Dreamtime In Newark: Aljira And The Making Of Global Contemporary Art

NEWARK, NJ — The following news release comes courtesy of the Newark Museum of Art. Find out how to post announcements or events to your local Patch site.

The Newark Museum of Art (NMOA) is pleased to announce "Dreamtime in Newark: Aljira and the Making of Global Contemporary Art," on view October 15, 2026 through June 20, 2027. This expansive group exhibition celebrates the 35-year history and global impact of the artist-led nonprofit gallery that championed the works of underrepresented artists before its closing in 2018.

Spanning from the late-1960s to the present, Dreamtime in Newark features rarely seen artworks from the Aljira Archive and The Newark Museum of Art’s collection, as well as numerous loans from private and public collections. Organized thematically and intergenerationally, the exhibition brings together 66 artworks by 45 artists, all of whom exhibited, curated, or collaborated at Aljira.

Showcasing a wide range of styles and media, the checklist includes an international roster of artists and art world leaders, including Amiri Baraka, Dawoud Bey, Derrick Adams, Firelei Baez, Chitra Ganesh, Frank Bowling, Hew Locke, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Jeffrey Gibson, and Mickalene Thomas, among others.

“Aljira has been a vital cultural anchor in Newark, forging space for underrepresented artists and shaping a generation of important voices in contemporary art," said Lisa Funderburke, Director and Chief Executive at The Newark Museum of Art. “This exhibition honors Aljira’s enduring legacy and the museum’s longtime collaborations with the art space and reaffirms our commitment to being a museum for everyone.”

In 1983, Guyanese-born artists Victor Davson and Carl E. Hazlewood joined a group of local artists renting a joint studio space in Newark. Davson and Hazlewood soon transformed the shared studio into a gallery space, which over the years occupied three successive spaces in downtown Newark, and presented the work of over 300 artists. Named after the Australian Aboriginal term for dreamtime, Aljira created an ethos of visibility, inclusion, and possibility as it established itself as a major arts institution exhibiting both local and global artists. In presenting over 400 public programs, Aljira attracted wide audiences, commissioned artworks, and celebrated honorees and curators, including Faith Ringgold, Wangechi Mutu, Donald Locke, and Fred Wilson among others.

“At its core, this exhibition is about how artists and communities imagined new possibilities for themselves through art. Aljira became a space where artists working across cultures, mediums, and lived experiences could experiment, build community, and claim visibility on their own terms,” notes Alliyah Allen, the exhibition’s guest curator.

A defining aspect of Aljira’s impact was its range of groundbreaking curatorial, educational, and professional development programs. Highlights include Okwui Enwezor’s curatorial debut with the exhibition Modern Life (1995), presented in collaboration with The Newark Museum of Art’s Project 5: Pepon Osorio—Badge of Honor; and Frank Bowling’s first focused retrospective, Bending the Grid: Black Identity and Resistance in the Art of Frank Bowling (2003). Through recurring exhibition programs like Bending the Grid and the Emerge Fellowship, Aljira became a site for critical dialogue and intervention, extending its mission beyond the gallery. The Emerge program supported artist fellows through sustained professional development, culminating in a guest-curated exhibition.

Alumni include artists Carrie Moyer, Chitra Ganesh, Jeffrey Gibson, Dahlia Elsayed, and Leslie Hewitt.

Curated by Alliyah Allen, guest curator, and Tricia Laughlin Bloom, The Newark Museum of Art’s Senior Curator of American Art, Dreamtime in Newark will be presented across the Museum’s 4,500 square-foot exhibition space and campus at large. A catalog of the exhibition will be published by NMOA in association with Rutgers University Press, with contributions by Pulitzer Prize-award winning critic and curator Salamishah Tillet, American artist and MacArthur Fellow Dawoud Bey, and the city of Newark’s Director of Art and Cultural Affairs fayemi shakur, among others.

Dreamtime in Newark: Aljira and the Making of Global Contemporary Art is made possible by funds from the Mellon Foundation, The Terra Foundation for American Art, The Merrill G. and Emita E. Hastings Foundation, and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support is made possible from corporate, foundation, and individual sources.

About The Newark Museum of Art

We welcome everyone with inclusive experiences that spark curiosity and foster community.

Founded in 1909 and located in the heart of Newark, New Jersey, The Newark Museum of Art was founded on the radical belief among museums in 1909 that art is for everyone. NMOA built its collections with art from Asia, Africa, and the Americas, with an early and sustained commitment to the art of living artists. 115 years later, NMOA is the state’s largest fine art museum and has the 12th most extensive collection in the nation. It preserves and shares 300,000+ objects of artistic, scientific, and cultural importance. Visitor- and community-centered, NMOA responds to its diverse public’s evolving needs and interests by offering exhibitions, programming, a research library, paid internships, and local and global partnerships

About The Aljira Archive Project (TAAP)

Artists Victor L. Davson and Cicely Cottingham co-founded The Aljira Archive Project (TAAP) in 2020, as a repository for the records of Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art (1983–2018). TAAP preserves the spirit of Aljira by fostering projects that order and present its past through diverse formats and original documents.

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