A Former East Village School With an Egyptian Wing

The Kitchen and Dining Area: The dining table was fashioned from floor joists that had been removed to make the double-height studio downstairs, and the chairs were painted by Kim MacConnel. Owner Izhar Patkin made the standing Venetian-glass floor lamp. The floor-to-ceiling mural is by Scooter LaForge, whose wall paintings appear throughout the sprawling loft. Photo: Annie Schlechter

“I remember picking up the phone and telling my friends, ‘I did something crazy — but let’s do it together,’ ” says artist Izhar Patkin. This was 1994, and he had hastily put a down payment on an abandoned East Village public school that was newly up for sale. It took some convincing, but Patkin assembled a band of new housemates: The first tenants included a fashion editor, a musician, a documentary filmmaker, and a photographer. Over the years, the collective grew and transformed into a proper co-op, but back in the day Patkin had his pick of the rooms. And the only space he wanted was the ground floor — never mind that the windows were boarded up with tin and the wooden floorboards had been scorched in a fire. “I walked in and immediately was able to envision the whole thing as you see it now,” he says.

But his loft’s design can vary from one visit to the next. Patkin’s constantly shape-shifting home studio is an extension of his own work as well as a collaboration with other artists. Some of the first people Patkin worked with, back in the early ’80s, were the downtown gallerist Holly Solomon — who facilitated MoMA’s acquisition of his “Black Paintings” — and Kim MacConnel, whose startlingly bright hand-painted furniture graces Patkin’s labyrinth of rooms.

For the past few years, Patkin has been collaborating with the painter Scooter LaForge (whose large-scale graffiti-inspired paintings he first saw at the Howl! Happening gallery) on turning the living quarters into a freewheeling painter’s studio of sorts. LaForge is a fan of ancient Grecian amphorae, so he painted figures on a wall​ ​that was already the approximate shade of the Bronze Age vessels’ burnished orange. Meanwhile, over in the kitchen, LaForge decided to expand on his 15-by-6-foot canvas inspired by Tintoretto’s Creation of the Animals (completed in 1551 for the Trinity School in Venice) and painted the whole wall, the A/C vent included. As for the “chandelier” above the kitchen island: It’s an improvised dish rack. “It wasn’t really planned,” Patkin says. “I had a shitload of glass that needed to be put somewhere.”

The Egyptian Wing: This suite of rooms, which includes a sleeping chamber, is painted like an Egyptian tomb. Above LaForge’s painted sarcophagus is a Hebrew inscription explaining that humans are not superior to animals. Patkin bought the bedspread on a trip to India. Photo: Annie Schlechter

The Egyptian Wing: A small painting of a bunny, by Walter Robinson, hangs in the middle of the mural on the back wall. A glass bird by Max Ernst (an alter ego he named Loplop) sits on a shelf above a desk and chair painted by MacConnel and a lamp by Nam June Paik. Photo: Annie Schlechter

The Grecian Guest Room: The idea for the wall paintings came from the room’s original orange color, which Patkin felt needed to be redone or covered with a mural. LaForge’s love for ancient Grecian amphorae provided the inspiration. Photo: Annie Schlechter

The Biblical Bathroom: LaForge painted the Garden of Eden. Photo: Annie Schlechter

The Secret Garden Room: This small bedroom was the first room LaForge painted. The curtain covers an opening that looks down into the studio. The standing lamp made from bottles was designed by Patkin, and MacConnel painted the bedspread and chair. The floor coverings are plastic African mats. Photo: Annie Schlechter

*This article appears in the April 15, 2019, issue of New York Magazine. Subscribe Now!