DOWNTOWN 2021

In “DOWNTOWN 2021” artists from more than 25 galleries present sculpture, painting, drawing, installation, and video, in a riotous but carefully curated group exhibition at La MaMa Galleria. Acknowledging the demographic and cultural shifts over the past decades, “downtown” here is not constrained to a geographic location, but is rather a conceptual framework, and includes galleries from three boroughs.

Where else but here can the legendary neon lights of the recently closed Beverly’s, a bar, night club, performance venue, and all-around curatorial experiment, meet the lightboxes of LJ Roberts, and mingle with the glow from Jessie Stead’s LED-lit Beaded Interludes (reprise) (2019). Other highlights include Nabunjo from the Kuchu Lungfish Clan (2020), Leilah Babirye’s West African-inflected carved, burnt, and waxed wood sculpture; Sam Chun’s taut and delicate chain-linked Amulet (Long Live, Live Long) (2020); and the Ho-Chunk artist Sky Hopinka’s destabilizing text-on-image work.