Jewish Art and Architecture with Artists Judy A. Greenberg, Simonida Uth and Professor Ori Z. Soltes

Explore the exciting connections between art and architecture, ancient and modern, spiritual and utilitarian. Artist and film documentarian Simonida Perica Uth; artist and director emeritus of The Kreeger Museum Judy A. Greenberg; and Georgetown University’s Ori Z. Soltes, author of Tradition and Transformation: Three Millenia of Jewish Art and Architecture will be in conversation with The Moment Gallery founders, Robin Strongin and Nadine Epstein.

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The Colmar Treasure: Bringing Jewish Life Into Medieval Art

Until recently, the Met Cloisters, situated at the top of a peaceful hill in Fort Tryon Park in the middle of Manhattan’s bustling Washington Heights—a neighborhood with multiple synagogues and many Jewish residents—predominantly featured medieval Christian art and architecture. In July, however, the museum opened “The Colmar Treasure: A Medieval Jewish Legacy,” a small yet poignant exhibit featuring jeweled rings, a cache of silver coins and other precious possessions belonging to a single family in the once-flourishing 14th-century Jewish community of Colmar. The treasure was discovered by workmen in 1863 during the renovation of a confectionery shop on the rue des Juifs (“Street of the Jews”) in Colmar, a city on the Rhine River in modern-day eastern France. One of the treasure’s highlights, an elaborate medieval Jewish wedding ring with the words “Mazel Tov” spelled out...

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A Scanner Messianically

R. Justin Stewart may not be the first artist you’d expect to be behind a work called “Distorting (a messiah project, 13c).” The self-described atheist became interested in the idea of the Messiah after his Jewish wife suggested that he might investigate Judaism for topics to explore in his art. “Distorting,” on display at Brooklyn’s Invisible Dog Art Center through May 5, is an installation made of fleece, rope and plastic, and is dotted with QR codes that visitors can scan for more information. We spoke with Stewart about the installation, the Messiah and its surprising connection to the modern courtship dance. (The following is an edited transcript.) Can you explain the concept behind the piece? It’s a 3D bubble diagram of one segment of the history of the idea of the Messiah within Judaism. I’ve done...

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Ink Plotz: Jewish Women and Confessional Comics

by Amanda Walgrove Sure, the Oscars ceremony might feature more Jews than your grandmother's Passover seder, but despite how it might seem, cinema isn't the only visual art in which Jews are prominently represented. Featuring the work of eighteen artists, Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women is the first museum exhibit to showcase autobiographical storytelling by Jewish women in this unique sub-genre. The exhibit is now in Toronto, where it will run through April 17. In 2012, the exhibit will make its way to New York's Yeshiva University Museum and University of Michigan's School of Art and Design. Jews have long been forerunners in the medium of graphic art. In the late 1960s, Eli Katz (pseudonym Gil Kane) and Archie Goodwin pioneered an early graphic novel prototype entitled, His Name Is…Savage. Art Spiegelman's groundbreaking Maus won...

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Abraham Yurberg: A Life In Art

By Chelsea Beroza Walking into Abraham Yurberg’s retrospective at Ten43 Gallery is like walking into a moment trapped in time. Yurberg transports us through a lifetime of intense emotion and expression in the twenty-five paintings and twelve works on paper spanning the artist’s seventy-year career. It is incredible to consider that this exhibition marks the first time Yurberg has allowed his work to be shown since retreating from the public eye in 1967. Why he would hide such beauty from the world is unfathomable. Upon entering the left side of the gallery is covered with colorful, deeply saturated paintings with heavy impasto representative of the Abstract Expressionist style. The works are hung in chronological order from the 1940s onward thus adding to the biographical narrative. On the right side of the gallery a series of drawings he...

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