NYAB Venue - Concrete Utopia

Concrete Utopia

Gallery in The DUMBO, other Brooklyn area

CONCRETE UTOPIA is a project space devoted to the innovative cultivation of creative practice and discourse. The space, which opened in Williamsburg in the fall of 2010, hosts group shows, solo shows, site-specific installations, collaborations, film and video screenings, performances, readings, off-site interventions, and anything we dream up. This is our platform. And we are excited.

The name of the space is originally inspired by the philosophy of Ernst Bloch, but taken specifically from an address by Peter Noever, Director of the MAK center for art in Vienna, wherein he states "there is nothing more realistic than concrete utopia. Concrete utopias are not abstract fantasies, nor wishful thinking, but unactualized potentials." Though Noever's text proceeds to address the museum's potential as an anticipation of what is to come, we, in our space, believe that we are what is to come--utopia in its perpetual state of being actualized, in its most palpable and material possibility.

With this is mind, UTOPIA is also an open space of immodest humor, of mistakes, and of dubious uncertainty. We are a project space, a work in progress, a constant reinvention. CONCRETE UTOPIA is collectively-structured, and its participants volunteer in diverse capacities, bringing to the space diverse skills, interests, and educational backgrounds.