Arthur Bruso

If found objects carry their own histories, Pervin’s black makes them newly anonymous and newly resonant. The sculptures hold what she calls “a moment, and a sense of memory.” Blackness unifies, transforming disparate elements into a whole and beckoning the viewer to linger, to arrive slowly at what the various media have become.

Welcome to Curious Matter: A Legacy of Art & Inquiry, an exhibition celebrating the transformative vision and enduring contributions of Raymond E. Mingst and Arthur Bruso. Founders of the contemporary art gallery and project space Curious Matter in downtown Jersey City, these two artist-curators have shaped nearly two decades of rigorous, thought-provoking programming at the intersection of visual art, literature, and community.

ARTHUR BRUSO has captured, in the photographs of Penumbra, that particular moment when we enter a dark room and strain to see. The images are almost completely black.