Here we go, exhibition #9!

Danielle's show is officially the 7th show and unofficially the 9th show (with 2 under-the-radar shows in the summer before we renovated). Danielle worked so hard installing out in Bushwick, a very different place then her sunny Santa Barbara, CA. She really rose to the occasion and made a wonderful show!

I'm so proud of her!!! Shots of the opening (fun).

Getting Danielle Rubi

Picking up Danielle from the airport yesterday, with her work all packed in a surfboard bag, felt like a drive down the block because it was Danielle. She's easy going and a fantastic artist. Today we install, look for more pictures!

Pocket Utopia presents Coast, Photographs by Danielle Rubi
Opening: March 1st - 6:00 - 10:00 pm

Golden Ratio 2007 c-print 15x20 inches
Coast
Photographs by Danielle Rubi
March 1 - March 24, 2008
OPENING, Saturday, March 1st 6:00 - 10:00 pm

In Coast, Rubi shows a group of photographs (color prints and cyanotypes) accompanied by watercolors, drawings, and objects that illuminate the magic of where the water meets the land, and its effect on human behavior and mindset.

A cluster of undeniable, deep-rooted symbols appears in the group of photographs. Water becomes womb-like when a person floats in it (weightless body, weightless mind). Pelicans travel, sophisticated, in a giant,sideways V, a shape that is both the feminine V of earthly fertility, and the phallic pyramid, pointed skyward. The spiral of water off a girls flipping hair draws us into the universal infinity described by Carl Jung, depicted by innumerable prehistoric and indigenous artists, and linked eternally, like the nautilus shell, to the golden ratio.

Post-Studio Life

I walked into Pocket Utopia yesterday to see a note from Libby Hartle, one of the artist currently in residence, that she was down at Life Cafe and would be back soon. She came back and people kept coming and staying all day. It was an interesting scene. It was the last day of Rico's show. Jerry Saltz and Roberta Smith even joined the party!

Post-post-black etc.

Certainly was a "post-post-black" crowd last night. The art world doesn't really get too political. The artworld might hold up a mirror to the real world every once and awhile but most of the time the art world exists as a parallel world, and is not the real world.

"Excuse me, you have art in your teeth" Salon: Is Post-Black Still Relevant? Thurs., Feb. 21st 6PM

As part of my ongoing salon series at Pocket Utopia, I'm organizing a discussion on Thursday, February 21st at 6:00 p.m. where the artist Rico Gatson will be present to talk about the relevance of the situational prefix "post-black." Refreshments will be served.

This discussion is a part of Austin Thomas's salon series titled, "Excuse me, you have art in your teeth."

Thursday, February 21st at 6:00 p.m. (Nina Simone's birthday)

social saturday @ pocket utopia 4pm L train is a runnin'

We're celebrating our recent press and accolades with a "social saturday" and it's Audra birthday (our first intern)! We'll be serving up cake.

Meet Brece and check out Nina!

SUPPORT POCKET UTOPIA BUY A LIMITED EDITION RICO GATON.

Using your GPS (Gallery Positioning System) in New York

By Paddy Johnson

from artreview.com


[...] Another fascinating new space is the artist-run Pocket Utopia in Bushwick. It's by far the best gallery in the neighbourhood. Since opening last fall, the still-unfinished space has hosted Not Yet Utopic, a strong photography exhibition
introducing the brilliant portraits of Eric Hairabedian, A Lawrence Weiner salon, featuring a reading room, a re-creation of A 36" x 36" Removal to the Lathing or Support Wall of Plaster or Wallboard From a Wall, (1968), and, up now, Rico
Gatson's intriguing solo show. Gatson delights in manipulating cultural symbols, or simply revealing their fluidity: in Untitled (X) (2008), he leans a wooden cross on its side against the wall so that it ends up looking more like a
negating 'X'. Gatson again plays with slippage in recognition in a small video of a man running, which is played on an indefinite and disturbing loop. The soundtrack similarly repeats, though the track is much longer than the footage,
there by obscuring the length of the video. Speaking to the content of the work Gatson will give a talk on 'the relevance of the situational prefix "post-black"' on 21 February at the gallery.

As the success of Gatson's show and others at Pocket Utopia indicates, what matters is not so much that new galleries should operate with a unique business model or find a particular niche, but rather that the owner has an eye for
talent, and finds the resources to promote it. Even as the number of commercial and not-for-profit spaces continues to rise, the challenges for artists, viewers and galleries remains much the same.

New artist in residence in full spin

Wearing her grandmother's apron, Brece Honeycutt starts her residency at Pocket utopia by spinning raw wool and weaving it with plastic bags. Come visit her, bring a bag.

Pocket Utopia in Time Out

Time Out New York magazine publishes Rico's X!

Raising the bar

Although all the shows at Pocket U have been interesting, educational, emotional, and great, Rico's is by far the best. He has raised the bar by giving us his best.

Now I am in the position of questioning the rest of the program. Rico's showing is a message to the rest of us, for Pocket Utopia wants to see the best in each of us.

Rico Gatson

Pocket Utopia is pleased to present a solo exhibition of Rico Gatson. It is Gatson’s desire to modulate the conversation surrounding the iconic, the conceptually efficient and the articulation of identity politics through a series of sculptures, paintings, collages and video.

A cross morphs into an “x,” a video reloads and repeats a running sequence revealing the “connection,” and a painted platform becomes a social construction. Gatson shines a light into our collective blackness and reflects a variety of cultural realities where minimalism and the Black Panther Party are on the same plane.

At Pocket Utopia, Gatson enters a relational conversation in a social space where there are no fixed meanings. His complex compositions are an evolving conversation. Pocket Utopia is also pleased to release Gatson’s limited edition print of the musician Nina Simone. This print is the second in a series of limited editions that support the exhibition and social investigations of Pocket Utopia.

There will be a salon discussion on Thursday, February 21st at 6:00 p.m. where the artist will be present to talk about the relevance of the situational prefix “post-black.” Refreshments will be served. This discussion is a part of Austin Thomas’s salon series titled, “Excuse me, you have art in your teeth.”