Pro Arts Jersey City and Canco Lofts are pleased to present Happily Ever After, an exhibition of artists whose work appropriates or references folk and fairy tales. In what forms do the elemental models or archetypes of fairy tales persist in contemporary culture and the mainstream media? The show presents numerous takes on the subject, from the imaginary and fantastic to personal and social commentary, in a broad range of mediums, such as Norma Markley’s embroidered Red Riding Hood towels, Sarah Julig’s origami cloud castles, and Susan Breitsch’s sequined chest of drawers.

Yuliya Lania’s stop-motion animation, Journey, depicts “a little half-doll half-bird character striding through fantasy landscapes inhabited by fairy tale creatures . . . while singing a Russian children’s song about the importance of finding her kin.” Michelle Handelman’s La Suture is described as “an antigravity fairy tale of sibling rivalry . . . in a postfeminist animated playground. Her video Folly &Error, inspired by Charles Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil, . . . creates a haunting and hallucinatory narrative described as a cross between a music video, pagan ritual and a Vogue fashion shoot.”

Also in the screening room is Helen Quinn’s animation Cruel Frederick, with drawings based on the macabre fairy tales of Heinrich Hoffmann - written to scare children who behaved badly - with a soundtrack by the Tiger Lillies.

Artists in the show include: Alizia Augustine, Susan Breitsch, Irene Christensen, Jason Covert, Eulogio & Juliet Dayday, Angela Deane, Alexis Duque, Marianne Fourie, Alison Green, Michelle Handelman, Wendy Hirschberg, Jun Ishida, Sarah Julig, Yuliya Lania, Meghan LeBorious, Jadina Lilien, Ken Madore, Norma Markley, Laura Mazzorana, Leemour Pelli, Helen Quinn, Conrad Vogel, Jeanne Wilkinson, and Roxanne Wolanczyk.