The Icelandic landscapes in Kris Graves’ photographs are not pristine, not all of them. There’s a road here, a guardrail there, the lights of a distant town beneath a neon-green aurora borealis.
Pocket Utopia
Posted inArt
Speaking in Tongues: Art in Moods, Tenses, and Translations
It’s safe to say that Twilit Ensembles, Paul D’Agostino’s solo show at Pocket Utopia, is one of the more disorienting, even vertiginous exhibitions around. There are pairs of process-driven, not-quite-identical abstract paintings; mixed-media collages that evoke the Art informel and Affichiste strains of postwar European art; and groupings of resin sculptures and high-contrast charcoal drawings whose gargoyle-like characters and hallucinatory narratives are derived from the paint stains on D’Agostino’s studio floor.
Posted inArt
When Paintings Come Apart: Sharon Butler on the Inside Out
Wandering through the Museum of Modern Art, I came across the gallery partially devoted to the work of Robert Rauschenberg. It was the first time I had been there since the iconic “Canyon” (1959) — the one with the stuffed bald eagle — was donated to the museum by the Ileana Sonnabend estate.
Posted inArt
The Ambiguity Between the Human and the Void
Matthew Miller’s portraits against a black void have attracted a solid following in the past few years. Several New York critics, who seldom agree with each other, have all written with gushing admiration. The openings this month for Miller’s twin shows at Pocket Utopia ad C G Boerner were packed and crowded.
Posted inArt
What You’d Least Expect on the Lower East Side
The reemergence of Pocket Utopia — not in Bushwick but on the southernmost lip of Manhattan’s Lower East Side — in partnership with the uptown fine prints and drawings dealer C. G. Boerner, might strike some as an offbeat, even aberrant choice. But having gotten to know Austin somewhat after writing about her solo show at Storefront in 2010, it made sense to me that she wouldn’t attempt to repeat herself.
Posted inNews
The Return of Pocket Utopia …This Time on the LES
This March 28, Pocket Utopia will return to the New York art scene but this time on Henry Street in the Lower East Side. During its first incarnation the idea of Pocket Utopia, which is the brain child of artist Austin Thomas, opened on Flushing Avenue in Bushwick, Brooklyn in the Summer 2007 and continued for two years as a place for experimentation and a space that put the artist first.
Posted inArt
Politics of Space and Belonging and the Right of Return
IRVINE, California – There is a call for Jews to return to Poland — and it’s coming out of Irvine. Well, actually it’s coming from Israeli artist Yael Bartana, whose trilogy … and Europe Will Be Stunned, which occupied the Polish pavilion at the Venice Biennale this year, is currently having its American debut at the University Art Gallery at UC Irvine. The videos present the Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland (JRMiP), which calls for the return of Jews to Poland to reconstitute the country as it was and make it whole again.
Posted inArt
Tomorrow Night: “One Image, One Minute: Significant People Present Significant Images”
Join us tomorrow night (Tuesday, June 22, 7pm) at Hyperallergic HQ for a special fundraising event, “One Image, One Minute: Significant People Present Significant Images,” which will benefit Camp Pocket U. Help support art education for youth! Space is limited so RSVP and purchase tickets now.
Posted inArt
“One Image, One Minute: Significant People Present Significant Images” Event on June 22
Join us at Hyperallergic HQ on Tuesday, June 22 at 7pm for a special fundraising event “One Image, One Minute: Significant People Present Significant Images,” which will benefit Camp Pocket U. “One Image, One Minute … ” invites you to look and listen to various people in and outside the art world respond to images that made a major impact on their lives.
Posted inNews
Help Camp Pocket Utopia Raise $25K For Kids & Artists
Bushwick’s Nortre Maar and Austin Thomas of Pocket Utopia are teaming up this summer to create “Camp Pocket Utopia” for community children & artists.
They’ve been given the chance to raise $25,000 from the Pepsi Refresh Project and need your support (and vote) to win funding for the project.