Newark's New Harriet Tubman Monument a Model for Community Engagement in Public Art

by Rachel Fawn Alban, JerseyArts.com - published 2023-03-16

The city of Newark, New Jersey unveiled its long-awaited Harriet Tubman monument March 9 with great excitement. Four days of community celebrations and events followed. With visual, audio and tactile components, "Shadow of a Face" is not a statue to view from a distance, but a place to see, hear, touch, spend time and reflect on stories. Designed by Jamaican-born, Montclair-based Nina Cooke John, this unique public art project will be visited, studied, and celebrated for years to come.

In the days leading up to Purim – the holiday during which Jews rejoice, don costumes and perform skits, eat triangular cookies filled with jam, and thank Queen Esther for saving them from persecution – Michigan’s attorney general announced she had been targeted in a threat to kill Jewish members of state government.

(WEST LONG BRANCH, NJ) -- The Les Paul Foundation, whose mission includes honoring and sharing the life, spirit and legacy of Les Paul presents "Les Paul Thru the Lens," an exclusive traveling gallery of photos highlighting the life and career of Les Paul, the inventor, musician and icon. The exhibition comes to Monmouth University's Pollak Gallery on March 20th and runs through May 31, 2023.

Gazing out the window on NJTransit south to Trenton, and then on Amtrak further south to Philadelphia and Baltimore, one sees brick row houses, sometimes crumbling, sometimes boarded up, covered with words that express desolation. There are solitary figures here and there, or perhaps a face looking out from a window. Better times might have been in the past, for these places.

In Atlantic City, a community of artists has transformed a former Payless ShoeSource into a temporary art experience featuring large-scale, mixed-media installations. On view through Feb. 19, 2023, the Atlantic City Arts Foundation welcomes you to walk in and surround yourself with ARTeriors Baltic Avenue.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a prominent journalist and activist who fought tirelessly for women’s right to vote even though she is often left out of historical conversations about the women’s suffrage movement. Today her image graces a mural located in the heart of downtown Englewood, New Jersey, on the east-facing wall of the Women's Rights Information Center building at 108 W. Palisades Avenue. The painting was inspired by the 100th year anniversary of the 19th Amendment. “The Black Women’s Mural: Celebrating Black Suffragists and Black Women in Englewood” is meant to celebrate the achievements of Black women who paved the way for civil and women’s rights as well as serve as a beacon of pride and hope for young girls, Black women and the community-at-large in Englewood.

(HAWTHORNE, NJ) -- Passaic County Arts Center will hold an Opening Reception for two exhibits (The Way I See It by June Fisher-Markowitz and Icarus and Friends by Kate Dodd) on Friday, February 4, 2023 from 4:00pm to 6:00pm. Additionally, an installation from a recent exhibit will also be on view, Texture In Nature, by Susan Zulauf. The event is free to attend.

A 2019 Public Library of Science survey of eighteen prominent American museums revealed that over 80% of represented artists are male. This is not new. Throughout history, work by women artists has been undervalued. But, as Susan Fisher Sterling, the Alice West Director of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, told NEA Arts, there are things that people can do to help drive change. One of her suggestions is this: "Support women artists and the institutions exhibiting their work. Privilege those places that are working towards achieving gender equality." 

You could be forgiven for overlooking Isabella King’s contribution to The Center for Contemporary Art’s latest show. Because you may assume that you know exactly what you’re glimpsing out of the corner of your eye as you step off the elevator onto The Center’s polished second floor: a pair of regulation-issue orange traffic cones, a strip of yellow barricade tape draped between them bearing that standard warning - bold, basic, urgent, in two tongues: CAUTION CUIDADO CAUTION CUIDADO.

(SOUTH ORANGE, NJ) -- It is often said that art inspires more art. That is certainly true for Kelvin and Corrine Slade, father-and-daughter artists featured in SLADE: A Family Affair, an exhibition at The Herb + Milly Iris Gallery at SOPAC, on display from January 26–March 5. Kelvin, who takes photographs of Jazz performers, has an undying love for the musical genre, while Corrine taps into her admiration for Jazz when creating comforting abstract environments in her oil paintings. In celebration of Black History Month, this exhibit portrays the influence that Black music, particularly Jazz, has had on the artists.