BEN SHAHN GALLERIES EXHIBIT FOCUSES ON CONTEMPORARY ART AND THE MERGING OF TRADITIONS
—Exhibit is part of statewide “Transcultural New Jersey” project

Five contemporary New Jersey artists who incorporate elements from their native cultures and native art traditions into their paintings and sculpture are the focus of an exhibit at the Ben Shahn Galleries at William Paterson University in Wayne from October 25 to November 24, 2004. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free. A reception for the exhibit will be held on Sunday, November 14 from 2 to 4 p.m.

The exhibit, “Merging Cultures: Contemporary Art and the Merging of Traditions,” is being held as part of Transcultural New Jersey: An Arts and Education Initiative, which is a year-long, state-wide project documenting the contributions of Latino/Hispanic, African American, Asian American, and Native American New Jersey artists through more than 20 exhibits. The program is designed to highlight the achievements of artists from historically underrepresented populations and provide insight into the state’s diverse populations, foster cross-cultural dialogue and understanding, and impact curriculum development and education.

Featured in the exhibit, which is located in Ben Shahn’s South Gallery, are works by Sung-Ho Choi of Northvale, Zhiyuan Cong of Wayne, Cassandra Jennings Hall of Teaneck, Carlos Ortiz of Bloomfield and Ela Shah of Upper Montclair. “These are artists who may challenge their native cultures’ aesthetic traditions through the adoption of Western ideas, but they are also challenging American notions of art and life through the introduction of those native images, customs and history,” says Nancy Einreinhofer, director of the Ben Shahn Galleries and curator of the exhibit.

Much of the work of Sung-Ho Choi shouts “American culture” and simultaneously shouts at the culture. One of his most obvious American images, that of the flag, turns up in his work in varying formats and materials. In “American Dream,” a mixed media installation, a target of stars and stripes incorporates newspaper clippings of immigrant stories. On the floor, underneath the target, is the very suitcase Choi brought to America as a student immigrant from Korea. The suitcase sits open, filled to overflowing with jars that would hold kimchee, a pickled cabbage unique to Korea, which now instead are stuffed with newspaper clippings chronicling the racial and social problems of immigrants.

Painter Zhiyuan Cong, who is also an associate professor of art at William Paterson, merges images from Chinese and American culture in his work. Trained in traditional Chinese art materials and methodology at the prestigious Nanjing Arts Institute, Cong later immigrated to America to further expand his studies at Indiana University, where he encountered the American sport of basketball. His mural-size painting “In Praise of Basketball,” has as its central figure a basketball player as a Buddha, rising from a lotus blossom. His arms (there are ten) move like those of the Hindu god and cosmic dancer Shiva, and are positioning the ball for a mighty jump shot.

Purely abstract paintings rich in secret messages are the invention of Cassandra Jennings Hall. Hall, who has studied the code patterns identified in African American quilts, reinterprets the selected pattern in the form of an abstract painting. For example, one such pattern known as the Log Cabin is an arrangement of fabric “logs” around a center square that is usually red to represent heart and hearth. Hall floats the logs in a distant yellow field and focuses the viewer’s attention on the heart of the composition, which is a warm red.

Ela Shah incorporates imagery from American popular culture and from her native India into her sculptures. “The Passage,” an installation created for this exhibit, addresses the joys and sorrows of the immigration experience. Archiectural structures derived from Indian temples are resplendent with Indian gods and goddesses, as well as American popular icons such as Big Bird, Santa Claus, and Spiderman.
Carlos Ortiz speaks about his cultural and racial origins as being “a synthesis of Amerindian, European, African and American cultures.” In exploring his cultural origins through his art making, Ortiz looks to the contest of urban multicultural art. In his triptych Awakening, an image of the face of a man is the central figure in the central panel; painted half black and half white, the image represents the Taoist opposites, yin and yang, and the harmony of opposites. This image is encased in an urban setting of city structures and a car on one side, and a tropical setting of palm trees on the other. The side panels each address these opposing environments.

Transcultural New Jersey was developed by Rutgers University’s Office of Intercultural Initiatives and the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum in partnership with New Jersey Network (NJN) Public Television. It is supported by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan Chase, The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, Johnson & Johnson, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, and the Office of the Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, Rutgers University. The exhibition schedule and additional information are available at www.transcultural.org.

The exhibit is one of three shows on view concurrently in the Ben Shahn Galleries. On view in the Court Gallery is Annual Art Faculty Exhibit, featuring art in a wide range of media by William Paterson’s faculty artists. “A Woman’s Eye,” an exhibit of photographs of women by women, is on view in the East Gallery.
For additional information, please call the Ben Shahn Galleries at William Paterson University, 973-720-2654.

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For Further Information, contact:

Mary Beth Zeman, Director, Public Relations 973-720-2966