SMI’s 16th Annual Exhibition

4/10 – 5/4, 2013

Closing Reception:
Saturday, May 4, 1-3pm

Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art, 591 Broad Street, Newark, New Jersey 07102

HOURS:
Wednesday-Friday 10am – 12pm-6pm, Saturday 11am-4pm

973-744-1818
studiomontclair@aol.com

Studio Montclair’s 16th Annual Open Juried Exhibition, ViewPoints 2013, features the work of over forty national and international artists reflecting the diversity of interests and concerns that characterize art and life today.  The exhibition will run from April 10 to May 4, 2013 at Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art, which is co-sponsoring the event, located at 591 Broad Street, Newark, New Jersey.

An opening reception and award ceremony will be held on Saturday, April 13, from 6-9pm.

Juror, Helaine Posner states: “Working in a wide array of media including painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture, video, and sound, these artists engage the senses and challenge the mind.  Their works range from gestural and evocative abstractions such as Judi Brice’s “Ecstacy” and Zahra Narzari’s “Outpost,” to multiple forms of figuration incorporating the imaginary and the real.  The painted portrait, one of art’s most celebrated subjects, appears in many guises including Patricia Horing’s droll “Lament for the Nuclear Family,” Amy Guidry’s surrealist-inspired “Synergy,” and Laura Alexander’s large, striking “Vagina Dentata”.  June Lee’s mixed media installation, “Bystander 2011,” depicts a diminutive group of individuals distinguished only by color, gesture, and pose.

The photographers and video artists on view also provide a range of perspectives.  Dan McCormack captures intimate pin-hole portraits of “Bridget_L_5-20-12—14AD” and “Ruby_S_4-12-12—06AB” at their toilette while Tony Zaza and David Witten take their cameras to the street documenting the “Rose Queen” and a “Saxophone Girl in Beijing”.  Videographers Fred Ata and Rodrigo de Toledo explore the stranger’s search for identity in a new land.  Lebanese artist Ata uses humor to examine issues of cultural assimilation, gender, and sexuality in “The Fig Leaf is Hairy on Both Sides” as Brazilian de Toledo takes us on an inner journey through foreign territory. Photographers Alexa Garbarino and Ron Brown offer poetic mediations on more familiar places.”

The Juror for this exhibition is Helaine Posner, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York. Helaine Posner is Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York. From 1991-1998, she was curator at the MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA where she curated exhibitions of contemporary art and wrote the accompanying catalogues. In 2007, she co-authored the award-winning book “After the Revolution: Women Who Transformed Contemporary Art” (Prestel) with Eleanor Heartney, Nancy Princenthal, and Sue Scott. Volume II of this book, titled “The Reckoning: Women Artists in the New Millennium” will be released in the spring of 2013.

Many thanks to our sponsors:
Thomas and Susan Dunn, Red Lion Framing Co.,
Fox Picture Framing Outlet, and Bartlett Greenhouses and Florist.

The artists featured in this exhibit are:

Laura Alexander, Alex Amini, Fred Ata, Judi Brice, Ron Brown, J.N. Cantor, Marie Hines Cowan, Rodrigo de Toledo, Kathryn Eddy, Nancy Fairchild, Arlene Farenci, Noel Farese, C.B. Forsythe, Alexa Garbarino, Charles Geiger, Allan Gorman, Inguna Gremzde, Amy Guidry, Patricia Horing, Paul Jervis, Robin J. Koss, June Lee, Eric Levin, David Magyar, Dan McCormack, Michael F. McKenna, Zahra Nazari, Daniel Pailes-Friedman, Sabina Pauta Pieslak, Isabella Pizzano, Ruby Reichardt, Sandy Rice, Robert Richardson, Catherine Schmitt, William Stoehr, Brian Stymest, Joanne Syrop, Kenneth Szmagaj, Pamela Webster-Ziegler, David Witten, and Tony Zaza.

About Aljira

Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art, fosters excellence in the visual arts through exhibitions and educational programs that serve as catalysts for inclusiveness and diversity, promote cross-cultural dialog, and enable us to better understand the time in which we live. Public understanding and support of the visual arts are strengthened through collaboration and community-based educational programming. Aljira seeks out the work of emerging and under-represented artists and brings the work of more established artists to our community. Through the visual arts Aljira bridges racial, cultural and ethnic divides and enriches the lives of individuals. www.aljira.org