Arts Guild New Jersey is pleased to present Gimme Shelter, an exhibition featuring art about houses and homes. It is a subject that now resonates even more strongly in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene and her path of devastation to personal property. The show opens on September 18 and runs through October 13, 2011, at Arts Guild New Jersey, 1670 Irving Street in Rahway, NJ. The exhibit is curated by Lawrence Cappiello, Executive Director of Arts Guild New Jersey. An opening reception will be held on Sunday, September 18, 1:00-4:00 PM. The exhibition and reception are free to the public, and wheelchair accessible.
By definition, a house is a structure built to become a place of habitation for individuals and/or family units. Houses come in an incredible range of sizes and shapes, in styles from every period of history. They can be a tiny one-room bungalow or a vast mansion with dozens of rooms and numerous wings or additions.
In each period of history, in each country on the globe, a new sensibility arose about the nature of dwelling places. In many cases, brilliant architects throughout history have devised ever greater designs for human living or the housing of their royalty or rulers. Houses have been and continue to be constructed of a vast array of materials: brick or stone, woods of many kinds, glass and steel, concrete slabs, plastics, sheet metal and tin…the list can go on and on.
Find out what's happening in Westfieldwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Houses in many areas may be designed very much alike, but become distinctive or more singular through the creativity of their owners. This is where and when the HOUSE—the structure—becomes the HOME—the residence of a family or an individual. HOME is the Inner Sanctum…The Place where we can feel at ease to most be our selves…The location for gatherings of Family and Friends, the breaking of bread, the preparation of meals, the site for our intimate behaviors.
Most people bring into the HOME their most prized and favorite possessions. They adorn the rooms whether few or many with varied colors, decorative moldings, pictures and artworks, furniture reflecting their individual taste and preferences. They make their homes a reflection of themselves, whether as a showcase to vie with the neighbors or for the sheer pleasure of building a personal habitat that suits their needs and use.
Find out what's happening in Westfieldwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
The artists gathered together for the Gimme Shelter art exhibition have created artworks, both 2 and 3 dimensional, in many styles and mediums. These works approach the ideas of house and home for the metaphorical content of the nature of the places built for us to live in and the dwelling it becomes when we reside in that structure. In this way, the structure can refer to a larger concept reflecting our current national or regional feelings about our homes. These works in many cases become metaphor for loneliness and alienation, repetition and conformity, grandiose behavior, posturing or exaggerated sense of self. The final word is that these homes and houses represented offer the view of artists in their reflection about the where and how of contemporary living.
As people all over the East Coast watched in late August as a storm of terrible power jeopardized their homes and well being, they were in many cases happy to weather that storm and return once again to the comfort and shelter of their houses and homes. —Lawrence Cappiello, Curator
Featured artists: Neal Korn, Francesca Azzara, Susan Evans Grove, Pam Cooper, Michael Wiley, Roslyn Rose, Sheila Ross, Leonard Merlo, Judy Richardson.
The gallery is open during the exhibition on Saturdays and Sundays, 1:00-4:00 PM, and Monday-Thursday by appointment, during office hours. For more information, please call (732) 381-7511, visit www.agnj.org or email artsguild1670@verizon.net.
The exhibit program at Arts Guild New Jersey is made possible, in part, by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. Sponsors of this program are RSI Bank, Rahway, NJ, and ConocoPhillips.
About Arts Guild New Jersey
1670 Irving Street
Rahway, NJ 07065
(732) 381-7511
Arts Guild New Jersey is a non-profit center for the arts located in the downtown Arts District of Rahway. Each year, the Guild presents a series of fine art exhibitions and an art education program that includes studio art classes for adults, teens and children, an on-going series of intensive one-day workshops for adults, and a series of summer art workshops for children. Arts Guild New Jersey is easily accessible from the Garden State Parkway, NJ Turnpike, Routes 1 & 9, Saint Georges Avenue (Route 27/35), and by train, via NJ Transit Northeast Corridor and Jersey Shore Lines.
