The Jewish Experience in the Art of the 20th Century
The Jewish Experience in the Art of the 20th Century This exhibition defines itself by focusing on the Jewish background, concerns, or motifs which feed into the creation of the works. There has...
...we have thereby been induced to overlook the relations, loyalties, and tensions between the artist, his background, his culture, sources, and concerns...
...Lithuanian-born artist Samuel Bak (below) has five pieces in museum exhibition, among them THE FAMILY, an oil on canvas (1974...
...Collection Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto Gift of Sam and Ayala Zacks, 1970 Jacob Kramer Day of Atonement, 1919 Oil on canvas, 39V* x 48'/s in...
...This exhibition does not attempt to tell a story or demonstrate the existence of Jewish art...
...Occasionally the work has transformed experience so that it seems to extend beyond the boundaries of the exhibition...
...Collection The Art Institute of Chicago Gift of Alfreds...
...and Mrs...
...Collection The Jewish Museum...
...often they refer to it more directly...
...His KADDISH FOR THE LITTLE CHILDREN, a mixed media "environment," is dated Europe 1935-1945, 1967-75...
...Collection The Jewish Museum, New York Marc Chagall White Crucifixion, 1938 Oil on canvas, 61 x 55 in...
...It thereby reestablishes the social matrix to which they originally were related, and out of which they emerged...
...Polished aluminum sculpture, THE CABALISTIC SPHERE (1975) is one of three works in exhibition by American sculptor Luise Kaish (upper right...
...1900 Oil on canvas, 28'/: x 35 Vi in...
...Lent by the artist, Oakland, California Abraham Ofek Villagers, 1969 Oil on canvas, 64 x 52 in...
...he lives in New York...
...This theme, which controls the selection and arrangement of the exhibition, provides us with an original insight into 20th century works of art not hitherto assembled or studied as a group...
...Nevertheless, for those who are interested in seeing contemporary works relating to the Jewish experience, and for those who have been impressed by the persistence of Jewish motifs in modern art, this exhibition offers a unique opportunity...
...Photos/Alan Rokach SHEVAT 5736 MOMENT 73 Marc Chagall Over Vitebsk, 1914 Oil on paper mounted on canvas, 27'/2 x35'/4 in...
...Our themes should be seen as points on an axis along which we gather 20th century works of art...
...Bak's first exhibition was in Vilna Ghetto...
...Our categories and comments should be seen as limited interpretations, having a bearing on particular historical data, not as restricting or confining the meaning or significance of the work of art...
...This emphasis on formal invention and innovation has diminished the value of content...
...Collection Leeds City Art Galleries, England Max Weber The Talmudists, 1934 Oil on canvas, 50 x 333/i in...
...Works of art, however, do not fall neatly into any preconceived categories...
...Lent by the artist, Jerusalem Mordecai Ardon In the Beginning, 1970 Oil on canvas, 51'/» x 51 V* in...
...The exhibition is not assembled to illustrate or document Jewish history in the 20th century, nor is it an exhibition only of Jewish artists...
...Her one-woman exhibitions have shown Kaish's concern with symbolic implications of religious themes...
...It is Jewish experience in the Art of the 20th century that concerns us...
...This exhibition rests squarely on life experiences collectively shared, intensified, interpreted, and transformed by the artist...
...Jacob Shulman, Gloversville, New York Isidore Kaufmann Friday Evening, ca...
...Alschuler Harold Paris Soul Series 1975 — AII that Remains (in memory of the Six Million), 1975 Cast silicone and colorants, 121/2 x 10 in...
...Collection Mr...
...The exhibition refracts, however faintly, the Jewish experience by assembling works scattered in different places in a communal context...
...Not only has there been a tendency to devalue or deny the literal, the pre-artistic, the experiential sources of life which continuously nourish art...
...There has been a strong claim that modern art is largely built on the narrow aesthetic precedents of other works of art, and that its formal problems grow out of older formal problems...
...No exhibition could do that...
...Thus, immigration or new planting may refer to the different waves of immigration and new beginnings in England or the United States, or in Israel, at the turn of the century, in the 'forties, or currently...
...The classifications and groupings are intended to be ontological or metaphysical in nature, binding artists' reaction to events which may have occurred far apart in time and place...
...Sometimes they only touch or hint at the experience which was their source...
...This exhibition makes no claim to completeness, either in the categories it proposes, or in the works of art or artists which were chosen...
...Artist Harold Paris (upper left), assistant professor of art at the University of California at Berkeley, began to develop his mystical vision while an artist-correspondent during World War II...
Vol. 1 • January 1976 • No. 6
