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ART IN REVIEW

ART IN REVIEW; 'Colony'
By ROBERTA SMITH
Published: April 9, 2004
Hudson Clearing

157 Hudson Street, at Hubert Street

TriBeCa - Through Sunday

Before the words TriBeCa, or even SoHo, were invented, artists lived, worked and exhibited their work in raw downtown spaces like the one inhabited by ''Colony,'' a mildly rambunctious show. The second effort of Hudson Clearing, at present a transitory alternative space established by Haan Y. Chau and Emily Wei, the show provides an exercise in sweet nostalgia with work by mostly fresh names.

Chris Hanson and Hendrika Sonnenberg have contributed an old Hotpoint stove that seems to have been ripped from its moorings yet appears unusually solid -- perhaps because it is made of Sculpy, a claylike material. David Hardy has built an imposing shingled roofline of seemingly 19th-century vintage, which can also be taken as a kind of painting. Fritz Welch and Megan Cump improvised ephemeral structures, real and photographed. Valerie Atkisson has made dense-leafed, mobile-like family trees from paper and wire. In the video ''Hermit Lane,'' Ann Weathersby bashes her way through a sheetrock wall.

Karlos Carcamo, Andrew Guenther, the collaborative group Emic-Etic and Gedi Sibony comport themselves with widely varying degrees of effectiveness. Two artists who are known (or hope to be known) as Eteam swing between reality and simulation in ''1.1 Acre Flat Screen,'' a smart and amusing video in which they scheme about tricking trains into stopping on the small patch of Utah desert they purchased on e-Bay. But the show's biggest star may be its soon-to-be-extinct period-piece space, put to good use while awaiting reincarnation as high-priced residences.

ROBERTA SMITH