Curious Matter

Very tiny, but cool. The owner (I wish I remembered his name! A friendly, mustached gentleman) was so nice and gave us information about several of the pieces. You can only spend about 15 minutes in here, but why not?

I read about this place months ago in NEW the quarterly JC magazine. A tiny, cool art gallery? I’m totally there! I was excited to check it out, but to my chagrin they didn’t have an exhibit going on so they were not open at that time. I proceeded to like them on Facebook so I would be aware of when happenings were going on. A few weeks ago, up pops something on my newsfeed about an exhibit that’s about to open «A Fool’s Journey»…woo hoo! Last Sunday on a beautiful day, the husband and I are wandering around the city and starting to head back to JC and I say, hey we should check this place out.
It is literally the smallest art venue I’ve ever been in, but they make it work. Curious Matter is owned by 2 older men and the gallery part is actually the front foyer of the 1860’s row house they live in (remember when I said it was small?). The exhibit consisted of about 25 artist’s works and ranged from videos to paintings to objects (a couple of pieces were a little nauseating but that’s art, right?). The owners were extremely nice and very graciously gave us an explanation of what the exhibit was representing and then just let us peruse ourselves.
Next is my favorite part, they also have outside something that is called Le Bouquiniste which is a mobile kiosk featuring books, zines prints, etc all done by small and independent presses. They fashion it after the booksellers along the Seine in Paris and 4^th Avenue in NY. Again, one of the owners was out there and talked to us about the concept and the different publications that were there. There were so many things to choose from that I asked him what he would recommend for someone who had never delved into this area before and he suggested one zine (Rocket Queen) and one book of poetry (Sky Poems by Greying Ghost Press) which I purchased. The zine was $ 7.00 and the book of poetry was $ 2.00. I was surprised at the prices, I was expecting to hear $ 20 for each so I was even more thrilled by this place.
Like I said they are only open when they have exhibitions, but when they do they are open on Sundays from 12pm-​3pm. I highly suggest that everyone visit when there is an opportunity. It’s something a little different and as always we shoudl all support any local businesses that are helping to build up Jersey City.