They Got Time: YOU BELONG TO THE CITY is a three-part installation: a monumental self-portrait of Alvaro Barrington’s years growing up in New York. The exhibition invites the visitor into an exploration of the artist’s personal and cultural memory: what Barrington describes as ‘a love letter to the nyc streetscape of my youth in the form of an art installation’.
“Growing up in NYC i would go to stores before school buy albums like Jay z or Biggie go buy a brand new outfit. I would walk from 5th ave across central park listening to Tupac or JayZ or Biggie with a brand new pair of jordans on a prada outfit a coogi outfit a Sean John outfit. Everyday was exciting to come to school with a new outfit no matter if i sleep on the street that night i came to school fresh. We would go to the garden to watch the Knicks the bulls to see Jordan tell us we could fly. I would spend most of my days listening to rappers hanging out with friends on the block, meeting girls in soho etc. One day i picked up breakfast at tiffanys at strand bookstore in union square and i realized the nyc i was experiencing in the 90/2000s was what truman copete wrote about in Breakfast at Tiffanys. The soho lower east side streets my friends and I hung around in was the soho Andy Warhol and Basquiat and Madonna created and here i was in the legacy of new generation one formed by the soundtrack of hip hop”. – Alvaro Barrington, October 2023
Thaddaeus Ropac
Paris, France
