That’s the problem with pop-ups: If you happen not to walk down a particular block one week, you might only discover a pop-up business right as it’s about to, uh, pop down? I guess I hadn’t been on Duane between Greenwich and Hudson since before August 18, because only yesterday did I see that something new was in the teensy space that used to be Pomme. It’s R. Schum Gallery, and it’s only around through the weekend.

The artist on view is R. Nicholas Kuszyk, who primarily paints robots*; almost 5,000 of his robot paintings have been sold in the past decade. The miniature ones start at $80; prices go up to $12,000. Kuszyk is also the author of a children’s book, 2009’s R Robot Saves Lunch.

When I stopped by this afternoon, I spoke with gallerist Reuel Schum, who said that he and Kuszyk had been looking for a space to have a pop-up gallery when they heard that 186 Duane was available (Schum’s wife works at Nili Lotan next door, which sublets the space). Normally, said Schum, half the works at any given Kuszyk show will sell; Tribeca, in that regard, has been disappointing, which I attributed to this being August, while he said that Kuszyk tends to be better known in “hipper neighborhoods” such as Williamsburg and, in San Francisco, the Mission.

You still have a few days to prove Tribeca appreciates hipness. Just don’t all go at once….

* Later in the day, I spoke with Kuszyk on the phone, and I asked him why he paints robots. There are a lot of reasons, it turns out, but when he said that he cringes every time someone asks that question, I decided that I wouldn’t publish the answer. (Go see the art for yourself, and take from it what you take from it.) What struck me as particularly interesting was the notion that it can be creatively liberating to limit one’s self, at least in terms of subject matter.