Inventing Downtown: Artist-Run Galleries in New York City, 1952-1965

While the achievements of New York City’s most renowned postwar artists—de Kooning, Pollock, Rothko, Franz Kline—have been studied in depth, a large cadre of lesser-known but influential artists came of age between 1952 and 1965. Also understudied are the early, experimental works by more wellknown figures such as Mark di Suvero, Jim Dine, Dan Flavin, and Claes Oldenburg. Focusing on innovative artist-run galleries, this book invites readers to reevaluate the period—uncovering its diversity, creativity, and nuances, and tracing the spaces’ influence during the decades that followed. Inventing Downtown charts the development of artist-run galleries in Lower Manhattan from the early 1950s to the mid-1960s, showing how the area’s multicultural spirit played a major role in shaping the artworks exhibited there.