The PAPER Guide to Downtown's Best Spring Art Shows

These small institutions are forced to share space with larger galleries that have bought up downtown buildings in search of a more avant-garde atmosphere than the stuffy upper streets. To see this extreme juxtaposition is, in my approximation, a more honest and raw depiction of today’s art market than Chelsea would have you believe. Young gallerists and artists are carving out space for themselves in the world’s art capital, battling it out with major industry players who have both the money and the big-name artists to draw audiences and buyers alike.

Still, downtown remains the frontier for groundbreaking new work, drawing out art enthusiasts determined to see the next hot thing before the rest of the world catches up. Below are six downtown exhibitions worth the hunt this spring.

The crown jewel of the Downtown art scene has finally reopened after three long years under construction. As its name suggests, the New Museum is the only museum in the city dedicated entirely to contemporary art. It has reasserted its mission on a grand scale with its new wing designed by Shohei Shigematsu and Rem Koolhaas, doubling the size of their exhibition space by adding 60,000 square feet. Their new exhibition, New Humans: Memories For the Future, invites over 200 artists and thinkers to reflect on humanity’s relentless march towards a hyper-developed, technological future.

Spanning three floors, the exhibition is as wide as it is deep, exploring themes of fertility, evolution, consciousness, and the blurring of lines between human intelligence and Artificial Intelligence. Notable works include Anicka Yi’s floating artificial life forms, which resemble giant robotic octopuses flying through the museum gallery, Precious Okoyomon’s part human, part lamb, and part robot animatronic sitting pretty in a fuzzy pink enclosure, and Pierre Huyghe’s groundbreaking film Human Mask, which follows a monkey wearing a humanoid mask as it wanders through an abandoned urban landscape.

Daniel Arsham, Various Thoughts, Perrotin, 130 Orchard Street

Daniel Arsham, a renowned pop culture icon, has long been a controversial figure in the fine art scene, thanks to his ‘nothing is sacred’ approach to the famously snobbish industry. Having chosen to chase his stardom through a massive social media following, he has collaborated with Pharrell Williams, Virgil Abloh, and Usher, and is unafraid of entering the mainstream. That being said, his new show is surprisingly backwards-facing, reflecting on icons of Greek mythology as he imagines a future where all that remains of humanity are lost artifacts.

Giant, crumbling Grecian faces are filled with stairways leading nowhere, and paintings depict dilapidated landscapes dotted with lone explorers. The show is reminiscent of Damien Hirst’s notorious 2017 Venice Biennial exhibition, which also depicted decaying statues of a distant future. Still, despite his grandiose efforts to inspire humanist reflections, I’m left wanting more.

With their first duo show, Cass Yao and Echo Yan lead with sharp, gruesome criticism of the domestic sphere, asking how our human bodies can retain their animality and physicality when constrained to societal rituals.

Yan’s everyday house fence spirals into the ceiling, morphing into a sort of threatening serpent; Yao’s dining room table has a headless body slumped over it, ribcage yawning open to reveal its bloody interior (this work is morbidly titled Shared Meal). Equal parts Grimm fairy tale and cyberpunk gore porn, the show is a visceral statement by these two young artists, whose works complement rather than clash with each other- a rare accomplishment for a double feature.

Opal Mae Ong, Always Were, PLATO, 202 Bowery

In an enchanting and otherworldly show, Opal Mae Ong takes Filipino folklore and transforms it into a haunting realm of the supernatural feminine. A group of pale manananggal (winged, shape-shifting women) bathe in a fountain spouting plum water, framed by claw-like branches. A dark figure hunches over, burdened by the weight of the crescent moon on her back as she wades through water. What strikes me most is the weight of female exertion underlying each of Ong’s paintings; they are tied up, pinned down, sweat dripping down their divine bodies.

As an artist reflecting on her grandmother’s experience laboring as an overseas worker in Taiwan to support her family back home, women’s work becomes something mythological and imbued with reverence in this poignant show.

Michael Joo, Sweat Models, ZeroOne, 371 Broadway

One of the most seasoned artists in this lineup, Michael Joo is an acclaimed multimedia artist who has exhibited internationally since the 1990s.

Sweat Models brings together early pieces that reflect on the AIDS crisis, Asian American experiences, and the rise of AI. While these topics may seem distant from one another, Joo finds the delicate balance point when all three become mutually entangled. Still, Joo maintains an element of ironic humor in all his works, one that grounds them to the human experience. Take his iconic Saltiness of Greatness, where Joo researched the physical and sexual pursuits of four iconic Asian figures - Genghis Kahn, Iva Toguri D'Aquino, Bruce Lee, and Mao Zedong - and condensed them into salt blocks equivalent to the number of calories they would have consumed in their lifetimes. Above these stacks of salt are four barrels of artificial sweat, which drip down and slowly melt the blocks below.

Come to the exhibition prepared to read the guide closely, as each work contains multitudes and offers a glimpse into Joo’s tongue-in-cheek genius.

While queer portraiture in art is not exactly new territory, Jeffrey Heiman’s work is breathtakingly intimate. It was as though I was peeking into someone’s hidden photos on their phone, or spying through a keyhole. It’s not that every painting is sexual, but rather that each scene is depicted through a tenderly intimate lens. The vibrant monochrome colors add a fever-dream element to simple vignettes; a dog stretching on a bed, a man turned away in the bathroom, two lovers entangled on the floor next to an unaware, sleeping compatriot. While a small show, Heiman offers a private view into the romantic banality of the queer day-to-day.

Photography and artwork courtesy of: Jeffrey Heiman, Freight+Volume Gallery, Opal Mae Ong, PLATO Gallery, New Museum, Dario Lasagni, Michael Joo, ZeroOne Space, Genevieve Hanson, Daniel Arsham, Perrotin, Guillame Ziccarelli, Echo Yan, Cass Yao, Gallery Frisson, Ivo Thomas.