assume vivid astro focus, Tamy Ben-Tor, Marco Boggio-Sella, Tom Burr, Brian Clifton, Peter Coffin, Anne Collier, Donnie & Travis, Jeronimo Elespe, Dana Frankfort, Jonah Freeman, Sam Gordon, Wa de Guyton, Tamar Halpern, Kent Henricksen, Matthew Higgs, Scott Hug, Daniel Lefcourt, Legion, Justin Lowe, Keith Mayerson, Kenric McDowell, Dave McKenzie, Sean Paul, Michael Phelan, Alexandre Singh, Patricia Treib, Justin Samson, Nolan Simon, Joshua Smith, Meredyth Sparks, A.L. Steiner, Dannielle Tegeder, Sara VanDerBeek, Michael Wetzel, and Grant Worth

A New High In Getting Low (NYC) is an expanded version of an exhibition that was first shown at Artnews Projects in Berlin in October 2007. All the artists in both exhibitions are NYC based and there is no singular theme except for the criteria of living and working in New York post 9/11. Most of the works share a dark subtext that could be construed as something related to the paranoia, denial and mania that has absorbed the city for the last six years. There have been many dramatic shifts in New York (and the New York art world) since the fall of 2001, and many of these artworks can be read as a reaction to these changes.

The choice of the title “A New High In Getting Low” (itself a corrupted version of the name of one of the artworks in the show) references not only an ongoing dialog between the polarities of high and low art, but also the cultural and social highs and lows that find a convenient metaphor in popular drug culture. The terminology can also opportunely be applied to the current American political and economic realities. For example, the current international perception of the United States has arguably reached an all-time low, the value of the dollar abroad continues to fall and the instability in the national economy has almost daily reverberations worldwide. This exhibition in many ways offers a glimpse into a contemporary cultural climate feeling the after effects of unprecedented dramatic political and economic shifts in America.