Q&A with Satu and Celeste Greenberg of Art & Design Gallery, Tuleste Factory

Ahead of this year’s edition of Design Miami/ we sat down with Celeste and Satu Greenberg, the co-founders of Tuleste Factory, an art and design gallery located in Chelsea, New York City.

Celeste (left) & Satu (right) in Main Room - Photo by Abi Polinsky

Originally conceived as a creative space in 2018, Tuleste Factory is a quintessential and distinctive New York gallery featuring a dynamic, multi-national roster of emerging and established designers and artists who work across contemporary furniture, design objects, photography and fine art - including Facture, Ian Cochran, Moses Nadel, Ruvan Wijesooriya, Lyora Pissarro, and more.

Tuleste Factory will be presenting their Curio booth at Design Miami this year after their debut last year with a group presentation.

Miami Living: Did you always want to work in art & design? Tell us about your journey(s) from fashion to art + design?

We’ve always had very blurred lines across all creative fields and feel it's a symbiotic relationship between fashion, art, design & music.

Satu and I started our creative careers in fashion, from show production and editorial work to creating our accessories brand Tuleste in 2008. Our curiosity and passion for all arts led us to consulting with multiple artists we met, connecting and facilitating sales and collaborations through our network. After a few years of consulting we decided to focus our efforts on the collectible art & design world.. It was really a natural evolution for us. We opened our physical space, Tuleste Factory, 3.5 years ago and there’s been no turning back. The Factory is such a unique New York space with so much personality it really allows us to showcase a mix of art and design in our own, more conceptual way. There are surprises at every turn and we feel so lucky to have landed upon such a quintessential New York home for our creative pursuits. We started with three artists we had been consulting with and now have a roster of over 25 fine artists and designers.

Miami Living: Tell us about the artists and designers you represent. How do you choose/find/curate them?

We started The Factory with more of a focus on collectible design, which has since evolved into a solid mix of fine art and collectible design. The majority we’ve come across organically but as we grow we have artists reaching out to us and vice versa.

We’re working with so many incredible artists and on the design side we have focused on curating design studios that fabricate their own work. This gives us so much flexibility and capacity to specialize and execute custom commissions which is a huge part of our business. Facture and Ian Cochran are two great examples of this. Facture recently created a custom Yves Klein blue soaking bathtub for a private residence in Tribeca, a 25 foot resin futuristic cash wrap and is currently working on an entire kitchen/bathroom project, which will include countertop, sinks and incredible backsplashes and skylight paneling. Ian has made custom consoles, shelving, tables, etc. Not only are designs customized but colors as well, allowing designers and clients a lot of freedom for collaboration. On the fine art side we just had 2 consecutive solo shows by Abi Polinsky and Lyora Pissarro in collaboration with The Allaux Brothers. Upon meeting Abi, we were blown away by his dedication to his photography craft in all aspects, from creative direction, to set design to execution, he’s got it all. Lyorra’s impressionist landscape oil paintings are so powerful and transformative on their own and come to another dimension of life with the projection mapping by Alex and Oliver Allaux.

Work by Ian Cochran

Miami Living: What do you have planned for your Curio booth at Design Miami/ this year? How and why did you choose the artists/designers to participate?

We have something extremely special planned for this year’s Design Miami. Without giving everything away, think blue, in all its glory with beautiful shades and transparencies. We titled our booth Through and Through and will be showcasing four designers' work in various shades of blue. We love to create an immersive, conceptual presentation and this year will include g a lighting designer to fully execute our vision. Designers included are Facture, Ian Alistair Cochran, Jt. Pfeiffer and new Factory lighting designer Yonathan Moore. We strive to create rooms vs booths for any art fairs we participate in so that viewers can really experience the art pieces instead of just viewing them.

Work by Jt. Pfeiffer

Miami Living: Any favorite art or design-specific spots in Miami? How does NYC differ?

We love the Art Deco vibe of Miami, and of course the warm weather. We love to explore the Design District and Wynwood as well and would say ARCA’s gorgeous new showroom is one of our favorite design specific places to visit. They curate everything impeccably with every detail carefully thought out and executed to the “T”. We also are huge fans of the Faena property.

Work by Yonathan Moore

Miami Living: What are you most looking forward to this Miami Art Week?

We will be working at our DM Curio booth much of this time so super excited to meet everyone who visits and explores all the special pieces so many artists and designers create for this short period of time. The energy in the city is just always inspiring during Miami Art Week and we love to see all of the installations pop up…last year our favorite was Hall Of Visions at Faena by Pilar Zeta.

Miami Living: What's new for the Tuleste Factory in 2023?

We are launching our first collection under TF in collaboration with a landscape architect company Manscapers, an incredible collection of indoor/outdoor planters. They are all hand crafted by artisans in Mexico City & Guadalajara. The final products are super chic fluted fiberglass in hard to find sizes that really make a statement. We saw a void in this category as we are big plant lovers and could never find unique large scale planters that could withstand a Northeastern winter and also had holes for drainage or trays that matched. Can’t wait for everyone to see these and this will be the first of many product collections designed by our TF team. We will also be collaborating with another Factory artist and killer concept interior designer Brandi Howe, launching some must have furniture pieces.

Speaking of Mexico, we’re super excited about some new additions to the TF roster in 2023, including Mexico City based artists Katia Guzman and Sol Bailey Barker. We’re also looking forward to really pushing the boundaries in our conceptual rooms with exciting installations and shows. The best is yet to come!

By ML Staff. Images courtesy of Tuleste Factory