Atelier Jolie

In the former carriage house on Great Jones Street where Jean-Michel Basquiat lived, worked, and died, a politically motivated community of artists, writers, and thinkers is rising under Angelina Jolie’s aegis.

The address comes with its own mythology. Andy Warhol bought it in 1970, though its earlier lives as a stable, furniture store, auction house, and saloon still vibrate through the space. Basquiat’s signature black crown still frames the windows, and early comics remain pasted on the walls.

That layered, restless energy is what Jolie and Co. are channeling. What began as the headquarters for its sustainable fashion brand has evolved into a fluid exhibition space. Programming, which moves between photography, sculpture, performance, and social commentary, is led by The Invisible Dog, a beloved Brooklyn art nonprofit.

Exhibitions have included a quiet, powerful series by Jeremy Dennis, a Shinnecock photographer whose cinematic images stage Indigenous oral stories and lived experience; The Strangers, a meditation on the psychic landscape of the Black diaspora inspired by James Baldwin; and Tschabalala Self’s constructed figures, which filled the space with the particular force she brings to Black womanhood and selfhood.

Catharsis Arts Foundation hosts a monthly talk series in the second-floor studio, convening artists, scholars, and activists to consider art as a form of healing. The crowd is international, curious, and notably unself-conscious—people sit on the floor, and no one seems in a rush to leave.

Atelier Jolie began as a fashion venture and has grown into an art center. You’ll find a gallery at the front of the building and the Eat Offbeat Café in the back, where you can refuel on great coffee, tea, and pastries made by chefs from Syria, Sudan, and Venezuela. The cafe doubles as a site for art classes, while residencies for artists and designers are held upstairs. The mix is thoughtful, occasionally uneven, and very much alive, closer to working studio than finished product — which is, of course, the goal.