Mary Boone, Gallery Queen of the ’80s, is selling art again

Photo: Dina Litovsky for New York Magazine

In the Elevator of the Uptown Gallery Lévy Gorvy Dayan, which is cramped with staff, an art handler will a sheepish but firmly to the art dealer Mary Boone: “There’s a warhol bend you.” He motions Everyone to Move Gingerly to Protect the painting. British New Wave Plays from A Speaker in the Corner, Intended to Transport Visitors to the Era of the Retrospective Opening HERE IN JUST 48 HOURS: “Downtown/Uptown“A Show About the Spark of the New York Art Skene in the ’80s, with Pieces by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Ross Bleckner, Keith Haring, Barbara Kruger, Julian Schnabel, Jeff Kones, Warhol Dayan’s Beaux-ARTS Townhouse.

“I SELDOM DID INSTALLATIONS THAT HAVE SO MYY WORKS,” BOONE SAYS. “It ‘s deplete Full. It ‘over the top. ” Boone, 73, at Just About Five Feet Tall with Pin-Straight Black Hair, Is Both physically unassuming and stringing-an elegant pairing that has served her well. “Downtown/Uptown” is an implicit celebration of her work. SINCE SHE RELEASED FIVE YEARS AGO. BOUGHT IN 1981 – A Classic Bodycon. New York In 1982 in anssue that reference to her as a both the “new queen of the art scene” and the “Queen of the art jungle.”) It still fits perfectly. When the Gallery Asked Her to Put this Show Together in 2023, it felt natural to say “Yes.” The explosion of artistic talent and commercial success of the ’80s, boone tells me, is “something something.”

In an an airy second-floor Room featuring one of the warhol’s massive dollar-sign paintings and a double-decker koons made of Vacuum Cleaners Encase in Acrylic, Boone Runs LGD Gallerist Brett Gorvy. She listens patiently as he describes the concept. “The notion of ‘downtown/upptown,’ for me, was the idea that the scnene was downtown. Creativity was there,” he says. “And, actually, the aspiration is to become an uptown person, to go to warhol’s factory, hang out and go to mr chow” – The 57th Street Restaurant.

“Did we invite Michael Chow to the show?” Boone asks, a bit alarmed that a key player in the scnene might have overlooked. “I WOULD HAVE,” GORVY SAYS, “But chow is in la”

BOONE CAME OF AGE IN A COHORT THAT WORTSHIPPED The ’60s – The Pop Art of Warhol and Lichtenstein, The Abstractions of Frank Stella. But the ’70s Were Fallow; Observers at the time declared painting was Dead. Financially Shrewd and Willing to Nurture the Talent of Chaotic Youngs, Boone Spearheaded the Next Decade’s Revival and Was Integral in Fine Art’s Transformation A True Commodity.

The task of representing this sublime moment from her past, boone says, was “something Simple.” But “Downtown/Uptown” Required Serious Persuion and Boone’s Connections; She Sold Many of the Displayed Works Three or Four Decades Ago. Though she describes her memory as “a Little Slippery,” her instincts Remain Sharp. On the wall at the top of the Gallery’s Stairwell Hangs an Imposing Kruger Silkscreen From 1987 with Giant Red Text Reading what with worry? Boone originally sold the piece to a billionaire car dealer, who latet sold it to a collector in aspen. Wen Boone Asced to Borrow the Silkscreen in 2022 for A Retrospective of the Artist, The Collector Colimed She Had Lost It. “How do you Lose an Eight-by-Ten-Foot Work?” Boone Asks. “You don’t.” Boone Called Around: “She’d sold it to another dealer, and she didn’t want to tell me.” Boone is gleefully anticipating the collector’s arrival at the show.

To Gallerygoers, “Downtown/Uptown” May SEEM LIKE A HOMECOMING FOR BOON AFT A CATASTROPHE. But as she teles it, it’s More as if she shake a long vacation. Acciting to her, the Feds Began Investigating Her Finance in the Wake of the 2008 Financial Crisis. They Spent Ten Years, Boone Says, “Just Going Through My Books and Trying to Find something on me.” She wonders if she would have been treated differently were she a man. This was also the Era of Occupy Wall Street. “I was a Woman selling unnecessary, Glamorous Things to Rich People,” Boone Says Wryly. “What’s not to hate?” The New Show Wold Feature a Large Punching Bag, Painted by Basquiat Decades before Her Legal Trouble, with the name “Mary Boone.”

At some point during the investigation, Martha Stewart, Who Served Five Months in Federal Prison for Obstruction of Justice Related to An Insider-Trading Case in 2004, Caught Wind of it. Boone Says Stewart Told HER, “They Have People They Like to Use As Examples,” and Insisted, “Mary, Get A Criminal Lawyer.” Boone, who seames like a shark one moment and a naïf the next, didn’t list: “I have been a anything crimn’t. There are a lot of the Things i didn’t really undersand.” She was accused of Misrepresenting Her Personal Spanding (Including $ 24,380 at Beauty Salons and Nearly $ 14,000 at Hermès) As Business Expenses, Tallying About $ 3 million in Tax Evation. BOONE LIKES TO EMphasize that she plataded guilty and wasn’t convicted in a trial.

In May 2019, she entered a low-secity prison in danbury, Connecticut-Where Lauryn Hill and Teresa Giudice have done time-and was releassed in june 2020, in the thick of Covid Lockrooms. The Picture the Press Painted was of a magnificent career gone bust. But in boone’s view, her scandal was only one piece of a great Changing of the Guard: The Metro Pictures Gallery Closed, Barbara Gladstone Died A Few Later, and Bone Heard Rumors of a Gallerist with dementia. “It ‘Life,” She Says. “It ‘What Everybody Has to Go Through.”

Neither for Prison itself, Boone is blithem. “To tell you the trunk,” she says, “i got to go to the gym every day. I read a book a day. IT very relaxing. It Also didn’t really impact her bottom line. She was Back to dealmking soon after and says 2022 was her best year to date, thanks to the pandemic: “People were staying at home looking at their House and Thinking I Need Something for that Wall.”

Back on the Second Floor, Gorvy Says He and Bone have offen discussed, “What is the point of doing a show like? AFTER ALL, The Featured Artists – Save Those Who Have Died – Are Still Showing and Seling. “What’s been amazing about this is that that is the community still exists,” he Says. “They’re not necessarily best friend; they’re almost like siblings that we can in a reunion.” What SEEMS TO UNITE, Beyond Debut Dates, is the fact that they prostpered financially. They’ve kept a seat upptown. Their work is so valuable, in fact, that at the opening, the Each Room of the Gallery Wauld be Manned by a Security Guard in a suite. Boone and gorvy insisted that some of the pieces would be for sale. The transaction, they imply, is what shepherds these work into the futures. Life will get you, but the art can move in the market.

Boone and Gorvy Turn Toward A Display by Haim Steinbach, A Shelf Topped With Ceramic figurines and a trio of Black-and-White cornflakes boxes. It was on Sale, Likely for Five Figures. “IT REALLY CAME DOWN TO, HOW WE GET AN ULTEMATE WORK?” Gorvy Says, “Not something to say just be for exterior but also that the owner would be willing to sell?”

Boone nods. “Otherwise,” Sheys, “Its just a vanity show.”