Elijah Ober, Alice Jones, John Bisbee and Kenny Shapiro are among the dozen Maine artists temporarily moving to New Jersey to turn a former industrial space into an arts center. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer
BRUNSWICK — Longtime Maine artist John Bisbee is leaving the state for a temporary job in New Jersey, where he’s been hired to introduce art into a massive eco-friendly redevelopment of a gritty industrial site where 35,000 workers once built warships for the U.S. Navy.
Bisbee, 54, is taking a dozen studio assistants and former students from Bowdoin College with him to begin making art for the 130-acre site in the Newark suburb of Kearny. They will work with other artists across disciplines and from other parts of the country to convert one warehouse into an arts center and inject contemporary art into the entire Kearny Point project. “We have a very simple command, and that’s to activate it and start to create and invent an arts program down there with a long-term vision for a world-class arts center,” Bisbee said.
Real estate developer, environmentalist and social justice advocate Wendy Neu is leading the $1 billion adaptive reuse project on the Hackensack River. She is the chief executive officer of the New York City-based Hugo Neu Corp., which specializes in recycling. She is related to Bisbee – he is her sister’s brother-in-law – and a fan and collector of his art. “My late husband was a great admirer of John’s work,” Neu said. “To have John come here speaks volumes to what we are trying to do.”
Bisbee, who taught at Bowdoin until four years ago, sculpts with an industrial aesthetic. He welds and forges exclusively with nails. He lives and works in Brunswick, with studios at Fort Andross Mill. He is not giving up his studio in Brunswick and expects to be in New Jersey at least six months. He and his collaborators will leave Brunswick this week.
Among the artists going with him is his partner, painter Emilie Stark-Menneg.
“I am pumped because I love adventure and this seems like a big adventure,” she said. “I am also pumped for the possibility to collaborate and the conversations we will be able to have in that type of space. This will be a chance to take bigger risks.”
Neu began the Kearny Point project in 2014, two years after Superstorm Sandy inundated the site. Neu razed some structures, rehabbed others and removed industrial waste. Her goal is to create a mixed-use industrial park that’s in tune with climate change and the evolving economy, with space for start-ups, small-scale offices and flexible rental terms, as well as retail, restaurants and green space, all designed around effective flood control.
It’s not a traditional industrial park. She calls it an “environmental and social justice collider” and “a model for sustainable urban resilience.” She wants it to become an economic driver “for people who have been marginalized and left behind.” She favors clean, green businesses that are in sync with her progressive philosophies.
She asked Bisbee and his team to relocate there to help articulate and embody those ideals.
“Artists have vision. We need vision. We need to see ourselves and what we can become,” Neu said. “We are trying to do something very different and create a model that will be an example to folks who are concerned about these issues and how our world can look going forward. Artists are important to communicate that message and educate people. They create interest and a sense of discovery.”
One building on the site, a 160,000-square-foot behemoth known as Building 78, has about 175 tenants. Another, Building 197 with 150,000 square feet, will open next year. Hugo Neu spent a combined $56 million on the two buildings, according to reporting in The New York Times.
Bisbee’s project is tiny in comparison, though massive on its own. He and his team will work in Building 44C, which has about 79,000 square feet and 50-foot ceilings. He said Neu has committed $1.8 million to the art component through early 2020, and all the artists involved will be paid a stipend and live rent-free. Neu declined to discuss her financial arrangements with the artists or her investment.
Their work will involve making sculpture and other art for the site, working with architects and introducing art and design principles to the community. Bisbee called it “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and truly a gift from the gods. We’re going into this thing not as a corporate journey, but an ethical journey. We’re going down there, walking into an empty space, setting up and begin making art.”
Bisbee is calling his project Gardenship, in reference to New Jersey’s nickname – the Garden State – and the site’s former use as a shipyard. The Federal Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co. made aircraft carriers and other ships for the U.S. Navy on the site, turning out a finished ship weekly during World War II.
Bisbee thinks the association of his work with American industry influenced Neu’s invitation. “It’s important that the shipyard maintain its roots as a place of heavy industry. She wants an iron foundry, a fabrication shop. There will be lots of steel going on,” he said.
Bisbee has experience as an incubator and collaborator. In addition to teaching sculpture at Bowdoin, he worked closely with philanthropist Roxanne Quimby to establish an artist colony and served as art director of the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Tennessee, where he marshaled teams of artists to create temporary public art projects.
Suzette McAvoy, executive director and chief curator of the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockland, said this project represents “an amazing new opportunity” for Maine artists.
“The scale is enormous, and I’m very excited to see it take fruition from a dream to a reality,” she wrote in an email. “There’s a long tradition of artistic exchange between the greater New York metropolitan area and Maine, and this project adds an inspiring new chapter.”
CMCA hosted Bisbee’s “American Steel” exhibition last year.
Richard Keen, a Bisbee friend with a studio at Fort Andross, likes the idea of Maine artists going to New York to make a mark, instead of the other way around.
“For years, there’s been this dialogue between New York and Maine, and that seemingly has always been from New York to Maine. This is a broadening of that conversation,” Keen said. “I’m really glad they’re going, but their presence will be sorely missed.”
Nearly all the artists going with Bisbee are either former students or assistants. Several are involved with the artist-run coop New Systems Exhibitions on Parris Street in Portland.
“It’s a unique chance for us to step out of Portland and Maine to make art,” said artist Cody Stack, one of the artists involved with New Systems Exhibitions. “To have a way to do that in a place like New York is pretty cool.”
Tom Ryan said he appreciates that artists are being involved in the early stages of the project and that their voices are valued.
“We have a chance to experiment and prove what art brings to the table, in terms of a piece of the structure and not just the cherry on top,” he said. “We’re trying to see what it means to have art be part of a commercial and industrial space, and not just a decoration.”
Jim Larson likes that he is getting paid upfront and that opportunities are being given to young artists. Elijah Ober appreciates the chance to “cross-pollinate” with other artists, some of whom, like Bisbee and Stark-Menneg, are established in their careers.
“Most of our group is emerging artists and early-career artists,” Ober said. “It’s cool to break down a certain career divide and work together with artists at different stages of their career.”
Dominique Lueckenhoff, senior vice president of corporate affairs and sustainability for Hugo Neu, said it was important to bring in artists from different parts of the country into the project, for different perspectives.
“They are coming from Maine and from a different landscape and environment than this post-industrial corridor that we are in. We’re interested in how they see it and how they appreciate what we are trying to do,” she said.
What they will find, she added, is a large, historic Brownfield site that now represents the next generation of green redevelopment – and is home to at least one pair of nesting eagles.
“It flies in the face of those who believe this corridor should look like devastation,” she said. “We see this as a model not only for New Jersey but a global model. We call ourselves ground zero for net zero.”
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