By Sally Deering

 Photos by Fermín Mendoza

You can see it from Rt. 139 feeding into the Holland Tunnel or catch it from downtown Jersey City as you head into Hoboken. David Bowieâ€s image 18-stories high on the side of the Cast Iron Lofts in Jersey City, painted by international muralist Eduardo Kobra.  Bowie passed-away January 10^th of this year, but his music and artistry live on throughout the world; and Kobraâ€s mural is now part of the Jersey City landscape, an urban landmark and the latest addition to the Jersey City Mural Arts Program.

On Fri, Nov. 4, Mayor Steven M. Fulop, members of the City Council, local real estate developers, and local artists welcomed Kobra to Jersey City and thanked him for painting the dazzling, eye-catching image of David Bowie. Mayor Fulop held the press conference on the buildingâ€s 5^th floor deck where visitors could get an up-close look at the mural, and meet and take pictures with Kobra who spent the past few weeks painting from a scaffold hanging 180-feet off the side of the Cast Iron Lofts hi-rise on Jersey Avenue.  

The Mural Arts Program which links established and emerging local, national and international mural artists with property owners city-wide is part of a beautification project to reduce graffiti and engage local residents. Murals are painted on walls throughout Jersey City, turning Jersey City into a public art gallery. According to Mayor Fulop, public art is a shared experience.

“Iâ€m a believer in public art,” Mayor Fulop told the crowd. “If you look at every period of time, public art is a reflection of whatâ€s happening during that time. Itâ€s symbolic of the times we live in. Iâ€m proud of what weâ€re doing. Jersey City is a thriving art community, and a welcoming community.”

Real estate developer Paul Silverman of Silverman Properties in Jersey City, attended the event. Silverman, who owns several properties in Jersey City, said having artists paint murals on buildings enhances the aesthetics of Jersey Cityâ€s architecture and brightens up the vibes in the neighborhood.

“A mural brings attention and discussion,” Silverman said. “It improves the buildingâ€s value and it helps make people proud. It changes your feelings about a neighborhood.”

 “I think itâ€s awesome,” local muralist 4Sakn of Jersey City said. “The scale and the colors. The geometric shapes mixed with realism.”

4Sakn sees the mural of David Bowie as a tribute to Bowieâ€s influence on the music industry. He said, “Itâ€s a memorial to Bowie and all the music he created.”

Kobraâ€s fame as a mural artist is as international as his mural projects. He just earned entry into the Guinness Book of World Records for the “largest spray paint mural by a team” for his “Ethnicities” mural featuring five faces from five continents painted outside the Rio 2016 Olympic stadium. Working with a four-person crew, Kobraâ€s murals enhance the landscape of many major cities throughout the world including London, Athens, Lyon, Los Angeles and New York.

Kobra, who is Brazilian and spoke through an interpreter, was asked why he chose an image of David Bowie to paint on the Cast Iron Lofts.

“I wanted to paint David Bowie because he is an icon and I wanted to represent his life to all of his fans,” Kobra told the assembled guests. He mentioned how thrilled he was to be in Jersey City and how an early visit to New York City when he was a boy helped shape his love of art.

“When I was 12, I was inspired by New York artists,” Kobra said. “Thatâ€s what made me who I am today. I have enjoyed working on this project. Itâ€s been a privilege and honor to be here.”

Artists John Ruddy and John Falcon are the curators of the Jersey City Artist Studio Tourâ€s gallery on the first floor of the Cast Iron Lofts building. Ruddy said Kobraâ€s mural of David Bowie stretches the limits of identity and creativity.

“An icon like David Bowie is a local hero in the spiritual sense,” Ruddy said.

“Itâ€s timely,” Falcon said, “and to have someone on the level of Kobra is great. Heâ€s painted one of the biggest murals in the world.”

Falcon said the Murals Project has established Jersey City as an art city.

“Art helps maintain Jersey City as an art-centric city,” Falcon said. “I hope a lot of other developers finance and pay local and international artists to work.”

Anne Novado, who is soon opening the Novado Gallery on Morgan Street in Jersey City, compared the mural to one of the ancient wonders of the world.

 “Its great energy,” Novado said. “Itâ€s a wonderful interpretation of David Bowie. By the scale of the piece, I would compare it to the Pyramids of Egypt.”

For more info on the

Mural Arts Project, go to

www.jerseycityculture.org

 

For more info on Kobra, go to

www.eduardokobra.com

 

 

The post KOBRA & BOWIE Int’l Muralist KOBRA paints 18-story David Bowie in Jersey City first appeared on River View Observer.

Opening Reception: Friday, March 1, 2013, 7–9 p.m.

The Majestic Theatre Condominiums 222 Montgomery Street Jersey City, NJ 07302 201.435.8000

Exhibition on view in the lobby from March 1, 2013 to May 31, 2013

SILVERMAN AND MAJESTIC THEATRE CONDOMINIUM ASSOCIATION present “Margaret Murphy: Dollar Store Divas,” curated by Brendan Carroll. The exhibition presents a series of acrylic and watercolor paintings on paper. Murphy draws inspiration from her native Baltimore and her adopted hometown of Jersey City, with its diversity, blue-collar neighborhoods, and dollar stores.

For the last decade, Margaret Murphy has developed her own genre of portraiture: sentimental, pensive, abstract, and matter-of-fact. Murphyâ€s “sitters” are a collection of mass-produced figurines that she purchases in 99¢ stores. The collection includes girls, princesses, mothers, and whores, and the occasional family of bunny rabbits.

To see her pictures of girly figurines as saccharine would be easy but limited, and dead wrong. Murphy is indebted to the critique of how women are objectified in American society. She writes: “The female figurines represent the ‘woman†in a post-feminist analytical arena, one that has been objectified on many levels.” In her work, Murphy is constantly returning to issues regarding gender, class, and consumerism.

The subjects in Murphyâ€s paintings occupy the center of the composition like religious icons. In this matter, they borrow specific tropes from art history. They exist in fields of pure color, nondescript settings, and decorative backgrounds. The effect is jarring, as it thrusts her models into the viewerâ€s space. From this vantage point, the viewer can see how Murphy uses harsh side lighting to illuminate each model. This tactic, which contrasts light and shadow, suggests volume, form, depth, and weight. It is as if Murphy wants the viewer to feel as though he reach out and grab the model.

Murphy does not depict the faces of her sitters, but their backsides, from head to toe. The tactic is not arbitrary but full of cheek, so to speak. If these figurines operate as surrogates for women, is Murphy suggesting that society perceives women as nothing more than a nice derrière? A thing to be ogled, squeezed? As viewers, where do we stand, as we eyeball the backside of countless statuettes?

Murphy is constantly pushing herself as a painter—experimenting with medium, color, composition, light, and shadow. The paintings of figurines owe as much to the 19th-century French painter Manet, or the 20th-century American Alex Katz, as to kitsch.

What is most interesting about Murphyâ€s work is how she is able to balance the “serious” and the “playful,” without allowing one to undo the other. She is often cited as working in the tradition of Pop Art, which is true, but itâ€s not the whole truth. Like Warhol, she is concerned with making art about banal objects of mass consumption. But where Warhol was cool and ironic, Murphy is discriminating and judicious.

Margaret Murphy is a painter, curator, and professor. Her work is included in many national collections, including the Deutsche Bank, Jersey City Museum, and Hudson County Community College Foundation, as wells as numerous private collections. New Jersey City University, Ramapo College, Rosenberg Art Galleries, Real Art Ways, Visual Art Center of New Jersey, Pentimenti Gallery, and HPGRP Gallery have organized solo exhibitions of her work. The New York Times, ArtInfo.com, Art Fag City, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Star-Ledger have reviewed her work, to name a few. Murphy is the recipient of many awards, including New Jersey Print and Paper Fellowship, Pollock Krasner Foundation Individual Artist Grant, New Jersey State Arts Council Fellowship, and P.S.122 Studio Residency.

Murphy earned her Bachelor of Science from Towson State University, and she earned her Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in 1992. Currently, she teaches at Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, MD and New Jersey City University in Jersey City, NJ. She was born in Baltimore, MD. She lives and works in Jersey City, NJ.

The exhibition will be on view at The Majestic Theatre Condominiums through May 31, 2013. For further information, please visit us at SilvermanBuilding.com or call number (201) 435-8000.

Margaret Murphy: Dollar Store Divas the thirteenth exhibition that Brendan Carroll will organize for SILVERMAN.

For additional information, go here: Margaret Murphy.

This event is part of JC Fridays.

SILVERMAN has presented the works of Valeri Larko, Tenesh Webber, Glenn Garver, Jennifer Krause Chapeau, Michelle Doll, Tim Heins, Megan Maloy, Laurie Riccadonna, Thomas John Carlson, Tim Daly, Ann Flaherty, Scott Taylor, Jason Seder, Sara Wolfe, Beth Gilfilen, Andrzej Lech, Hiroshi Kumagai, Tom McGlynn, Victoria Calabro, Asha Ganpat, Darren Jones, Ryan Roa,Laura Napier, Risa Puno, Nyugen E. Smith, Amanda Thackray, and Kai Vierstra.

The post SILVERMAN AND MAJESTIC THEATRE CONDOMINIUM ASSOCIATION present first appeared on River View Observer.

Razza is located at 275 Grove Street (across from Jersey City’s City Hall)- (201) 356-9348

Open: Mon: 5:30 pm – 10:00 pm-Wed – Thu: 5:30 pm – 10:00 pm

The post Razza Pizza Artigianale Now Open in Historic Downtown Jersey City first appeared on River View Observer.

“River View Observer Best Pick Developers for Jersey City.” 

Brothers Eric Silverman and Paul Silverman have been developing real estate in Jersey City since 1981, but they are not ordinary developers. While others are making a splash building modern skyscrapers and luxury condos on the waterfront, the Silverman brothers have spent the last three decades quietly transforming former warehouses into mixed-use buildings, schools into residences and abandoned storefronts into fashionable shops throughout Jersey City.

The brothers founded SILVERMAN, now the foremost developer of mixed-use residential buildings, historic landmarks and creative retail destinations in Jersey City, and today serve as a major engine behind the city’s revitalization. The company provides affordable and market-rate housing options to the greater community of Jersey City while building family oriented neighborhoods and supporting local retailers.

 “We are very proud to have witnessed the growth of Jersey City through our residential, commercial and retail developments,” said Paul Silverman, a principal at SILVERMAN. “We are committed to further restoring and advancing Jersey City while preserving its history and unique charm.”

A prime example of SILVERMAN’s development style is Hamilton Square (www.livingonthepark.com), a 124-unit premier adaptive reuse and new construction loft and condo development in the historic Hamilton Park neighborhood.  Hamilton Square is designed to combine a modern and industrial aesthetic, while offering luxurious loft living spaces with exquisite views of the Manhattan skyline and greenery of Hamilton Park. 

 To accommodate the needs of Hamilton Square residents, SILVERMAN sought out a strong balance of retailers to occupy the commercial spaces. SILVERMAN takes pride in addressing the wants and needs of buyers today and builds amenity-oriented neighborhoods to fit their residents’ lifestyles.

RETAIL AT HAMILTON SQUARE INCLUDES:

• Antheia Floral Design (www.antheia.net) provides beautiful floral design for weddings, events and parties of all budgets and tastes.

 Art House Productions (www.arthouseproductions.org) inspires, nurtures, and promotes the arts in Jersey City’s community through events and programming.

 Downtown Coop (www.downtowncoop.com) is a supermarket that will feature affordable, high-quality, sustainable, locally sourced food products. It is slated to open in 2011.

 Hamilton Health and Fitness (www.hamiltonhealthandfitness.com) features an indoor lap pool, the newest in cardio and weight training equipment, diverse group classes ranging from yoga to spinning, sauna and steam rooms, a children’s center, and a fully equipped Pilates studio. The fitness club has also been designed and constructed to be as environmentally responsible as possible by using bamboo flooring, high efficiency heating and cooling, low water usage plumbing design, LED and CFL efficient lighting, and recycled materials and furnishings.

 

• Hamilton Park Montessori (www.hamiltonparkmontessorischool.com) is a school that was founded by a team of educators interested in creating a positive learning community where the best practices in Montessori and early childhood education are implemented.

 Hound About Town is a boutique focusing on a wholesome life for pets.  It will include organic foods and treats as well as sustainable toys and accessories and is slated to open in 2011.

 

• Madame Claude Wine (www.madameclaudewine.com) is a European styled wine shop owned by a local Jersey City husband and wife couple of French origin. The focus is on French wines and spirits, with a selection of French food products including pate, cheese, dried sausages, pickles, Dijon mustard and baguettes.

 

• Newport Pharmacy (www.newportpharmacy.com) is an independently owned local pharmacy that has been serving the neighborhood since 1986 and has found a new home at Hamilton Square.

 Next Step Broadway (www.nextstepbroadway.com) is a dance studio owned and operated by Amy Burnette, a former Radio City Rockette, which provides kids and adults with the skills they need to get to Broadway including dance, singing, acting, music and more.

 Provident Bank (www.providentnj.com) has a convenient ATM branch location at the development.

 Smith & Chang General Goods (www.smithchang.com) is a general store with an eco- twist and vintage vibe featuring quality goods that are essential to everyday life.

 Sophie Sophia (www.sophiesophia.com/) a cake studio and bakery that produces the highest quality wedding cakes, specialty cakes and baked goods in New Jersey. 

 Tribeca Pediatrics (www.tribecapediatrics.com) has been helping New York families raise happy, healthy babies and kids since 1994, and is opening their first New Jersey office next year at Hamilton Square.  

 “It’s not just about building top-quality housing in Jersey City,” said Eric Silverman, principal at SILVERMAN. “We’ve enhanced the community by creating retail components, allowing for affordable, convenient and dynamic living in Jersey City.”

 Other prominent developments in Jersey City by SILVERMAN include: Schroeder Lofts (http://www.schroederlofts.com/), Majestic Theatre Condominiums (http://www.majesticjerseycity.com/), and Park Foundry (http://www.parkfoundry.com/).

SILVERMAN also focuses on creating a sustainable community by supporting a number of local charities and organizing neighborhood events.

 SILVERMAN supports Hudson County Child Abuse Prevention Center, Hudson County Community College Foundation, Hudson County Chamber of Commerce, Hamilton Park Conservancy, City Kids Church, City Sail, as well as Art House Productions, Jersey City Museum, Garden Preschool Cooperative, Women Rising, Jersey City Boys and Girls Club and Hudson Perinatal Consortium.

 The company organized the Hamilton Park BBQ Festival, which drew more than 3,000 attendees and benefited the Hamilton Park Conservancy; the Fifth Annual Cinco de Mayo Parade and Fiesta, the Fifth Annual Oktoberfest Parade and Festival; and a Pumpkin Patch for area schoolchildren.

For more information regarding the on-site sales office at Hamilton Square or to schedule an appointment please contact Sawyer Smith at sawyer@livingonthepark.com or 201-434-1000.

For more information on SILVERMAN, please visit: www.silvermanbuilding.com.

 

Follow us on Twitter: @LivingOnThePark

Facebook link: http://www.facebook.com/hamiltonsquare -or- Search for us on Facebook: Hamilton Square Jersey City

The post Eric Silverman and Paul Silverman, Founders and Principals of SILVERMAN first appeared on River View Observer.