It is hard to imagine life without art. Despite its many forms, art is an experience we share based on shared experience. Designers Ulysses de Santi and Ashlee Harrison encounter this discussion in their new exhibition, Crossings, which transposes a penthouse in one of New York’s most architecturally sophisticated residential buildings into a shared dialogue between design and various forms of art.

53 West 53 rises a mighty 82 stories above Midtown New York’s sidewalk, with diagonal lines running across the face and extending to the interior layout. The unique design sets the perfect scene for Crossings. Curves interact with straights, jagged edges interact with smooth slopes, and ornate interacts with the plain. Furniture speaks to architecture, which speaks to painting, and all the way back around in elegant harmony. These physical characteristics extend further to the metaphysical. Contemporary interacts with the past, modernism with postwar, illustrating the continuing evolution of design and art through modern reexamination.

De Santi, a specialist in locating timeless pieces, suggests, “This exhibition reveals design not as static objects, but as part of an active, cross-disciplinary exchange to be experienced.” Harrison, a veteran New York curator and founder of THIRTY8 EAST, adds, "By presenting the exhibition within a domestic space, we were able to explore how histories, cultures, and disciplines overlap organically.”

The exhibit’s exchange across media establishes a transcendent language where art, architecture and design converse and contribute to a shared vision of unity. The display is now on view at Jean Nouvel-designed 53 West 53 until May 20.