Chagall

      Living in the age of the internet is amazing. When you go to a  museum you can download a free app for the audio tour . You almost don't  have to go to the museum because there are thumbnails of the exhibit in the audio. Then again  nothing compares to experiencing  actual paintings.
      Yesterday I went to the Jewish Museum in New York city to see the Chagall exhibit. His more Jewish oriented works were there. Marc Chagall nee Moshe Segal was born in Belarus in 1887 . He later lived in France and due to World War II ended up in the United States. This exhibit has paintings he made in the 1920's to 1940's . Through his paintings he expressed his fear of impending doom on Europe's Jews in that time period. When one looks at a Chagall painting one really has to stand back and take it all in because there is so much imagery on every inch.
       There is one dark spot in the exhibit. Chagall had a strange interest in Jesus and liked to use Jesus imagery in his paintings to use him as a symbol of Jews. I realize that when one studies art there is a lot of Christian art involved, but it disturbs me that a Jewish artist who  escaped Europe during the holocaust would be so intrigued by  it and used it in his artwork. I am not sure if I can recommend this exhibit with a full heart because of this imagery. Its just a little much for my taste. Perhaps just download the Jewish Museum Chagall exhibit app and see for yourself  if it is worthwhile. 

16mm home movies of jewish visitors to poland in the 1930's

i went to the center for jewish history today and saw a most interesting exhibit. i saw the exhibit called 16mm postcards: home movies of  jewish visitors to poland in the 1930's.  it was a moving homage to those who lived in pre-war poland. americans who had been born in poland returned there and took home movies.  since these were home movies the camera subjects were mugging for the camera. it was amazing. it really caught their spirit. it was nice to see pre war poland caught on film with people living their normal lives.
one of the home movies was narrated by two holocaust survivors  circa 1982. these survivors had grown up in the town that was filmed. it  was moving to watch them pick out there friends and themselves in the footage.
it is important to realize how vibrant those who were murdered  were  before the holocaust .
this exhibit will be at the center for jewish hitory on 16th street in manhattan through the beginning of january. it is well worth viewing.

the addams family

i loved the addams family movies and more recently have seen some of the original addams family tv show on dvd. they are so witty even in this century.

the addams family was based on the macabre drawings of charles samuel addams. currently there is an exhibit of his work at the museum of the city of new york. its truly amazing. in addition to being the creator of the addams family, he was also a cartoonist for new yorker magazine. this exhibit includes much of his new yorker work , his addams family work as well as his general slice of life in new york city work. he made the mundane a satire. his work is as sharp today as it was in the 1930's when he started working at the new yorker. new york is still the same. people are still the same. if you live in the new york area i highly recommend this exhibit.

call me mayer tamuz

i went to the jewish museum yesterday and i saw the most amazing exhibit. a man named mayer kirshenblatt painted his memories of growing up in opatow , poland. his daughter had encouraged him to paint his memories starting in 1967. eventually he realized he needed to depict jewish pre-world war II poland so that people will remember how jewish people lived, not just how they so tragically died. thus he began painting.
the paintings vividly and accurately depict orthodox jewish life in the shtetl. they also have a gentleness to them. mr. kirshenblatt had fond memories of his childhood hometown which are absorbed in the aura of his paintings. the paintings fill several rooms in this exhibit.
there is a video featuring mr. kirshenblatt and his daughter where they discuss the making of the exhibit. it shows them go to opatow where he points out the locations depicted in his paintings . he meets up with elderly poles who remember his family. there was an exhibition of his paintings in poland as well as an opening where many poles attend. its fascinating.
at the end of the exhibit there are blank cards where everyone is encouraged to write a jewish memory from one's own life in the spirit of mayer kirshenblatt's paintings in which he paints his memories. there is a wall where some of these postcards are displayed. i read a few of them and included my own memory with a very inartistic drawing of my own.

warhol's jews

i went to the jewish museum today and saw a fun exhibit called warhol's ten portraits of jews of the twentieth century. this exhibit was fun to see in person, but im not sure that it would be as good if i had seen it in a book about the exhibit.


warhol drew ten portraits of who he considered to be important jewish people of the twentieth century. the catch is that he never met most of them and those who he painted were dead when the original exhibit in 1980 was created. he painted their likeness from photos.


gertude stein, golda meyer, sarah bernhardt, george gershwin, franz kafka , three of the marx brothers, sigmund freud, martin buber, louis brandeis, and albert einstein were immortalized in these paintings. the original photos were included in the exhibit as well. my favorite painting was that of golda meir. he really captured the spirit in her eyes, so much so that even not having actually met her it felt like i had. it was eerie.


the painting of kafka was also quite exceptional.


while i was viewing the exhibit, i was treated to one of the elderly docents giving a tour of the exhibit. it gave the exhibit a true new york jewish flavor. the other nice part of having the docent's tour was that she took everyone up to the third floor to view the jewish painters who had incorporated warholesque techniques in their works.


included in the artists who metamorphosed warhols techniques were those of ben shahn, deborah kass, and alex katz. ben shahn's paintings of photos of the civil rights freedom fighters who were killed were uncanny. deborah kass did a warhol version of elizabeth taylor and barbara streisand. warhol himself refused to do a portrait of barbara streisand.

i would recommend this exhibit. its an enjoyable look at the past. no one is even quite sure why warhol really wanted to do these paintings since he was catholic, which to me adds to the allure.

gilded lions and jeweled horses

there's a really cool exhibit at the american folk art museum about the jewish craftsmen who came to the united states from galicia and went from making synagogue art such as the lion and tablets carvings above the aron kodesh, to making ponies for amusement park carousels. there are about 3 floors filled with various displays of the lions with the tablets as well as ponies and lions from amusement parks . papercuts of mizrach are also displayed in this exhibit. i found this to be a really informative and enjoyable exhibit. it will be going on until march 23, 2008. it is definitely a must see!!!