Three alphabetical lists preview current, upcoming and ongoing exhibitions presented by our member institutions across North America. Click the links for pictures and additional information.
Funnyman, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster one decade after Superman's debut in 1938, fits into a category all of his own. Instead of royal blue spandex and a ruby red cape, he wears baggy polka-dot pants and a plaid jacket with a flower lapel. His everyday profession is a comedian, and his name is Larry Davis. Super Silly! features the complete set of original Funnyman storyboards and highlights the artists' transition from creating a supernatural figure to developing an ordinary character whose heroism protects people in his community.
This exhibition explores the narratives of Jewish immigrants rendered by Belgian artist Eugeen Van Mieghem (1875-1930) as they embarked on the journey from Antwerp to the United States on board the Red Star Line. Many of those gathered in the port were Eastern European and Russian Jews, including Albert Einstein, Golda Meir, and Irving Berlin, escaping devastating oppression. For Van Mieghem, who aspired to express human plight in artistic terms, the profound human spectacle unfolding in this condensed locale was abundantly fertile.
AJU joins fifty other local galleries and museums in participating in a city-wide examination of Los Angeles area art. The purpose of this project is to highlight the unique contribution of artists in Southern California during the post World War II era. Curators Elizabeth Bloom and Elaine Levin have selected a representative group of eighteen Jewish artists, with work in a variety of media; acrylic, oil,gouache, watercolor, drawing, print-making and photography.. Two ceramists and a sculptor working in metal round-out the diversity of materials. Subject matter covers a wide spectrum, including landscape,abstraction and architecture.
It brings together for the first time much of Herman's surviving work from this formative period, when his art was at its most experimental and his use of colour strikingly imaginative. Included are the few remaining works from Brussels, a series of powerfully expressionist figurative works in oil, gouache and tempera, striking designs for a politically-themed ballet, and many works on paper from the series 'Memory of Memories'. These vivid, often poignant, sketches, carried out in Glasgow between 1940 and 1943, bring the memory of Herman's lost Warsaw years, and of his family (who perished in the Warsaw Ghetto), back to life. The exhibition also includes examples of work by Herman' contemporaries Jankel Adler, Benno Schotz, J D Fergusson, and Ludwig Meidner.
The exhibit represents Jewish women’s extensive and varied accomplishments in performing and visual arts in Richmond and beyond. The exhibition includes works from actresses, singers, musicians, photographers, illustrators, authors, composers, knitters, potters, painters, fashion designers, graphic artists, sculptors, patrons of the arts, and art historians. This exhibition hopes to raise the public visibility of the size and scope of Jewish women involved with the arts and the cultural industry of Virginia. The items in the exhibition help to document Jewish women’s roles in Richmond’s artistic and social arenas, and are a representation of early twentieth century works alongside more contemporary items. The exhibition also exemplifies the complex and sometimes tenuous link between Jewish artists, gender, and Judaism.
The exhibit showcases arts and crafts made by Japanese Americans in U.S. internment camps during World War II. Soon after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, all ethnic Japanese on the West Coast—more than two-thirds of whom were American citizens by birth—were ordered to leave their homes and move to ten inland internment camps for the duration of the war.
While in these bleak camps, the internees used scraps and found materials to make furniture and other objects to beautify their surroundings. Arts and crafts became essential for simple creature comforts and emotional survival. These objects—tools, teapots, furniture, toys and games, musical instruments, pendants and pins, purses and ornamental displays—are physical manifestations of the art of gaman, a Japanese word that means to bear the seemingly unbearable with dignity and patience.
This exhibition shows a side of the uniquely Israeli city rarely seen by visitors. Where the realities of politics, policy and poverty are as much of a part of everyday life as the sea, the sun and the shuk, Bergholz's photographs present a very real place beyond what is seen on the news or in the tourist brochures. Coupled with a powerful prose poem authored by Eleanor Mallet, Walking Tel Aviv presents snapshot impressions of an urban landscape where chaos, commerce and community intersect.
This exhibition combines the CJM's commitment to presenting new perspectives on Jewish tradition with its dedication to working with contemporary artists, like Saitowitz, whose vision enables us to find fresh ways to examine and appreciate Jewish culture and ritual.
The San Francisco-based architect has designed private residences, institutions, and public and commercial spaces. Objects on view range from those associated with daily ritual, such as the mezuzah, to festival-specific objects, such as the etrog box used during Sukkoth. Rendered in metal, this modernist collection is characterized by the clean lines, rational proportions, and smooth, unembellished surfaces that also define Saitowitz's architecture.
Despite the enormous technological and cultural changes between the Gold Rush and today, one can imagine that the founders of San Francisco would appreciate the spirit of contemporary Jewish culture. California Dreaming reveals how the quality of "pioneering" was and still is the driving force of Bay Area Jewish life. Through photographs, documents, newspapers, videos, and ephemera, the exhibition will show how the Bay Area Jewish community, despite its stunning diversity and significant historical changes, still operates according to its unwritten founding principles: a pioneering spirit that gave Jews the confidence to create their own destiny; a complex balance of invention/re-invention of institutions and rituals; a lack of physical, social, and economic ghettoization which led to a confident group of citizens; and inspired by their experience in the Bay Area, a yearning for greater justice for Jews and others, inspired by their California experience, and reflecting a sense of optimism that a newer and fairer society could be built.
The exhibition explores the subject of the tree in Jewish tradition through the lens of contemporary artists who enable us to see the world in new ways and to encourage us to find fresh meaning in tradition. The tree is a universally potent symbol with particular significance in Judaism, especially now as global environmental concerns have begun to impact contemporary Jewish practice.
The exhibition examines and celebrates the role of Jewish servicemen and women who labored on and off the battlefield during World War II. The story is told almost exclusively in the first person, using quotations from the more than 400 oral histories of Jewish servicemen and women. It powerfully illustrates what it was like to serve as an American and a Jew in this greatest of human conflicts.
Contrary to common belief, Nazi Germany's legal assault on the Jews between 1933 and 1945 was not unique in its racial character nor its segregationist aims. There are remarkable similarities between America's own Jim Crow laws and those in Nazi Germany. As with many Nazi attacks against the Jews, the Nazis took ideas and practices that were common in their own and other cultures and radicalized them to suit their needs. This exhibit will examine the Jim Crow laws — with examples from Houston's segregationist past — and the Nuremberg laws.
Ours to Fight For explores and celebrates the achievements of Jewish men and women who were part of the American war effort on and off of the battlefield. In their own voices and through their artifacts, letters, and photographs the "Greatest Generation" tells the stories of what the war was like for all its participants, and for Jews in particular. Approximately 500,000 Jews served in all branches of the U.S. armed forces during the war and 52,000 were decorated for bravery. Ours To Fight For brings to life the actions and feelings of these courageous young men and women ‐ their discomfort, camaraderie, faith, fear, horror,deep meaning they found in getting the job done.
Englishman Peter Maurice studied 17th-18th century Polish wooden synagogues, and made models of 10 of these synagogues as he was coping with an incurable illness. Before his death, he searched worldwide for the best "home" for his passionate handwork. After visiting the Jewish Museum of Florida, he donated his models to us. To tell the expanded story, the Museum makes a Florida connection using photographs and artifacts from Floridian Jews whose origins are from Polish shtetls.
This major exhibition explores, among other topics, the unexpected variety of foods that can be identified as Jewish; how identities are forged around the dinner table; the role of food in life-cycle and communal events; the Jewish meanings of eating out; and the issues inherent in "ethical eating." It includes five videos, an audio station and a computer interactive that asks visitors to vote on which food is "most Jewish." A website and catalogue extend exhibition themes and information.
The Radical Camera offers a comprehensive look at the Photo League, a group of young, politically engaged photographers who explored diverse approaches to social documentary and street photography from the end of the Great Depression to the start of the Cold War. Featuring more than 150 works by some of the most noted twentieth-century photographers, including Berenice Abbott, Sid Grossman, Lisette Model, Aaron Siskind, Paul Strand, and Weegee.
Jem Cohen chronicles a city that exudes noise and bustle, but balanced with beauty and tranquility. A compendium of street footage, the video shows a ticker-tape parade, street musicians, the subways...life above and under ground.
Composed features the artwork of seven contemporary artists using conventional forms of photography-including traditional portraiture, photojournalism, and online profile pictures-to focus on the highly mediated politics of sex and desire. As a group they build an emotional portrait of the national, ethnic, and sexual identities that make up our public and private lives.
Examining planned and idiosyncratic urban development, Toronto artist Flavio Trevisan stages an immersive environment within the Koffler's off-site gallery space (80 Spadina Avenue, 5th floor) - an ephemeral "museum of the present" - inviting visitors to retrace familiar paths and discover surprising new ways to explore the cityscape.
Julie Schwartz Wohl, a Jewish educator and founder of Jewish Learning Thru Art, has recently completed a children's siddur and family-friendly Haggadah. This exhibition presents the oil paintings, bursting with color, that are used in the latter publicationpresents the
NY-based ceramist and art instructor Miller holds graduate degrees in Jewish Studies and Architecture. It is not surprising that her work is warm, abstract, functional and contemporary, with glazes and forms that exude style and beauty.
Since the 1920s, the game of mah jongg has ignited the popular imagination with its beautiful tiles, mythical origins, and communal spirit. The exhibition explores the history and meaning of the beloved game that became a Jewish-American tradition.
Known for more than a century as the author of the lines "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free . . . ," the poet Emma Lazarus gave voice to the Statue of Liberty and generations of newcomers to America. However, few people know her fascinating story, her Sephardic background, her American roots, and her work for Jewish causes and a Jewish homeland. Learn how Emma Lazarus' journey inspired her to craft an enduring message on exile, refuge, and the promise of America.
The exhibition tells the story of Jews in the former Soviet Union who wanted to emigrate but were denied permission to leave. Learn about their efforts to maintain a Jewish identity, their struggles with Soviet authorities, and the worldwide support they received. This traveling exhibition is organized and circulated by the State of Israel-Ministry of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs and Beit Hatfutsot, the Museum of the Jewish People, Tel Aviv.
The exhibition features seven large-format photographs of Israeli fruit trees from Shochat's In Praise of a Dream series. The trees in Shochat's images are real and have been impeccably pruned and photographed against a black backdrop. They invoke questions of rootedness, about Jews' millenial history as a Diaspora people and their relationships to the homelands in which they have chosen to settle. The installation, located on the Museum's concourse level, runs through April 22nd, Earth Day.
The artists root their connection to the past in childhood memories and family connections. They use World War II as the backdrop from which to explore the remembered realities of wartime. Dutch-born Pander's work delves into a difficult and dangerous childhood. Portland-native Podemski remembers her father's tales of surviving ghettos, concentration camps, and a daring post-war escape. The two explore complex relationships--between time and memory and truth and the subjectivity of the mind--with intellectual rigor and brilliant rendering.
The exhibition explores the sometimes equivocal participation of Oregon's Jewish community in the six campaigns that ultimately gave Oregon women the right to vote in 1912. From views voiced by local rabbis to the anti-suffrage sentiment expressed in Portland's Jewish press, the exhibit uses local newspaper accounts and photographs to weave together an intriguing story.
A compelling installation that tackles the critical social issue of domestic violence. For the exhibition, renowned artist Kim Abeles drew on her passion for social change and her own history as a survivor to design a transformative art-making project, working with survivors and concerned community members to recast personal memories of domestic pain into unique, iridescent objects. Like the pearls that they resemble, these deeply personal works were formed in response to a harmful irritant. Accompanying the pearls of wisdom are the potent words, advice, and images of the many hundreds of participants.
Inspired by the bestselling book Half the Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, this groundbreaking exhibition addresses the worldwide oppression of women and girls as the human rights cause of our time—and boldly asserts that change is possible... and it can happen quickly, with the help of visitors, friends, and others..
The exhibition features illustrations by fourteen men and three women who produced artwork to accompany the Yiddish writer's Singer's stories. Employing photography, painting, graphic design, and wood-block prints, among other modes of representation, the artists are Des Asmussen, Eric Carle, Leonard Everett Fisher, Antonio Frasconi, Nonny Hogrogian, Julian Jusim,Irene Lieblich, Ira Moskowitz, Larry Rivers, Maurice Sendak, Symeon Shimin, Uri Shulevitz, Raphael Soyer, Phero Thomas, Roman Vishniac, and Margot Zemach.
If every meal is a set of choices, what does the food we choose to eat say about who we are? The exhibition examines the significance of Jewish meals. Organized by the Jewish Museum of Baltimore, this exhibit will include Atlantan’s opinions, recollections, photographs and memorabilia of cooking and eating “Jewishly” as well as others from all around the United States.
The New York premiere of contemporary American painter Kehinde Wiley's The World Stage: Israel showcases Wiley's vibrant large-scale portraits of Israeli youths from diverse ethnic and religious affiliations, each embedded in a unique background influenced by Jewish ritual objects. Also featured will be a selection of textiles and papercuts from The Jewish Museum's collection—chosen by the artist—that will provide a dynamic interchange between the contemporary portraits and the traditional Judaica that inspired their decorative backgrounds.
This exhibition offers a fresh view of Edouard Vuillard's entire career, from the vanguard 1890s to the urbane domesticity of the lesser-known late portraits. The presentation focuses on the context of inspiration provided by those friends and patrons whose support is inseparable from the artist's achievement. Featuring some fifty key works in various media, the exhibition will extend pioneering past projects of The Jewish Museum on the significance of collectors and dealers for the development of modern art.
The majority of students in Tulsa area schools are from faiths other than Judaism and are often unaware of Jewish culture and traditions. In spring 2012, area K-12 students are invited to participate in the Sixth Annual Purim Mask Invitational, with the opportunity to have their creations displayed for several weeks within the museum. Before creating the mask, students learn the story of Esther and other Purim traditions. Accom-panying this year's Purim Masks is a companion show Tulsa Collects: Masks of World Cultures that will feature masks from private collections.
This expansive exhibit project, which includes a wide range of multi-media, examines the significance and importance of sports and sports-related activities as viewed through the lens of the Jewish experience in Oregon. At its core is the ancient Jewish concept that a healthy body is needed to house a healthy mind and soul. It includes fascinating glimpses into national and local sports role models, from baseball professional Hal Saltzman to former Ducks star Igor Olshansky to Trailblazer founder, Harry Glickman. It looks at high school athletics, college varsity and intramural sports, the business of sports, sports medicine and rehabilitation and sports journalism.
A musical journey through a unique slice of recording history–the Black-Jewish musical encounter from the 1930s to the 1960s. In contrast to the oft-told story of how Jewish songwriters and publishers of Tin Pan Alley and Broadway transformed Black spirituals, blues, and jazz into the Great American Songbook, scant attention has been paid to the secret history of the many Black responses to Jewish music, life, and culture. From Johnny Mathis singing “Kol Nidre” to Aretha Franklin's 1960s take on “Swanee,” visitors can learn how Black artists treated Jewish music as a resource for African-American identity, history, and politics.
The inaugural exhibition in the newly expanded Derfner Judaica Museum uses approximately 250 objects to explore the intersections of Jewish history and memory as they inform individual and communal identities. Among the featured objects: a silver filigree kiddush cup, ca. 1911; an early copper alloy Hanukkah lamp; from the famed Bezalel School; a set of 18th century Torah implements from Meerholz, Germany; and a velvet fish-scale embroidered matzah cover from turn-of-the-century Jerusalem.
To honor the Holocaust survivors who have volunteered their time over the past thirty years to share their painful WWII experiences at the Museum of Tolerance, the MOT engaged Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Marissa Roth to photograph each of these ambassadors of memory, hope and tolerance.
Inspired by the ancient flood story, which has parallels in hundreds of cultures around the world, this multi-sensory indoor and outdoor attraction invites visitors to board a gigantic wooden ark and to play, climb, build, discover, problem-solve and collaborate alongside handcrafted, one-of-a-kind animals. An innovative, delight-filled destination for children and families of all backgrounds.
What Does It Say to You? presents more than 60 objects from Spertus Museum's collection along with videos of reactions by various members of our audience. Premised on the assumption that the meaning of an object is enhanced by both curatorial interpretation and the associations and knowledge viewers bring to it, the exhibition encourages visitors to share their impressions of the works on view. What Does It Say to You and the Open Depot Collection Display are open every second Thursday evening of the month and on alternate Sundays.
The exhibit explores the continuing impact of the most widely distributed antisemitic publication of modern times. Despite countless exposures as a fraud, the myth of a Jewish world conspiracy has retained power for Nazis and others who seek to spread hatred of Jews. Technology has now made the Protocols available via the Internet; it continues to be circulated by those promoting violence, and even genocide.
This exhibition reveals how the Nazi Party used modern techniques, new technologies and carefully crafted messages to sway millions with its vision for a new Germany and to drive the world into a war that cost some 55 million lives, including six million Jews. It includes rare posters, photographs, artifacts, and film documenting the pivotal role of propaganda in the Nazi effort.
