The bedrock of all religion is repetition. Tradition as a religious concept is nothing less than the repetition of rituals, dress, thought and behavior of preceding generations. For Jews the amount of repetition that is found in one’s life naturally expresses the degree of one’s piety.
Rembrandt’s etching, “Abraham Entertaining the Angels is a pristine jewel of Biblical narrative. The artist depicts the exact moment the story reveals its true meaning. The guests have been comfortably seated and served refreshments by Abraham himself, shown humbly waiting on them in the lower right corner.
What is Frydlender up to?
Barry Frydlender, the prominent Israeli photographer, is currently privileged with simultaneous exhibitions at the Tel Aviv Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His New York exhibition consists of a mere 10 works that examine various aspects of Israeli life today.
Photography is a tantalizingly young medium that burst upon the visual scene with the spectacular daguerreotype invented in France in 1839. Its use and popularity quickly spread from Europe to the Middle East so much so that an early commentator on photography, Francis Wey, called pictures that document the Orient (Palestine) “peaceful conquests.”
Something is blooming in Brooklyn that promises a dramatic revitalization of Jewish visual culture. While it has been a long time a coming, nonetheless it is cause for heartfelt celebration, and, most importantly, your support. On May 9th Aryeh L. Wuensch and Isaac Gross opened The Jewish Gallery, an art gallery in Dumbo (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) totally devoted to Jewish Art.
Such a nice story the Megillah Esther is, don’t you think? The poor Jews are in exile far from home and get into a bit of trouble with God for not being so careful about theirkashrus. Their only sin was attending a treif banquet the headstrong King Ahashverous made for the whole kingdom. And then sweet but unlucky Esther gets rounded up and taken to be the King’s queen.
What is it about big? Why are we impressed by size when we all know that the quality of any given thing is easily just as, if not more, important? The simplest answer is that while man can normally make many things that are small, i.e. on a human scale, the larger something is the more effort and skill seems to be necessary.
The L.A Story, a selection of work from ten contemporary Los Angeles Jewish artists currently at the Hebrew Union College – Institute of Religion Museum, poses the question of what exactly does constitute Jewish Art and what is its condition today on the West Coast.