From 2021 through 2023, I didn’t miss a show in Jersey City. I may not have written about everything, but if it was up in a local gallery or art space, I was there. That gave me a respectably wide field of reference and the authority to write an article like this. Even if you disagreed with my assessments, you couldn’t deny that I’d seen it all.

In 2024, I didn’t see it all. Oh, I saw most of it, but there were exhibitions mounted that I couldn’t find a way to check out. Worse still, I didn’t give a few of the shows that I did see the kind of scrupulous attention that I’d paid as a matter of course in the recent past.  I considered writing a different kind of superlatives column.  I even considered not writing a column at all.

But eventually I gave in to my desire to share what I’d seen — because I did see plenty. If a field of endeavor is meaningful to you, it’s always worthwhile to figure out what you valued and why, and acknowledge the shows and works that left an indelible impression. Plus, writing a countdown is too much fun not to do, especially at this time of the year.  Listmaking is notoriously subjective and invariably infuriating, but I’ll stand by these calls.  And if there’s something you think I missed, I hope you’ll tell me all about it, because in 2024 at least, there’s a slim but significant chance I did.  

16. Gianluca Bianchino’s “States of Entropy” at the ArtWall (350 Warren St.)

If you took an array of handsome wooden clocks, shattered them, and artfully reassembled them, what sort of time would they tell? If the numerals fell away, and we were left with nothing but angles, spirals, shapes and shadows, what would the hands of the clockface indicate? Gianluca Bianchino’s square wall-sculptures seemed to be recording the tick of moments in some alternate dimension; lined up in a row, they came on like a Tourneau Corner at the event horizon. Bianchino’s stacked pieces and fields of pigment suggested both the acceleration of Italian Futurism and the anarchic play of a wood shop. They looked fantastic — and marvelously disorienting — from the street.

15. Susan MacDonald’s “Transient Vistas” at Novado Gallery (110 Morgan St.)

A few windows down from the ArtWall, another artist investigated the elasticity of time and the fluidity of space. Yet the tone of “Transient Vistas” couldn’t have been more different than that of “States of Entropy.” Bianchino’s clock-like sculptures spoke powerfully of velocity; Susan MacDonald’s gorgeous, misty photographs whispered of things eternal. MacDonald, who intentionally moves her camera as she shoots to impart a blur to her long-exposure shots, conducted her photographic experiment in a place as otherworldly as any that can be reached without a spaceship: the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. The artist showed us a landscape that was at once permeable and adamantine, soft as a breath but fierce as the North Sea. She wasn’t (necessarily) trying to make an advert for her ancestral homeland, but “Transient Vistas” engendered some serious longing for hills that most of us will never see. 

<img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" width="780" height="635" data-attachment-id="35741" data-permalink="https://jcitytimes.com/img_5894-2/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_5894.jpg?fit=2119%2C1726&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2119,1726" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="IMG_5894" data-image-description data-image-caption="

Beth DiCara

” data-medium-file=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_5894.jpg?fit=300%2C244&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_5894.jpg?fit=780%2C635&ssl=1″ src=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_5894.jpg?resize=780%2C635&ssl=1″ alt class=”wp-image-35741″ srcset=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_5894.jpg?resize=1030%2C839&ssl=1 1030w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_5894.jpg?resize=300%2C244&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_5894.jpg?resize=80%2C65&ssl=1 80w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_5894.jpg?resize=768%2C626&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_5894.jpg?resize=1536%2C1251&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_5894.jpg?resize=2048%2C1668&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_5894.jpg?resize=1200%2C977&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_5894.jpg?resize=1024%2C834&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_5894.jpg?resize=1568%2C1277&ssl=1 1568w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_5894.jpg?resize=2000%2C1629&ssl=1 2000w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_5894.jpg?resize=400%2C326&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_5894.jpg?resize=706%2C575&ssl=1 706w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_5894-1030×839.jpg?w=370&ssl=1 370w” sizes=”(max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px”>

14. “Hard Feelings” at Evening Star Gallery (11 Monitor St.)

If we said that no room in New Jersey spotlights adventurous ceramics quite as well as Evening Star Gallery on Monitor Street, and we wouldn’t be guilty of hyperbole. But that makes it sound like the Evening Star crew is a more sober-sided bunch than they are. In practice, this exhibition space in a garden apartment is a playpen for mischievous clay-shapers — and that never felt clearer than it did during “Hard Feelings,” a giddy, imaginative, thoroughly enjoyable exercise in sculptural possibilities. The show leaned on the work of several Evening Star regulars, including curator Doris Caçoilo and her knitted threads of clay, the marvelously warped vision of Stacy As Pritchard, and gallerist Beth DiCara, conjurer of friendly animal spirits. Then there was Milcah Bassel, who provided vessels for the containment of emptiness, and a board game with ceramic pieces and no rules. Sit down, she challenged us, play it however you want. Make some power moves according to your intuition alone.

13. “Encausto, Decorato A Fuoco” at Casa Colombo (380 Monmouth St.)

Megan Klim’s wall-hanging sculptures wouldn’t be as unsettling as they are if they didn’t have irregularities. The apertures in her works are stuffed with gauze and lace, or slathered with encaustic, or scored by rusted metal grills, but they’re still breaks in the surface continuity, and those breaks suggest incompletion, transition, nascent things in the process of becoming. At “Encausto, Decorato A Fuoco,” Casa Colombo curator Lisa Collodoro have us a rare opportunity to fall into Klim’s vision — one that feels industrial and organic in equal measure. Her pieces hint at pregnancy, surgery, barnacle growth, corsets drawn too tight, disused machinery, hard healing. They prompt dark fascination: one you start examining them, it’s hard to stop looking. Wisely, Collodoro paired Klim with Francesca Azzara, another worker in wax and pigment whose pieces possess an eerie balance and an alien allure. Maybe there were a few shows in the Garden State this year stranger than this one, but none were more intense. 

<img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" width="780" height="744" data-attachment-id="41579" data-permalink="https://jcitytimes.com/two-outstanding-textile-art-shows-on-view-this-weekend/img_4562-2/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/IMG_4562.jpeg?fit=1407%2C1343&ssl=1" data-orig-size="1407,1343" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Tis Kaoru Zamler-Carhart & Vitaly Zamler" data-image-description data-image-caption="

Tis Kaoru Zamler-Carhart & Vitaly Zamler

” data-medium-file=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/IMG_4562.jpeg?fit=300%2C286&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/IMG_4562.jpeg?fit=780%2C744&ssl=1″ src=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/IMG_4562.jpeg?resize=780%2C744&ssl=1″ alt class=”wp-image-41579″ srcset=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/IMG_4562.jpeg?resize=1030%2C983&ssl=1 1030w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/IMG_4562.jpeg?resize=300%2C286&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/IMG_4562.jpeg?resize=80%2C76&ssl=1 80w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/IMG_4562.jpeg?resize=768%2C733&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/IMG_4562.jpeg?resize=1200%2C1145&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/IMG_4562.jpeg?resize=1024%2C977&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/IMG_4562.jpeg?resize=400%2C382&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/IMG_4562.jpeg?resize=706%2C674&ssl=1 706w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/IMG_4562.jpeg?w=1407&ssl=1 1407w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/IMG_4562-1030×983.jpeg?w=370&ssl=1 370w” sizes=”(max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px”>

12. “What Weaves Us Together” at MoRA (80 Grand St.)

Tis Kaoru Zamler-Carhart and Vitaly Zamler printed a photograph of a stuffed bunny surrounded by Lovecraftian vacuum tubes on a neoprene sheet made from a diving suit. They printed a duplicated and manipulated image of a stray recycling bag on a giant tapestry bursting with summer colors. They printed an amalgamated representation of city architecture, warped like the reflection of a streetscape in an oily puddle, on cotton mesh; they printed a picture of miso soup on fabric as thin and translucent as a summer dress. The two pranksters give the impression that they’ll print on you if you stand still long enough. But the truly amazing thing about “What Weaves Us Together” was that the pair’s methods, unique as they were, felt far secondary to the beauty of the pieces themselves. We didn’t need to know how Zamler and Zamler-Carhart made these vibrant objects — we could appreciate them for their balance, for their play of color and shape, and their capture and diffusion of light. Very few artists work at the intersection between photography and textiles; “What Weaves Us Together” made us wonder why these two disciplines aren’t combined more often.

<img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" width="780" height="940" data-attachment-id="36419" data-permalink="https://jcitytimes.com/at-imur-gallery-rootism-is-justin-rivenbarks-personal-art-movement/unnamed-1-5/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/unnamed-1.jpg?fit=1500%2C1806&ssl=1" data-orig-size="1500,1806" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Justin Rivenbark" data-image-description data-image-caption="

Justin Rivenbark

” data-medium-file=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/unnamed-1.jpg?fit=249%2C300&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/unnamed-1.jpg?fit=780%2C940&ssl=1″ src=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/unnamed-1.jpg?resize=780%2C940&ssl=1″ alt class=”wp-image-36419″ srcset=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/unnamed-1.jpg?resize=855%2C1030&ssl=1 855w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/unnamed-1.jpg?resize=249%2C300&ssl=1 249w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/unnamed-1.jpg?resize=66%2C80&ssl=1 66w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/unnamed-1.jpg?resize=768%2C925&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/unnamed-1.jpg?resize=1276%2C1536&ssl=1 1276w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/unnamed-1.jpg?resize=1200%2C1445&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/unnamed-1.jpg?resize=850%2C1024&ssl=1 850w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/unnamed-1.jpg?resize=400%2C482&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/unnamed-1.jpg?resize=706%2C850&ssl=1 706w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/unnamed-1.jpg?w=1500&ssl=1 1500w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/unnamed-1-855×1030.jpg?w=370&ssl=1 370w” sizes=”(max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px”>

11. “Rootism” at IMUR (67 Greene St.)

John Lennon once told us to turn off our minds, relax, and float downstream. It’s likely he would have nodded with approval at Justin Rivenbark’s artistic quest. Through a practice he calls Rootism, Rivenbark strives to create paintings in which no single stroke is of greater or lesser significance than any other. Instead, the artist follows where the line takes him. In “Rootism,” Rivenbank exhibited his attempts to step beyond figuration, beyond symbol and metaphor, and beyond discourse to get back to primal emotional communication. Did it work?  That’s for Rivenbank to say. The rest of us could simply marvel at his mazelike acrylic paintings, many long and thin as scrolls, each one filled from corner to corner with bars of bright color, twisting shapes, and lines radiating like neural networks. If you saw faces, musical instruments, cityscapes, maps, and mythological creatures in these paintings, it’s possible that your mind was imposing order and narrative on Rivenbank’s maelstrom. Or maybe the artist’s unconscious mind wasn’t quite as free from the demands of representation as he’d like it to be. Either way, this conceptualist with a manifesto in tow gave us plenty to think, and argue, about.  

<img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" width="780" height="438" data-attachment-id="30789" data-permalink="https://jcitytimes.com/img_2813/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IMG_2813.jpeg?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=1" data-orig-size="1280,720" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Danielle Scott" data-image-description data-image-caption="

Danielle Scott, “False Flag”, from Myriad

” data-medium-file=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IMG_2813.jpeg?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IMG_2813.jpeg?fit=780%2C438&ssl=1″ src=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IMG_2813.jpeg?resize=780%2C438&ssl=1″ alt=”Danielle Scott, “False Flag”” class=”wp-image-30789″ srcset=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IMG_2813.jpeg?resize=1030%2C579&ssl=1 1030w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IMG_2813.jpeg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IMG_2813.jpeg?resize=80%2C45&ssl=1 80w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IMG_2813.jpeg?resize=768%2C432&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IMG_2813.jpeg?resize=1200%2C675&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IMG_2813.jpeg?resize=1024%2C576&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IMG_2813.jpeg?resize=400%2C225&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IMG_2813.jpeg?resize=706%2C397&ssl=1 706w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IMG_2813.jpeg?w=1280&ssl=1 1280w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IMG_2813-1030×579.jpeg?w=370&ssl=1 370w” sizes=”(max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px”>

10. “Myriad” at MANA Contemporary (888 Newark Ave.)

Danielle Scott brought the incendiary stuff, including an inverted American flag festooned with images of lynchings. Anthony E. Boone went for the deep symbolism, assembling a gigantic black elephant head out of discarded objects. Sunil Garg added elegance with his whirling, lit-up cage of chicken wire, Leandro Comrie told tragic tales and imparted a desperate conviviality to the proceedings with a series of striking group portraits, Natalie Hou compelled her computer to spit out designs in printer characters, and Jose Miguel Diaz split a message of resistance on a piece of fabric down the middle and let the threads fray. It was down to Bryant Small to harmonize these and other voices of nonwhite artists from the greater MANA community. Small, who has emerged as one of the most reliably interesting curators in the Garden State, let each participant amplify the passion and pain of the next. 

<img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" width="780" height="781" data-attachment-id="35285" data-permalink="https://jcitytimes.com/img_3474/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_3474.jpeg?fit=808%2C809&ssl=1" data-orig-size="808,809" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Amelia Shields" data-image-description data-image-caption="

Amelia Shields at “Dear April” at Deep Space

” data-medium-file=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_3474.jpeg?fit=300%2C300&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_3474.jpeg?fit=780%2C781&ssl=1″ src=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_3474.jpeg?resize=780%2C781&ssl=1″ alt class=”wp-image-35285″ srcset=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_3474.jpeg?w=808&ssl=1 808w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_3474.jpeg?resize=300%2C300&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_3474.jpeg?resize=80%2C80&ssl=1 80w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_3474.jpeg?resize=768%2C769&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_3474.jpeg?resize=800%2C800&ssl=1 800w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_3474.jpeg?resize=600%2C600&ssl=1 600w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_3474.jpeg?resize=400%2C400&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_3474.jpeg?resize=200%2C200&ssl=1 200w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_3474.jpeg?resize=706%2C707&ssl=1 706w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_3474.jpeg?resize=100%2C100&ssl=1 100w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_3474.jpeg?w=370&ssl=1 370w” sizes=”(max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px”>

9. “Dear April” at Deep Space Gallery (77 Cornelison St.)

When Deep Space Gallery turned over the floor to Amelia Shields in the summer of 2023, she delivers a show so lively and so revved up that a car sculpture parked at the back wall (one you could actually get in and pretend to drive!) felt like a logical extension of its themes. For her return trip, she eased off the accelerator a bit. Shields gave us a wallful of botanicals: lovely paintings of plants and early-year blooms. Yet closer inspection revealed that the artist imparted fragility, willfulness, and defiance to her flowers. Here was the drama of all things determined to grow: would these blossoms make it, or would they wither on the vine from lack of care and sheer bad luck? Shields just didn’t run you over with the sentiment. You had to stop and absorb it. The same was true for the rest of “Dear April,” a show that grew in significance as this vexed year shuddered on. “Dear April” doubled as Deep Space’s annual all-female exhibition, and many favorites returned: Shamona Stokes, who contributed a ghostly monoprint of a pale face hovering over an urn, Deming King Harriman assembled more images that evoked haunted 19th century storybooks, Rebecca N. Johnson protected her female characters with floral sigils, Molly Craig stitched hundreds of little Czech beads to images of household items. The touch was gentle, the colors were muted and rain-washed, the tone was wary, and every rose had its thorn. 

<img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" width="780" height="782" data-attachment-id="38957" data-permalink="https://jcitytimes.com/0-2-18/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/0-2-1.jpeg?fit=1304%2C1307&ssl=1" data-orig-size="1304,1307" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Bill Kennon" data-image-description data-image-caption="

Bill Kennon, from “END World End”

” data-medium-file=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/0-2-1.jpeg?fit=300%2C300&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/0-2-1.jpeg?fit=780%2C782&ssl=1″ src=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/0-2-1.jpeg?resize=780%2C782&ssl=1″ alt class=”wp-image-38957″ srcset=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/0-2-1.jpeg?resize=1028%2C1030&ssl=1 1028w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/0-2-1.jpeg?resize=300%2C300&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/0-2-1.jpeg?resize=80%2C80&ssl=1 80w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/0-2-1.jpeg?resize=768%2C770&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/0-2-1.jpeg?resize=600%2C600&ssl=1 600w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/0-2-1.jpeg?resize=400%2C401&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/0-2-1.jpeg?resize=200%2C200&ssl=1 200w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/0-2-1.jpeg?resize=1200%2C1203&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/0-2-1.jpeg?resize=1022%2C1024&ssl=1 1022w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/0-2-1.jpeg?resize=706%2C708&ssl=1 706w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/0-2-1.jpeg?resize=100%2C100&ssl=1 100w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/0-2-1.jpeg?w=1304&ssl=1 1304w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/0-2-1-1028×1030.jpeg?w=370&ssl=1 370w” sizes=”(max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px”>

8. “END World End” at EONTA Space (34 DeKalb Ave.)

If “Dear April” spoke of spring, “End World End” was pure fall. The two shows felt like bookends — one cautiously hopeful and full of tentative growth, the other chillingly autumnal and heavy with decay. “End World End” felt more sepulchral than apocalyptic, full of the hushed, spectral beauty of things coming to a close. Andrea McKenna hung her drape-like portraits of spirits in the bardo, passing from one state of existence to the next but providing tantalizing traces for the left-behind to follow. When she fixed a withered branch to one of them, it felt like a skeletal hand grasping at us through the veil. Spooky paintings by Bill Kennon showed us Jersey City in the November twilight: bare trees on the Palisade and rust-orange clouds on the horizon, and the chill of carparks in the rain and the weird alterity of corporate logos on glowing signs at the sides of the roads. And then there was Anne Percoco, who turned garbage and mail circulars into replicas of leaves, and scattered thousands of them all over the gallery floor. EONTA even provided us with brooms. Sweep up and turn the calendar to 2025. 

<img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" width="776" height="769" data-attachment-id="28794" data-permalink="https://jcitytimes.com/at-the-museum-of-jersey-city-history-nathalie-kalbach-finds-a-home/0-4-9/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/0-4.jpeg?fit=776%2C769&ssl=1" data-orig-size="776,769" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Nathalie Kalbach" data-image-description data-image-caption="

Nathalie Kalbach from “Sidewalk Stories”

” data-medium-file=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/0-4.jpeg?fit=300%2C297&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/0-4.jpeg?fit=776%2C769&ssl=1″ src=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/0-4.jpeg?resize=776%2C769&ssl=1″ alt class=”wp-image-28794″ srcset=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/0-4.jpeg?w=776&ssl=1 776w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/0-4.jpeg?resize=300%2C297&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/0-4.jpeg?resize=80%2C80&ssl=1 80w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/0-4.jpeg?resize=768%2C761&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/0-4.jpeg?resize=400%2C396&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/0-4.jpeg?resize=706%2C700&ssl=1 706w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/0-4.jpeg?resize=100%2C100&ssl=1 100w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/0-4.jpeg?w=370&ssl=1 370w” sizes=”(max-width: 776px) 100vw, 776px”>

7. Nathalie Kalbach’s “Sidewalk Stories” at the Museum of Jersey City History (298 Academy St.)

To their maker’s credit, the works in “Sidewalk Stories” did not look fussed over. Nathalie Kalbach’s paintings, drawings, and sketches of residential buildings came at us fast and self-assured, with black lines, washes of pigment, and without an overabundance of extraneous visual happenstance. Yet Kalbach demonstrated exquisite sensitivity to architectural detail, including century-old façades, sharply-pitched roofs, wrought iron and Oriel windows. She was never showy about her erudition, but she didn’t have to be. Every line on every canvas demonstrated her deep care about our residential neighborhoods: how they were put together, how they were (or weren’t) maintained, and, most importantly, how people lived there. Kalbach paired her paintings of houses with stories of the lives of the inhabitants, and generously complemented her finished pieces with notebooks filled with sketches of buildings and ideas about the urban streetscape that surrounds us. These “Sidewalk Stories” could have been told in any gallery in town, but they were given special significance through their placement on the walls of the Museum of Jersey City History. 

<img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" width="780" height="597" data-attachment-id="31712" data-permalink="https://jcitytimes.com/two-new-shows-in-the-powerhouse-arts-district-look-to-the-sky/img_2897/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/IMG_2897.jpeg?fit=1253%2C960&ssl=1" data-orig-size="1253,960" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Mindy Gluck" data-image-description data-image-caption="

Mindy Gluck, from “Present Tense and Other Illusions”

” data-medium-file=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/IMG_2897.jpeg?fit=300%2C230&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/IMG_2897.jpeg?fit=780%2C597&ssl=1″ src=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/IMG_2897.jpeg?resize=780%2C597&ssl=1″ alt class=”wp-image-31712″ srcset=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/IMG_2897.jpeg?resize=1030%2C789&ssl=1 1030w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/IMG_2897.jpeg?resize=300%2C230&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/IMG_2897.jpeg?resize=80%2C61&ssl=1 80w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/IMG_2897.jpeg?resize=768%2C588&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/IMG_2897.jpeg?resize=1200%2C919&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/IMG_2897.jpeg?resize=1024%2C785&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/IMG_2897.jpeg?resize=400%2C306&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/IMG_2897.jpeg?resize=706%2C541&ssl=1 706w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/IMG_2897.jpeg?w=1253&ssl=1 1253w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/IMG_2897-1030×789.jpeg?w=370&ssl=1 370w” sizes=”(max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px”>

6. Mindy Gluck’s “Present Tense and Other Illusions” at ART150 (150 Bay St.)

Nathalie Kalbach’s show walked us through some of the better-preserved precincts of Jersey City: blocks designed for pedestrians and kept to a human scale. Photographer Mindy Gluck took us farther east, toward the neighborhood once called the Warehouse District and still (sometimes) referred to as the PAD. Under her lens, the tall towers on the Waterfront were as impassive, impersonal, and inorganic as starships — and not the friendly kind, either. She captured storms in reflection in the plate glass, girders that looked like evacuation routes, and fluorescent lights struggling to shine in high, lonesome office cubicles. We don’t have to worry about  the alien invasion, Gluck’s photos told us, because it’s right here already. There were many excellent shows in the lobby at 150 Bay Street this year, including a traipse through Rene Saheb’s wild imagination, a thought-provoking survey by the team at Outliers Gallery, and a tribute to the expressive power of the horizontal line from experimental photographer Susan Evans Grove and printer Kim Bricker. “Present Tense and Other Illusions” was the most provocative, and, worryingly, the closest to…

<img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" width="763" height="1030" data-attachment-id="29218" data-permalink="https://jcitytimes.com/new_05/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/New_05-scaled.jpg?fit=1896%2C2560&ssl=1" data-orig-size="1896,2560" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"2.2","credit":"","camera":"iPhone SE","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1518779597","copyright":"","focal_length":"4.15","iso":"125","shutter_speed":"0.033333333333333","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Mark Kurdzeil" data-image-description data-image-caption="

Mark Kurdzeil

” data-medium-file=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/New_05-scaled.jpg?fit=222%2C300&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/New_05-scaled.jpg?fit=763%2C1030&ssl=1″ src=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/New_05.jpg?resize=763%2C1030&ssl=1″ alt class=”wp-image-29218″ srcset=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/New_05-scaled.jpg?resize=763%2C1030&ssl=1 763w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/New_05-scaled.jpg?resize=222%2C300&ssl=1 222w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/New_05-scaled.jpg?resize=59%2C80&ssl=1 59w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/New_05-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C1037&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/New_05-scaled.jpg?resize=1138%2C1536&ssl=1 1138w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/New_05-scaled.jpg?resize=1517%2C2048&ssl=1 1517w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/New_05-scaled.jpg?resize=1200%2C1620&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/New_05-scaled.jpg?resize=758%2C1024&ssl=1 758w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/New_05-scaled.jpg?resize=1568%2C2117&ssl=1 1568w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/New_05-scaled.jpg?resize=400%2C540&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/New_05-scaled.jpg?resize=706%2C953&ssl=1 706w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/New_05-scaled.jpg?w=1896&ssl=1 1896w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/New_05-763×1030.jpg?w=370&ssl=1 370w” sizes=”(max-width: 763px) 100vw, 763px”>

5. “Home” at Art House Productions (345 Marin Blvd.)

Yes, there’s that word again. If there was a theme to Jersey City art in 2024, home was it. As the town around us continued to change rapidly, we asked ourselves what home meant, where it was, and where the line line fell between what we live with and what we choose to exclude. This eloquent show asked artists to grapple with that, and Tina Maneca’s barbed birdhouses, Mary Jean Canziani’s hijacked book covers, Greg Brickey’s firecracker canvases and Jen Morris’s disassembled living room took the challenge head on. “Home” peaked with a restless two-panel painting of great psychological depth by Mark Kurdzeil: a colorful examination of a woman whose domestic setting had uncanny overtones of the outdoors, and another woman whose outdoor idyll felt like an escape into the wild. Curator Andrea McKenna continues to be an absolute ace at choosing work that furthers her inquiries and presenting pieces in a sequence that makes her themes clear, and under her guidance, the gallery on Marin had another strong year — including an exhibit of sensationally suggestive photographs of crushed cans by Beth Achenbach that could have easily made this list.  

4. “From a Tree Grows a Forest: An Exhibition Honoring Edward S. Eberle” at Drawing Rooms (926 Newark Ave.)

A vase rests on a tall platform. Though the ceramic is white, the illustrations — and there are pictures all over the vessel — are rendered in black pigment. This is terra sigillata, a pottery technique with roots in the ancient Mediterranean, and the piece does indeed look like it was unearthed by an archaeologist. But the human faces and animal bodies on the vase look timeless and sometimes monstrous; their attire, too, can’t be fixed in any particular period. Pentagrams, cherubs with wings, feather-wearing warriors, lizard-creatures and other bizarre, compelling beings vie for the viewer’s attention. It’s almost too much to take in. Then there’s another just like it, on a pedestal nearby. These pieces were made circa 2019 by Edward Eberle, master-worker in porcelain, possessor of an untamed imagination, and inspiration to many other artists who contributed pieces of their own to “From a Tree Grows a Forest.” This mesmerizing, thrilling, vertiginous show is the first of two on the list that matches art from an absolute original with that of younger artists following the winding trail of the master. 

<img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" width="780" height="883" data-attachment-id="39900" data-permalink="https://jcitytimes.com/three-downtown-shows-fit-for-a-fall-day/0-5-10/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/0-5.jpeg?fit=1097%2C1241&ssl=1" data-orig-size="1097,1241" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Tina Maneca" data-image-description data-image-caption="

Tina Maneca, “Deluxe Modern Bird Dwelling” from “Home”

” data-medium-file=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/0-5.jpeg?fit=265%2C300&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/0-5.jpeg?fit=780%2C883&ssl=1″ src=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/0-5.jpeg?resize=780%2C883&ssl=1″ alt class=”wp-image-39900″ srcset=”https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/0-5.jpeg?resize=910%2C1030&ssl=1 910w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/0-5.jpeg?resize=265%2C300&ssl=1 265w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/0-5.jpeg?resize=71%2C80&ssl=1 71w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/0-5.jpeg?resize=768%2C869&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/0-5.jpeg?resize=905%2C1024&ssl=1 905w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/0-5.jpeg?resize=400%2C453&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/0-5.jpeg?resize=706%2C799&ssl=1 706w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/0-5.jpeg?w=1097&ssl=1 1097w, https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/0-5-910×1030.jpeg?w=370&ssl=1 370w” sizes=”(max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px”>

3. “Crossing the Hudson” at MoRA (80 Grand St.) 

If you’re counting, that’s two shows on this list from the Paulus Hook brownstone gallery that used to be called the Museum of Russian Art, and the CASE Museum before that. This year, MoRA reminded us all that no matter what handle it’s going by, it’s a terrific place to see a sumptuous exhibition. In “Crossing the Hudson,” Jersey City artist and curator Tina Maneca reached across the river to The Sculptors Guild, a New York City arts collective with a long and storied history and an impressive membership list. Thirty-nine of the Guild’s best made the trip to Jersey City, and brought along work that felt deeply embedded in provocative New York sculptural traditions: impertinent bronze castings, grand fabrications of found metal and small reimaginings of medical waste, creepy dolls and defaced wooden mannequins, anti-clericalism and political agitation, and at least one closet-sized approximation of the Brooklyn Bridge. It was big, brave, beautiful, and bone-shaking, just like our neighbor on the other side of the river. 

<img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" width="780" height="930" data-attachment-id="38640" data-permalink="https://jcitytimes.com/buttered-roll-at-smush-highlights-a-strong-group-of-jc-fridays-shows/0-1-17/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/0-1-1.jpeg?fit=960%2C1144&ssl=1" data-orig-size="960,1144" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Buttered Roll" data-image-description data-image-caption="

Buttered Roll at SMUSH

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2. Buttered Roll’s “Bolivareando: Similar, Not the Same” at SMUSH (340 Summit Ave.)

Simón Bolívar is often called the George Washington of South America, and just like old George, his life has gotten lost behind his legend. How much of what we know about Bolívar comes from history, and how much is pure hagiography? In the year’s most audacious show, Hudson County artist Buttered Roll runs wild in the aperture between myth and reality, and expresses some genuine affection for Bolívar (the man) as he does. He sticks Simón Bolívar in a car in the middle of a traffic jam. He dresses Bolívar in a turtleneck and makes him a modern academic. He turns Bolívar loose in Hell, compels him to stock shelves at a retail market, and casts him out in the middle of space. Sometimes, Buttered Roll decks him out in modern dress, but in these paintings and drawings, he mostly keeps his dress uniform on. He’s a statue come to life and coping with the exigencies of the modern world; an oddly regular guy with a world-famous name the origins of which much of the world has forgotten. Consistently hilarious, often quite sad, monomaniacal, and full of brilliantly executed detail that goes straight to character, “Bolivareando” asks penetrating questions about immigration, representation, freedom-fighting, free will, ennui, fame, and oblivion. Personality, it seems, is a complicated dance between who we are, how we represent ourselves, and how the rest of the world insists on seeing us.  

<img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" width="779" height="1030" data-attachment-id="29772" data-permalink="https://jcitytimes.com/1980deliverthefunk_benjonesartwork2023-7970/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/jcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/1980DELIVERTHEFUNK_BenJonesArtwork2023-7970.jpeg?fit=961%2C1271&ssl=1" data-orig-size="961,1271" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Ben Jones" data-image-description data-image-caption="

Ben Jones “Deliver the Funk”, from “The Universe of Ben Jones”

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1. “The Universe of Ben Jones” @ NJCU Lemmerman Gallery (2039 Kennedy Blvd.)

“Bolivareando” was so expansive that the usual exhibition space at SMUSH couldn’t contain it; Buttered Roll ended up hanging work — good work — in the bathroom. “The Universe of Ben Jones” went even harder, leaping out from the confines of the Lemmerman Gallery and taking over the walls on the top floor of Hepburn Hall. There was simply no way to tame the exuberance of Ben Jones, who, at 80+ years old, remains one of Jersey City’s true originals. Curators Midori Yoshimoto and Casey Mathern shot the works, presenting prints, paintings, sculptures, silkscreens, lithographs, and unclassifiable multimedia pieces from a six-decade career. Themes relevant to the experience of life in New Jersey emerged, including Jones’s faith in Black liberation and belief in self-definition as a queer American and his religious faith, which has remained steady no matter what curious shapes it’s taken. But mostly “The Universe of Ben Jones” was an exploration of an inimitable character whose personality can’t be classified or limited. Jones’s proud, penitent, sexy, immensely energetic portraits and visual prayers bear the hallmarks of a deep engagement with contemporary art styles (hip-hop, funk, graffiti, even corporate graphic design), but could not have been made by anybody else. At their best, art shows remind us that each individual is a strange and idiosyncratic creation, and they invite us to inhabit the consciousness of someone with a unique perspective and vision. Visitors to the “Universe” are likely to feel like they’ve met Ben Jones. There’s no way they’re ever going to forget him.