When Wang Chen, now 48, came to New Jersey via China in 2000, it wasn’t her intention to focus on table tennis, a sport she began playing at age 7 in her native Shanghai. “When I first came, it was to help my sister with her business in New Jersey,” Chen said. “I thought for […]
Food and Fun
Things to see (this will include art, theater, dance, music, movies, comedy, spoken word, readings etc.)
Things to do (this will include activities like street fairs, 5k runs, reservoir tours etc.)
Posted inColumns
“Pompeii: The Immortal City” at Liberty Science Center
Pompeii is gruesome. There, in the terrible shadow of Mount Vesuvius, thousands of imperial Roman townspeople asphyxiated under a ten-foot blanket of volcanic ash. Two millennia later, archaeologists are still reconstructing the city and refining what we know about the cataclysm. We know Pompeii residents tried to escape and were unsuccessful. Centuries-old impressions of bodies trapped in agony […]
Posted inColumns, Latest News, Narrate, Visual Arts
Drama, Anxiety and Beauty at Art Fair 14C
On the lacquered floor of the gigantic Jersey City Armory (678 Montgomery St.), scores of participants set up for a crowd of spectators. But despite the overhead scoreboard, wooden bleachers, and anticipation in the air, this is no sporting event. Instead, painters, sculptors, photographers, multi-media dreamers, and creators of unclassifiable what-is-its — most from the […]
Posted inVisual Arts
“The Embankment on My Mind” at NJCU Makes a Powerful Case for Preservation
The Sixth Street Embankment is hard to miss. What you see when you look at it depends on who you are. To developers, it’s a place to build and make money. To greenspace advocates, it’s a potential answer to Manhattan’s High Line. Birds may see a verdant spot to roost; seedpods might find a fertile […]
Posted inColumns, Visual Arts
“Your Home Is My Home” Shakes Up Dineen Hull Gallery
One of the greater ironies of art in Jersey City: the three truly incendiary group shows mounted during the pandemic era have all hung in our most moneyed institution. “Implied Scale,” a condemnation of waste and a passionate staredown directed at habitat destruction, “Land of the Free,” a searing examination of the border and the […]
Posted inLatest News, Visual Arts
BARC The Dog at Deep Space Has Plenty of Bite
I. Avatars If you’ve played an online game — and social media is an online game — there’s a good chance you’ve participated in an art project. A modest one, one circumscribed by the game’s parameters, but a common act of creation nevertheless. You’ve made a small digital stand-in for yourself, dressed it up, equipped it, […]
Posted inBusiness
Breweries and restaurants spar over how to fix N.J.’s licensing rules
Courtesy of New Jersey Monitor The drawn-out fight over whether the brewery industry is hampered by onerous regulations continued Thursday during a committee meeting discussing legislation aimed at brewery license holders. Brewery owners, bartenders, and restaurateurs packed the Senate Law and Public Safety Committee hearing, where lawmakers heard a discussion of three bills — one to codify […]
Posted inColumns
A Brief Encounter With Xiaoqiang Li at Novado Gallery
Some abstract works register an immediate impression but don’t hold attention; the pieces in Li’s exhibition don’t demand scrutiny, but they certainly reward it. The longer they’re observed, the more they seem to breathe.
Posted inColumns
JCAST22: Eleven Marvelous Things at MANA Contemporary
For the story of JCAST22 to be fairly told, we must discuss a place that hasn’t always been well integrated into the scene: MANA Contemporary.
Posted inEducation
Jersey City Dance Academy Celebrates 50th Anniversary
he Jersey City Dance Academy marks its 50th Anniversary this month, a milestone the organization will be formally celebrating later this fall.