Lubov

If you find yourself near Kimlau Square, look for a red door wedged next to Dim Sum Go Go. Go up three musty flights of stairs, and you’ll find Lubov. You’ll know you’re close when you catch the scent of oil paint.

The two-room gallery with a scenic view vibrates with a scrappy DIY punk energy. Shows snap between emerging artists and figures with real-deal NYC underground lineage. Guest curators rotate through regularly, bringing their obsessions with them: queer cinema, body horror, and internet-native art.

The rooms have been activated as a 48-hour hair salon for artists, an experimental screening room, and a staging ground for hanging steel sculptures and delicate paintings of watercolor figures à la the Japanese film Belladonna of Sadness. Titles like Doom Boogie Woogie, Disease was my Life Coach, and Dragon Guts give you the tonal range.

Yes, it’s a fourth-floor walk-up. No, there’s no workaround. Consider it a filter.

Mexican curator and culture worker Francisco Correa Cordero started Lubov in 2016 in a Tribeca office building to stay sane outside his day job. Uninterested in letting sales dictate the program, he moved to its current East Broadway location in 2019. He's worked at the Aperture Foundation, the Richard Avedon Foundation, and Independent Curators International. He's plugged into the wider downtown nonprofit scene through Carriage Trade, currently moving out of its Grand Street location, and Brooklyn's KAJE. Both are worth following if Lubov's program speaks to you