Part One—Soft Wall (performance) February 23, 7:00pm

Part Two—Full (installation) March 2 – March 29, 2008 Opening: Saturday, March 1, 7 – 9PM Viewing hours are Saturdays and Sundays 1-4pm.

In an effort to further expand and broaden its audiences and to continue its work with local non-profit cultural groups, Jersey City Museum has joined with Jersey City-based Shua Group performance company to present Public Acts, the result of three years of intensive collaboration between Shua Group and French visual artist Sylvestre Gobart. Working together, Shua Group and Gobart have created a performance and exhibition project that allow audiences to experience their performance in unique and intimate ways. Public Acts will unfold during a two-part event. On Saturday, February 23 at 7pm, Shua Group and Sylvestre Gobart will present their newest performance, Soft Wall. Soft Wall is a subtle weaving together of performance, improvisation, movement, intuition and audience response. The Public Acts exhibition will feature two large-scale installations, Soft Wall and Full. Soft Wall will consist of the physical result of the previous week’s performance. Full is a sound and video installation which exhibits a crowd spontaneously empting a studio space of thousands of cardboard boxes. The event took place in Bayonne, France in 2007.

The two-part Public Acts performance and exhibition is free to the public and will take place at Canco Lofts, where it will coincide with the grand Jersey City Museum - 350 Montgomery St. @ Monmouth - Jersey City, NJ 07302—201.413-0303 opening of the development’s sales and design center. A shuttle service will be provided from the Journal Square PATH Station to Canco Lofts for both events. The one million square-foot art deco Canco Lofts building, which is currently undergoing its conversion from industrial-toresidential use, has served as the host location for several art exhibitions over the past year, including the 2007 Jersey City Artists Studio Tour, which attracted over 2,000 visitors, and a December JC Fridays art event.

Shua Group is a Jersey City-based performance company directed by choreographer Joshua Bisset and artist Laura Quattrocchi. Their movement based art address public space, crowds and audience interaction. 2008 works include a video installation and performance at the World Financial Center / Winter Garden in New York City and a performance on Federal Hill, Baltimore through the American Visionary Art Museum.

Sylvestre Gobart is a France-based visual artist working in the media of photography and video. Formally, his research in photography is focused on the relation between the topic in which he is working and the material he uses, which gives resonance to the idea of the work. He has had solo shows at Galeria sol Del Rio Guatemala, Bienale d Art contemporain de Dakar, Dakar, at ARTEBA in Buenos Aires, Argentina with the gallery ARTE x ARTE.

The Public Acts performance is made possible from a grant from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. Founded in 1901, the Jersey City Museum is the major presenter of contemporary art serving the people of Jersey City, Hudson County and the region. The museum organizes many group and solo exhibitions every year, featuring works by culturally diverse, contemporary artists and from its 10,000-piece collection of regional significant art and historical objects. Through exhibitions, educational initiatives and programs, the museum welcomes over 25,000 visitors each year, including 11,000 school-aged children and youth.