About a new art show — at a laundromat on 5th Street

Desnivel Gallery opens its latest show this afternoon with "Service," an exhibition by Gloria Maximo taking place at JJ Cleaners & Laundromat on Fifth Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue. 

Per the exhibition text: 

Gloria Maximo's paintings depict an economy of care, challenging our threshold of visibility as a way of drawing attention to the support networks all around us. They adjust our perception to the reality of need—the need for services, the need for employment, even the need for a place to be, how we position ourselves in a world which contains both desire and desperation. 

Her work induces us to cross this threshold and see things anew. 
Here, her work will sit amongst many signs. OUT OF ORDER, NO SMOKING, HOURS OF OPERATION, NOT WORK on the change machine. These are meant to be read in a split second. Some customers may at first mistake Gloria’s work for a sign, newly added since their last wash visit, or effaced with the years. They may expect to read it in an instant, and discover that this sign withholds. It complicates the ecology, maybe even confuses. 

The opening today is from 3-6 p.m. 

Desnivel Gallery, founded by Maria De Victoria, moved from the basement of her home to East Village storefronts as a way to highlight the financial challenges of running an art space while also making art more accessible to the public.

By placing art in places like a laundromat, hardware store or corner market, De Victoria says the gallery aims to integrate art into daily life, much like the neighborhood's experimental art scene of the 1980s.