"Mary Boone sat behind the front desk at Lévy Gorvy Dayan on New York's Upper East Side on a recent autumn afternoon, a green datebook open beside her iPhone. The scene was familiar yet newly reframed: Boone, who once ruled New York's downtown art world, now holding court uptown. She moved between visitors and staff with the same brisk authority that defined her four decades in the business, part comeback and part continuation."
"That afternoon she was preoccupied with the gallery's front door. The impressively tall doorway had endured triple the gallery's usual foot traffic, and a hydraulic spring that absorbed its weight had given out, causing the door to creak with every opening. Undeterred, Boone liaised with the gallery's head preparator to solve the problem all while working the crowd with ease, greeting old friends and striking up conversations with new faces."
"Downtown/Uptown: New York in the Eighties (until 13 December) took nearly two years to put together and was co-curated by Boone and Brett Gorvy. The show brings together more than 60 works by some of the titular decade's biggest names including Jeff Koons, Barbara Kruger, Julian Schnabel, Cindy Sherman, Keith Haring, Richard Prince and Jean-Michel Basquiat-and revisits the period that both launched Boone's career and came to define it."
Mary Boone, 73, presides at Lévy Gorvy Dayan on Manhattan's Upper East Side, moving between visitors and staff with brisk authority. She handled practical gallery issues, including a creaking hydraulic-front door, while engaging old friends and new faces. Downtown/Uptown: New York in the Eighties, co-curated with Brett Gorvy, brings together more than 60 works by major 1980s artists such as Jeff Koons, Barbara Kruger, Julian Schnabel, Cindy Sherman, Keith Haring, Richard Prince and Jean-Michel Basquiat. The exhibition took nearly two years to assemble and marks Boone's first major project in over five years after her gallery closed and a 2019 tax-evasion conviction that resulted in a 30-month sentence, of which she served 13 months before early release during the Covid-19 pandemic. The show includes archival ephemera from the era.
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