Utopia invites artist Eva Conrad as curator of Hot House II, the second exhibition of their curatorial project “Hot House” exemplifying maximalism within the craft resurgence in America. The group exhibition brings together works in ceramics, painting, glass, fibers and more.

Featured works by Kevin Umaña, Alex Diamant, Fallon Navarro, Jordan Fine, Corinna Cowles, Devin Osorio, John Quick, Lindsey Willis, Taylor Mezo, Marita Manson,  Maxwell Mustardo, Dominic Terlizzi, and Victoria Florio.

This exhibition refuses any opposition or hierarchy between craft and fine art. Conrad brings the collection of artists together as representative of the expansive presence of craft and decorative art that stands opposed to the narrow aesthetics of algorhythmically propagated neo-minimalist design. In a globalized world, Conrad protests the reduction of design to a series of grey, sleek surfaces. This project counters such trends, inspired by the Pattern and Decoration Movement’s efforts to display craft as an honest and kaleidoscopic record of human experience and making in the late 1970s and 1980s.