The Richard Meier Model Museum To Open At Mana Contemporary

Meier is an internationally renowned architect, the youngest solo winner of the Pritzker Prize for Architecture, and designed the Getty Center in Los Angeles, the Barcelona Museum of Art, and the High Museum of Atlanta, among others. The 15,000 square foot space will host Meier’s archives, including models, sketches, architectural renderings, and sculptures, in addition to a research library for architects, and a gallery with rotating exhibitions.

The opening of the museum will be accompanied by the debut of five new exhibits at Mana Contemporary. Photorealism Revisted  features approximately sixty works by key Photorealists from the collections of Louis K. Meisel Gallery, Bernaducci.Meisel.Gallery, and the Eileen S. Kaminsky Family Foundation, including pieces from Richard Estes, Robert Bechtle, and Chuck Close. Influenced by Pop Art, Photorealism developed as a genre in the 1970s, with microscopically detailed, hyperrealistic paintings. Strata is an installation of six monumental Eugene Lemay digital prints, up to 50 feet wide, created with layers of Lemay’s handwritten letters to his fellow soldiers. At the January 12 opening, Shen Wei Dance Arts will perform a complementary dance responding directly to Lemay’s work.

Gary Lichtensein Editions at Mana Presents Charles Hinman is a collaboration between master printer Lichtensein and painter Hinman, featuring silk screen three dimensional paintings. Sala Gaspar: The History is a tribute to the pioneering Barcelona gallery, which championed the careers of Joan Miro, Georges Braque, Alexander Calder, Antoni Clave and Pablo Picasso between 1939 and 1996. The Middle East Center for the Arts (MECA) presents Architecture of Memory by Iraqi artists Dena Al-Adeeb and Sama Alshaibi, utilizing video, photography and performance.

Also on view at Mana will be several ongoing exhibitions. Ilana Goor is a self-titled exhibition of industrial sculpture and design objects created by the Israeli artist. Filmmaker Shoja Azari and painter Shahram Karimi collaborate on multimedia show Magic of Light, extended through February 14.

Founded by artists Eugene Lemay and Yigal Ozeri in 2011, Mana Contemporary is a 1.8 million square foot complex of artists’ studios, fine art storage, performance spaces, exhibition galleries, and more, located at 888 Newark Avenue in Jersey City.