Open Wednesdays and Fridays from 12-4, Thursdays from 12-9 and Saturdays from 10-6

Limited Engagement is a yearlong project in a 20,000 sq ft building slated for demolition soon after, thus making explicit the usually unspoken relationship between art and real estate. The building’s former use, and the entire city block are defined by furniture sales on lay-away, by six piece sets that are not fried chicken. The block, like much of downtown Newark and other American cities, is layered densely with the signage of decade’s worth of promises and exhortations.

Andrew Y Chan, seen most recently in Killing me Softee, contributes a paper-mache vending machine, while Peter Kreider reproduce iconic objects such as fireworks with malevolent accuracy. Molly Blieder probes economic anxieties with her depictions of “running in the red.” Richard Garrison offers us the constrained aesthetic choices of suburban homeowners, and Vandana Jain was commissioned to drive out retail spirits in the gallery with veves derived from her “logomanadalas.” Matthew Gosser merges the fine New Jersey practices of recycling and labor investigations with pieces from his celebrated Pabst series. Hellin Kay’s photography contrasts youthful beauty with a collapsed and evolving Russian economic order. Nick Kline and Niki Lederer each take on a ubiquitous and coveted item: beloved pets and black SUVs with series of multiples. Noah Klersfeld’s film loop A Couple of Seconds creates a hypnotic portrait of intimacy’s costs. Kent Rogowski’s neon signage advertises anxieties and their possible antidotes. Zoë Sheehan Saldaña crafts exacting replicas of Wal-Mart clothing items and returns these creations in the place of the mass-manufactured original. Emma Wilcox invites viewers to be photographed on a life-size backdrop derived from hand-painted signage from the Kearny NJ area.

We have borrowed (or stolen) a phrase from the former tenants of the building. Used as a title, it is meant to both honor and exorcise the previous history of our gallery, and our new space.

No Money Down considers bargains, exchange, rewards and/or losses.