By Gary Sprengel

October always means the Newark Arts Festival is going to occupy a few days of my time. I didn’t get to partake nearly as much as I would have liked this year, but I still got a healthy dose of the Radical Reimagining 2024 theme. The 23rd Annual Newark Arts Festival event took place over five days, from October 9 to October 13, with events across Brick City. Caffeination helped to keep up with the dizzying number of events.

Having missed Wednesday’s kickoff Pink Ball at the Newark Museum of Art, I made sure to get to the opening of the new Newark ArtSpace at Vermella Broad Street on Thursday evening. This very attractive venue serves as the northernmost anchor of the city’s newly minted arts district, transforming what was for decades a weedy empty block into a vibrant destination. Curated by Armisey Smith, I got to admire the works of twenty artists as I sipped red wine and nibbled on cheese and crackers.

I love getting in a new space, so I made it my business on Friday evening to attend Project for Empty Space’s inaugural exhibition at Ironside Newark. Azikiwe Mohammed’s “Trains, Buses & the 4 C’s” is a dazzling must-see that will be on display until January 25. I took in some prosecco as I admired the art. I soon raced to Newark Local Beer for the double feature of the arts festival edition of the Brick City Comedy Revue and ARTfront Galleries’ MendaCity exhibit. Newark’s longest running comedy show featured headliner Chanel Ali, musical guest Sophia’s Daughter, and several up-and-coming talents getting their three minutes. I also enjoyed some beer: the Eleanor, to be precise. 

I regretfully missed Saturday’s events but came back for an admittedly rushed Sunday afternoon. My first stop was ARTfront Galleries’ pop-up at 44 William Street, which showcased multiple artists. I then hoofed it over to Index Art Center at 89 Market Street, where I got to visit the studios of Juno Zago, Jaz Graf, Colin Shields, and Grounded Music Education (Dana Johnson and Gonzalo Silva). Just forty-five minutes before they closed, I arrived at Project for Empty Space at 800 Broad Street ready to take on three floors at record speed. I got to see photography by Stafford Woods at Obscura Darkroom in the basement before sprinting to the third floor, where the main goal was to see John Matturri’s photographs of the Feast of St. Gerard from 1969–2010. I managed to also visit the studios of Plusable PR and Mashell Black, even getting the opportunity in Black’s studio to add a tiny bit of paint to a temporary mural.

I made it to the second floor with ten minutes to spare, where my first priority was scoring prosecco and a croissant. With the clock ticking toward the 5PM closing, it was finally time to visit the artists behind CookBook LookBook, who were launching their 2025 wall calendar/cookbook/zine. Bertha Miller—a spry 100-years-old!—designed the month of March and baked mandelbrot for the occasion. They will be back on December 7 for Newark Zine Fest at the Newark Museum of Art. 

I covered a lot of ground in two hours on Sunday, but certainly wished I could have seen more. There were so many studios in Project for Empty Space alone that I didn’t get to. The joy and pain of the Newark Arts Festival is that there is an abundance of options. You are probably never going to get to everything, but you will have one hell of a good time trying. 

Gary Sprengel is a Harrison native who fled to Amish Country, PA to obtain his BA in communications from Elizabethtown College. He enjoys photography, craft beer, wandering urban landscapes, and country music. He wrote dating blogs under a pseudonym for about a year, and was once pulled onstage by Don Rickles in Atlantic City. He goes by the cryptic @garysprengel on Instagram and Twitter.

All Images and featured image: Gary Sprengel