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Stepping into Lauren Halseys New York solo debut is like entering a bedazzled ark.
Now 35 years old, Halsey originally harbored dreams of being a professional basketball player.
When she wasnt recruited, she studied architecture instead, then earned art degrees from CalArts and Yale.
Its scheduled to touch down there next spring.
The systole of the pandemic presented other opportunities, however.
Community is literally at the center of Halseys new show.
The installationMy Hopeis an oasis-metropolis of signs for local businesses (including Waz Up!
Halsey reverses polarities, bringing the street into the gallery.
Halseys art can sometimes seem like a collage exploded into piecemeal assemblages.
The show is like a magnificent flyover of a landscape teeming with life and activity.
It doesnt have that neatness to it, the way white people put things together.
This transcends old narratives of mourning and the accursed.
Halsey is in the hope business.
She talks about not diluting or flattening subject and content.
She gives us a universe already contained in South Central.
