Alleged Art

When is an art gallery more than an art gallery? When it's the Alleged Gallery-an exhibit space, rehearsal studio and skateboard haunt that emerged in New York's Lower East Side in the early '90s and quickly became a vital creative and social hub for the area's dense population of wannabe filmmakers, artists, actors and musicians. Many of the emerging artists who exhibited there have since established themselves as full-fledged celebrities: Mark Gonzales, Spike Jonze and Sophia Coppola, to name but a few.

In 2005 the founder of the Alleged Gallery, Aaron Rose, authored a book chronicling the gallery's history, Young, Sleek and Full of Hell: Ten Years of New York's Alleged Gallery. In it he compiled behind-the-scenes photos and interviews from some of the hundred or so artists who began their careers there, painting a vivid portrayal of the heady collision between art and street culture at Alleged.

On Friday, Feb. 27, Rose comes to the Third Ward's Hot Pop to kick off their artist series with a talk, book signing and live art display.

Also mining for material at the edges of society-though in an entirely different climate and to a wholly different end-is novelist Tim Dorsey, author of a popular comic crime series featuring manic vigilante/tour guide Serge Storms and his stoned sidekick, Coleman. Dorsey recently released his 11th book in the series, Nuclear Jellyfish. Once again it casts Dorsey's unhinged anti-hero in a string of improbable murder scenes involving all manner of props, most of them purchased from Home Depot. The plot surrounds Serge's unconventional travel advisory tour around his much-loved state of Florida, of whose quirks and famous exports he's particularly well versed. His tour leads him to cross paths with (and inventively dispose of) a number of unsavory characters, including a jewel thief after whom the book is named. Dorsey will come to Mystery One Bookstore on March 3 at 7 p.m. to sign copies of his new book.