Mercer Labs

This month I had the opportunity to visit Mercer Labs alongside my graduating classmates at Hudson County Commmunity College.  This was my first time visiting Mercer Labs and wasn’t sure what to expect. Mercer Labs certainly didn’t disappoint and as a studio arts major I was truly inspired by the capabilities of digital art. This is a topic I’ve grown more intrigued with as of late and this gave me some great ideas that I plan to incorporate into my own work.

Mercer Labs stands apart from other museums in the sense that it is a truly immersive experience. This includes wide open space and some tight narrow galleries as well. The museum flows like a snake guiding patrons from one room to the next in a somewhat orderly fashion. For me this was actually a downside as I prefer to relax and explore different sections of a museum at my own pace personally. Each room however is like a sort of experience that should be taken time to really experience each one. Lights, sounds, bright roooms, misty rooms, and more encompass this museum. The artwork is fascinating but the overall atmosphere and flow of the museum doesn’t feel like an inviting space for local artists, but more of a tourist attraction that one would probably visit and never feel the need to return. The biggest problem this museum has is the pungent smells which honestly made me feel sick and want to leave.

Despite this I still consider the work of the artists to be brilliant, having seen displays one would have trouble imagining. It’s worth seeing once in my opinion to see the true capabilities of digital art and the potentials an artist can take their work level to. I also support the idea that anything can truly be art and every aspect of this museum surely promotes that.

Some notable exhibits for me include The Cave, a cherry blossom adorned “cave with comfy rocks and imagery of swinging monkeys; The Dragon, an all immersive highlighted exhibit featuring thousands of led lights; and Archetype, a sand robot viewing exhibit complete with an interactive kinetic sand feature where patrons can get creative themselves.

The Cave

The Dragon

Archetype

Mana Contemporary

Mana Contemporary Studios- a discreet urban hub of working artists studios and exhibits of rare, greatly unseen artworks.  I’ve personally spent a good amount of time at Mana, personally assisting with their open studios events, Project 270 voting campaign, and most recently visiting on a gallery crawl trip alongside my graduating peers.  

Mana was founded by Moishe Mana, who emigrated from Israel in 1983. After starting any successful businesses in America including moving and document storage companies, Mana decided he wanted to store fine art, and Mana Contemporary was born. Moishe is a known advocate for Jewish artists, currently spotlighting breathtaking work by artists such as Yuli Aloni Pimor and Shuli Sadé.

Rosh Hashana at Mana Contemporary

The first piece of art you’ll see when enter is a large grid of red squares hanging behind a long front desk- a three dimensional installation by Shuli Sadé. These squares are more than they may appear, noticing grids of intricate lines throughout the piece in somewhat thoughtful patten. It turns out this is not as much of an abstract piece but actually a carefully graphed city map.  In another Exhibition Shuli demonstrates her attention to detail further with a stunning and massive city graphic, giving the impression of a keen Birds Eye view. 

Shuli Sadé

On your left is is a rarely before seen installation by Dan Flavin, an Iconic American light artist, known for breaking down walls in contemporary art history and creating larger than life creations light years ahead of their time. Created in the 70’s, this piece was only on view for a very short period of time only once before being put into storage. The piece was acquired by Mana for exhibition and is currently an anchor piece of their collection, turning heads as soon as one enters the venue. Of course, cell camera phones did not exist when this piece was created but in pictures today sone of the lights mysteriously change color. Definitely a very unique and distinguished artist, and reason enough alone to visit Mana. If one were to visit on an open studio days be sure to check the upper floors for another hidden Flavin piece.

Dan Flavin

The next exhibit is a true gem, masterfully combining ancient antiquities and with super fresh, bold and distinctive contemporary art- Chuck Kelton’s Transformations. Kelton is an artist and collector who in this display, pairs pieces of his artwork with traditional African Masks, a fascinating combination. Kelton creates his pieces in a darkroom, burning photo sensitive paper with chemicals creating abstract designs that flow with life.  Each piece of work of course has an equally impressive historical mask, with each pairing flowing effortlessly. Each mask and art piece is on a different colored pastel background, making them stand out dynamically in one of the most well designed exhibitions I’ve seen.  I had the chance to visit Chuck Keltons studio, where we talk together about historical items and I admire his collection.  The large studio is filled to the brim with not just masks but all types of objects from history.

Chuck Kelton Artwork and Artifact Collection

A staple of the Mana Collection is also their grand collection of original silkscreens by Andy Warhol. This is the largest collection of Warhols in New Jersey, containing both distinctly rare and widely familiar pieces alike. Everyone has seen the famous images of Marilyn Monroe and Campbells soup cans, but it’s unlikely that you’ve seen his series depicting the John F. Kennedy Assassination, which like the aforementioned Dan Flavin installation, has only been exhibited once since its creation over 50 years ago. Similar to the Flavin piece, Warhols work isn’t a day out of style and still greatly ahead of it’s time.

Chelsea Gallery Crawl October 2024

    Last week I had the chance to visit some premium Chelsea Galleries with my classmates and professors. This really helped me gain a burst of inspiration for future projects. I love to take a concept one artist started and through incorporating that with my own styles I can create my own unique and distinct work and help my art practice really evolve. I don’t look at this as stealing someone’s idea, but honoring it and expanding on both artists Ideas. Art is all abut conveying ideas so an artist should be overjoyed to have their artwork and ideas spread to another artists practice.  To look at taking inspiration as a form of plagiarism is just another form of gatekeeping in the art world. All art is taken from something else.

    One of the perks of HCCCs location its its proximity to the Journal Square Path Station, a five minute trip directly to Manhattan. Chelsea's galleries are some of the best in the world, where some of the most creative and artistic people show their artwork.  These artists are all unique, and the same goes for their artwork. Most great artists in Manhattan all have their own flair and stand out in a crowd. 

    After getting off at 23rd Street, our group of 25+ students and two professors walked a few blocks to our first gallery, the Lehmann Maupin Gallery. On the first floor lobby we were greeted by bold abstract wall pieces by Liza Lou. Lou brilliantly utilizes beads to create breathtaking three dimensional forms on a two dimensional plane.  Some of the most compelling art for me is simply based around a core color way that evokes a sense and teleports me to a certain place and time.  The beads feel like a sea one can get lost in one color seemlessly flowing to the next propelling waves of inspiration. Lehmann Maupin describes Lous work as breaking the barrier between art and craft.  The addition of crafting and extended media really brings value to artwork for me and I love to see unique projects like this.

Liza Lou

Liza Lou

    At Hill Art Foundation currently a very different, but equally culturally rich and unique exhibition- a brilliant painting series by Jordan Casteel. Jordan Casteel displays mastery in the field of painting, making high details stand out in bright beaming colors.  In many works she takes what would be a somewhat simple scenes and image and make them beam with personality, emotion, and character. The facial expressions and poses of the figures bring surely very real figures and places from the artists community to life. The paintings feel very real and invite one into the life of the artist. Art that reflects ones life is not an easy task, with each portrait likely having important meaning to the artist and the person being portrayed. Nevertheless, Casteel does it elegantly and tastefully.  Hill Art Foundation is also a highly visually striking gallery with intriguing architecture, comfy chairs to rest, and an inspiring third floor view of Chelsea and gorgeous artwork all at once.

Jordan Casteel

Joshua Greenbaum in the Hill Art Foundation

Jordan Casteel

    The next stop was a gallery we had seen on the walk up to Lehmann Maupin, and it had caught my eye right away personally, so I circled back with a smaller group of classmates. Jim Kempner Fine Art Stands out from the rest and breaks boundaries as a gallery thanks to it's artist layout and design truly unlike any other, with even the shape of the building being truly it's own, standing out as a piece of art in it's own right. from the street peering in, one can see a glimpse of a perfectly sized zen garden with sculptures by Boaz Vaadia. Vaadia depicts figures of people and a dog feeling very rustic and distinguished bluestone.  The ripped texture from a distance gives the sculptures an illusion of being a woven basket materials, but when taking a closer look one will notice they are rock solid. The sculptures give the garden a high value aura, and a rustic matching wooden chain makes it another great rest spot to view top knotch artwork. 

Boaz Vaadia

Joshua Greenbaum in the Jim Kempner Sculpture Garden

    Inside Jim Kempners Gallery I am greeted by highly friendly staff and more incredible architecture and artwork. This gallery feels extra cozy and inviting with a uniquely refreshing scent, making it further stand out from other galleries in New York.  The same goes for the artwork inside with top artists like Jim Watt exhibiting his bribrant pink and yellow paintings, remnant of lemonade on a hot summer day. Jim Kempner Gallery also creates a webseries, the Madness of Art, which I am eager to check out. The gallery as a whole feels really fresh and makes you really want to come back to visit again.

    

Jim Watt

Joshua Greenbaum in Jim Kempner Fine Art

    

    

HCCC Highlighted Exhibitions

    Over the past few weeks I've had the chance to personally immerse myself in two very new and fresh exhibitions, but also different from each other in many ways.  These two new shows are both hosted at my own school, Hudson County Community College- Shifting Horizons in Dineen-Hull Gallery in Journal Square, currated by the brilliant Professor Laurie Riccadonna and Geometric Giggles, a solo exhibition featuring former street artist and turned art educator, Ray Arcadio, at North Hudson's Art Concourse. Both Shows are captivating and intriguing, inspiring new realms of possibilities for art students looking to find their own niche in the art world.

    Shifting Horizons is a group exhibition featuring the work of seven artists. The exhibit explores themes of the environment, earthly and unearthly landscapes, and the spirit of nature.  Imediately upon entering I was drawn to one table with a sculpture display by glass artist and HCCC professor Jason Minami.  In this installation, Minmai creates a horde of meticulously blown, glass mushrooms, covering half the table in a semi-circle orientation.  The other half of the table is covered in paper with a burned pattern.  Gazing through the mushrooms you can see reflections of the burned paper, with a shimmer as the lights catch each of them.  Minami explains further on how he mapped the path of the sun using the mushrooms onto the paper, beofore burning the rays permanently with a blowtorch.  In a future project, Minami mentions plans to potentially create a solar beam using glass and the suns rays, in order to burn paper using the sun's natural light beam path- a fascinating concept I would love to see become a reality.  Minami is truly a master when it comes to glass art and brings a really unique style of artwork to the table.

    In the greyscale drawings of Michelle Finniak, it is sometimes hard to tell whether we are looking at a scene on earth, possibly other planets, or even fantasy dream worlds.  Finniak's work was initially pretty uninteresting to me, blending together into somewhat unidentifiable blobs from a distance, however after further examination I noticed some of the fascinating details you really have to get up close and personal to see. In one graphite and charcoal drawing, I discover minuscule war tanks traversing around a somewhat post apocalyptic world. Different sections of the drawing resemble different theaters of war such as World War Europe, Vietnam, and the War in the Middle East. Another drawing, this one in ink is remnant the winding mountain village of Padulla, Itally.  Bird mothers are seen pushing carriages with children, and those who have been to Padulla know of the sound of screeching birds in that village. Overall it's obviously great work with great insight, if you've got a half hour and a magnifying glass, but to most non-artists this wouldn't really be recognized as anything special.

    Directly across from Finniak's black and grey works are some of the largest and boldest in the whole show- the abstract paintings of Artist and HCCC Professor Riley Strom. During an artist residency in Mexico City, Strom created her own oil paints using all natural pigments.  Strom visited local indigenous tribes, and received the pigments and gained inspiration for her paintings.  Her work includes beautiful hues of bright reds, oranges, blues and yellows with rich earth tones throughout, giving the paintings a naturalistic look, and the spirit and creativity of Indiginous Mexico is fully embodied. This type of eco-artwork is truly a lost art, and the natural paints give the paintings a distinguished look that cannot be replicated using anything purchased in your local art supply store.  Factories like ones that create mass tubes of paint are detrimental to our environment, so maybe all artists should revert to this form of work.  I doubt that would ever happen, but at this stage Strom's work certainly stands out elegantly in the crowd.

Legendary Professor Michael Lee reflects on art with students (classic)

Riley Strom Oil Painting on Vellum

    Currently on view at HCCC's Art Concourse at North Hudson,  Geometric Giggles is now on view, showcasing the work of Ray Arcadio. Geometric Giggles is new and fresh, demonstrating Arcadio's experienced aptitude in the visual arts.  Exploring themes of popculture, comics, and movies, including Star Wars, The Walking Dead, Batman, the Joker, and the Avengers.  The Exhibit even has a painting of Michael Jackson, complete with white glove and all.  The artwork includes all kinds of references to many of the subcultures I've loved growing up, with each piece bringing back waves of memories from different points in my life.  This made the exhibition really resonate with me on a personal level and really stands out among others I've seen. Arcadio was a front runner in the Jersey City street art and graffiti scene, and is now transitioning to breaking boundaries on the canvas and other fine art endeavors.  He also spends his time inspiring young artists as an educator in the Jersey City school system.  

In the center most hallway of the Concourse, Arcadio shows a prolific collection of domino shaped portraits of figures many may quickly recognize, such as Darth Vader and Groot.  Each of these caricatures is built out of simple geometric forms, bearing their masssive teeth, hence the name Geometric Giggles, these artworks are genuinely comical and amusing to look at. Theese icons from what many consider to be "geek subcultures" come from franchises with deep and intellectual storylines, and many of these characters are often misunderstood in some way by fans.  The idea of giving these characters a laughing smile not only changes their vibe but brings light to somewhat dark individuals.  

Works by Ray Arcadio in the North Hudson Art Concourse

       Besides bringing a bold new swing to traditional painting, Arcadio is also an adept three-dimensional designer. In  the main hallway I found representations of Captain America and Iron man in brilliant popping three- dimensional form.  Captain America is designed in the shape of a large domed shield, in a shape resembling Cap's shield.  On the same wall also is another domino shaped portrait of Iron man, this one utilizing three- dimensional objects, with a sauce cup at the center, replicating Tony Stark's Arc Reactor. Ray Arcadio has certainly more than proven himself, not only as a fantastic artist, but also as a comic visionary.

 

JSQ Art Crawl

 JSQ Art Crawl 2024

This year’s crawl was a massive success, especially for the rising artists. For the most part this would be just another event catering to the “established” artist, but thanks to Hudson County Community College and the Dineen Hull Gallery, students had the opportunity to share their work with the Jersey City Art Crawlers. The Student Showcase looked spectacular where some students framed and exhibited their work for the very first time. The work looked spectacular, some pieces easily rivaling a so called established artists.

Many of the guests seemed somewhat unapproachable to me and I felt kind of uncomfortable, which I usually don't. After the conclusion of the Anti-Pompidou protest next door, several of the protesters came to our show not to complain or protest but to see our artwork. I can't understand why people who enjoy gallery hopping and viewing exhibitions would be opposed to a new museum being opened right in the heart of Journal Square. This could also open opportunities for local artists to be highlighted in a major museum, right in their own community.

The first guest of the crawl was a lone middle aged man wearing a red and white, very generic plaid shirt and leather loafers, with a glaring homemade pin reading "pompi-don't" in black sharpie.  He looked very uptight, walking right past the student show into the main "shifting horizons" show. I decided not to talk to him.  More guests, and elderly couple viewed my Joker and Friends collage for all of 8 seconds, before the wife asked her husband, "Let me ask you, isn't this plagiarism? That's Frank Gorshin right there!" She wittingly points out a magazine cutout of Frank Gorshin as the Riddler in the 1966 Batman television series. Unsurprisingly, she did not recognize any of the figures from 1970 onward which I'm sure she would have also denounced as plagiarism. I had never thought about any legal ramifications behind this piece but the criticism certainly made my night.  After their critic, the couple approached the gallery attendant, Ellaf to complain, saying we knew little about our own artwork as well as the foundation artwork, claiming the gallery was wrongfully in possession of an Indigenous American Headdress. Meanwhile many spectators praised the student work, making this event an undeniable win.

I also had the opportunity to explore some of the other crawl locations, including beautiful shows by Daniel Guzman and team at DGA Studios and a solo show by Buttered Roll at Smush Gallery.  The diverse and unique art by the Jersey City artist is so inspiring to me.  It's events like these that I'll remember keep me going as an artist.

Afterlives: Contemporary Art in the Byzantine Crypt

Standing firmly as the largest museum in New York, The Metropolitan museum of art has no shortage of art and rarities one could spend weeks examining. In one exhibition you may be looking at priceless pieces by top contemporary names, while in the next room you may find ancient antiquities dating over three thousand years old. Many are familiar with the Byzantine Crypt exhibit at the Met, a dark cave-like room bearing ancient artifacts. Being that the Byzantine Empire came to an end in 1453, one might find it unlikely to find contemporary art in this space, but this is exactly the case. In the Afterlives exhibition, new and ancient come together, showing how modern artists are undoubtedly still influenced and inspired by the earliest ancient artists. The first Contemporary work I discovered in the crypt was Point of Contact, a sculpture by Louise Bourgeois, a revolutionary French artist who lived over five hundred years after the fall of the Byzantine empire. Known for bold bronze arachnid statues like Spider and Maman, Bourgeois paved the way for female artists looking to find their ground in the art world. Bourgeois has also explored human sexuality in many of her works, with her piece in the Byzantine Crypt being a medium size sculpture depicting a woman’s legs, bottom, and underwear. The sculpture is cast in bronze, a favorite material of Bourgeois which gives her work archival longevity, and faux-ancient look. Resembling a heart from a distance the piece would likely go unnoticed as an ancient table centerpiece.

Bourgeois, Point of Contact, 1968

In the display case directly adjacent to the Bourgeois is Fragment of a Stella, a piece that is authentically ancient. This is a painting from Roman Egypt, specifically thought to be as early as 4th century c.e. An early form of paint is used, likely made of rock pigment mixed with an early binding agent. Some of these binders may have included egg, honey, tree sap, or even urine. The surface is a simple wooden board, now broken and weathering aways, looks to be a small piece of a larger piece. This could have been a segment of a large mural. From what we can see a man of dark complexion is partially visible on the board, pointing left. To his right, a bird is perched in a way it appears to be speaking into the man’s ear. The bird iconography is associated with both Egyptian creator god Ra and underworld god Horus.

 

Fragment of a Stella, Roman Egypt, 4th or 5th century

Fragment of a Stella, Roman Egypt directly across from the Stella Fragment is Enoch, a piece resembling a pharos sarcophagas. At first glance many might think this is an artifact originating from ancient egypt, possibly a jar that once held remains. However, this is not the case as the piece was made as early as 2017 by Bahamian artist Tavares Strachan. Even Upon further inspection the figure piece is not a pharoh at all but in fact Robert Henry Lawrence Jr., the first black astronaut. The piece was cast in bronze, gold, steel, with retro radarreflectors, and blessed by a shinto priest in honor of Lawrence Jr., who died in a jet crash.

Strachan, Enoch, 2017

More contemporary artists in the crypt....

Balasubramaniam, Body as Shell, 2015

Metcalf, Memento Mori Brooch, 2001