STATEWIDE – In this week’s episode of State of the Arts, artists photograph the world — from an African American community in Israel, to the clubs and garages that men call their own, to a portrait of Paterson, New Jersey over a 30-year span. Click! airs on Friday, March 30 at 8:30 pm, with a rebroadcast on Wednesday, April 4, at 11:30 pm. State of the Arts marks twenty-five years on NJN this season. The series has earned 25 Regional Emmy Awards, including a 2006 Mid-Atlantic Emmy and a 2005 New York Emmy.

• Ken Ross: Where Men Hide
Photographer and educator Ken Ross takes his camera to a variety of settings where men congregate for comfort, camaraderie, relaxation, and escape. He teamed up with author James Twitchell to explore this topic in a book, “Where Men Hide,” a spirited tour of both traditional and contemporary male haunts, such as bars, barbershops, lodges, pool halls, garages, deer camps, megachurches, and the basement Barcalounger. State of the Arts producer Amber Edwards talks to Ross, a resident of Lebanon, New Jersey, who says that for centuries men have met with each other in underground lairs and clubhouses. Writer James Twitchell sees this behavior less as exclusionary and more as the result of social anxiety. When women want to get together, they just do it; when men get together, it's a production. By blending together anecdote, research, and keen observation, Ross and Twitchell bring this little-discussed phenomenon to light. Ken Ross’ photography has been displayed in numerous exhibits and featured in The New York Times and Esquire magazine. He has been awarded a Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Grant and a NJ State Council on the Arts Artist Fellowship for the photographs seen in “Where Men Hide.”

• George Tice: Paterson II
According to George Tice, he was looking for an old industrial city to photograph when chance brought him one day in 1967 to Paterson, New Jersey. Founded by Alexander Hamilton, Paterson was an historic city with a remarkable natural setting of a waterfall and mountains, but it was past its prime. Over the next few years, the young photographer created a portrait of urban decline that was both bleak and beautiful. Tice’s photographs were shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1972 in an acclaimed show and published in a book, “Paterson.” Thirty years later, Tice returned to Paterson to create a new book, “Paterson II.” The city is now full of new immigrants, and the old buildings have new facades. Yet the play between the depressed urban landscape and its natural surroundings remains much as it was. As Tice tells State of the Arts producer Susan Wallner, he can find formal beauty almost anywhere, but it’s the humanity that gives his compositions their power. A tenth generation native of New Jersey, Tice lives in Atlantic Highlands. His prints are in major collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Newark Museum, which originated this exhibit. “Paterson II” has also been seen at William Paterson University’s Ben Shahn Gallery, and will be on display in Paterson at Lambert Castle July 7 through October 7, 2007. Wallner also talks to A.D. Coleman, a noted photographic critic and historian and the author of the forward to “Paterson II.”

• Wendel A. White: Village of Peace
Celebrated photographer Wendel White's latest series of images capture the everyday lives of African Americans living in the “Village of Peace,” located in the town of Dimona, in the southern part of Israel. State of the Arts producer Eric Schultz speaks with White about his path to Israel and his fascination with this unusual community. Schultz also speaks with New Jersey-born novelist Emily Raboteau, whose essay about the community appears in a spring 2007 issue (Edition #97) of “Transition Magazine,” accompanied by Wendel White’s photographs. The “Village of Peace” was established more than 35 years ago by a group of African Americans from the Chicago area who claimed to be Jews. They left the U.S. in 1967, lived in Liberia for more than two years, and settled in Israel's Negev desert. “Pictures from a New World: An African American Village in Israel” is an extension of White’s other works that address the historical traditions of African American communities. These earlier works include “Small Towns, Black Lives: African American Communities in Southern New Jersey” and “Schools for the Colored: Up-South, Between the Mississippi River and the Atlantic Ocean.” White is currently a Professor of Art at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.

State of the Arts, the award-winning, half-hour arts magazine, airs every Friday at 8:30 pm, followed by an encore presentation each Wednesday at 11:30 pm.

The current episode of State of the Arts can be viewed online at www.njn.net. Individual stories will be available to view following their broadcast by visiting the program online at State of the Arts.

Funding for State of the Arts is provided by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. The series producer is Susan Wallner and the executive producer is Nila Aronow.

NJN is available on all New Jersey cable systems, satellite systems, and Time Warner Cable channel 750 in NYC.
State of the Arts is also available via video streaming at njn.net after the original broadcast.
Additionally, the program is repeated on NJN’s JerseyVision available on Comcast Digital Cable in New Jersey.
(Check http://www.njn.net/digital/schedule.html for detailed listings.)
NJN – Uniquely New Jersey
# # #