EXHIBITIONS |
JAI is often involved in more than on exhibition at a time. The links below will connect you to information on each event. Great News for JAI Members and Friends Dear JAI Members and Friends, I am immensely pleased to report that the Board of Trustees of the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles has awarded a 2008 Cutting Edge Grant of $250,000 to the Jewish Artists Initiative for The Quest for Transformational Jewish Art, over a period of three years. This generous grant will fund an expanded dialogue between Jewish artists from Los Angeles and Tel Aviv as well as create opportunities for selected artists from each city to become artists-in-residence. While the program is designed between artists from these two cities, it will reach many segments of the community through its activities, and partnerships with religious and ecumenical organizations. These ambitious plans will mean new outreach programming and additional infrastructure. We will add a staff member and a small office which will greatly enhance our efficacy in everything we do. We will be collaborating with the Los Angeles/Tel Aviv Partnership for several of the exciting initiatives that are part of this grant. There are various additional papers to sign and a ‘Grantee Evaluation and Marketing Workshop' that Victor Raphael, Donna Stein and I will attend on behalf of the JAI. Please watch for a notice for a general meeting in early August as we want to share the details of the grant and get your feedback as we put the plans in place. I want to thank the Trustees of the Jewish Community Foundation for their belief in the importance of Jewish art and artists and I am especially grateful to Amelia Xann for her encouragement and excellent advice through the years. Several members contributed their astute suggestions to Donna Stein and to me during the grant writing process. We certainly could not have done this without Donna Stein's excellent grant writing skills. So a Mazel Tov all around. I'll look forward to seeing you in August. Ruth Ruth Weisberg, Dean USC Roski School of Fine Arts Los Angeles, California 90089-0292 Tel: 213-740-6267 Fax: 213-740-8938 reweisb@usc.edu Ruth Weisberg Unfurled An exhibition presenting three decades of work by Los Angeles artist Ruth Weisberg (b. 1942), Dean of the Roski School of Fine Arts at the University of Southern California, will be on view at the Skirball Cultural Center from May 8 through July 29, 2007. The retrospective centers on The Scroll, a 94-foot-long mixed-media drawing, which will be exhibited for the first time in 20 years. Considered by critics to be Weisberg's most significant and challenging body of work, The Scroll will be featured in the context of more than 30 paintings, drawings and prints that explore related issues.
Related Programs
The L.A. Story HUC-JIR MuseumOne West 4th Street New York, New York On View: September 4, 2007 - January 27, 2008 Artists' Reception: Tuesday, October 23, 2007, 6-8 PM Artists' Panel: Tuesday, October 23, 2007 at 7 PM, featuring Ruth Weisberg, Bill Aron, Pat Berger, Tony Berlant, Joyce Dallal, Sam Erenberg, Bonita Helmer, Victor Raphael, Elena Mary Siff, and Eugene Yelchin The L.A. Story investigates the impact of place and the search for artistic community on the creativity of artists who share a religious, cultural, and spiritual heritage by presenting a selection of work from ten contemporary Los Angeles Jewish artists. Working in diverse styles and mediums, with each expressing an individual voice, their range of subject matter addresses politics, myth, memory, spirituality, surrealism, Kabbalah, and historic narrative. Techniques include metal collage, oil painting, drawing, photography and digital manipulation. "A commitment to Jewish issues and values is pervasive and from a personal perspective," says Laura Kruger, exhibition curator. "The sprawl of Los Angeles impedes a physically close art community and so they meet informally with other Jewish artists to study texts, discuss current issues, world affairs, and maintain a collegial rapport. At the same time, their physical environment - the endless, cloudless skies, the vast, sere desert and the sea at the edge of the earth are repeated elements in many of their works."
The art historian Simon Schama, in his book, Landscape and Memory, notes that the land shapes artists' internal lives and imbues their art with a distinct sense of place. In his exhibition catalog essay, Matthew Baigell elaborates: "The work of these artists is much more free-wheeling and wide-ranging, that is, quite distinctive from that of the old cultural core of the New York art world with its pervasive Eastern European influences. In fact, one might even argue that the center of gravity of Jewish American art has shifted to Los Angeles and that it is currently the most important center in the country for the production of such art. This exhibition at HUC-JIR marks a comprehensive look at a group of artists who are in process of contributing to a broad spectrum of styles and subjects that have already begun to form new chapters in the history of Jewish American art." Bill Aron, in a new body of work, captures the zest for life and the celebration of each moment by individuals, each of whom is a Holocaust survivor. Their searing history and memories are not forgotten but their positive choice of embracing family and life to the fullest is captured by Aron's sympathetic, joyous photographs, titled Holocaust Survivors: The Indestructible Spirit. Memory, history, and persecution are the dominant theme of Eugene Yelchin's masterpiece, the Section Five: USSR Jewish Passport Portraits oil paintings. In these stylized images Yelchin forces us to confront the anti-Semitism directed against Russian Jews, and the resulting internalization of a flawed sense of identity. Ruth Weisberg also remembers the thwarted history of Jewish lives in peril. In her oil on canvas painting, Harbor, against a background of the sea, an embracing couple is poised amidst war and separation. Fire and Water captures the anxiety of ship board refugees, Holocaust survivors bound for Eretz Israel but turned away to languish in Cyprus. Metal collage, the inventive medium for Tony Berlant's The Jew in the Desert (Journey #81), is used to great effect to create an epic desert landscape with writhing, stylized foliage. The desert is a major factor in the lives of all Los Angelenos and this work is a metaphor for creativity turning an arid wasteland into a flourishing garden. Magical, manipulated computer images overlaid with fused metals are presented like glowing jewels by Victor Raphael. Raphael looks beyond the night sky into distant galaxies to capture these exquisite images. Bonita Helmer, a student of Kabbalah, studies the skies to approach spirituality through her art. Prelude is an exploding galactic image that draws us in to its vortex. The diorama and surrealist collages by Mary Elena Siff capture this special place called L.A., the land of self invention, Watts Towers, Hollywood, glamour, glitter, and tinsel. Siff questions reality and discards it in favor of the fantasy of movie memories. Sam Erenberg playfully expounds on his name and has created silk screen memories' of possible relatives, all named in varying spellings of Erenberg. His Los Angeles artist portrait series links these creative individuals together by posing them each holding a volume (made by Erenberg) bearing a title of Roland Barthes's writings. Joyce Dallal, rightfully concerned with peace in the Middle East and the continued safety of Israel, has massed crumpled texts of various United Nations Resolutions, the contorted paper paralleling the struggle of the peace initiatives. Patricia Berger, painting in a large, narrative scale brings our thoughts back to the Biblical epoch and connects archetypical women to contemporary Judaism. The artists in The L.A. Story, from diverse geographical backgrounds and different Jewish ethnic heritages, have joined together with others to form the Jewish Artists Initiative of Southern California, an artist-run advocacy organization committed to fostering visual art by Jewish artists - originally conceived in 2003 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. This exhibition and catalog have been made possible by the support of Steven Fogel, the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles, and the Angell Foundation. Exhibition Catalog: Essays by Matthew Baigell and Laura Kruger, 20 pages; 17 illustrations. Museum Hours: • Monday-Thursday, 9 PM - 5 PM; Friday, 9 AM - 3 PM • Selected Sundays, 10 PM - 2 PM on September 30; October 14, 28; November 11; December 2, 16; January 13, 27 • Admission: Free. Photo ID Required. • Tours/Information: Contact Elizabeth Mueller at (212) 824-2205 or emueller@huc.edu Artful Dwellings: Sukkot at the Skirball Exhibition DetailsArtful Dwellings: Sukkot at the Skirball September 4–November 11, 2007 Milken Gallery ADMISSION: $10 General $7 Seniors and Full-Time Students $5 Children 2–12 Free to Skirball Members and Children under 2 Free to all on Thursdays Includes admission to all other exhibitions (timed-entry to Noah's Ark required) In celebration of the week-long Jewish festival of Sukkot, this exhibition showcases three large-scale installations from the Skirball's permanent collection by contemporary artists Sam Erenberg, Therman Statom and Marlene Zimmerman. Each artist was commissioned by the Skirball to create a sukkah, the temporary structure used during Sukkot, which celebrates the fall harvest. In Jewish tradition, the sukkah evokes the fragile shelters built by the Israelites during desert wanderings after their liberation from Egypt. Informed by the artists' personal experiences and individual aesthetic sensibilities, the three sukkot in the exhibition are compelling works of art familiar in form but unique in interpretation. They provide an occasion for visitors from diverse communities and cultures to reflect upon the themes of shelter, hospitality and thanksgiving. SUPPORT FOR THE EXHIBITION HAS BEEN PROVIDED BY APLERT & ALPERT IRON & METAL, INC.
Sam Erenberg: Paintings at Craig Krull Gallery An exhibition of recent paintings by Sam Erenberg opens at the Craig Krull Gallery, 2525 Michigan Ave., B-3, Santa Monica, CA on July 7, 2007 thru August 9, 2007. This newest body of work is painted with primary and tertiary hues of flat, striated shapes. Reinforced by the horizontal orientation of the composition and subtly gestural brushstrokes, they evoke the barren spaces of landscapes but remain resolutely in the realm of the abstract. Akin to Chinese landscape painting, the works are structurally built from the top to the bottom. Areas are painted in and those areas are overlaid with other color, producing a new painted edge or aura.
The installation of Nachamu, Nachamu: "The Heavens Spread Out Like A Prayer Shawl" and an exhibit of additional works by artist Victor Raphael opens in Los Angeles Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, Los AngelesThrough the generosity of Nancy Berman and Alan Bloch, The Philip and Muriel Berman Foundation, and an anonymous donor, Dr. Lewis M. Barth and eleven students in his fall 2005 Midrash course were given the opportunity to work with contemporary artist Victor Raphael on an innovative collaboration. Students, teacher, and artist all participated in an "Artist Beit Midrash," where the challenge for the class was to transmit Jewish text and ideas emanating from the course's content to the artist. The challenge for the artist was to create an artwork responsive to the material and the students' desire for an enhanced learning environment. Raphael conceived of a sanctuary for learning that is both comforting to the soul and stimulating to the imagination. He created three luminous art works for three walls of the room and embellished both sides of the entry door with designs of precious copper and metal leaf. Consultation on commissioning public artwork was provided by Dean Ruth Weisberg of the USC Gayle Garner Roski School of Fine Arts. Additional material for the embellishment of the door was provided by The Alpert Group, LLC. JAI Member Artist Bonita Helmer Exhibits at George Billis Gallery LA July 11 - September 2, 20062716 S. La Cienega Blvd. Culver City • Los Angeles, CA 90034 (310) 838-3685 http://www.georgebillis.com Gallery hours: Tuesday - Saturday 11-6
"My work has always been two-fold, based in both research and discovery. I am primarily concerned with content and communication, and I am impassioned to express this information in a timely, innovative and provocative way through the use of paint enhanced with mixed media." – Bonita Helmer Artists Dream in a Golden Age Reprint from The Arts section of the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, June 30, 2006 by Sarah Price Brown, Contributing Writer -- Sam Erenberg spends most of the day, nearly every day, alone in a 1,000-square-foot box. “It's like a temple,” the painter says of his artist's studio. A lonely temple, that is. “I'm the rabbi and congregation all in one,” he says with a laugh. Working as an artist can be isolating, especially in the sprawling city of Los Angeles. And what good is inspiration without community? The Jewish Artists Initiative of Southern California exists for artists like Erenberg. The group, consisting of about 30 members, constitutes one of the nation's first organized networks of Jewish artists. Its aims are twofold: to create a support system for local artists and to transform the way the Jewish community relates to art. On a recent evening, Erenberg sat among other artists in a garage-turned-studio in Larchmont Village. He, for one, was happy for the company. “This is my ad-hoc family,” he said to the painters, photographers and sculptors who had gathered there for the group's monthly meeting. The Artists Initiative emerged three years ago, when Amelia Xann of the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles approached USC's Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life. Xann wanted to create a program to promote visual art by Jewish artists. The organizations decided to found a group that would put on exhibitions, host a lecture series and provide a space for artists to explore the relationship between their Jewish identities and their art. So, the Artists Initiative launched, with $40,000 in foundation grants for a speaker series and Web site. The group staged its first exhibition in 2004 at The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. “Too Jewish — Not Jewish Enough” showcased paintings, sculptures, photographs, prints, ceramics and digital work that incorporated Jewish themes or adhered to “a Jewish sensibility.” (Art with a “Jewish sensibility,” Erenberg explained, exhibits “a kind of longing, a feeling that you're connected to a long history.”) The second exhibition, “Makor/Source,” concentrated on the sources of the artists' inspiration. The exhibit opened this year at the Hillel: Centers for Jewish Life, at USC and UCLA. Members are planning a third exhibition, which will likely have a California theme, to open in the next year or so at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. Art historian Matthew Baigell will curate the show. Ruth Weisberg, a nationally recognized artist and the de facto leader of the group, said the initiative has ambitious goals. “We really want to be another porthole, another entrance into Judaism,” said Weisberg, who is dean of USC's Roski School of Fine Arts. “Younger people, especially, are often more at ease entering the Jewish community through cultural events than any other way.” Weisberg, who illustrated the Reform movement's new haggadah, said she hoped the group would also encourage Jewish artists to treat Jewish themes in their work. “Many Jews who are involved in the art world keep their Judaism in one part of their life, and their cultural [expression] in another,” she said. Jews may fear being categorized — or even dismissed — as Jewish, rather than mainstream, artists. But keeping art and religious identity separate “is, I think, unnecessary and not that productive.” Not all of the group's members agree. “I'm here protesting,” Channa Horwitz announced at the last meeting. “I'm Jewish, and I'm an artist, but I'm not a Jewish artist,” said Horwitz, who uses complex patterns and bright colors in her work. “I don't think art has anything to do with religion.” Horwitz's response reflects the diversity of the group, which includes Jews across the religious spectrum, from around the world, including the United States, Israel and Russia. Despite their differences, or perhaps because of them, members find value in the group. “It's really great to sit in a room with people who get it,” said Laurel Paley, whose use of Hebrew text in her art has been criticized as “obfuscation.” Members hope their network will become a model for communities across the country. To increase membership and public awareness, the group is updating its Web site. It has also applied for another foundation grant. Should funding arrive in the fall, the artists hope to launch new projects. One idea they bandied about involves creating a Jewish community center for the arts, where the public can come not only to view art but also to create it. As the artists speculated about the future, a sense of what could be — if only they had the world as their canvas — invigorated the group. Exciting things happen when artists get together, said Bruria Finkel, a sculptor with works on display at the New Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington. The Dadaists and Cubists of the 20th century began by meeting in groups, Finkel said. Now, with Jewish artists flourishing in the United States, especially on the West Coast, who knows what this group can accomplish? “It's a golden age,” she said. JAI Member Artist, Bruria Finkel, to be honored at Smithsonian Gala Opening A sculpture by Santa Monica artist Bruria Finkel will be among the works debuting on June 21, 2006 at the gala opening of the New Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) in Washington D.C.Dream Sequence is one of a series of porcelain heads that Bruria Finkel produced in the 1970s-80s. Finkel started her art work in clay in New York in 1955, first in one of a kind stoneware and porcelain, and then expanded into a multi media art, Installations and public art. Her themes are ecology, survival, and the spirit. Finkel had many one person exhibitions and group shows in galleries and museums in the United States and Europe. Bruria Finkel's Dream Sequence/porcelain will be one of a number of American art objects on permanent display at the new Luce Foundation Center for American Art. The state-of–the-art facility features interactive computer kiosks and individual hand-held computers to provide visitors with information on every object in the Luce Center, including discussions of each artwork, artist biographies, audio interviews, video clips and still images.
Renwick Curator, Ms. Miloch says: “Dream Sequence” is considered to be a beautiful piece and was chosen because it was an exceptional example of Finkel's work. It brings together a lot of elements that are in her earlier work in a powerful way. The psychology of the piece transcends time and recalls ancient art as well as contemporary artists. It gets people to think about how we treat each other as human beings and the power of memory.” Finkel's work can be seen locally by appointment and in upcoming installations at the Los Angeles International and the Ontario Airports, from October 10, 2006 through February 18, 2007, in multiple artist exhibits she is now curating. JAI Member Artist Gilah Yelin Hirsch Exhibits in Bratislava and Kiev Bratislava, SlovakiaJune 27 - July 31, 2006 GOZA - Galeria obcianskeho zdruzenia Artoteka (The Gallery of the Civil Society Artoteka) www.artoteka.sk Panenska 13, 811 03 Bratislava, Slovakia tel., fax - 00421 2 5930 5721 • tel. 004212 5441 2107 anoskinova@artoteka.sk Kiev, Ukraine August 12 - August 27, 2006 Soviart www.soviart.com.ua Andrejevski uzviz 22-A Kiev 01025 Ukraine tel.number:0038444252219 fax:0038444251244
"MAKOR/SOURCE" Group Exhibition of the Jewish Artists InitiativeShown in Tandem at USC Hillel & UCLA Hillel January 7 - March 3, 2006 UCLA Hillel Yitzhak Rabin Hillel Center for Jewish Life at UCLA and the Dortort Center for Creativity in the Arts 574 Hilgard Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90024 Opening Reception: Saturday, January 7, 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. Panel discussion beginning at 7:00, moderated by Lori Starr, Director, Skirball Museum Panel members include Dean Ruth Weisberg, USC School of Fine Arts and Professor Barbara Drucker, Chair, UCLA Department of Art RSVP: (310) 208-3081 x125 For further information contact: Perla Karney, Hillel's Artistic Director, (310) 208-3081 x108 January 22 - March 3, 2006 USC Hillel 3399 South Hoover Street Los Angeles, CA 90007 4:00 p.m. Special Event: SOURCE MATERIAL Part performance, part presentation, part conversation. It is about what lies at the source of everything we make. Join JAI members for this interactive event. RSVP: (213) 747-3424 x14 For further information contact: Anne Hromadka, Hillel Gallery Director, (213) 747-9135 x14
Exhibiting artists include: Joshua Abarbanel, Bill Aron, Pat Berger, Tony Berlant, Elizabeth Bloom, Joyce Dallal, Barbara Drucker, Sam Erenberg, Benny Ferdman, Carol Goldmark, Laurie Gross, Gilah Yelin Hirsch, Channa Horwitz, Karen Koblitz, Deborah Lefkowitz, Eitan Mendelowitz, Laurel Paley, Victor Raphael, Elena Siff, Ruth Weisberg, Seth Weissman, Eugene Yelchin. "Too Jewish -- Not Jewish Enough" Presented by the Jewish Artists Initiative of Southern California—The First Group ExhibitionIs Jewish subject matter limited to Jewish identity? Twenty-three artists answer with their work September 18 — November 8, 2005 Weekdays: 10:00 A.M.—5:00 P.M. — Sundays: 12:00–5:00 P.M. GOTTHELF ART GALLERY at SAN DIEGO CENTER FOR JEWISH CULTURE Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center JACOBS FAMILY CAMPUS 4126 Executive Drive La Jolla, CA 92037-1348 OPENING RECEPTION WITH THE ARTISTS Sunday, September 18, 2005 — 12:00 P.M. Private brunch reception for Friends of the Gallery — 11:00 A.M. Panel discussion with participating artists Moderator:Eugene Yelchin To RSVP call (858) 362-1342 Artwork available for purchase—proceeds benefit the Gotthelf Art Gallery Exhibiting artists include: Joshua Abarbanel, Bill Aron, Pat Berger, Tony Berlant, Elizabeth Bloom, Nicole Cohen, Joyce Dallal, Barbara Drucker, Sam Erenberg, Benny Ferdman, Carol Goldmark, Laurie Gross, Gilah Yelin Hirsch, Channa Horwitz, Karen Koblitz, Deborah Lefkowitz, Eitan Mendelowitz, Laurel Paley, Victor Raphael, Elena Siff, Ruth Weisberg, Seth Weissman, Eugene Yelchin. JAI Inaugural Exhibition UCLA and USC Exhibitions Gotthelf Gallery at the San Diego Center for Jewish Culture JCN_2004_FALL.pdf http://www.jewishla.org/news/html/1004-bellgallery.html |
