Downtown, 1974-84

I waited until the last minute to see The Downtown Show at New York University's Grey Art Gallery. What a mistake! This messy and raucous show, which examines the artists who were active in Lower Manhattan from 1974 to 1984, is brilliant. I say messy because it is organized around some oddball themes, but how else can a curator accommodate a range of artists like Ida Applebroog, Chuck Close, Nan Goldin, Robert Mapplethorpe, and David Wojnarowicz - and those are just some of the bigger names.

The show is a crazy collection of drawings, paintings, photography, video (which lends a soundtrack), sketchbooks, letters and other printed matter that call to mind a period in art and in New York that continues to influence artists today. Kenny Scharf's cartoon paintings are still imitated by young artists. Ann Magnuson's impact is still felt on performance art and comedy. And the list goes on.

But mostly the show brought back memories of being a teenager in New York in the 1980s. In 1984, I entered high school. It was an art school - the "Fame" school! And boy, did we think we were cool. We bought our clothes at vintage stores and wore leopard-print bathrobes to class, where no one batted an eye and the grizzled art teachers were happy for their jobs. We copied paintings at the Met and made friends with the security guards, most of whom were artists. And, of course, we spent an enormous amount of time downtown - when the Bowery was still scary and Union Square Park was still off limits (that is, for good kids who spent most of their time studying for their AP exams). We ate $3 Indian lunches, drank coffee in Italian cafes, obsessed about Comme des Garcons and the Pet Shop Boys. But along the way, we saw Anselm Kiefer's first show in New York and ate at what must have been the first trendy restaurant in SoHo (I'm sure someone will dispute my claim, but it was cafeteria-style and I always had the Brie and avocado on a baguette).

New York was so different then. (Hey kids, are you listening?!? It wasn't all about money!) I'm sure it wasn't any easier for artists, but there were scrappy places like ABC No Rio and the barriers to entry didn't seem quite so high. Not that anyone from my high school ever made it big - with the exception of Jennifer Aniston.