Off Paradise

About the Gallery
Off Paradise is a gallery located on Walker Street founded by Natacha Polaert in the fall of 2019. The name evokes the old neighborhood of Five Points, at the center of which was a small, triangular park, full of hopes and grime, called Paradise Square. It also invokes Paradise Alley, the artists’ and poets’ colony on the then-godforsaken corner of Avenue A and East 11th Street that is referenced in Jack Kerouac’s novel The Subterraneans. Off Paradise is a fictional place, right off Paradise, adjacent to it, but not exactly it.

About the presentation

Off Paradise will debut Maximilian Schubert’s new series of works, “Untitled (Smoke),” at Independent New York.

“Schubert’s luminous “canvases” are cast urethane resin objects—hybrids, really, of painting and sculpture that refuse to cohere into one or the other. Comprising layer upon translucent layer of poured, pigmented resin, they evoke, with the most subtle of means, the ever-shifting palette of the sky over New York City.” writes Nancy Spector. 

In early June of last year, uncontrolled fires blazed across Canada, turning the city’s skies into a hazy shade of yellows, greys, and oranges. Iconic landmarks disappeared behind grey veils of smoke, wafts of yellow oxides, pyrrole reds, and burnt umber sunsets filtering into acrid oranges and pinks. The city lights pricked at the night like shimmering static. In fear and awe, we looked out at a city transformed by a fugitive and sinister beauty.

“Untitled (Smoke)” is the continuation of the series “Untitled (Over New York),” debuted on the occasion of Independent New York in May 2022, and later expanded upon in "Nocturnes", Schubert’s solo exhibition at Off Paradise in 2023.