• Join Puck

    Directly Supporting Authors

    A new economic model in which writers are also partners in the business.

    Personalized Subscriptions

    Customize your settings to receive the newsletters you want from the authors you follow.

    Stay in the Know

    Connect directly with Puck talent through email and exclusive events.

  • What is puck? Newsletters Authors Podcasts Events Gift Puck Careers

The Queen of the Art Scene Returns

A new retrospective at Lévy Gorvy Dayan, on the New York art scene of the ’80s, offers a nostalgic view of the wild Koch era. It also serves to replatform one of the day’s heroines: Mary Boone.

Mary Boone
Mary Boone helped bring new talent, personalities, and gossip to the scene in the 1980s, reviving and expanding the art world and setting the stage for it to grow beyond what anyone had previously imagined was possible. Photo: Michel Delsol/Getty Images
Marion Maneker
September 23, 2025

Join Puck to listen to this article

By the end of the 1970s, the New York art world had gotten pretty stale. Major collectors had bowed out, bored after buying the giants of pop and not seeing much new or exciting work beyond them. Artists seemed to be outdoing each other to make work that only an institution could love or exhibit. The city itself had become a dystopia after a financial crisis created bombed-out boroughs, exacerbated by the middle class fleeing to the suburbs.