Call for Art: “On the Grid, Off the Grid”
Organization
Drawing Rooms · Jersey City · NJRegion
InternationalCategory
ExhibitionsDeadline
Friday, January 9, 2026 · 16 days leftShow Address
926 Newark Ave.Description
Open Call: “On the Grid, Off the Grid”
Exhibition Dates 2/5/26 - 3/1/26
Submissions Due 1/9/26
We invite you to submit work for consideration in our Drawing Rooms exhibit, “On the Grid, Off the Grid”.
The grid has been used in art history as a tool for creating accurate and proportional drawings during the Renaissance by Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer to help maintain a consistent viewpoint and accuracy when drawing from life, or when working on a larger scale. During Modernism, Mondrian used a grid as a fundamental structure for his abstract paintings and Malevich’s Suprematist art expressed pure geometric forms and a new, non-objective reality. Agnes Martin’s structured minimalist paintings incorporate drawn lines by hand using rulers and pencils which introduced subtle imperfections that she considered crucial to the work. Sol LeWitt used the grid as a starting point for his conceptual work, creating a system with pre-defined rules and letting the system generate the final artwork.
The grid is rich with associations and use for artists, and the concept of being On or Off the Grid may also relate to our current society which relies on our interconnected and ever-widening systems of communication and media prevalent today.
Works for this show may engage a literal system of the grid or a distortion or deconstruction of the grid, and may also make reference to the cyber-connected universe we live in or to a departure from it. Or you may choose to express ideas that go “off” in a different direction entirely from the specific way you work.
In keeping with our love of music, this show is dedicated to the Beastie Boys, an American hip-hop group formed in New York City in 1981, composed of teen-aged Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz, Adam “MCA” Yauch and Michael “Mike D” Diamond. We love the energy of their music and dedicate “On the Grid, Off the Grid” to them and their song “Off the Grid”, a catchy, atmospheric instrumental track off their 2007 album “The Mix-Up”, praised for its pop sensibilities. We recognize their place in music history as brilliant young white guys whose loud and spirited music influenced the course of hip-hop at this early time in its history, both here in the US and around the world.
Drawing Rooms in Jersey City is a project of Victory Hall Inc., a 501c3 non-profit organization producing exhibitions, programs and public art projects in the NJ/NY area with a national and international reach since 2001.