The Fifteen Best Art Shows of 2023

No matter what else is going on in Jersey City, there’s one thing you can count on: first-rate visual art shows. There were so many good ones mounted in 2023 that I couldn’t stick to my customary Top Eleven. We’re going fifteen deep this year, and honestly, I could have gone further. When I look at the shows that didn’t make my list, I’m astonished: Kele McComsey’s Melville-inspired, anti-establishment “I Would Prefer Not To” at 150 Bay Street, Arthur Bruso’s stark, touching return to action at Curious Matter, Cheryl Gross’s pugilistic show at the Lemmerman Gallery, Clarence Rich’s subversive fusion of classical mythology and hip-hop attitude at Deep Space, Anthony Boone’s solo tour-de-force at the Commuter Gallery. These were all excellent exhibitions. But there were others that moved me more. Let’s count them down. You ready?

10. “Moments and Measure” at Art House Productions

Curator of the year? That had to be Art House’s Andrea McKenna.  The celebrated Jersey painter didn’t merely attract great shows to the glass-walled room fronting Marin Boulevard.  She made a small space feel far bigger than it was, letting Frank Ippolito’s sensational lightboxes shine, unfurling Ibou Ndoye’s narrow tapestries, giving Diana Schmerz’s startling deconstructions of banned books room to resonate, and hanging her own visitations on burlap of spirits navigating the bardo.  The high point of the season, though, was an exhibition of startling, psychologically complicated paintings in oil and distemper by Jersey City artist Mark Kurdzeil. Kurdzeil’s images of women, cats, roofs, and mouse holes asked nagging questions about the permeability of domestic space and the psychological malleability of their inhabitants. They were also startling to behold: full of radiant fields of red, yellow, and rhododendron pink, all flashing through the gloom of a grey day.

Read Tris McCall's full article on JerseyCityTimes.com