MADRID.- Mixed Use Manhattan, the title of this exhibition, refers to land-use zoning – specifically, to neighbourhoods or individual buildings in which a combination of commercial and residential functions is permitted. In the early 1970s, rezoning of parts of Lower Manhattan legalized a de facto situation in which artists had long appropriated loft spaces in partially de-industrialized areas as both studio and living quarters. This had generated a nascent art community which soon spawned facilities to meet the expanding needs of its inhabitants, from local restaurants to artist-run galleries and performance spaces. The efflorescence of the downtown art scene in the 1970s transformed Lower Manhattan from an area of abandoned and derelict buildings, razed blocks, and a wasted waterfront into an increasingly vital terrain for vanguard activity. By mid-decade, SoHo, the area’s epicentre, had become not only a mecca for artists and art galleries but a rapidly gentrifying