#new-york-art-scene

#new-york-art-scene

I wanted to be a great artist, not in the slang use of 'great,' but fantastic—reaching the soul of other people. This ambition drove Pat Steir throughout her life.

"As I stood and looked at it on a drizzly gray day," John Yau writes of looking at a radiant painting by Edward Zutrau, "I forgot that it was raining." That's what art can do - stop you in your tracks, make you forget absolutely everything save for that essential encounter between you and the work.

The goal for Downtown/Uptown is quite simple: to showcase the decade's best art for new generations. I was thinking about what art was pivotal to the moment, said Brett Gorvy, show co-curator. And also what over time has become pivotal. We've been lucky to be able to access the greatest paintings of so many of these artists. According to Gorvy, the 80s were typified by the central role of celebrity in the art world,

Breaking into the New York art scene requires what is euphemistically called 'context,' which includes credentials like an MFA from Yale or similar degrees.

"Everybody is trying to create multiple outposts, and they just stayed in New York and made it work. It's kind of miraculous. There's some sense to it, and also some magic."