Publications
books | catalogues | monographs
The Curious Matter Cookbook
The artists in this collection step from their studios into the kitchen with snacks, sides, soups and spreads to festive entrees, cocktails and desserts. The 75+ recipes explore a wide range of approaches to culinary creativity.
A Dark Wood
The exhibition theme calls upon Dante's The Divine Comedy and features the work of 33 contemporary artists. First presented at Art House Gallery and Curious Matter in Jersey City, the exhibition also traveled to Noyes Gallery at Stockton University. 33.40
Sanctus
The relic and the reliquary, and the assigning of magic and meaning are explored by 20 contemporary artists. 23.20
Obsolescence
How do contemporary artists engage with obsolete ideas, materials, processes or technology? Do they infuse the obsolete with something new, or embrace it on its own terms. Is there something to be had from mining what might seem passé? The artists of Obsolescence present alternatives and opinions if not answers to that quandary. 38.50
Terra Incognita
How do we articulate something unseen, unknown, murky, or subconscious? The artists of Terra Incognita explore the theme with media ranging from sound to glass, ocean water to baseball cards. 26.60
A Time in Arcadia
From Eden to Monsanto, plants are entwined in virtually every aspect of our lives and culture – whether for nourishment, their medicinal properties or decorative appeal. A Time in Arcadia is a collaboration between Curious Matter and The Jersey City Free Public Library. 38.50
Aesthetic Insubordination
Curated by Travis Childers, Aesthetic Insubordination features artists Jessica Braiterman, Zofie Lang, Elizabeth Morisette, Susan Noyes, and Donna Stack. 30.
Dangerous Toys
Dangerous Toys, curated by Sasha Chavchavadze, explores the psychological, physical and social aspect of toys and play. The keenly focused collection is in turns beautiful, playful and startling. 30.
Tabula Rasa
Tabula Rasa, a group exhibition curated by Aimée Burg examines the arranging plane of the table and the vast array of people and accoutrements that are its inhabitants. The works assembled survey public and private relationships, etiquette, ritual, and compel us to ponder more deeply and see beyond what we might already expect. 30.
The Fool’s Journey
Exhibition catalogue for The Fool's Journey at Curious Matter, Jersey City, NJ & Proteus Gowanus, Brooklyn, NY. The Fool’s Journey is a complement to the yearlong, multi-disciplinary inquiry hosted by Proteus Gowanus on the theme of Migration. 35.
Dividing Light Measuring Darkness
With “Dividing Light Measuring Darkness,” Curious Matter explores the fearsome dark and the joyful light. Darkness hides dangers, light exposes them. We need light to see. We need darkness to dream. The 23 artists of “Dividing Light Measuring Darkness” evidence both. 30.
Naming The Animals
In our collective effort to understand the world, we’re driven to name and catalog everything around us. From cave painting to modern ecology and zoology this impulse is not necessarily purely aesthetic or scientific. Naming and cataloguing can include the assignment of moral or metaphorical associations. Implicit is the desire to know and understand ourselves. 35.
Psychopomp
Featuring the work of 16 artists, curator, Vincent Como, will guide us along this shadowy path. Arriving just before death, then leading the soul to the afterlife is the role of the psychopomp. It is a beneficent spirit, a horrible creature or in various cultures an animal. 25.
The Ecstatic
The allure of the ecstatic experience can pull us through the darkness of addiction to the heights of enlightenment. 26 artists present works that explore their relationship to this life altering experience. 25.
Nyktomorph
In darkness, when forms blend into one another and color is suppressed, our minds can create entire fantasies out of the shadows we encounter–that twilight image is the nyktomorph or night shape. 24 artists explore those images that form on the periphery of vision. 25.
Poison
Poisoning has been the clean, classic way evil characters subdue and eliminate rivals without the use of brute force. The artists of Curious Matter’s Poison exhibition have sensitively distilled the tincture to find its purest forms. 25.
Between Worlds
In this exhibition, the artists follow their curiosity into these amorphous realms that put our nerves on edge–existing on the boundaries of the known and unknown–and give us their vision of what they find there. 25.
Hocus Pocus
Hocus Pocus, is either a true incantation in ancient ritual magic, or a pseudo-Latin phrase used by medieval sleight-of-hand performers. Therein lie the two branches of the Hocus Pocus exhibition: the genuine search for magic and meaning and the subsequent deceptions and trickery. 25.
Apparition
In this exhibition 22 artists attempt to make visible that which may not only be invisible, but also intimately personal.
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A Narrow World
The fourth and final book in artist Arthur Bruso’s Association Sublimation series. Includes the essays “A Narrow World” and “The Second New York Trip.” 20.
Structure of the Church
A collection of photo-based works and essays by Arthur Bruso. The title work and “An Adolescent’s Appropriation of Eliot Porter” poignantly capture a sense of yearning and the early steps of a life of artistic inquiry. 20.
The Line Holds, the Space Beckons
26 photo-based works by Arthur Bruso from two collections by the artist, “On the Steps Out the Window” and “Looking at Seeing.” 20.
Into the Magic Space
The first series to develop out of Arthur Bruso’s ongoing inquiry, Association Sublimation. The Works explore a space of possibility, a space where transformation is possible. 20.