti butterfly table, a Christian Liaigre sofa, a Paul Evans dining table; Gio Ponti chairs, a Florence Knoll cabinet (from the late 1940s), a 19th-century Chinese lute table, a Noguchi table with Eames wire chairs, Vitsoe cabinets…. New York Social Diary is positively devoted to names, which shouldn’t really be a surprise, I suppose.

See much the loft in its all it glory, below (click to enlarge). And there are many more of Jeff Hirsch’s photos on the NYSD post, which you can find here, along with a Q&A with Janis Provisor that’s mostly about what life was like in China. The text is by Sian Ballen and Lesley Hauge.