In the cramped elevator of the uptown gallery Lévy Gorvy Dayan, an art handler gives a polite but firm warning to legendary art dealer Mary Boone: "There's a Warhol behind you." He carefully directs everyone to move slowly to protect the valuable painting. British New Wave music plays from a corner speaker, designed to transport visitors back to the era being celebrated in the retrospective opening in just 48 hours.

The exhibition, titled "Downtown/Uptown," showcases the explosive energy of New York's art scene in the 1980s, featuring works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Ross Bleckner, Keith Haring, Barbara Kruger, Julian Schnabel, Jeff Koons, and plenty of Andy Warhol pieces spread across two floors of Lévy Gorvy Dayan's Beaux-Arts townhouse. "I seldom did installations that have so many works," Boone remarks. "It's so full. It's over the top."

Boone, now 73 years old and standing at just about five feet tall with pin-straight black hair, possesses both a physically unassuming presence and a striking elegance that has served her well throughout her career. She dominated the 1980s as a gallerist, elevating artists to a cultural status they had never before enjoyed. The "Downtown/Uptown" exhibition serves as an implicit celebration of her groundbreaking work during that transformative decade.

For a combined 40 years, Boone operated her own galleries both uptown and downtown under her name, but she closed them in 2019 after being sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for tax fraud. This exhibition marks her first formal curation since her release five years ago. "Different galleries have approached me about doing work with them, but it didn't feel organic or necessary," she explains, taking a seat on the grand marble staircase that ascends through the space.

She's wearing a leopard-print Norma Kamali dress she purchased in 1981, a classic bodycon style that still fits perfectly. The same dress appeared in a 1982 New York Magazine photo shoot that dubbed her both "the new queen of the art scene" and "the queen of the art jungle." When the gallery approached her in 2023 to curate this show, it felt natural to accept. "The explosion of artistic talent and commercial success of the 80s," Boone tells me, "is something I know."

In an airy second-floor room featuring one of Warhol's massive dollar-sign paintings and a double-decker Koons sculpture made of vacuum cleaners encased in acrylic, Boone encounters LGD gallerist Brett Gorvy. She listens patiently as he describes the exhibition's concept. "The notion of Downtown/Uptown, for me, was the idea that the scene was downtown. Creativity was there," he explains. "And, actually, the aspiration is to become an uptown person, to go to Warhol's Factory, hang out there and go to Mr Chow" – referring to the famous 57th Street restaurant.

"Did we invite Michael Chow to the show?" Boone asks, slightly alarmed that a key player in the scene might have been overlooked. "I would have," Gorvy responds, "but Chow is in L.A." This attention to detail reflects Boone's deep understanding of the interconnected social and artistic networks that defined the era.

Boone came of age in a generation that worshipped the 1960s – the Pop Art of Warhol and Lichtenstein, the abstractions of Frank Stella. However, the 1970s proved to be a fallow period, with observers declaring that painting was dead. Financially shrewd and willing to nurture the talent of chaotic young personalities, Boone spearheaded the next decade's revival and played an integral role in fine art's transformation into a true commodity.

The task of representing this sublime moment from her past was, according to Boone, something simple. However, "Downtown/Uptown" required serious persuasion and leveraged Boone's extensive connections, as she had sold many of the displayed works three or four decades ago. Though she describes her memory as "a little slippery," her instincts remain remarkably sharp.

A perfect example hangs on the wall at the top of the gallery's stairwell: an imposing Barbara Kruger silkscreen from 1987 featuring giant red text reading "WHAT ME WORRY?" Boone originally sold the piece to a billionaire car dealer, who later sold it to a collector in Aspen. When Boone asked to borrow the silkscreen in 2022 for a retrospective of the artist, the collector claimed she had lost it. "How do you lose an eight-by-ten-foot work?" Boone asks incredulously. "You don't."

Boone called around and discovered the truth: "She'd sold it to another dealer, and she didn't want to tell me." Now Boone is gleefully anticipating the collector's arrival at the show, knowing the deception will be exposed. This detective work demonstrates the enduring relationships and deep knowledge that define Boone's approach to the art world.

To gallery visitors, "Downtown/Uptown" may appear to be a homecoming for Boone after a personal catastrophe. However, as she tells it, the experience was more like taking a long vacation. According to her account, federal investigators began examining her finances following the 2008 financial crisis. "They spent ten years," Boone says, "just going through my books and trying to find something on me." She wonders whether she would have been treated differently if she were a man.

The investigation occurred during the era of Occupy Wall Street, adding political tension to her situation. "I was a woman selling unnecessary, glamorous things to rich people," Boone observes wryly. "What's not to hate?" Ironically, the new show features a large punching bag painted by Basquiat decades before her legal troubles, emblazoned with the name "MARY BOONE."

During the investigation, Martha Stewart, who served five months in federal prison for obstruction of justice related to an insider-trading case in 2004, learned about Boone's situation. According to Boone, Stewart warned her: "They have people they like to use as examples," and insisted, "Mary, get a criminal lawyer." Boone, who seems like a shark one moment and naive the next, didn't listen. "I figured I didn't do anything criminal," she recalls. "There were a lot of things I didn't really understand."

She was ultimately accused of misrepresenting personal spending as business expenses, including $24,380 at beauty salons and nearly $14,000 at Hermès, totaling approximately $3 million in tax evasion. Boone emphasizes that she pleaded guilty rather than being convicted at trial, a distinction she considers important. In May 2019, she entered a low-security prison in Danbury, Connecticut – the same facility where Lauryn Hill and Teresa Giudice served time – and was released in June 2020, during the height of COVID lockdowns.

The press portrayed her situation as a magnificent career gone bust, but Boone views her scandal as merely one piece of a larger changing of the guard in the art world. During the same period, Metro Pictures gallery closed, Barbara Gladstone died, and Boone heard rumors of other gallerists facing health challenges. "It's life," she says philosophically. "It's what everybody has to go through."

Regarding the prison experience itself, Boone remains remarkably blasé. "To tell you the truth," she says, "I got to go to the gym every day. I read a book a day. It was very relaxing. I met some very interesting women that I probably wouldn't have met otherwise." The experience didn't significantly impact her financial situation either. She returned to dealmaking soon after her release and reports that 2022 was her best year to date, thanks to the pandemic: "People were staying at home looking at their house and thinking, 'I need something for that wall.'"

Back on the second floor, Gorvy reflects on the exhibition's deeper purpose. He and Boone have often discussed, "What is the point of doing a show like this? It's not about going backward in time." After all, the featured artists – except those who have died – are still actively showing and selling their work. "What's been amazing about this is that the community still exists," he observes. "They're not necessarily best friends; they're almost like siblings that come together in a reunion."

What seems to unite these artists, beyond their shared debut dates in Boone's stable, is their continued financial prosperity. They've maintained their "seat uptown," as Gorvy puts it. Their work has become so valuable that each room of the gallery will be staffed by a security guard in a suit during the opening. This commercial success validates the transformation that Boone helped orchestrate in the 1980s.

Both Boone and Gorvy insisted that some pieces in the exhibition would be available for purchase. They believe the transaction is what shepherds these works into the future. "Life will get you, but the art can move in the market," as one observer noted. This philosophy reflects the fundamental shift in how art is valued and preserved in contemporary culture.

Near a display by Haim Steinbach – a shelf topped with ceramic figurines and a trio of black-and-white cornflakes boxes, likely priced in five figures – Gorvy explains their selection process. "It really came down to, 'How do we get an ultimate work?' Not something that would just be for exhibition but also that the owner would be willing to sell?" Boone nods in agreement, adding her own perspective: "Otherwise, it's just a vanity show." This pragmatic approach underscores the enduring marriage of artistic vision and commercial reality that defined Boone's career and continues to shape the contemporary art world.