Your Guide to Jersey City Art Galleries

It should be no surprise that the most diverse city in the country is brimming over with creativity. Brimming over is the operative word as space is ever the issue that stymies the exuberance of local artists in a region where square footage of floor and wall space comes at a premium. There is always an amazing array of art happenings planned for Jersey City artists and art enthusiasts. Galleries large and small organize transportative exhibitions, thought-provoking artist talks, moving multidisciplinary performances, and delightfully inclusive food and news sharing events. Read on to learn more about the different art galleries in Jersey City and why they should be on your list of things to do in town.

Mana Contemporary

The Jersey City Art Scene

The welcome that awaits newbies to Jersey City art venues is buoyant and genuine and contrasts sharply with stereotypes about art elites and art world gatekeepers. Gallery directors, curators, and gallery staff are likely to greet visitors at the door, exchange first names while exchanging art-infused thoughts on ways to read a portrait, or the magic of capturing movement as a time trapped meditation on a moment, or perhaps spark a discussion about colors that trend and then evoke an era. Entering alone just makes it more likely that the bold art-going adventurer will find a friend along with their experience of seeing what artists have to say about our time and place in the world.

When galleries are in rented rooms and artists’ subsidized studios lack long-term contracts, the investment in the community that these artists and art organizations bring is acutely vulnerable. Jersey City has a well-described history of that struggle between artists who got settled in places where they thrived only to get the boot; disrupting, and too often ending, what had been a very good thing.

Civic Support

Jersey City Hall, along with forward-thinking civic leaders and a vast array of local art workers, is deep in the heavy lifting required to ensure that JC becomes an increasingly supportive place for emerging and rising, artists. We can only hope that future decades in JC will see greater stability to the area’s art venues and greater resources for area artists. To that end, Mayor Fulop and the Jersey City Arts Council have brought vital art infrastructure support in the form of an annual arts and culture grant fund that will begin to make an important (if incremental) difference in the JC art world(s) this year.

We need togetherness. We need to see each others’ creative ventures and applaud one another on a job well done when the creative production of our neighbors makes our senses tingle. We need to experience community in some form, preferably a form that feels meaningful and is guided by intention. Visual art venues in Jersey City are (right now!) offering open invitations to community events that take myriad delightful forms, offering experiences unlike what we are likely to encounter in our daily life routines.

See More: Must-Visit Art Galleries in Hoboken

Our togetherness, creativity, and community needs can be met, right now, by the Jersey City arts scene. They can be met for free, without an exclusive invite, or any special knowledge. You just have to go.

Galleries in Jersey City

What is happening where is a question that requires constant updates. What follows here is a broad and very partial list of visual art venues to follow for great goings-ons. Follow these art organizations’ social media accounts and get on their mailing lists.