Curated by Russell Hart.

Presented by The Cultural Landscape Foundation
In Partnership with American Photo, The Davey Tree Expert Company, Garden Design and American Forests

Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art is pleased to premiere the traveling exhibition Landslide: Every Tree Tells a Story. The exhibition focuses on the irreplaceable trees and tree groupings, often associated with historically important people and events that have shaped the development of communities and cultures. Newark´s Branch Brook Park is featured. The Cultural Landscape Foundation broadens the support and understanding for cultural landscapes nationwide to help safeguard our priceless landscape heritage for future generations.

Click here to read the complete press release

Click here to learn about The Cultural Landscape Foundation

Automatic For The People:
John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres
Curated by Jayson Keeling

John Ahearn, acclaimed sculptor and his long-time collaborator Rigoberto Torres will present iconic images of plaster and fiberglass. Aljira welcomes Emerge alumni Jayson Keeling, guest curator who has included with his selection of life-casts of figures an installation of never before seen video footage in the exhibition.

Click here to learn more about the artists.
Click here to learn more about the curator.

See a slideshow of images from Automatic For The People: John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres.

…And Then Some
Artist Dahlia Elsayed

Dahlia Elsayed combines text and imagery in her solo exhibition …And Then Some to create a
narrative that documents internal and external geographies and visual mappings of places and memories.

Click here to learn more about the artist.

The Hothouse
Artist Jen Mazza

Public Program: Artist talk
Saturday, November 13, 2-4pm
Join Victor L. Davson for a conversation with Jen Mazza on her new series of paintings.

Jen Mazza´s solo exhibition is presented as part of EmergeNEXT: it is the third installation of an Emerge alumni in Aljira´s dedicated project space. Mazza´s The Hothouse is a new series of paintings that reveals a fresh look at a familiar subject—flowers.

Click here to learn more about the artist.

Check out this recent article in the Jersey Journal!

Click here for a complete press release on the fall exhibitions.

Public Program: Meet the Artist
Friday, September 24, 6-8pm
Saturday, September 25, 12-2pm

Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art presents the second EmergeNEXT solo project by Emerge alumni Chee Wang Ng. In his mixed-media installation 9/11 Vigil, Ng presents a cross-cultural reflection on the loss experienced on September 11, 2001. The work deconstructs the American flag and consists of a large, red-striped bowl of rice with two deliberately placed chopsticks surrounded by blue, star-
studded prayer candles and the sound of a Buddhist chant for salvation atop a small table. In this work Ng explores a symbolic aesthetic and relies on his signature iconic objects—bowl of rice and chopsticks—to represent an offering to God and the dead.

Nearly a quarter of the 3,000 lives lost during the World Trade Center tragedy were New Jersey residents. The project allows the viewer to contemplate what else may have been
lost on this day— a sense of security or perhaps the compassionate nature we contribute to our humanity? Appropriately titled, the artist presents culturally significant objects as a personal narrative of grief for observance in a public space, just 1 year before the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

The Aljira installation (blue) is one of three identical installations concurrently on view at the Museum of Chinese in America (white) in lower Manhattan and the Godwin-Ternbach Museum (red) at Queens College, New York.

Aljira partnered with the Academic and Public Partnerships Office of Rutgers University to present Culture Creators, Aljira’s youth outreach and career exploration program. For the culminating event 20 talented high school students aged 14-17 will present original drawings, mixed media collages and performance art.

An exhibition of contemporary art on sale to benefit Aljira’s programs on view June 24 through October 9, 2010.

Artists include Elia Alba, Miriam Beerman, Michael Paul Britto, Larry Fink, Joyce Korotkin, Franco Mondini-Ruiz, Martina Mullaney, Russell Murray, Shonda Nicholas, Calero Rodriguez, Claire Rosen, and Tattfoo Tan. A number of teens from the current Culture Creators program helped curate this exhibition.

Join us on Saturday, June 26 for extended gallery hours until 9pm as part of the next Newark Art Walk.

Proceeds benefit Aljira’s groundbreaking exhibitions, public and educational programs.

Photo (top right): Michael Paul Britto, Self Portrait, The Glamour of Violence #1, 2010, Cut Magazine Image on Arches, 12 x 9.