TAKING ITS NAME FROM A PIECE BY MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ, RHYTHM ZERO THRIVES IN THE GRAY AREA BETWEEN COFFEE SHOP, SHOWROOM, AND NEIGHBORHOOD HANG-OUT.
When Marina Abramović first performed Rhythm 0 in 1974, she offered her body as a canvas, standing motionless as strangers were invited to do anything they pleased with 72 objects—among them a rose, a glass of wine, and a loaded gun. It was a brutal, brilliant test of trust and authorship, breaking boundaries between art and audience. Named in homage to that radical performance, Rhythm Zero in Greenpoint blurs lines of its own.
Part café and part gallery, the space is an ever-shifting composition where nothing is off-limits and everything is impermanent. Ivana Somorai and Aleks Tosic, the couple behind the space, insist that everything guests see has been touched, moved, repurposed, and resold. Each curated object carries the residue of presence, like a relic from a performance that never ends.
A striking Rembrandt print looms regally over the polished coffee bar. “I saw it in an antique store and thought she had to be here,” says Ivana as she stares at the Dutch Master’s work. The austere reproduction is the only permanent fixture in the space. Ivana rotates the pieces every few months, sometimes sooner. Rhythm Zero might look entirely different across two visits. Past collections vanish swiftly, snapped up through the café’s Instagram.
The couple hunts relentlessly for oddities: an antique Japanese screen here, a mid-century iron sculpture there. They know the café environment isn’t exactly gentle on designer works. Expensive pieces get knocked around. “That’s just part of the charm,” Ivana shrugs, seemingly unbothered. Her tastes are markedly Old World: dark wood, woven tapestries, and tempered silver.
CURATED BEGINNINGS
Nine years ago, Ivana and Aleks met at a party in their hometown of Novi Sad, Serbia. The nightclub had a fitting name for where their journey would later take them: Museum. “I told my friend I was going to marry her,” Aleks says. He wasn’t joking. As if fate agreed, both went on to win the green card lottery and move to New York.
When Ivana and Aleks first came stateside, they craved the cafés they had left behind: places where good coffee, excellent service, and beautiful design lived side by side. “We couldn’t find what we wanted here,” Ivana says. “So we decided to create it ourselves.”
Eventually, they found a blank canvas: a cavernous space on Kent Street, originally zoned as a gallery. Aleks painted the café’s 40-foot-high walls himself. It took weeks, but he insisted on doing it. Ivana spent months sourcing the furniture and artwork.
Design wasn’t something they learned—it was there from the start. Ivana grew up in her mother’s exhibition space. She knew how to hang a painting before she learned to drive. Aleks’s dad was an architect. Dinner table talk was about materials and light.
The result is a shared vision for something that evades categorization. Aleks jokes: “Google Maps calls us a coffee shop because it doesn't know what else to call us.” While Rhythm Zero sells single-origin espresso and laminated pastries, it’s hardly a commercial establishment. It is more aptly described as a curated living room.
WE DON’T JUST DECORATE—WE CURATE. EVERY OBJECT IS THERE FOR A REASON.
MORE ART TO THE PEOPLE
Rhythm Zero is what happens when two people trust each other’s taste so much that they don’t have to explain it. A renovated location in the West Village is a collaboration between the couple and Bandit, the running brand beloved by creatives who like their athleisure as considered as their coffee. A second café in Williamsburg is imminent, showcasing burgundy accents and curving walls.
Later this year, Ivana plans to open Rhythm Zero Studio, a quieter, more formal gallery, devoid of Greenpoint’s ubiquitous strollers. Aleks admits he’s eager for a new project. “It’s time to roast our own coffee,” he says, noting that he wants to control the quality of what they serve from bean to hand-spun coffee cup.
Is it a café that doubles as a gallery, or a personal showroom? It doesn’t matter. People come for coffee, linger over art, and stay because it somehow feels familiar, even comforting, despite its meticulous staging. Marina Abramović had something to say about it: “Art must be life—it is meant for everybody.”
WHOEVER COMES IN HERE WILL FEEL SOMETHING. THEY’LL FIND A FRIEND. THAT’S RHYTHM ZERO, IT’S A KIND OF SOCIAL ART.
RHYTHM ZERO
32 Kent Street
Brooklyn, NY 11222