Doll (Haunted) House: Two ‘Naïve’ Holocaust Artists at GW’s Brady Gallery

Posted on: February 2nd, 2011

In an interview for an article published in these pages (Aug. 25, 2004), Jewish Bombay-born painter Siona Benjamin discussed her technique of hiding troubling imagery in the seemingly inviting floral and decorative borders of Indian and Persian miniature-influenced paintings. "Under the beauty of miniatures you can hide danger," she told me of her "Finding Home" series. "The beauty of miniatures draws you in-veiling and revealing."

Moriah’s Illuminated Torah

Posted on: January 26th, 2011

Avner Moriah, the well-known Israeli artist, has illuminated the Book of Genesis. No small feat, he has conjured images for all the major narratives as well as alluding to other analogous stories throughout the Torah. He sees the first book of Torah as nothing less than "a poem," a minimalist text that yields an unending series of explorations of the mysteries and conundrums of the human condition. While this is hardly the first nor largest of his explorations of biblical and Jewish narrative, it is easily the most ambitious.

In Loco Templum: Amsterdam’s Esnoga/Portuguese Synagogue

Posted on: January 19th, 2011

One of the aspects of the biblical construction narratives - both those about the Tabernacle in the wilderness in Exodus, and in 1 Kings about Solomon's Temple in the Holy Land - that most troubled and confused me when I was young was the aesthetic status of the structures.

A Tale of Four Synagogues: Amsterdam’s Jewish Historical Museum

Posted on: January 5th, 2011

Even a poor, unfortunate Jew stranded on an otherwise deserted island, the joke goes, builds two synagogues - one that he attends semi-regularly and the other he wouldn't set foot in if you tried to make him.

Sotheby’s Jewish Vision

Posted on: December 30th, 2010

Every year in the early winter the world-renowned auction house, Sotheby's, presents an auction of Israeli and International (Jewish) Art and Judaica. It is always a delight and Sunday, December 12 was no exception. Since it is an international affair, the foremost experts assemble the finest artworks available. The efforts of specialists Rivka Saker, Sigal Mordechai, Daria Gluck, Esta Kilstein and Jennifer Roth of Sotheby's Israel and Jennifer Roth, Sharon Liberman Mintz, David Wachtel, Elizabeth Muller, John Ward, Jill Waddell, Kevin Tierney here in New York were well rewarded. It was a truly exciting exhibition that frequently surprised one with new insights into many familiar artists.

Hidden In Plain Sight: The (Jewish) Hague

Posted on: December 22nd, 2010

Beneath Baruch Spinoza's smiling bust on his tombstone on the grounds of the Nieuwe Kerk in the Hague is an inscription of his famous motto, "caute" (written cavte on the stone, see image one), or "cautiously" in Latin. Between that admonition and the dates of his life - 1632 to 1677, cut short by an illness whose identity is hotly debated - is the Hebrew word "amcha" or "amach", Hebrew for "your people" or "your nation."

The Portuguese-Jewish Cemetery In Ouderkerk aan de Amstel

Posted on: December 8th, 2010

There is something profound and soothing in the ancient Jewish practice of using the euphemism beit chaim, "house of life," to refer to a cemetery. It is as if the rabbis did not even want to coin the phrase beit mavet, "house of death," for fear of inviting the evil eye.

Interbellum Art

Posted on: November 17th, 2010

"By breaking statues one risks turning into one oneself," says a caption in Jean Cocteau's 1930 film, "The Blood of a Poet." The statement could be a postmodern take on Psalm 115, which declares that those who make idols (which have mouths but cannot speak, eyes but cannot see, ears but cannot hear, noses but cannot smell, hands but cannot feel and feet but cannot walk), "shall become like them, all that place their faith in them."

A Jewish Art Salon Exhibit

Posted on: November 11th, 2010

In many ways, it should be a no-brainer for readers of The Jewish Press to make the decision to visit the latest Jewish Art Salon exhibit, Seduced by the Sacred, or, if the trek to Hartford is prohibitive, to immerse themselves in the works online. After all, most readers of this publication are surely already seduced by the sacred - however problematic the definition of both terms may be - and, particularly if they are regular readers of this column, they will be intrigued by the question of new Jewish art.

Landscapes for Humanity: Paintings by Batya F. Kuncman

Posted on: November 3rd, 2010

The world is complicated. Surely it seems that Divine justice is elusive. God's role is frequently masked and our human situation is terribly fragile. Yet according to artist Batya F. Kuncman our condition is "most promising." Her optimistic artwork is designed to illuminate this shadowy nature of our existence and strives for clarity and ultimate closeness to God. In "Landscapes for Humanity," currently at the Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art, images of infants are the tools she uses to explicate her belief.

The Jewish Art Enthusiast’s Guide To WNET/Channel Thirteen’s ‘Art Through Time: A Global View’

Posted on: October 27th, 2010

Jewish art buffs might be disappointed by channel Thirteen's new 13-part series, Art Through Time: A Global View. It takes two entire episodes (one half an hour each) and part of the third episode for a reference to Jewish art to surface. This comes in the person of Shimon Attie (born in Los Angeles, 1957), whose The Writing on the Wall (1991-3) projected pre-Holocaust photographs onto the walls of buildings in the Jewish quarter of Berlin, the Scheunenviertel. Attie's projections, which were effectively before-and-after photos of particular buildings, are particularly haunting because they reveal how much the neighborhood has changed. Another work of Attie's that is discussed in the episode is Portrait of Exile (1995), which involved submerging light boxes with portraits of Danish refugees (who fled to Sweden during the Holocaust) in a canal in Copenhagen.

The Jewish Art Enthusiast’s Guide To WNET/Channel Thirteen’s ‘Art Through Time: A Global View’

Posted on: October 27th, 2010

Jewish art buffs might be disappointed by channel Thirteen's new 13-part series, Art Through Time: A Global View. It takes two entire episodes (one half an hour each) and part of the third episode for a reference to Jewish art to surface. This comes in the person of Shimon Attie (born in Los Angeles, 1957), whose The Writing on the Wall (1991-3) projected pre-Holocaust photographs onto the walls of buildings in the Jewish quarter of Berlin, the Scheunenviertel. Attie's projections, which were effectively before-and-after photos of particular buildings, are particularly haunting because they reveal how much the neighborhood has changed. Another work of Attie's that is discussed in the episode is Portrait of Exile (1995), which involved submerging light boxes with portraits of Danish refugees (who fled to Sweden during the Holocaust) in a canal in Copenhagen.

The Adventure of a Jewish Photographer: Miriam Mörsel Nathan’s Photo-Paintings

Posted on: October 13th, 2010

In Italo Calvino's short story "The Adventure of a Photographer," part of his collection Difficult Loves (1985), the "non-photographer" and bachelor Antonino Paraggi, finds himself increasingly alienated from his married friends who go out with their families and cameras each Sunday and "come back as happy as hunters with bulging game bags," their photographic catch of the day.

The Adventure of a Jewish Photographer: Miriam M?rsel Nathan’s Photo-Paintings

Posted on: October 13th, 2010

In Italo Calvino's short story "The Adventure of a Photographer," part of his collection Difficult Loves (1985), the "non-photographer" and bachelor Antonino Paraggi, finds himself increasingly alienated from his married friends who go out with their families and cameras each Sunday and "come back as happy as hunters with bulging game bags," their photographic catch of the day.

Would the Real (And Kosher) Sukkah Installation Please Stand Up?

Posted on: September 28th, 2010

out half a year ago, my friend Miriam asked if I knew of any artists or architects whose repertoires included sukkahs. My thoughts immediately turned to the gorgeous sukkah my grandfather designed and built every year and to the retractable roof in the dining room at the Bostoner Rebbe's synagogue, Congregation Beth Pinchas. But for the life of me, I couldn't think of any artist who had developed an interesting aesthetic approach to the sukkah, which is the only Jewish experience (save mikvah perhaps) that completely surrounds us.

Would the Real (And Kosher) Sukkah Installation Please Stand Up?

Posted on: September 28th, 2010

out half a year ago, my friend Miriam asked if I knew of any artists or architects whose repertoires included sukkahs. My thoughts immediately turned to the gorgeous sukkah my grandfather designed and built every year and to the retractable roof in the dining room at the Bostoner Rebbe's synagogue, Congregation Beth Pinchas. But for the life of me, I couldn't think of any artist who had developed an interesting aesthetic approach to the sukkah, which is the only Jewish experience (save mikvah perhaps) that completely surrounds us.

Sarah’s Trials: A Personal View

Posted on: September 21st, 2010

God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, Sarah's only child. Our forefather gets up early and obeys, not telling Sarah, his wife of 47 years. According to Rashi (Genesis 23:2) when she finds out that Abraham had taken Isaac as a sacrifice and then had not killed him, the shock is too much for her and she dies. This has always disturbed me. Upon reflection other things about their relationship seemed problematic.

Podwal’s Books

Posted on: September 7th, 2010

Mark Podwal is a busy, busy man. He has spent the last 38 years making every conceivable kind of art: innumerable paintings, 28 illustrated books written by him and Elie Wiesel, Harold Bloom and Francine Prose, children's books, haggadot, ceramics and graphic works. Dubbed the "Master of the True Line" by author Cynthia Ozick, his pro-Israel cartoons and drawings have been featured on the Op-Ed pages of the New York Times since 1972.

Process, Loss and History

Posted on: September 1st, 2010

New York has gone through a William Kentridge craze this year. There have been scattered exhibitions in galleries throughout the cities, in addition to lectures and live performances. From the blockbuster Five Themes show at the MoMA, the Metropolitan Opera's production of Kentridge's directed-and-designed multimedia version of Shostakovich's The Nose, the South African artist has been a dominant voice on the New York art scene. For those who missed the incredible MoMA retrospective-or for those who simply wish for another Kentridge fix-a final salvo can be caught at the Jewish Museum's exhibition of part of Kentridge's Nine Drawings for Projection series.

Anything But Your Grandmother’s Candle Sticks: Contemporary Judaica

Posted on: August 25th, 2010

A tallit with pastel-colored circular candies on the atarah (literally crown, the top, embellished portion of the garment); a hand held golden bulldozer used to collect chametz on Passover; a mezuzah that shows the three letter name of God (shin, daled, yud, the Sustainer) on a computer keyboard above an "Enter" button, where the text of the mezuzah appears (in the typography of a Torah scroll) on the monitor.