From October 1, 2022 to January 29, 2023, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art presents Somewhere Downtown, a group exhibition evoking and celebrating the uninhibited creativity of Downtown New York City in the 1980s. The exhibition reveals the heights of expression that arose from within the urban landscape of America's largest city at its economic nadir. Artists from vastly different backgrounds, working across a remarkable range of media, emerged in New York during this era and went on to become some of the most important artists of the late twentieth century. In galleries and museums, but also on the streets, in nightclubs, and at new alternative spaces that artists founded themselves, it was a time of radical experimentation and open dialogue, but also a turbulent period in which artists and their communities were buffeted by—and responded to—the AIDS crisis, New York City's accelerating gentrification, and the expansion of consumer culture. Eschewing chronological or genre-based organization, the exhibition is arranged into ten sections that trace out themes through the work of artists in a wide variety of media: from interventions in painting, sculpture, photography, and performance, to explorations of then-nascent forms such as graffiti and new media installations. Somewhere Downtown features the work of sixty artists and groups, from the most celebrated artists of the era to unsung innovators. The exhibition is curated by Carlo McCormick and UCCA Curator-at-Large Peter Eleey.
Participating artists include Charlie Ahearn (b. 1951), John Ahearn (b. 1951), Ellsworth Ausby (1942-2011), Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988), Gretchen Bender (1951-2004), Edo Bertoglio (b. 1951), Ashley Bickerton (b. 1959), Mike Bidlo (b. 1953), Diane Burns (1956-2006), Sarah Charlesworth (1947-2013), Papo Colo (b. 1946), Arch Connelly (1950-1993), Jimmy DeSana (1949-1990), Jane Dickson (b. 1952), Chris "Daze" Ellis (b. 1962), Luis Frangella (1944-1990), Futura (Leonard McGurr, b. 1955), Peter Halley (b. 1953), Keith Haring (1958-1990), Robert Hawkins (b. 1951), Jenny Holzer (b. 1950), Peter Hujar (1934-1987), Valerie Jaudon (b. 1945), Kiely Jenkins (1959-2005), Robert Kushner (b. 1949), LA2 (Angel Ortiz, b. 1967), Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt (b. 1948), Louise Lawler (b. 1947), Robert Longo (b. 1953), Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989), Maripol (b. 1957), John "Crash" Matos (b. 1961), McDermott (b. 1952) & McGough (b. 1958), Nicolas Moufarrege (1947-1985), Elizabeth Murray (1940-2007), Lorraine O'Grady (b. 1934), Joe Overstreet (1933-2019), Nam June Paik (1932-2006), Judy Pfaff (b. 1946), Richard Prince (b. 1949), Lee Quiñones (b. 1960), Rammellzee (1960-2010), Judy Rifka (b. 1945), Walter Robinson (b. 1950), Martha Rosler (b. 1943), Christy Rupp (b. 1949), Kenny Scharf (b. 1958), Julian Schnabel (b. 1951), Cindy Sherman (b. 1954), Laurie Simmons (b. 1949), Kiki Smith (b. 1954), Nancy Spero (1926-2009), Haim Steinbach (b. 1944), Sturtevant (1924-2014), Tabboo! (b. 1959), Rigoberto Torres (b. 1960), Tseng Kwong Chi (1950-1990), Dondi White (1961-1998), David Wojnarowicz (1954-1992), and Martin Wong (1946-1999).
The advent of the 1980s saw America entering a conservative moment, a reaction to the urban unrest, protest movements, and economic crises of the 1960s and 1970s. While a Wall Street boom would put New York at the heart of the era's free market fervor, in other ways the city seemed to exist at a far remove from the new cultural climate. As New York teetered on the edge of bankruptcy and crime soared in the 1970s, many middle-class white residents fled for the suburbs, leaving Downtown ripe for reinvention by its more deeply rooted communities (often racially and economically marginalized) and new arrivals (themselves escaping the parochialism of small-town America). Though in some ways inspired by or linked to earlier avant-garde movements, artists sought to break with the past, pushing to go beyond Modernism's unfulfilled promises.
The exhibition's ten sections highlight different aspects of this extraordinarily vibrant period. "The City as Muse" showcases New York itself as a setting and subject, featuring art made and performed in public spaces by Diane Burns, Papo Colo, and Keith Haring; and scenes of the city by Jane Dickson and Peter Hujar, among others. "Global Taste" demonstrates how Sarah Charlesworth, Louise Lawler, Martha Rosler, Laurie Simmons, and others appropriated images from art history, mass culture, and advertising to critique American consumer culture's expansion at home and abroad. "Blacklight" features painting and sculptures that Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf created for nightclubs, illustrating how the art world melded together with a booming, queer-focused nightlife scene.
On a more somber note, "The Body in Crisis" concerns the rise of the AIDS epidemic. Whether facing their own mortality or seeking to commemorate lost friends, artists created delicate works evoking the fragility of the body. In the face of tragedy, many sought refuge in the communal, as shown in "The Scene" through Maripol and Tseng Kwong Chi's photographs of musicians, divas, and club-goers gathering together. Alongside the personas showcased in the clubs, artists explored new identities and modes of self-performance. "Shifting Identities" places the stylized signatures of graffiti in the context of Ashley Bickerton's work with corporate logos, Sturtevant's repetitions of Keith Haring, and Lorraine O'Grady's performances that challenged the construction and reception of Black identity in and beyond the art world.
As suggested by the eclectic group of artists featured in "Myths and Archetypes"—including Robert Hawkins, Jenny Holzer, Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt, Nicolas Moufarrege, Cindy Sherman, Nam Jun Paik, Richard Prince, and Nancy Spero among them—artists repurposed and critiqued imagery from comics, pulp novels, and mythology to intervene in narratives of American exceptionalism and unsettle gender stereotypes. "Curtain and Stage" draws together works by Robert Kushner, Julian Schnabel, Laurie Simmons, and others that took a considered approach towards their backdrop, whether by referencing theater, dance, or the walls and subways on which graffiti first appeared. In "The Future that Never Happened," Rammellzee and Ellsworth Ausby revel in the liberatory potential of Afrofuturism, while Kenny Scharf's brightly colored Jetsons characters foreshadow the nostalgia-for-futures-past that would become widespread in the coming decades.
Fittingly, the exhibition's final section "Obsolete Creatures"—named after a painting of dinosaur skeletons by Martin Wong, one of the many brilliant artists tragically lost to AIDS—turns to the era's melancholic aftermath. As 1990s dawned, New York City and its artist communities had been transformed. In some cases, their visionary fusions of street culture, high art, and cutting-edge technology were co-opted by advertising and mass media. The development of the Internet over the decade that followed offered new ways to connect, and challenged New York's self-image as the world's cultural capital.
Yet the art shared in "Somewhere Downtown" remains urgently vital today, not least of all in China, where the Downtown scene was a key inspiration throughout the early days of the development of Chinese contemporary art. The works on display still have the power to fire imaginations, guiding us in a moment of uncertainty and change to dive into the myriad possibilities of art and all forms of creative self-expression.
Exhibition co-curator Carlo McCormick comments, "It has been a thrill to work with UCCA, a museum with such a remarkable record of bringing truly important Western art to the Chinese audience. We embarked on 'Somewhere Downtown' very much in that spirit of sharing, of trying to explain something about our experiences, our fears and our hopes, in the belief that the challenges we face and the way we try to deal with them are something people can find great commonality in despite their differences.
This period of the early 1980s in NYC was one of tremendous promise and problems, when a collective discontent with how things were done, in the arts and society, led to a questioning of the accepted or status quo, and an enthusiasm to find fresh directions. The past had begun to fail us—the great projects of Modernism, Industrialism, and Urbanism had come crashing down—and into this void of doubt, abandonment, and neglect a new generation stepped in with the remarkable energy that comes from community as much as individuality."
Press release courtesy UCCA.
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