The area in and around MANA is becoming, the Marion arts district. All without any governmental support. MANA has expanded all around the original building. Journal Square and the Marion neigborhood are still affordable and the neighborhoods are diverse and stable, with good schools (charter). Things are looking up forJournal Square and Marion. The Puccini development with be another boost to the neighborhood.

Art Review: Mana Contemporary in Jersey City

By Dan Bischoff | For The Star-Ledger
January 25, 2015 at 12:07 PM

Nothing has been more obvious over the past decade than the deep cuts in arts funding for public museums in New Jersey. In that time the Newark Museum, lynchpin for the statewide network of arts institutions, has lost nearly half its budget, and the Jersey City Museum, which moved into its own re-furbished building in 2001, actually closed its doors forever in 2010.

But in just the past four years an entirely privately-run arts institution, Mana Contemporary, has opened in Jersey City. Just halfway to a projected two million square feet of space, it has already become the largest indoor venue for the visual arts in New Jersey.

Open for free to the public five days a week, and featuring exhibits by famous names like Francesco Clemente and David Salle, Mana Contemporary has become the bloom in the ashes of public disinvestment in the visual arts.

The lion's share of that square footage is devoted to paying businesses, like climate-controlled storage for high-end fine art; more than 75 studios for successful artists with New York galleries; and community amenities like a caf? and bookstore. The whole concept is based on making the Newark Ave. campus (with its refurbished tobacco warehouse and factory) the back-office center for Moishe Moving Systems, a moving and storage company that has captured a major share of the fine art moving business in the tri-state region. The concept harnesses the exponential growth in contemporary art values to subsidize free exhibitions in Jersey City.

Read more:
http://www.nj.com/entertainment/arts/ ... orary_in_jersey_city.html

If you have not yet been to Mana Contemporary you are shortchanging yourself. Regardless of the program they present whenever they have an event ( And these are ALWAYS as good or better than any contemporary art on offer in Manhattan) The physical spaces of the place are worth the trip by themselves. If you have not seen it yet then you will not believe the vast classy enterprise going on in this otherwise 'wrong side of the tracks" part of the city. You have no idea, really.

Mana Contemporary in Jersey City to show large family collection

By Summer Dawn Hortillosa | The Jersey Journal
September 12, 2014 at 8:21 AM

Mega art complex Mana Contemporary in Jersey City is coming alive this Sunday with open studios and new exhibits pulled from one family?s impressive collection.

The highlight of Sunday?s openings at Mana, which is located near Journal Square, will be the work of Francesco Clemente, George Condo, Chuck Connelly, Julio Gal?n, and Daniel Lezama from the Pellizzi Family Collection.

?The Pellizzi Family exhibition is a show that we have been looking to for a long time,? said Mana Contemporary president Eugene Lemay. ?At Mana, we specialize in showing collections, and this is our largest collection ? more than 100 works ? to date.?

Mana says Francesco Pellizzi, an Italian anthropologist, co-founder and editor of the Harvard journal ?Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics? has written extensively on contemporary art and collected tribal art and artifacts as well as minimal art since the 1970s. His collection includes work by artists from around the world which often feature undertones of mysticism, mythology, history and surreal romanticism.

The exhibit will be spread over three floors, with Italy?s Francesco Clemente featured on the sixth floor, George Condo on the fifth, and the rest of the roster on the first.

On Sunday, there will also be other attractions like ?Ken Price and Harvey Mudd: The Plain of Smokes,? an exhibit of 30 original silkscreen prints Price created to illustrate a 75-page poem cycle by Mudd. The show is located on the second floor and is on view through Dec. 19.

Galerie Ernst Hilger of Vienna is also joining the fun with its show ?Erro: American Comics,? on Mana?s ground level. The show features works by one of Iceland?s foremost pop artists, Erro, who is known for his paintings based on collage and comic-book aesthetic.

COMING SOON
Lemay says these exhibits are just some of the exciting events coming to Mana within the next few months. For example, from Oct. 16 to 19, the Marina Abramovic Institute will hold a 72-hour continuous workshop in Mana?s Glass Gallery. They also have more exhibits coming in January, including a show featuring backdrops and costumes from resident dance company Armitage Gone.

DIVERSIFYING?
?At Mana, we are creating a community for every form of art, so with the Marina Abramovic Institute we are adding a performance art element to our space,? said Lemay. ?The Armitage show will highlight choreographer Karole Armitage?s collaborations with major visual artists such as Jeff Koons, David Salle, and Philip Taaffe. The show is curated by Jeffrey Deitch, former director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. It?s an honor to have him as a collaborator.?

BEACON FOR ART
Lemay adds that he hopes Mana will continue its rapid growth and expansion as a local arts center.

?One of our next major goals is to add art education programs. This will benefit the local community and the greater region, allowing young artists to interact with and learn from established artists,? said Lemay. ?(Our ultimate goal is) to be a magnet for artists, curators, collectors, and the public.?

See new exhibits and open studios on Sunday, from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Mana Contemporary, 888 Newark Ave., Jersey City. For more information, visit www.ManaContemporary.com

http://www.nj.com/jjournal-news/index ... nues_go.html#incart_river

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They had the best guy for the job on board, and they managed to screw that up.

Jersey City Is About To Become The Street Art Mecca Of The World

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Well good for them.

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Mana doesn't care about visitors. They care about millionaire clients.

I wonder if they will ever expand their hours of operation to weekends or after 5 on weeknights. That would probably enable more people to check out their scene.

I encourage everyone to check out the amazing Photorealism exhibit there. It has been extended until Feb 5.

The Meisels? collection assembles Photorealist paintings, photographs and sculpture from 1968 to present day. The exhibition features the work of 38 artists including founding members of the Photorealist movement such as Chuck Close, Richard Estes, Ralph Goings and Charles Bell.

http://www.manafinearts.com/

Moishe?s Moving Into a Mini Art City

The Wall Street Journal
By Allison Lichter
December 30, 2011

Behind the heavy metal doors at an old tobacco factory on Newark Avenue in Jersey City, portraits by the artist Chuck Close?of Hillary Clinton, of the composer Philip Glass?hang on pristine white walls.

Inside the warehouse is a honeycomb of art activity in a space designed with the cool aesthetic of a Chelsea gallery: storage, framing, restoration, galleries, supply stores. The facility holds dozens of artists? studios and there are plans for a restaurant, dance space and recording studios.

The arts complex is the newest off shoot of Moishe?s Moving and Storage. Eugene Lemay, the moving company?s president and chief executive, acknowledges that it isn?t an obvious match.

?Movers don?t understand anything about art,? he said. ?Everything is an item for them. For example, if you have a piece of art and they see it?s a chalkboard like?what?s his name??Sol Lewitt, they?ll erase it to try to clean it up to do the client a favor.?

The city is home to a number of companies that move priceless objects between studios, galleries and collectors? homes. But for Lemay, developing a full-service arts center is a way to avoid becoming just ?another moving company that specializes in art.?

It?s also a way to grab new business. Create a home for working artists and a place where collectors can attend lectures, gallery openings and studio visits, and perhaps those collectors will become patrons for Moishe?s art-storage and management services as well.

?You can?t get to collectors. They hide,? Lemay said. ?You can?t knock on someone?s door and say, ?Hello, I know you?re a collector, can I store your art?? So how do you get them? One way was we create artists? studios here. We had artists bring their collectors. Let them see what they do here.?

Mana Contemporary, named after Moishe?s founder, is already Jersey City?s largest arts center. It is now accessible to visitors by appointment only, and will officially open in March. Lemay said it has already cost between $4 million and $6 million to fully transform the 500,000-square-foot space.

Lemay isn?t doing it alone. Yigal Ozeri, a voluble Israeli painter with a penchant for cowboy boots, has worked with him to bring artists and organize events in the space. Mr. Ozeri?s exuberance matches Mr. Lemay?s composed, business-like bearing.

?I brought all my connections, all the people I know, and I put them together,? Ozeri said. ?It?s like a whole city in one building.?

In its first phase, Mana Contemporary has filled 23 studios with established artists who already have gallery representation. The average studio is about 2,000 square feet, for which artists pay a $2-per-square-foot monthly rent.

Doug Argue, a painter, is currently preparing for an upcoming show in his large, light-filled studio. He found Mana through a friend of a photographer who also uses the space.

?Spaces like this don?t exist in Queens or Brooklyn,? Argue said.

Another 20 artists have committed to moving into studios in March. In April, contemporary dance group Shen Wei Dance Arts will share rent-free rehearsal space with Armitage Gone! Dance Company.

Lemay said the second phase will introduce emerging artists into the mix. Studio rents for these younger artists will be $1 per square foot. ?Young artists, no one talks to them,? he said.

A photographer and video artist himself, Lemay uses one of the studios for his own large-scale installations. He is an Israeli who was born to an Arab-Catholic family in Detroit. His parents converted to Judaism in 1969 and moved to the entire family?Lemay has 13 brothers and sisters?to Israel.

When Lemay returned to the U.S. in 1983, he started working with a young Israeli mover named Moishe Mana. As he rose in the company, Lemay led Moishe?s expansion beyond household and office moving and storage and into niches like documents and wines.

Lemay said some of Moishe?s moving techniques, including bar codes to track inventory, are in use at the Mana Center. He developed special nylon packaging to protect sensitive materials in the new facility.

The art-storage side of the operation currently serves some 600 collectors who keep paintings, sculptures and even fashion collections at the site (Calvin Klein and Norma Kamali are clients). Mana puts some items from these stored collections on display.

?We wanted to show living collectors who collect art,? Ozeri said.

Art collector Eileen Kaminsky, who keeps her collection at Mana Contemporary, presents and sponsors shows in a gallery on the building?s sixth floor.

The gallery?s first show featured works from the Louis P. and Susan K. Meisel Collection. Mr. Meisel coined the term photorealism in the 1960s; his holdings include the works by Chuck Close hanging in the warehouse entry.

Time will tell if Mana Contemporary?s all-in-one approach, mixing artists, their patrons and the public will succeed in luring collectors to the facility?s storage and management services.

Zo? Dictrow, who with her husband Joel has been collecting art for 30 years, said the idea of a hub for artists didn?t make her more likely to want to store works in the space.

?We live in the biggest art hub in the world, New York City,? Dictrow said. All she?s after is ?a clean, safe space for art.?

http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2011/ ... ity/?mod=google_news_blog