A Legacy of Art & Inquiry
- Arthur Bruso
- 4 days ago
- 6 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
Presented by
Hudson County Community College
71 Sip Avenue, 6th Floor, Jersey City, NJ
January 28 to March 28, 2025
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. This exhibition honors their commitment to fostering dialogue, their advocacy for artists, and their remarkable ability to “open a door” to contemporary art for all. Through their distinctive cabinet of curiosities approach, literary sensibility, understanding of contemporary art and art history, Curious Matter creates exhibitions that challenge and engage audiences to see art as both a source of inspiration and conversation. Above all, their practice exemplifies a profound respect for the creative process and the artists who bring these ideas to life.
✥
Le Bouquiniste
Bringing Art to the Streets
Inspired by the iconic booksellers along the Seine in Paris and New York’s vanished Book Row, Le Bouquiniste brought the ethos of Curious Matter into public spaces. This mobile art gallery and book kiosk extended the gallery’s reach beyond its structural walls, captivating passersby with a hand-cranked record player serenading them with vintage 78s.
Showcasing broadsides, chapbooks, zines, and other printed works from small, micro, and independent presses, Le Bouquiniste introduced an intimate and accessible dimension to the gallery’s programming. These limited editions and handmade works offered moments of connection and discovery, inviting those who might not typically visit a gallery to encounter contemporary art and ideas in unexpected settings.
Mingst and Bruso’s vision for Le Bouquiniste reflected their commitment to tangible interactions with art and literature. For them, browsing was more than a simple pleasure—it was an opportunity to uncover something extraordinary in the unexpected, sparking a sense of curiosity and delight in the public realm.
✥
Publishing as a Pillar
Since its founding, Curious Matter has recognized publishing exhibition catalogues and artists’ books as a vital extension of its curatorial mission. For Mingst and Bruso, publishing was not merely a way to document exhibitions; it was an opportunity to amplify the voices of the artists they championed and to provide audiences with a deeper understanding of contemporary art.
Each catalogue includes an introductory essay, artist bios, and direct quotes from artist statements, ensuring the creators’ voices are integral to the narrative. Rather than using artists’ work to simply illustrate a curatorial idea, the curators sought to explore how each artist responded to the thematic departure point. This approach infused both the exhibitions and catalogues with a polyphonic texture, reflecting the diversity of perspectives that shaped every show.
✥
Collaborations & Community
Collaboration has always been central to the Curious Matter mission. Over the years, Mingst and Bruso have partnered with institutions such as Proteus Gowanus in Brooklyn, the Jersey City Free Public Library, Hudson County Community College, and other arts organizations to create dynamic, interdisciplinary projects. These partnerships have expanded the gallery’s reach and deepened its impact, fostering a spirit of shared inquiry while serving the local community.
A notable collaboration from 2014 to 2017 saw Mingst and Bruso bringing their curatorial vision to Jersey City’s Art House Productions, where they developed its Visual Arts Program with their characteristic rigor and commitment to dialogue. During this tenure, they curated open-call exhibitions, organized focused solo and group shows, and highlighted underrepresented voices, ensuring the program reflected a broad spectrum of perspectives and practices.
Through talks, special events, and publications, they expanded access to contemporary art and facilitated meaningful exchanges between artists and audiences. Partnerships with organizations such as the Guggenheim Museum Young Collectors Council and the Noyes Museum of Art further extended the program’s reach.
Mingst and Bruso’s collaborative ethos reflects their belief in art’s power to connect communities and inspire transformation. Their contributions continue to resonate, leaving a legacy of artistic inquiry and dialogue that has broadened the horizons of Art House Productions and the wider arts community.
✥
A Cabinet of Wonders
At Curious Matter, exhibitions are conceived as modern-day wunderkammers, or cabinets of curiosities—spaces where unexpected connections spark inquiry and delight. Drawing on a tradition that dates back to mid-16th century Europe, each exhibition invites visitors to journey through meticulously crafted narratives, where art and objects are not merely displayed but contextualized to provoke a deeper exploration of the ideas, themes, and impulses that artists bring to their work. This approach reflects the curator’s belief that art—like a curiosity cabinet—serves as a portal to larger questions about the world and our place within it.
The exhibitions span an extraordinary range of themes, from myth and memory to science and spirituality. Whether exploring the profound interplay of light and shadow in Dividing Light, Measuring Darkness (2011), the courageous first steps of The Fool’s Journey (2012), or the utopian vision in A Time in Arcadia (2013), their programming exemplifies intellectual breadth and curatorial rigor. Mingst and Bruso have created a space where artists interpret themes through their distinct perspectives, inviting visitors to uncover unexpected connections and insights.
✥
Curatorial Shifts
As Curious Matter evolved, Mingst and Bruso made a deliberate shift in their curatorial approach, moving from larger group shows to more intimate exhibitions featuring two or three artists. This transition reflected their desire to delve more deeply into individual artist’s explorations, while continuing thematic inquiries that illuminated connections among diverse works.
The exhibitions After (2018), Not Life Alone (2019), to some point true and unproven (2022), Along the Nerve (2023), and Where Is Here (2023) exemplify this refined focus. In After, the curators examined themes of loss, memory, and survival, presenting poignant works of artists whose practices explored these universal yet deeply personal experiences. With Not Life Alone, they brought together three artists whose interest intersected with the idea of the landscape or an object becoming imprinted with historical information. To some point true and unproven grappled with the question of space—how to understand, measure, and depict it.
✥
The Holiday Installations
Since its inception, Curious Matter has embraced the winter holiday season with a unique and cherished tradition: the annual holiday installation. These installations, now in their fifteenth year, are rooted in the symbolic richness of both curator’s shared religious heritage. Each exhibition presents sacred imagery with meditations on universal truths and shared human ideals celebrating themes such as love, forgiveness, sanctuary, and community.
In times of social upheaval and personal isolation, the holiday installations have offered solace and reflection. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for instance, the installation became a meditation on the sanctity of home as a refuge. At other moments, they have addressed themes of justice and equity, underscoring the need for community and connection.
The holiday installations demonstrate Mingst and Bruso’s belief in the enduring capacity of art to inspire and uplift. They are a celebration of the light we bring to the world during the dark days of winter, and the shared human spirit that binds us all.
✥
Raymond E. Mingst
Meditations on Absence and Memory
Raymond E. Mingst’s art practice spans traditional media—sculpture, drawing, and installation—with unconventional, mutable materials that embrace decay and transformation.
In one series, Mingst carves apples into objects of reverence, presenting their transient flesh within reliquaries and on altars. These works probe the tension between impermanence and preservation, exploring the human need to assign meaning and elevate even the humblest materials into symbols of devotion.
In his ongoing project, The Department of Reparative History, Mingst mourns the cultural void left by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which claimed a generation of creative voices. Through installations that reframe ephemeral materials, and publications such as March 1994 and MCMLXX, he reexamines and recontextualizes forgotten narratives, offering poignant meditations on what was lost and what might have been.
His recent work-in-progress, Banderoles, the Apophatic Sky, and the Memorializing Artifact, furthers this inquiry. Clay-sculpted banderoles—scroll-like forms historically used to carry text—float in gallery spaces or against painted skies. Left intentionally blank, these silent banners evoke the unspeakable magnitude of loss.
Mingst’s art examines the stewardship of objects and ideas, imbuing even transient materials with sacred resonance. As he describes his work, it “is an attempt to hear a signal in the aether, and the hope that, somehow, the echoes of those lost voices might still be heard.”
✥
Arthur Bruso
A Continuum of Exploration
Arthur Bruso’s art reflects an ongoing exploration of time, memory, and transformation. Working across photography, drawing, collage, and box constructions, he reexamines and reimagines the overlooked and ephemeral, crafting a visual language that moves between abstraction, narrative, and conceptual art.
In Portals, a series of mixed-media works based on photographs of decaying architecture, Bruso distills his imagery into tactile geometric abstractions, exploring the interplay of texture, form, and memory, while Bruso’s box constructions transform humble materials—jewelry, toys, and other found objects—into poetic meditations on the cosmos, human history, and biology. Some works invoke celestial phenomena, while others reference cabinets of curiosities, archeological display, and the interplay of color and form.
Rooted in the concept of “pentimento”—the layering and reexamination of past work—Bruso’s art transcends time and place, creating a continuum of introspection and reinvention. Bodies of work such as the photographs in “Each Age A Lens” and “Light Magic” revisit and reinterpret images from his earliest explorations with a camera. Whether, through his evocative images or intricate constructions, his work offers an invitation to look closer, reconsider, and discover meaning in how it was, and what it is now.
✥
© 2025
Comments