Presented by Spinello Projects and Swampspace, Valley of Tears is an exhibition that highlights the works and history of artist Adolfo Sanchez, a rare talent whose life was cut short by the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. The exhibition is witnessed through the lens of his brother Oliver Sanchez, and niece, Lulu Sanchez. In the words of NSU Art Museum curator, Ariella Wolens – “this is very much in the context of the eighties East Village art scene that Adolfo and Oliver Sanchez were a part of. So, it fits in a lot of ways with the legacy of pop art … but then sort of taking that and making it more biographically relevant to the sort of ephemera that the family grew up with … Adolfo is definitely an artist who is underrecognized, that was in a celebrated moment in time within the eighties East Village art scene. But he has been obfuscated by these other grand figures that he was very close with. This is an excellent space in which we can now have a retrospective glance at it and understand the value and connect it with contemporary art today and give it the attention it deserves.