Jersey City Arts Awards Lack Clear Standards
The Jersey Arts Council’s 2020 awards were deserved, according to arts critic Tris McCall, but the Council itself failed to justify its choices.
Tris McCall has written about art, architecture, performance, politics, and public culture for many publications, including the Newark Star-Ledger, the Bergen Record, Jersey Beat, the Jersey City Reporter, the Jersey Journal, the Jersey City Independent, and New Jersey dot com. He also writes about things that have no relevance to New Jersey. Not today, though.
The Jersey Arts Council’s 2020 awards were deserved, according to arts critic Tris McCall, but the Council itself failed to justify its choices.
Dan Fenelon’s show “Primordial Pop” at Jersey City’s Novado Gallery features vibrant folk-art- inspired images sure to delight adults and children alike.
DISTORT is one of the biggest names in Jersey City art, and I mean that literally: If you’ve walked around town, you’ve seen his name painted in big block letters on the many murals he’s contributed to the local streetscape. DISTORT is not shy about taking up space —- his mural by the Holland Tunnel […]
The Front Bottoms are the best rock band in New Jersey. I can make this claim because I’ve heard them all, and yes, they’re better than that one you’re thinking of.
Winifred McNeill is an absolute local. She lives in Jersey City, teaches at NJCU, and she’s exhibited at Drawing Rooms, Victory Hall, and in the Windows on Columbus.
ArtPride NJ and the NJ State Council on the Arts have teamed up in a campaign to convince state lawmakers to keep the arts alive in New Jersey.
Jersey City residents stuck at home looked, desperately, to local authorities for answers. That tap, too, ran pretty dry. Neither the municipal government nor Suez, the utility company that provides our water, were forthcoming with answers.
Today, those rooms are silent. The global health crisis has emptied out the galleries and closed the doors of our creative spaces. Most of the arts institutions in Jersey City work on thin margins. Even in good times, it’s difficult to keep galleries solvent. Frozen in place and with few ways to act, local curators face an unprecedented challenge.
“One Year After,” a retrospective exhibition that will be on view at the Art House Gallery through the end of March, places those simpler works in the company of others that aren’t quite so guileless and establishes Manzueta as a painter of considerable breadth and talent — more than just our homegrown answer to Daniel Johnston.
Since the last time we rounded up performance spaces, the town has lost a cornerstone: FM, the comfortable, decent-sounding downtown venue that was, for more than a year, the most reliable local spot to catch an independent act. FM had a real stage and lights and a dedicated PA system run by soundmen who took pride in their skills. It was a true rock club in the time-tested style, booked by people with roots deep in the community and a clear vision of the kind of venue they’d like to run and scene they want to cultivate.
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