For “They Got Time: YOU BELONG TO THE CITY,” Alvaro Barrington takes over Thaddaeus Ropac Paris Pantin, transforming the luminous ex-factory building into a three-part installation. A monumental self-portrait of his 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.”
Barrington fills the gallery with monumental handmade storefronts, made up of shutters in various mediums with rooms tucked behind chainmail curtains in which he installs his new series of works. He relates the installation overall to the “magic” arcades of 19th-century Paris, as described by Walter Benjamin in his 1927–40 work of cultural criticism The Arcades Project, which formed the prototype for the modern storefront. Like in the memorable opening scene of the 1961 Blake Edwards-directed film Breakfast at Tiffany’s, in which Audrey Hepburn’s Holly Golightly looks longingly at the Tiffany’s window displays as the sun rises on 5th Avenue, Barrington encourages visitors to the exhibition to experience this sense of anticipation and aspiration for themselves as they look at his new works.
“Streets are the dwelling place of the collective. […] More than anywhere else, the street reveals itself in the arcade as the furnished and familiar interior of the masses.”
—Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 1927–40
The exhibition unfolds across three rooms or “chapters.” Each one represents different aspects of the artist’s experiences growing up in New York as the son of Grenadian and Haitian migrant workers, channelled through both the imagery of his own personal history and through references that are part of the collective consciousness. The first, which he calls CHAINGING Room, relates to his memories of being a teenager in New York City, standing in front of closed shop shutters at dawn waiting eagerly for them to open so he could change his clothes to reflect how he wished to present himself to the world that day. The second chapter—THE BLOCK—meanwhile, stages a walk through Soho or along 5th Avenue, both through the buildings that line either side of the streets and through the collision of characters that the artist paints. “I bounce between my own biography and those of people around me,” explains the artist.
Barrington is continually expanding his constellation of references, inspirations and communities, while always acknowledging the formative role of art history in his practice. The new works on view reflect a cross-polli-nation of many such influences. Barrington channels the bather, an enduring theme in art history which he connects to Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso and Édouard Manet, among others, through hip-hop icons, basketball players and film stars. His new paintings include reworkings of David LaChapelle’s photograph of Tupac lying in the bath draped in jewels, and of Holly Golightly in her bathrobe. This chorus of figures comes together to tell the story of Barrington’s New York City, where sexuality, fashion and self-presentation meld with ideas of struggle and hope. As the artist says: “That’s what hip-hop is.”
“Suddenly you’re afraid, and you don’t know what you’re afraid of. Don’t you ever get that feeling? […] When I get it, the only thing that does any good is to jump into a cab and go to Tiffany’s. […] Nothing very bad could happen to you there.”
—Holly Golightly, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, 1961
The exhibition culminates in a chapter Barrington entitles THE GARDEN: a play on words that brings together the excesses of the streets surrounding Madison Square Garden and Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights (1490–1510). Dedicated to Barrington’s celebrated Basketball Paintings, this final space taps into the social significance of the sport, both to the artist during his own Brooklyn upbringing, and more widely across marginalised communities. Reflecting the memories and influences that come together in the exhibition, Barrington’s most recent works introduce new media to his established material language, bringing together elements that evoke luxury, like intricately carved wood, patterned leather given to him by the acclaimed luxury brand Alaïa and Tiffany-inspired stained glass lights, with laundry bags, milk bottles, concrete, cardboard and yarn: non-traditional objects and materials that reference his personal and cultural history.
Aspiration and possibility, especially among Black and marginalised communities, has always been at the heart of Barrington’s practice. Through recreating his own experiences of gazing into shop windows in New York City before school, the artist encourages visitors to the exhibition to look at his works with the same sense of longing and wonder he once felt. In doing so, the artist relays a narrative about not having and wanting, but also about the power of the objects we desire and consume to give us a sense of security, hope, or, as Barrington says, “participation.”
at Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris
until January 27, 2024