The Visual Arts Center of New Jersey (VACNJ) will open Olas Caribeñas/Caribbean Waves an interdisciplinary initiative exploring the visual art and folklife traditions of the Caribbean diaspora in New Jersey on January 23rd. The work on display will be on display until June 4.
In the Main Gallery, Jairo Alfonso: Objectscapes, surveys the work of Jairo Alfonso, a Cuban-born artist who has lived and worked in New Jersey since 2014. In the past 10 years, he has produced three substantial works that are in similar way to the meaning of everyday objects. Like a modern-day archaeologist, Alfonso meticulously documents consumer goods, communication devices, and other ubiquitous products in large-scale drawings and paintings, installations, and videos. It reveals the tendency of material culture to have personal as well as collective significance and sheds light on who we are, where we come from and where we belong.
At the same time, in the Mitzi and Warren Eisenberg Gallery, the traditions of folk life—including dance performances, traditional music, and multimedia storytelling—will be highlighted in public programs and through documentary videos, audio recordings, and photographs. Los Herederos, a non-profit media arts organization, will feature The Sonicycle, a mobile audio-visual unit that engages communities in sharing stories, music and cultural traditions. This interactive digital caravan is fully equipped with a DJ table, speakers, audio player, a projector and recording equipment. Los Herederos will use The Sonicyle to record stories from artists, performers and community members at a public event at the Art Center on Saturday, February 11, from 1-4pm. They will then produce a short audio documentary reel consisting of oral histories, local soundscapes and musical performances collected by folklorist Naomi Sturm-Wijesinghe and Los Herederos. Aspects of folk life research will also be looked at, including an installation of documentary photographs printed on textiles.
The Art Centre’s Stair-gazing Gallery will feature Jack & Jill by figurative painter Kevin Darmanie. Born in Trinidad & Tobago, Darmanie uses photographs of himself and his friends to create his portraiture, referencing elements of his own life and shared experiences to inform pure narrative works that explore complex relationships between image, object , sight and landscape. In Darmanie’s latest work, the function of the mobile phone as a contemporary mechanism for interpersonal communication figures prominently, informing the composition of the artworks and acting as the de facto device to capture the images depicted.
Jairo Alfonso is an artist of Cuban descent who lives and works in Hudson County, New Jersey. He was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1974. He graduated from the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA) and the Escuela Nacional de Arte (ENA) in Havana. He moved to the United States from Spain in 2013.
Alfonso’s work has been featured in more than 10 solo exhibitions worldwide, including Instrumentaciones, Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Wilfredo Lam, Havana, Cuba (2000); and in over 60 group shows, including Useless: Machines for Dreaming, Thinking, and Seeing, Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York (2019); Flow: Economies of Appearance and Creativity in Contemporary Art from the Caribbean, IDB Cultural Center Art Gallery, Washington, DC (2014); Cuban America: A State of Mind in Empire, Lehmann College Art Gallery, New York (2014); Occupying, Building, Thinking: Poetic and Discursive Perspectives on Contemporary Cuban Video Art (1990-2010), University of South Florida Museum of Contemporary Art, Tampa (2013); Politics: I don’t like it, but I like it, Laznia Center for Contemporary Art, Gdansk, Poland (2013); Killing Time: An Exhibition of Cuban Artists from the 80s to the Present, Exit Art, New York (2007); and Batiscafo / Proyecto Circo, Eighth Mercosul Biennial, Porto Alegre, Brazil (2011).
He has participated in various artist residencies, including Fountainhead Residency, Miami, Florida (2019); Marble House Project, Dorset, Vermont (2015); and Guttenberg Arts, New Jersey (2014). He was the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 2017. Alfonso’s work appears in private collections as well as the public collections of the Pérez Art Museum, Miami, Florida; Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, California; permanent collection of the province of Hainaut, Belgium; and the Havana Galerie Collection, Zürich, Switzerland, among others.
Los Herederos, which translates to “the heirs,” is a non-profit grassroots arts media organization dedicated to cultural heritage in the digital age. They engage in research-based documentation for public consumption to produce projects, programs, and services that address the realities of local culture, developing communities, and an increasingly diasporic immigrant experience. They believe in the power and complexity of transmedia storytelling to educate and encourage a more culturally aware, equitable and sustainable society. Founded in 2015 by a group of documentarians, media artists and folklorists, the platform of Los Herederos offers a unique connection between artist, citizen, public, education and history. They adapt artist-run projects and archives to reflect the transformative nature of community and tradition. Central to their creative strategy is their interdisciplinary approach to ethnography. Their ethnographic practice is both observant of their environment and reflective of their experiences as New York City natives and immigrant artists. As inheritors of the city, they seek to capture the magic of the everyday to build the infrastructure in our communities and name their stake in our cultural future.
Kevin Darmanie is a painter who currently commutes between Brooklyn and Newark, New Jersey. He has exhibited at Paul Robeson Gallery and Messier Gallery at Express Newark, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ; Reginald Ingraham Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Harold B. Lemmerman Gallery, New Jersey City University, NJ; Aferro Gallery, Newark, NJ; and the Central Utah Arts Center, Salt Lake City, UT. He has had recent solo exhibitions at Paradice Palace, Brooklyn, NY; and Peninsula Gallery, NYC. His work has been featured in both Forbes magazine and Hyperallergic magazine.
For 90 years, the New Jersey Visual Arts Center has been dedicated exclusively to the viewing, creation and teaching of contemporary art. Recognized as a leading nonprofit arts organization, the Art Center’s renowned Studio School, acclaimed exhibitions, and outreach education initiatives serve thousands of youth, families, seniors, and people with special needs each year.
The New Jersey Visual Arts Center is located at 68 Elm Street in Summit, NJ. Gallery hours: Monday-Thursday, 10:00-20:00; Friday and Saturday, 10:00-17:00; and Sunday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Please call 908.273.9121 to confirm holiday hours. Visit artcenternj.org for more information.
