New Jersey Arts Annual: Dissonance

On view from April 2 through September 6, 2020, artists are encouraged to submit their work for a large multi-media exhibition in Main Gallery, exploring the theme of Dissonance.

Dissonance—suggesting discord, tension, instability, and conflict—aptly fits the moment in which we find ourselves, as individuals, as institutions, as a nation, as a culture. In New Jersey, a state that embraces the tensions of diversity, geography, and history, our collective future remains tantalizingly malleable. The tension of creative thinking grows from the uncertainties of exploration, stepping away from the tried-and-true, while reaching for new inspiration. While dissonance is most fundamentally understood as a musical quality, the tension and restlessness it implies can be expressed visually, verbally, or performatively. The Morris Museum encourages any expression of this concept through any artistic medium (including time-based works, poetry, performance, etc.). The Museum’s 4,700 square foot Main Gallery, can accommodate works created in both traditional and contemporary media (oil, acrylic, tempera, stone, metal, glass, wood, textiles, clay, etc.) and methods (painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, printmaking, performing/performance arts, poetry, film, installation, electronic, sound, etc.). Works may be designed for wall hanging (2-D or 3-D); free-standing sculptures intended for the floor or pedestal display; small or medium works for protected display cases; for performance in the gallery; for audio installation; or for video display on a screen or digital monitor.

The exhibition will be juried by Lowery Stokes Sims, Independent Curator and Art Historian, and Cleveland Johnson, Executive Director of the Morris Museum. Sims retired as Chief Curator of the Museum of Arts and Design in 2015 after nearly eight years, 43 in the art world altogether during which she also served as Executive Director of the Studio Museum in Harlem and Curator of Contemporary Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Dr. Johnson, in his third year at the Morris Museum, is past Executive Director of the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, past Director of the National Music Museum, and Professor Emeritus of Music (DePauw University). The Morris Museum will oversee the design of the prospectus, exhibition catalog, and gallery.

The New Jersey Arts Annual is a unique series of exhibitions highlighting the artistic practice in the state. The series is cosponsored by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts in partnership with major museums throughout the state.