Category Archives: Past Exhibition
“Lugares de Mi Pueblito, Hoboken: Ayer Y Hoy/Places in My Little Town, Hoboken: Then and Now” Paintings by Julio C. Santiago
Julio Cesar Santiago was born on August 17th, 1950 in the coffee town of Yauco, Puerto Rico. Raised on a farm, Julio had ambitions of a big city life and developed a love for all things New York City. He vowed to move to the Big Apple one day.
While attending the University of Puerto Rico in the late 60’s on a track & field and volleyball scholarship, Julio passed the time by drawing and painting city landscapes, devising a plan to eventually live in Manhattan. Eventually, after many trips back and forth to the New York City art scene, he made his big move to the Lower East Side in the early 70’s. There he became enamored with the hustle and bustle of the city and took an interest in murals and graffiti.
In 1978, he met and married a woman from Hoboken who introduced him to the mile square town. With his love of urban landscapes, he quickly got a job working for the City of Hoboken as a painter. He spent nearly 40 years as the city’s painter, not only for public spaces but as a painter for private homeowners as well. For those four decades, when he wasn’t painting for the city, he would paint newly sold or rented apartments for Uptown Realty (now known as Liberty Realty) during Hoboken’s housing boom.
Julio raised his three children in town, where they all still reside. He has a profound love for Hoboken, its rich history and unique architecture. Now a retired city worker, Julio spends his days painting his favorite buildings and neighborhoods in town, with his dog Olive by his side. When he’s not painting, he is jogging along the waterfront or recounting historical facts about our great city. He can often be found tinkering with his ’72 Chevy pickup, an uptown staple. To his friends, he is known as the unofficial mayor of Hoboken. But to his family, he is a unique and humble artist with a heart of gold, who is eternally loyal to his home.
“Hoboken Sweeps 3D.0” by Jean-Paul Picard
Jean-Paul Picard’s Artist Talk will take place on Friday, January 26, 2024 at 7pm with Ray Guzman on YouTube and Facebook @Hobokenmuseum
Jean-Paul’s Opening Reception will be held on Sunday, January 28, 2024 from 2pm-5pm at HHM.
Jean-Paul Picard is a Canadian American artist who grew up in Morristown, NJ. He received early exposure to the arts thanks to his beloved aunt. As a student at Morristown High School, Jean-Paul participated in the “Arthouse Group,” a small cohort of students who concentrated in the arts. His classwork consisted of etching, woodblock, silkscreen, and print-making. He would spend 3 hours a day, 5 days a week in Denville for advanced art courses. He also received an arts grant in etching from the Morris County Art Association under Jonathan Talbot. These opportunities left an indelible mark on Jean-Paul.
Jean-Paul continued his studies at Parsons School of Design. There, he found great mentors in George Tice and Louis Fauer. He completed a BA in Fine Arts in Communication Design and minored in photography and print-making. However, his greatest passion was photography. He developed a reputation on campus for his dedication to this medium.
Jean-Paul moved to Hoboken in 1981, where he engaged in street photography, but also worked for the Thomson Registry, a boutique advertising agency. In Hoboken, Jean-Paul discovered a vibrant arts community, where he felt supported and most at home.
Jean-Paul’s work is part of the permanent collection in the Museum of Modern Art, the New York Historical Society, Slater Memorial Museum, Drawing Rooms, and the Hoboken Historical Museum.
Hoboken Sweeps 3D.0 is Jean-Paul’s third exhibit at HHM. This show title has multiple meanings. Jean-Paul’s photography is 3-D and sculptural in nature. He uses his iPhone in a sweeping motion to capture his images. He has also evolved in his use of materials from phase paper, to gatorboard, to now shaped aluminum, for his photographs. Kiko Aebi, the Curatorial Assistant of the Museum of Modern Art, expressed, “I never knew photography could look like this.”
We look forward to welcoming visitors to see Jean-Paul’s innovative photography exhibit.
Artist Statement: I call my work “Sweeps,” which is the result of experimenting with moving the camera (iPhone), like a brush during exposures, recording time, movement and memory. After exposure, using my extensive skill set of both traditional and digital photography and printmaking, the file is prepared with little manipulation. In post-production, the chromaluxe aluminum dye sublimation photograph is hand-cut and shaped guided by the image. When finished, it is hung so that the wall becomes the negative space of the photograph, incorporating the entire environment. Centuries old aesthetic rules of exhibiting photographs in same size mats and frames are shattered. Since 2023, I have been producing free-standing sculptures.
Hoboken Sweeps 3D.0 has multiple meanings. The title refers to the following: the location of the photographs; my third show at HHM; all the photographs are 3 dimensional and were created in the 3rd Millennium.
In 2017, the photograph “Artist Need Not Apply” was displayed in my previous museum show “Hoboken Sweeps.” My fellow colleagues would come up to me, point to it and state: “YES!!!!” This photograph and this gallery inspired the work you see here today. Thank you, fellow colleagues, thank you, Hoboken Historical Museum, and thank you, Hoboken.
Special thanks to: Lee Beck, Lou Carbone, Bill Curran, Tim Daly, Gerri Fallo, Robert Foster, Ray Guzman, Roy Kinzer, Liz Cohen Ndoye, James Pustorino, Mary Nicholas Picard, Roslyn Rose, Anne Trauben, David White, and Steven Zane.
“Hoboken Walkabout” by Maggie Hinders
The Hoboken Historical Museum is pleased to host “Hoboken Walkabout” by Maggie Hinders. Maggie’s Artist Talk will take place on Friday, November 10, 2023 at 7pm. Her opening reception will take place on Sunday, November 12, 2023 from 2pm-5pm at HHM.
Maggie Hinders grew up in Celina, Ohio, which is known as a farm town. As a child, she spent a lot of time outdoors and with her large family. At the age of 7, she visited an art museum in Dayton with her mother. This visit and exposure to art left an indelible mark on young Maggie. She knew she had found her calling. Maggie carried around the museum catalog with her and considered it one of her most prized possessions. With her mother’s encouragement, Maggie decided to study art in college in Cincinnati.
In the 1980’s, Maggie migrated to the East Coast at a time of an artistic renaissance. She settled first in the East Village, but made her way over to Hoboken in 1984. Here she found an amazing community of artists and creatives. She has been in Hoboken ever since and made her life here. She works as a senior designer for a book publishing company and is about to retire.
“Hoboken Walkabout” is Maggie’s first show at the Hoboken Historical Museum. For this collection, she began to do plein air painting (painting in the outdoors) in 2020. This was during the time of the pandemic, and being outdoors was a way to connect with beauty and continuity in a world that was crumbling. Since then she has found delight in being able to capture details of the city of Hoboken–small moments of beauty that gladden and inspire her and that she wants to share with others in her paintings.
Also part of the exhibition is a series of paintings from the Hoboken Train Terminal. Maggie went to great lengths to paint her environment, even when the weather turned cold. She persisted by moving to the terminal. She recalls painting in the balcony area of the waiting room. A young security guard told her how talented she is, but that she would need permission to continue painting there. Maggie’s meditative and realistic scenes had found a new enthusiast.
As part of her artistic philosophy, Maggie firmly believes, “there is always something to see, something to relate to, no matter the environment.” It is our honor to have Maggie share her perspectives on Hoboken as part of this show.
A special thank you to the Hudson County Office of Cultural & Heritage Affairs/Tourism Development for their support of this exhibit.
The Heap
The Hoboken Historical Museum and Hoboken Business Alliance are pleased to present “The Heap,” the creative character developed by Paul Andrejco of Puppet Heap. Please be sure to check out The Heap walking through Hoboken on Friday, September 22, 2023 beginning at 3pm and journeying to the Hoboken Historical Museum. The Opening Reception for “The Heap” will take place on Sunday, September 24, 2023 from 2pm-5pm.
History
The Story of the Heap
A multimedia Exhibition
Overview
In 2012, the Hoboken Historical Museum graciously hosted an exhibit by Puppet Heap, a character design studio in town founded by designer Paul Andrejco. The exhibit was titled “Strange Neighbors: the Art & Imagination of Puppet Heap” and featured original puppets, set pieces, designs and footage from some of the company’s short films. The films take us to the town of Spudbottom, a mythical village constructed of found objects and populated by a strange mix of familiar characters from nursery rhymes, folklore, and song. We are guided through town by the voice of an unseen and less than reliable narrator. But who is this mysterious tour guide? And where is this Spudbottom, anyway?
2023
Now we’d like you to take a step back… way back… for a bird’s eye view revealing the astonishing truth: that the town of Spudbottom is actually a mountain of lost things, people, places, stories, old jokes, regrets, bad ideas, and trauma heaped upon the creaking back of an eccentric old man who, it turns out, has been muttering about the townsfolk all this time to anyone and no one. Nobody knows his name, so we simply refer to him as “The Heap.” This exhibit is not only his story, but Puppet Heap’s as well. It’s a lot like my story, and for that matter, probably a bit like yours too.
The Opening
On the opening day of the exhibit, The Heap, a larger than life size walking puppet, will lurch forth from our homebase at the Monroe Center for the Arts and slowly make its way through town, stopping to gather whatever, or whoever, it encounters along the way and adding them to its towering pack.
The Exhibit
The exhibit itself will feature a multi-media installation depicting a glimpse of the Heap later in life, after his burden had become so heavy that he has sunk halfway into the earth. Unable to move and with no one around to help him, he spends most of his time sleeping, rattling the reeds with his sonorous snoring. This attracts the attention of a curious species—part animal, part root vegetable—sprouting from the loam to marvel at this great god bearing gifts from another world.
The Closing
As the sun sets on the last day of the exhibit, the Heap will pull himself out of the “ground” and emerge from the museum. Outside, he will slowly straighten his back with a thunderous crack and rise to his full twelve foot height, freed at last from all of his earthly encumbrances. Bidding farewell to a lifetime baggage, the little children of the dirt, and all who have come to witness his transformation, he will stride forth, embracing the world once again, but this time from a new vantage point and bound for new horizons.
Statement of Purpose
As a maker of puppetry, I am constantly engaged in the art of crafting performing objects. I work with objects of narrative, whether I construct those objects or find them. All objects possess certain properties–their weight, the way they catch the light, the way they move–that in effect make them function as carriers of signals. With every puppet, every performing object, attention is needed to hear what the object has to say, what story it is carrying. Sometimes they are designed to tell those stories, sometimes the story is put upon them, and when these objects interact, through play, not only do those stories have a chance to be heard but new ones spring to life. And that is what makes it all so worthwhile. It’s a kind of spiritual practice for me. So part of the exhibit will show these puppets and performing objects, how they were designed, and how they were made.
Much of the inspiration behind Spudbottom comes from Hoboken, its architecture, its history, its people–and, frankly, all of the cool stuff I’ve found walking its streets over the decades. The more I live in this town–the changes I observe, the more I learn about its history–the more ghosts I see everywhere I look. As if all the years, all the people, the triumphs and tragedies all exist simultaneously and the community carries it all as it pushes ahead into the future. It’s as if there’s only so much space in this tiny square mile and it seems to build and build until it’s bursting at the seams and the only way out is forward. And like one can read the history of the British empire in a cup of tea, Hoboken’s history is world history. War, migration, global warming, floods, and fires, the major events of Hoboken reflect and affect those same events the world over. So, if in some small way The Heap reflects Hoboken, may it then also reflect our relationship to the rest of the world.
And it’s as much a personal allegory as well as a social one. The older I get the more I’m haunted by a non-stop party of ghosts who have overstayed their welcome. I have made a lot of mistakes, learned from some of them, while others will always remain unresolved. I have accumulated friends and loved ones, responsibilities, many questions, but few answers. And yes, stu, I have more books, pictures, toys, and sentimental objects than I can count and they travel with me from place to place. I’m plagued with a sort of magical materialism. To possess a book is to possess its knowledge, a toy its aspiration, my grandfather’s compass a sense of direction. And I have children, three of them, who I love more than anything, and my greatest honor is my legacy to them. That as I watch them grow I see what lessons I have taught them, but also what burdens I have heaped upon them. And there will come a time when I am too weak to carry it anymore, and what happens with it, for better or worse, will be up to them.
So in the end, I guess this installation is about all the things we accumulate over the course of a lifetime and what it takes to let those things go when the time comes. It’s about realizing the pile of things that define a self, or even a city, once you strip them away, is empty underneath, and how the lightness of that realization might finally set us free.
-Paul Andrejco, 2023
Patterns in the Palisades: The Pen & Ink Drawings of Peter Fiordalisi
August 13-September 17, 2023
Peter Fiordalisi was born in Union City in 1904 and had a deep connection to Hudson County, living many years in Weehawken. As a child, Peter was inspired after seeing a man painting the New York Harbor. Peter was never without his sketchbook and spent every minute he could drawing and painting. He expressed, “I paint the things I am familiar with, what I have been brought up with, the things I know best.”
Peter graduated from Mechanics Institute in New York City. Peter worked in a multitude of mediums, including watercolors, oils, wood-cut prints, pen and ink, and pencil drawings. He was profoundly influenced by his environment and frequently drew landscapes, especially the Manhattan skyline.
He received numerous accolades, including the Jersey Journal Award of Graphics in 1959 and in 1972, the Windsor & Newton Award for Watercolors and the Hudson Artist Inc Award for Oil Painting. He was a founding member and president of the Hudson County Artist Guild. Fiordalisi had exhibits in Newark Museum, the state museum in Trenton, Montclair Art Museum, Jersey City Museum, and the Elks Club in Hoboken. He was also an instructor of painting and crafts in the Adult Education Project at Memorial High School in West New York.
Peter died at St. Mary Hospital in Hoboken at the age of 83. While Peter is no longer with us, his work lives on. We are very proud to present a solo exhibition of Peter’s work entitled “Patterns in the Palisades: The Pen & Ink drawings of Peter Fiordalisi,” which opens Sunday, August 13 with a reception from 2pm-5pm. Some works are on loan from Sharon Florio, while others are from the Hoboken Historical Museum collection. We look forward to elevating Peter’s special pen and ink drawings, and educating the public about this marvelous artist and son of Hudson County.
“Hoboken: Studio and Garden, Paintings by Bill Curran”
May 21, 2023 – June 25, 2023
“Hoboken: Studio & Garden, Paintings by Bill Curran” opened in our Upper Gallery on Sunday, July 2 with a reception from 2-5pm. To get us ready for the exhibition, Bill Curran was interviewed by Maggie Hinders for an online Artist Talk on Thursday, June 29 at 7pm. The exhibit will run until Sunday, August 6.
If you have ever visited the Hoboken Historical Museum, there is a good chance that you have been greeted by our Museum Associate, Bill Curran. Bill has worked for the museum for 16 years now. In addition to his work at HHM, Bill is an extraordinary painter. In 2019, Bill’s creative process was featured in a documentary short entitled “What Aristotle Said” by David Gross, and was shown at the Thomas Edison Film Festival at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. His favorite medium is oil on canvas. He also paints oil on wood. Bill shares that the Muse whispers to him and instructs him to paint. He does his best to immediately oblige and is deeply grateful for the inspiration.
“Hoboken: Studio & Garden, Paintings by Bill Curran” is Bill’s fifth show exhibited at HHM. This exhibit is bright and vibrant, and includes still lifes. But, Bill displays a great diversity in his work and also communed with nature by engaging in plein air painting (painting in the outdoors.) For three years, Bill met on a weekly basis with fellow artist Maggie Hinders, rain or shine, and painted at the community garden located at 6th and Garden Street in Hoboken.
The paintings from this show have never been exhibited before. Bill cites the American painter, Lois Dodd, as a great inspiration. Bill shares a deep reflection about Hoboken and how the city impacts his work. “In one moment, I see a rosebush, or a beautiful building. The next minute, they are torn down and gone. What I’m trying to do is capture the beauty that is right in front of us before it disappears.”
Bill, thank you for your inspiring work! We look forward to sharing Bill’s work with our community.
Instagram: @billcurranart
Website: billcurran.net
COMMUTE: photographs by Anthony Jannelli
May 21, 2023 – June 25, 2023
“COMMUTE: photographs by Anthony Jannelli” opened in our Upper Gallery on Sunday, May 21 with a reception from 2-5pm. Jannelli joined Museum Director Bob Foster for an online Artist Talk Friday, May 19 at 7pm. It can be viewed below, as well as on Facebook. The exhibit runs until Sunday, June 25. For more info, visit Anthony’s website here.
Born and raised in Summit, New Jersey, Anthony Jannelli has worked as a cinematographer in the motion picture industry for 4 decades. He has worked on feature films, short films, television series and commercials with Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, Robert Benton, Mike Nichols, Jodie Foster, Tim Robbins, Penny Marshall, and many others. Additionally, Anthony has filmed television promos and music videos with The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Talking Heads, and Laurie Anderson. He photographed the pilot and the full first season of Law & Order Special Victims Unit.
His first professional job was as an assistant cameraman for John Lennon and The Plastic Ono Band’s One to One concert at Madison Square Garden in 1972. His first feature as a director of photography, Longtime Companion, won the 1991 Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival. In 2008 he directed the short film Five Years of Forever, which went on to win an Accolade Award for Excellence in Direction. Currently, Tony is cinematographer on the Untitled Tom Wilson Project, about renowned record producer Tom Wilson, which is being directed by Marshall Crenshaw.
A member of the International Cinematographers Guild and the Directors Guild of America, he has been an instructor at the Sundance Filmmakers Workshop and the Maine Photographic Workshops for Film and Television.
A professor of cinematography at NYU Tisch School of the Arts/Graduate Film Program since 2002, he has served as Head of the Cinematography Department 2005-2023 and as Head of Graduate Studies 2007-2008. He also taught cinematography at NYU’s Tisch Asia (Singapore) in 2009. He has been a Hoboken resident since 2010.
In 2018, Anthony began to shoot one photograph a day during his daily commute from Hoboken to NYU using only his iPhone. He shares: “What at first was an exercise in observation, I soon learned that capturing everyday life could also be a bridge to love, empathy, and sometimes humor.” In 2021, Anthony published a book entitled “COMMUTE,” a collection of street photography taken in and around Hoboken and Greenwich Village. The Hoboken Historical Museum is pleased to exhibit these extraordinary photographs in the Upper Gallery.
The exhibit is supported by a block grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts, administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs.
Shipyard Marina: watercolors by Patrick Neill
April 8, 2023 – May 14, 2023
“Shipyard Marina: watercolors by Patrick Neill,” opens in our Upper Gallery on Saturday, April 8 with a reception from 2-5pm. Patrick joined Museum Director Bob Foster for an online Artist Talk Thursday, April 6 at 7pm. It was livestreamed on YouTube here and Facebook here. The exhibit runs until Sunday, May 14.
We’re overjoyed to welcome Patrick and his beautiful, deep watercolors to our Upper Gallery. Patrick was born in 1943! He began art lessons at a young age, so he has about 70 (!) years experience seeing, drawing and painting. It’s rare for the Museum to present the work of an artist with such a history creating, who has been exhibiting decades. Professionally, he worked for 18 years as a union carpenter and two years as the foreman of the carpenter shop at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. He’s built mock-ups for industrial designers at Henry Dreyfuss Associates and served four years in the US Air Force. After a lifetime of working, and also creating art, he has found his sure footing as a painter in retirement. He says, “One cannot be a painter part time.” To see more of his work on Instagram, just click here. Welcome, Patrick! Patrick told us about his whole life’s journey so far, and we’re so pleased to share it below. What a life! Have a read.
I was born on May 29, 1943 in Baltimore, Maryland, and raised in McPherson and Emporia in Kansas. I took art lessons from Mrs. Pool, a retired teacher, whom I had met at a local craft fair when I was 11 or 12. I got a boy scout art merit badge with work that I had done at Mrs. Pool’s. The merit badge counselor, Norman Eppink, was the chairman of the art department at the local college. He suggested that I draw with a large stick of charcoal like the charred end of a stick.
My family and I went to the Nelson Art Gallery in Kansas City to view the showing of the Chrysler Collection. I was impressed by a large van Dyck and a drawing by Juan Gris. Nell Blaine told me that she had been impressed also by the Chrysler Collection when she was a girl.
While in high school I worked at the local stock yards in the summer hauling hay: loading and unloading 4 truckloads of 4 – 5 tons each with a partner. I started drawing in connection with zoology lab in college after a four-year hiatus. My academic performance was lacking. After a year back home, I moved to Portland, OR. I enrolled in painting and watercolor classes at Portland State College. The watercolor class was disappointing. I visited the art museum in Portland. I worked at the Albina Freight Yards as a class 2 loader. Occasionally I was assigned to unload barges of 50# sacks of lime and 100# bags of starch for the paper mills. I enlisted in the Air Force. I was stationed at Williams AFB, AR, for the next 3 years and 9 months. I enrolled in night classes in painting and life drawing at Arizona State University, which was near Willams AF base. I took several semesters of life drawing at ASU. Eugene Grigsby was the teacher in life drawing and Mr. Wagner in painting.
I moved back to Emporia, Kansas after my discharge from the Air Force. I enrolled in Emporia State College. Life drawing was added to the curriculum at my instigation. My senior year, I persuaded Norman Eppink to supervise me in a seminar. He encouraged me to do tight drawings with charcoal pencils, ala Richard Estes. I graduated with a double major, in Art and English. I worked for Didde-Glaser, a graphic arts manufacturer, while in college, full-time in summers and 20hrs/week during the school year. My designation was that of stock clerk but I drove a truck and fork lift mostly.
While I was in the Air Force, I read an essay by Phillip Guston in the Art News, which had been a lecture at the New York Studio School of Drawing Painting and Sculpture. After I graduated I applied to the Studio School and I took a bus to New York for the interview and was accepted. The emphasis of the school was studio work exclusively. The first semester I did life drawing in the morning and painting in the afternoon. I exchanged life drawing for sculpture in the second semester. I was granted a full Scholarship. As part of the work for the scholarship, I rebuilt the iron steps in the small court yard of the town house.
The school rented a bus and students and some faculty went to the Barnes Foundation in Merion, PA. I didn’t realize that it was such a privilege. I must have thought the museum was just always in waiting for students to spend a day leisurely wandering through the various rooms viewing the paintings. My opinions regarding the relationship between different artists and periods of painting were confirmed. My interactions with Leland Bell, George Spaventa and Esteban Vicente were particularly important to me. Mercedes, the dean, knew many people in the art world and attracted speakers such Buckminster Fuller, Phillip Guston and Meyer Shapiro for the lectures and informal talks with Willem De Kooning and George McNeil for instance.
During my time at the Studio School I helped Leland Bell prepare for his upcoming spring show by making canvas stretchers for him. He showed me a stretcher that he’d bought in France. The superintendent, Mr. Bohn, at St. Francis Xavier on West 16th St., where I was a night watchman, permitted me to use the shop there to make French-like stretchers for Leland Bell’s show.
I didn’t return to the studio school after one year believing that I had to go my own way. Leland Bell with whom I maintained a relationship for several years after the studio school, encouraged me to go to the Kansas City Art Institute where he occasionally taught. Had I done so my prospects as an artist may have been enhanced with an MFA. Myself and two other Studio School students renovated a club in East Hampton, NY, for Mercedes Matter’s son. With money from that job I bought machines to start making French-style stretchers. Through Leland Bell I met other artists: Robert DeNiro, Sr, Paul Resika, Nell Blaine, Warren Brandt and Ilya Bolotowsky whom I supplied with stretchers for several years. I made stretchers for painting restorers/conservators also, principally the Paul Moro studio. Many masterpieces of painting have been mounted on stretchers that I made.
In 1980, I returned to New York City after a year working in Kansas. I worked at Julius Lowy and Shar-Sisto Inc., experts in period framing, making stretchers for a year. Afterwards I built mock ups for Henry Dreyfus Assoc., an industrial design company, for a couple of years. I was foreman of the carpenter shop at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for two years. After the Met job, I was a union carpenter until I retired in 2003.
While at the Met I began going regularly to the Project of Living Artists on Green Street for the life drawing sessions and continued going there and occasionally to the Spring Street Studio and Art Students League; wherever I could draw from models. I stopped going a few years ago. While I worked at the Met I also began to make regular use of sketchbooks which I continue to do. With life drawing and sketchbooks, I had hoped to keep my hand in as an artist until I retired.
While this may have been helpful to me as an artist when I retired, I learned that it would be another 10 years before my work showed consistent quality in painting. This shift can be observed in my sketchbooks. My sketchbook entries show significant improvement beginning in 2013.
One cannot be a painter part time.
The exhibit is supported by a block grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts, administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs.
“From a Yuppie’s Typewriter” – Poems by Pierce Logan
February 26, 2022 – April 2, 2022
In conjunction with our Main Gallery exhibit, “The Fires: Hoboken 1978-1982,” the Museum is pleased to present the work of Pierce Logan of QWERT Poetry in our new Upper Gallery exhibit, “From a Yuppie’s Typewriter,” from February 26 through Sunday, April 2.
With this one-of-a-kind batch of seventeen poems, Pierce aims to capture the hearts and minds of Hobokenites past and present. “From a Yuppie’s Typewriter” showcases tidbits of the city’s history through the lens of polemic personal opinions and hot topics. It takes inspiration from the 1987 book edited by Joseph Barry and John Derevlany, ‘Yuppies Invade my Home at Dinnertime,’ which was a compilation of Hoboken-resident-submitted letters to The Hoboken Reporter, while giving contemporary citizens an opportunity to express thoughts on current issues surrounding the city and cities like Hoboken.
Pierce says, “This is my biggest project yet. As the city contends with gentrification, battles between “B&Rs” and “Yuppies”, the questions of identity and belonging are ever-present and always unanswered, and turn out to be byproducts of all contemporaries of their time. The work aims to reflect the voices of the authors’ and as such, poems range from biting sarcasm to calls for justice, to contradictory and light-hearted.”
The Museum is thrilled to welcome Event Typewriter Poet Pierce Logan and his original, topical and engaging exhibit to our Upper Gallery.
On Friday, February 24 at 6pm, Pierce was interviewed by the Museum’s Poet-in-Residence Danny Shot in an online-only Artist Talk that was livestreamed on the Museum’s YouTube channel and Facebook page.
Additionally, on March 26th Pierce will bring typewriters into the Museum and visitors will be able to compose their own “letters” that will then be added to the exhibit. He will guide attendees in how to use these under-appreciated, antiquated machines. These sessions allow attendees to pay homage to the past, and the pieces that they create will be displayed, and become part of this dynamic exhibit. There will also be a live reading of the poems.
Pierce has recorded audio introductions for and readings of each of the poems, which are accessible to visitors of the Upper Gallery by scanning QR codes. The audio is also available here:
| Introduction – Welcome to Mile Square City | Chapter 1 – The Butcher Is Dead | Chapter 2 – Eating Dog Eat Dog | Chapter 3 – What the #$&% is a Yuppie? |
| Chapter 4 – Photographs of Residents | Chapter 5 – Hoboken Meets Reagan and The Rest of The World | Chapter 6 – Always a Pleasure | Chapter 7 – Dinks Like Drinks |
| Chapter 8 – FEAST! | Chapter 9 – The Italians | Chapter 10 – Class Warfare | Chapter 11 – YODAs & Puppies |
| Chapter 12 #1 – If The Reebok Fits | Chapter 12 #2 – Much Ado about Curtains | Chapter 13 – The Riots No One Writes about, or, Hopaghan Hackingh | Chapter 14 – Dumps and Stevens |
| Epilogue |
Pierce Logan is a writer, English teacher, and poet based in New Jersey. Pierce began QWERT Poetry, a custom typewriter commissions company, in 2015 and has since composed hundreds of original poems on a typewriter for strangers. The mission of QWERT Poetry began as an effort to gain exposure with his writing and later turned into an opportunity to inspire more celebration into our lives by offering the space to commission something personal. Pierce has authored several books including QWERT Poetry’s Favorite Requests, Volume I, publishing several original scans of requested poems, Oblong and Bedrock, early poetry collections, and “HOUSE OF PAIN”, an epic poem which will be reformatted into a theatrical production in 2023 and 2024. Find published work in FATHERFATHER Magazine, The Spectre Literary Review Magazine, Writer’s Pocket, SOUP CAN Magazine, and Free The Verse. Press includes Tap Into Hoboken, podcast interview at The Life Eclectic, and the artist’s first solo exhibition at Green Hive Atelier in Union City, New Jersey with eight original framed pieces October 2022-December 2022.
QWERT Poetry is a poetry experience. In the age of “immersive experiences” QWERT stands out. You will take home a custom gift composed on a typewriter that will melt your heart, bring you to tears, or leave you overjoyed — that’s the goal. Begin with a subject in mind; Pierce will ask you a series of questions to dig deeper, unlock the reason for your request (like going to the doctor), type it out for 5ish minutes, stamp it with wax in the color of your choice, then read it to you, offering a frame.
The exhibit is supported by a block grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts, administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs.
“(UN)ERASED” by Christopher López
September 11, 2022 – October 20, 2022
In conjunction with our Main Gallery exhibit, “The Fires: Hoboken 1978-1982,” we are proud to present an accompanying installation by Christopher López. (UN)ERASED, our new Upper Gallery exhibit, has its opening reception Sunday, September 22 from 2 – 5pm. This installation received support from the Hudson County Office of Cultural and Heritage Affairs and will run until Sunday, February 19, 2023.
In this installation, photo-based artist Christopher López utilizes both contemporary and appropriated archival imagery to construct a visual dialogue through collage that evidences the human toll that arson played on mostly migrant communities during Hoboken’s gentrification. “This is the first time that I am exhibiting this new work. The Hoboken Historical Museum is the most important space for this work to be experienced. These photographs and stories belong here. I’m honored to share them with this community.”
When asked how he uses his skills as both an artist and a historian in this exhibit, López answered, “The gentrification of cities thrives on the erasure of its pre-existing communities. As a historian, my purpose is to fight against that in whatever way I can. My goal is to create a compendium of this history by using every resource made available to me. The people’s names, their likenesses, their stories have been buried, and run the risk of being permanently erased. My work aims to change that.”
When asked how exactly stories are erased, López answered, “Stories have the potential to be erased depending on who is driving the narrative. In gentrified cities like Hoboken, it happens through this self-anointed position of pioneerism and the cultural appropriation of urban spaces. In its perversity, it picks and chooses the things it likes and discards the rest. The rest, in this case, are actual human lives. Gentrified cities are very cookie cutter and are not actually designed by people, but rather, by developers and banks to meet the demands of an upper tier consumerism. The palpable sense of community is no longer present. The creation of this absence is exacting in its design and predominant function, which is to rebrand a city’s already existing cultural capital and replace it with a newer fiscal capital.”
Our Upper Gallery exhibit, “(UN)ERASED” is a precious opportunity to view tragic pieces of our shared history through this artist’s compassionate, discerning perspective. It’s also a key companion piece to our Main Gallery Exhibit, and we urge everyone to experience this installation before it ends its run on Sunday, February 19.
Christopher López (b.1984), was born in The Bronx and was raised between New York and Northern New Jersey. He has been working as a visual artist since 2005. To date, many of his works have been made on the island of Puerto Rico. Often by exploring diminishing histories, his photographs celebrate the richness of culture as well as portray the complexities of identity both on and off the island. His work was most notably exhibited in the exhibition, “Caribbean; Crossroads of the World” which spanned three museums in New York City and showcased over 100 years of Caribbean art from the region’s most prominent artists.
Christopher has been awarded fellowships at The Laundromat Project and The Diaspora Solidarities Lab. He is a current member of Diversify Photo, an initiative started to diversify the photography industry and has given lectures at Barnard College and Cornell University among others. His artworks are currently in the permanent collections of El Museo Del Barrio, The World Trade Center Memorial Museum, and The Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.
The exhibit is supported by a block grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts, administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs.