POET'S DEN GALLERY IN HARLEM

Manhattanites! Add another stop to your uptown gallery tour. Poet’s Den Gallery at 309 East 108th Street in Spanish Harlem presents "Uptown Renaissance," opening May 5, 2011, 6-9 pm, featuring works by Damon Johnson, Federico Castelluccio, Scott Nickerson, Francis Kughler, Joseph Grippi and Al Loving. The gallery is part of a new condo and arts complex (including a 150-seat theater, home to the East Harlem Film Festival) in a renovated Beaux Arts structure that formerly housed the Galvani Middle School.

N.B.: Castelluccio, a traditionally trained painter, played Furio -- the Sicilian hit-man and Carmella squeeze -- in the Sopranos, and Johnson is son of former Page Six major domo Richard Johnson. Former New York Knick Earl Monroe, who lives next door, is expected to show up for the opening -- he’s the subject of one of Johnson’s "urban surrealist" paintings. The show is organized by Douglas Dechert and Alexander Boyle of Hamilton Auction Galleries. [Image: Federico Castelluccio, Self Portrait (detail).]

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