In New York, facebooking Jerry Saltz reports that the last time money left the art world, intrepid types maxed out their credit cards and opened galleries, and a few of them have become the best in the world. Now, as money is leaving art again, history could repeat itself�especially in Bushwick and the Lower East Side, experimentation is percolating. Recommended spots: Reena Spauling, Dispatch, Norte Maar, Lumenhouse, English Kills, and Pocket Utopia. In the eighteen months since it opened, Pocket Utopia, where I’ll be working at some point in January, hasn�t sold a single work to a collector. According to owner/artist Austin Thomas, she’s only sold work to other artists. Currently on view at Pocket Utopia is a solo show by artist Fred Gutzeit that pays homage to the late artist Lee Lozano. Here’s info from the press release: Fred Gutzeit turns Pocket Utopia into a walk-in cosmology of wave, particle and worm hole. In addition, Gutzeit is showing preparatory drawings and relevant sketchbooks. Gutzeit considers Lee Lozano a mentor. The idea for this show came from a notebook that Lozano gave Gutzeit. The notebook, filled with graph paper, was inscribed with this sentiment, �Love to Fred from Lee Lozano.� The notebook was used to plot out the installation for Pocket Utopia. Containing waves (and much, much more) similar in vibe to several Lee Lozano paintings, Gutzeit�s printed and painted whirling, flashing landscape is a spectrumatic fantansia, inspired by Lozano�s rule-based process. Fred Gutzeit expands upons Lee Lozano�s rules, adding higher mathematics and good painterly hunches that map out the space and place of a pocket utopia. In conjunction with the exhibition, Fred Gutzeit will host a salon discussion this Sunday, December 7, 4:00 pm.
I guess a second job is one way to pay for that trip to Venice.
CAP–
I�ll be taking up residency at Pocket Utopia in Brooklyn, January 11-17. On Sunday, January 18, Austin Thomas and I are organizing a salon, so save the date. Details to come.
Sharon