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The Jewish Artists Initiative (JAI) is an artist-run organization committed to fostering visual art by Jewish artists and promoting dialogue about Jewish identity and related issues among members of the arts community.
Mission and History
JAI was originally conceived by the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles in partnership with the University of Southern California Casden Institute and the USC Roski School of Fine Arts.
Learn about our past and our plans for the future.
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Biologically-Inspired Computing for the Arts: Scientific Data through Graphics - A Premier Reference Source -
with contributions from around the globe, comprises a collection of authors’ individual approaches to the relationship between nature, science, and art created with the use of computers.
Chapter 20 by Victor Raphael (Independent Artist, JAI Member, USA) and Clayton S. Spada (Cypress College, USA)
Purchase a PDF of Chapter 20 only - From Zero to Infinity: A Story of Everything
Two exhibitions of Rose-Lynn Fisher's series of bees viewed through a scanning electron microscope
Everhart Museum, Scranton PA | May 4 - September 3, 2012
Piermont Straus Gallery & Bookstore, Piermont NY | May 5 - July 7, 2012
http://www.hechalshlomo.org.il/
March 8 - August 12, 2012
Long Beach Museum of Art 2300 East Ocean Boulevard Long Beach, CA 90803 (562) 439-2119
Curators: Susanna Meiers & Victor Raphael
Artists: Terry Braunstein, Susanna Meiers, Victor Raphael, June Wayne
From the beginning of time, man has peered into the night sky and pondered the vast realm that extends out, far beyond the boundaries of terra firma. This mystifying world of darkness, inhabited alternately by silent distant planets and exploding super nova has long been a source of inspiration to artists throughout the ages. This exhibition of works by Terry Braunstein, Susanna Meiers, Victor Raphael and June Wayne explores four individual reactions to the mystery of deep space.
Dedication
This exhibition is dedicated to the memory of June Wayne, who passed away August 23, 2011 at the age of 93. June was a visionary artist and pioneer in the revival of fine-art printmaking in the 1960's when she founded the Tamarind Lithography Workshop. June was an original and an inspiration to several generations of artists. She was truly out of this world.
February 18 - April 28, 2012
SHOW SCHEDULE EXTENDED THRU JUNE 30TH
“Ruth Weisberg: Now & Then” presents paintings and works on paper by one of Los Angeles’ most celebrated figurative artists since her arrival in 1969. The exhibition, which includes her most recent paintings, and spanning more than three decades, reveals Weisberg’s unique vision through which the viewer sees the convergence of art history, personal memory, and cultural experience.
The exhibition reveals Weisberg’s decades-long interest in re-imagining the works of such past masters as Titian, Velazquez, Blake and Corot. Through fresco-like effects in her unstretched paintings as well as the veils of washes in her masterful lithographs, Weisberg brings past-time into contemporary context.
Ruth Weisberg is currently a professor at USC, where she was one of the longest tenured Deans of the Roski School of Fine Art. Weisberg is the first living painter to have been afforded a solo exhibition at the Norton Simon Museum of Art. She holds that distinction as well at the Huntington Library. Her first major survey in Los Angeles was in 1979 at Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery. The subject of over 80 solo and 185 group exhibitions, Weisberg’s work is included in the permanent collections of over 60 museums, including the Metropolitan Museum, National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., Whitney Museum of American Art, Portland Art Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Getty Research Institute, Norton Simon Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, Detroit Institute of Arts, Biblioteque Nationale in Paris, and Rome Institute Nationale per la Grafica, among many others.
Click to view "Ruth Weisberg: Now & Then" a film by Eric Minh Swenson, music by Daedelus
GALLERY HOURS: Sunday - Thursday 10 am - 4 pm Friday 10 am - 2 pm
GALLERIES CLOSED: Saturdays and April 6, 8, 13, 2012
For more information, call the Gallery at 310-476-9777 x201
June 4 -7
Athens Institute for Education and Research
3rd Annual International Conference on Visual and Performing Arts, Athens, Greece
Presentation: Cosmography: A Hypothesis on the Origin of Alphabet As Represented in the Art of Gilah Yelin Hirsch
Curator: Nancy Goodman Lawrence | Co-Curator: Pat Berger
AJULA 15600 Mulholland Drive Bel Air, CA 90077
Gallery hours: Monday - Thursday 10 a.m. - 7 p.m.
Closed: July 4th
2012 Newberry Medal Winner: Eugene Yelchin's Breaking Stalin's Nose
The Newbery Medal was named for eighteenth-century British bookseller John Newbery.
It is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the
American Library Association, to the author of the most distinguished contribution
to American literature for children.
"On the eve of his induction into the Young Pioneers, Sasha’s world
is overturned when his father is arrested by Stalin’s guard.
Yelchin deftly crafts a stark and compelling story of a child’s lost idealism."
Breaking Stalin's Nose by Eugene Yelchin, published by Henry Holt and Company, LLC.
Two engaging promotional videos on YouTube - click on the small screens above
The January 24th Jewish Artists Initiative meeting hosted by JAI artist Elizabeth Bloom and her husband, David Reisbord, was particularly well attended with over 40 people, including 30+ artist members.
The evening's agenda included a review led by Ruth Weisberg of our final grant report, which was submitted to the Jewish Community Foundation and concluded our 2008 Cutting Edge Grant. The report included a summary of the tremendous success JAI had as a grant recipient. We held sixty-two public events from August 2008 through December 2011 and an estimate 1,670 people attended these events. In addition, JAI planned and carried out seven ambitious Israeli artist exchanges, several in collaboration with the Federation’s Los Angeles/Tel Aviv Partnership. As a 'Cutting Edge' grantee, our organization nearly doubled its size going from 35 members in the fall of 2008 to our current 67 members. We also gave an update on the progress being made in transforming ourselves into an independent 501(c)3 organization as well as advantages to partnering with 'Jumpstart' which specializes in helping Jewish non-profit organizations. One of the highlights of the evening was the distribution to members of our highly anticipated and very handsome publication: "A Gathering of Sparks - JAI 2004-2011".
Another highlight of the meeting was a studio tour by Elizabeth Bloom, which included viewing the new configuration of her ambitious, and deeply affecting multi-panel piece, entitled Lamentations and Jubilations. Other work she also shared included rarely seen early portraiture and still life pieces. There was also a special lecture by guest Sara Ferdman Tauben, visiting Canadian author and art historian who spoke eloquently on the history of Montreal synagogue architecture. (See a brief bio of Tauben below.)
Author Sara Ferdman Tauben has academic degrees in History, Art History, and Judaic Studies, and diplomas and professional experience in Fashion Design and Interior Design. A volunteer in the Montreal Jewish community for over thirty years, her leadership has been recognized with both the Young Leadership and Distinguished Leadership awards. All of these interests, experiences, and skills came into play in her investigation of Montreal's early synagogues and the story that she relates in her book: Traces of the Past-Montreal's Early Synagogues (Vehicule Press), is available at Amazon as well as through Indigo Books.
Are We Living in a Golden Age of Jewish Art?
By Matthew Baigell
Most people do not know that we are living in a golden age of Jewish American art.
Since around 1975, there has been an incredible but largely ignored outpouring of art based on the Bible, the Talmud, Kabbalah, the prayer books, and midrash by artists all over the country. Depending on their points of view — feminist, psychological, existential — they approach their subject matter in entirely different, personal ways. Rather than illustrate texts they challenge their subject matter, as well as invent explanations of their own. Their work has little precedent in past Jewish American art, and the artists have leap-frogged back over generations to find their source material directly in the ancient texts. Taking nothing for granted, they have few inhibitions about questioning what they find.
Born in the 1930s and afterward, they have no memory of and few ties to the experiences of the immigrant generations or to those who lived through the Depression. In addition, they were too young to suffer from American anti-Semitism or the Holocaust. They form no school, but as Jewish artists they were encouraged to “come out” by the successful 1967 and 1973 wars in Israel, the feminist, gay, and African-American liberation movements, as well as by the Jewish Renewal movement in the 1970s and 1980s. They are the first generation of Jewish artists who feel very comfortable as both assimilated Americans and proud Jews.
Largely unaware of each other’s existence because their work has been neglected by the mainstream press, the artists have recently formed organizations such as the Jewish Art Salon in New York and the Jewish Artists Initiative of Southern California to explore what it means to be a Jewishly oriented artist in modern America. In New York, their work is exhibited at venues such as the Yeshiva University Museum and Hebrew Union College.
[Related: Jewish Photos Laced With Gold]
Styles range from figurative to abstract and include cartoon and comics-styled works. Subjects include narrative cycles (a new development in Jewish American art) based on the lives of, say, Abraham, Noah, Jonah, and Queen Esther, as well as re-examinations and re-interpretations of the actions of biblical figures. Among the many interesting artists there are Pat Berger and Ruth Weisberg in Southern California, Ellen Holtzblatt in Chicago, Beth Ames Swartz in Arizona, and Siona Benjamin, Carol Hamoy, Richard McBee, Archie Rand, Janet Shafner and David Wander in the New York area.
And among very important works produced since the 1980s, there are Ruth Weisberg’s “The Scroll” (1987) a 96-foot long interpretation of Jewish history combining biblical lore and legends with contemporary history and Weisberg’s own personal history, a work unimaginable before the Jewish feminist movement; Archie Rand’s “The Chapter Paintings” (1989) an entirely personal interpretation of the Torah portions, again a project unimaginable before 1980, as well as his recently completed “613” paintings based on the 613 commandments; and David Wander’s interpretations of the five first books of the bible in a comics format.
Without question, these artists, the ones exploring Judaic subjects, are making the most valuable contributions to the progress of Jewish art in America in our time.
The Getty Foundation celebrated the publication of The California/International Arts Foundation's new encyclopedia L.A. Rising: SoCal Artists Before 1980 on December 7, 2010 with an event to honor the artists in the book with a special tribute to Lyn Keinholz who worked for several years putting this book together.
Included in the book are many JAI artists. VIEW PHOTOS OF THIS SPECIAL EVENT
