art – Page 2 – From Under the Fig Tree

Piecemeal

joselitAugust 30, 2015November 16, 2017Leave a comment

No matter how many years you’ve been in school, the start of the fall term is always fraught with tension. Leaving behind the casual pace of summer and its many pleasures for the rigor of the classroom and its multiple challenges is no easy matter.

To smooth the transition from one environment to the next, GW’s Program in Experiential Education & Jewish Cultural Arts instituted a whirlwind, multiple-day orientation for its incoming as well as its returning graduate students. Mosaic is its name.

This designation was intended to invoke tesserae, bits of colored glass that, when added together, form a whole -- a mosaic -- or, at the very least, a pattern. At the risk of literalizing things too much, the big idea here was to liken the various components of the Jewish cultural arts to a mosaic, one that the students would help to fashion.

But as is often the case, especially one paved with good intentions, names tend to accrue a different set of meanings than originally intended. When it came to Mosaic, as its participants discovered last week, the literal definition of the word -- ‘pertaining to Moses and his laws’ -- came to the fore and with full force.

Wherever we went and whatever we did, from meeting with leading Jewish cultural professionals to learning firsthand of the politics of Israeli cuisine and going behind the scenes at DGS Delicatessen, issues of authenticity invariably popped up. As we took the measure of contemporary Jewish life -- its context, its food as well as its culture -- where mixing things up is de rigueur, you had to wonder where tradition ends and improvisation takes off. Or, to put it another way: “What would Moses say?”

I’m not sure we’ll come up with the right answers, but we’ll be spending much of the next year in their pursuit.

Through the looking glass, darkly

joselitAugust 16, 2015November 16, 2017Leave a comment

Outside, glorious weather beckoned, but more people could be found inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art than in neighboring Central Park, or so it seemed as I craned my neck, stood on tiptoe and otherwise contorted my body so that I might catch a glimpse of the museum’s latest triumph, “China: Through the Looking Glass.”

Roberto Cavalli, evening dress, fall/winter 2005–6/Metropolitan Museum

Spectacular in every which way, the exhibition features 140 costumes, one more enthralling than the next, that reflect the West’s fascination with the East. Even more compelling and visually arresting than the clothes on view were the settings in which they’re positioned -- or, more to the point, staged. Through a series of what the exhibition’s curators call “careful juxtapositions,” several Chanel shirtwaist dresses with a calligraphic print were installed in a gallery whose vitrines held panel after panel of ancient Chinese ideograms. A constellation of stunning blue and white print evening gowns took pride of place amidst a display of the well-known blue and white porcelain that could be found in many 18th century American households.

Elsewhere, red lacquered walls, delicately colored wallpaper flecked with chrysanthemums and a heart-stopping forest of luminous white tubes meant to resemble bamboo (at least I think that was the point) were pressed into service, along with video screens in every conceivable size just about everywhere and background music that intruded rather than receded.

Visitors are duly informed that the exhibition is designed to diminish the distance between East and West, between the “cultural and the simulacrum,” and to inspire “dialogue” as well as “conversation.” That may be, but it was hard, extremely hard, to discern an interpretive through-line as you battled lines, squared off against the ubiquitous taking of selfies and, perhaps most disturbingly of all, visited galleries that were so dimly lit you couldn’t read a thing even if you wanted to.

I suppose that’s the point. Museums these days seem to put more of a premium on sensation than on enlightenment. Visitors aren’t so much engaged or challenged or even moved as barraged. I don’t mean to sound like an old fogy -- I like special effects as well as the next person -- but something’s amiss when, upon exiting, you desperately need a soothing cup of Oolong tea.

Lifelong learning

joselitJune 1, 2015November 16, 2017Leave a comment

I’m often stimulated and provoked, engaged and engrossed. On occasion, I’m even moved. Rarely, though, am I inspired. Usually, it takes a lot to get those juices going, but within minutes of meeting Ruth Adler Schnee last week, inspired, I was.

Ruth Adler Schnee. Lamplights. Credit/Risd.edu — Ruth Adler Schnee. Lamplights/Risd.edu

Now in her 90s, the textile artist and champion of mid-century Modernist design was the highlight of a symposium -- in effect, its guest of honor -- that was held at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in connection with one of its current exhibitions, "Designing Home." Several of her eye-popping textiles are on display.

What’s so striking about Ruth Adler Schnee isn’t just that she’s a recipient of the 2015 Kresge Eminent Artist award or the subject of "The Radiant Sun," a vibrant documentary about her long and distinguished career, which took her from Dusseldorf to Detroit, where she married, raised a family, ran a business, and pursued her art. And pursues it, still.

Ruth Adler Schnee. The Country Fair. Credit: thehenryford.org — Ruth Adler Schnee. Country Fair/thehenryford.org

It’s more a matter of her sensibility. At once girlish and whimsical, witty and knowing, humble yet commanding, she’s as multi-dimensional as her textiles, which incorporate and make use of her distinctive sense of style.

You might think that the dislocations of time, space and history would result in a somber palette or a predilection for rigidly geometrical shapes. But that’s not the case, not by a long shot. Her palette is awash in bright colors and the forms that inhabit her textiles are winsome. You look at them and smile.

It’s been a week since I first met Ruth Adler Schnee and I’m still smiling. Now, that’s what I call inspiration.

Building blocks

joselitMay 5, 2015November 16, 2017Leave a comment

Talk about engaging the senses is thick on the ground in contemporary educational and museological circles, where everyone and her cousin makes a case for enriching the classroom or the gallery with more than meets the eye. All too often, though, it remains just that: talk, talk, talk.

Model of Beth Alpha Synagogue (Jezreel Valley, Israel, 6th century). Displaycraft, 1972/YU Museum

But last Thursday evening, within the precincts of Yeshiva University Museum’s gem of an exhibition, “Modeling the Synagogue – From Dura to Touro,” the promise of synthesizing object and text with sound was fully realized. I don’t mean one of those sound cones under which small groups of visitors dutifully huddle, or the counterpoint of a soundtrack that wafts and drifts throughout the exhibit space. I mean honest-to-goodness, full throttled sound: that of the human voice, the cello and the clarinet.

“Modeling the Synagogue” takes the form of a series of beautifully rendered maquettes of synagogues from yesteryear. There’s one that represents Toledo and another Florence; a third depicts a synagogue from Dusseldorf and a fourth, one from Newport, Rhode Island. Much like dollhouses whose appeal rests largely on their miniaturization of detail and space, these models also stimulate the imagination. We peer inside, trying to conjure up what it might have been like to lean against a Moorish-styled column, to have sat upright in a wooden pew, to be surrounded by light.

But our imaginations can go only so far. We take the measure of these wondrous spaces but stop short of inhabiting them -- which is where music comes into play. An animating presence, it enables us to connect.

Under the sensitive, deft and playful direction of Elad Kabilio and his ensemble, “MusicTalks,” each synagogue model generated its own musical associations, from a haunting Ladino folk song to a touching rendition of Copeland’s “Simple Gifts.” As we moved from model to model, from one time and place to another, we were accompanied by the cello, the clarinet, and the human voice as well as by a varying set of sounds.

Most of the time we listened raptly, attentively to the performers. But on one occasion, those in the gallery couldn’t help themselves and, unbidden, began to sing along with the professional soloist as she gave voice to the refrain of an age-old Yom Kippur piyut.

I don’t know how the soloist felt about this spontaneous musical eruption, but I’ve never experienced anything quite like it, certainly not within the hallowed, and usually silent, halls of a museum. Touching and affirming, enlivening and inspiring, the sound was as much a marvel as the musicianship, and the history, it brought it to life.

Crowd sourcing

joselitMarch 29, 2015November 16, 2017Leave a comment

Marisa Scheinfeld, Indoor Pool, Grossinger's Catskill Resort and Hotel, 2012. Courtesy of the artist.

Gallery talks are nice. So, too, are lectures and other forms of cultural outreach and engagement. But when it comes to eliciting a response, there’s nothing quite like the Q&A that follows on the heels of a public program about American Jewish culture, especially if its destination is that of the Catskills. Talk about audience participation!

The recipe is simple: Take a group whose members make up what the French call a “certain age,” leaven with memories of that former “kingdom of outdoor happiness,” as Grossinger’s, the eminent Catskills hotel, once put it, and mix it up with contemporary observations about Jewish history and humor, food and frolic -- and you’re off and running.

“Echoes of the Borscht Belt: The Contemporary Photography of Marisa Scheinfeld” is now on view at Yeshiva University Museum. An evocative and witty meditation on place, on the tussle between History and Mother Nature, the exhibition doesn’t just document what happened to the Catskills when its fortunes ran dry. Here, subject matter and visual artistry collude, compelling the viewer to reckon with absence and loss.

The exhibition, which will be closing on April 12th, after which it’ll be headed for the Yiddish Book Center, was accompanied the other evening by a conversation among Ms. Scheinfeld, Jacob Wisse, the museum’s imaginative director, and myself. Although we didn’t lack for what to say -- our conversation encompassed a wide range of topics, from creative land use to Jewish history -- it was the audience that made the evening a success.

Some attendees reminisced about their days as a band leader or as a guest at a bungalow colony. Others told a slightly naughty joke. Still others speculated on why the Catskills declined. Nearly everyone had something to say -- and said it. At one memorable point in the proceedings, some audience members even started speaking directly to other audience members, bypassing the moderator entirely.

One extremely animated participant had been a former tumler at a Catskills establishment. His job was to get the guests, their bellies filled with food, up and about, exercising, swimming, walking, moving and interacting with one another. He would have had an easy time of it with this crowd.

Let’s talk

joselitMarch 15, 2015November 16, 2017Leave a comment

Over spring break, my students headed south to frolic in the surf while I lit out for the west coast to attend a conference.

Buzz — A museum buzz phrase, 'in conversation.' Flickr/Sean MacEntee

Organized by the Council of American Jewish Museums, a.k.a. ‘CAJM,’ the three-day confab attended to the many issues -- audience cultivation, career development, technology and more technology -- that keep those of us who either work in museums or train others to do so awake in the middle of the night.

I learned a lot: about the limits of technology, the cultivation of fun, the mechanics of the ‘participatory museum’ and the importance of developing a staff that is “undeterred.” (I took a real shine to that one.) But what struck me with particular force was not substance so much as language. No matter the context, certain phrases circulated like mad, giving new meaning to “buzzword.”

‘Thinking holistically’ was one crowd pleaser; another was ‘meaningful.’ A third was ‘mission forward,’ and a fourth, the hands-down winner, was ‘in conversation.’

Everyone and everything was ‘in conversation.’ Museums and their audiences were ‘in conversation.’ Technology and content were ‘in conversation.’ Objects on display were ‘in conversation’ with one another and with the viewer. Supplanting ‘dialogue’ as the word du jour, ‘in conversation’ didn’t just happen along. It’s of its time, a reflection of the increasing value that many of us place on lively, active exchange -- the kind of exchange that goes beyond tapping and texting. ‘In conversation,’ it seems to me, highlights the value of community.

My students returned home from their spring break with a tan. I returned home from mine with a new vocabulary.

Change agents

joselitDecember 29, 2014November 16, 2017Leave a comment

Like most of us, I look forward to 2015 with keen anticipation: So many museums to visit, performances to see, and articles to read. Strike that last bit; it’s just not true. Between the recent implosion at The New Republic and the spate of early retirements and firings at The New York Times, I’m not sure I’ll have much to read, come 2015.

New York Times. Flickr/Kike Muñoz Beltrán

For years, I enjoyed making my way through TNR’s fabled “back of the book,” delighting in what its discerning contributors had to say about the latest title or exhibition or film. The magazine made me a culturally literate and engaged citizen of the world -- and a better professor, too. Time and again, I drew on its insights when preparing for a lecture or in casual conversation with colleagues and students.

The Times also left a big imprint on me. Between Joseph Berger’s wise and sensitively drawn human interest stories, Edward Rothstein’s incisive museological critiques, and Christopher Gray’s gimlet-eyed “Streetscapes,” I learned how to write and how to reckon with human foibles, big ideas and the built environment.

Their collective departure from the Times leaves me bereft. Who will I turn to for commentary on the variegated New York Jewish community? Bring to campus to reflect on the most recent developments within the museum world? Inspire me to take to the streets in search of an arresting architectural detail?

I’ll make do, of course, but one thing is certain. I’ll be none the wiser in 2015.

‘Tis the season

joselitNovember 9, 2014November 16, 2017Leave a comment

Now that the Jewish holidays have come and gone, it’s time to start thinking about what lies ahead. In the event that graduate school is in your future -- or that of someone you know -- I hope you might give some thought to enrolling in an exciting new program at GW: the M.A. in Jewish Cultural Arts.

You’ll forgive me for sounding like a proud parent, or, worse still, like a shameless self-promoter, when I sing the praises of this enterprise, now in its second year. It’s the real deal. Taking advantage of everything that D.C. has to offer -- smart and savvy people, gratifying internships and culture, culture, culture just about everywhere you turn -- the M.A. in Jewish Cultural Arts makes learning both fun and meaningful. Better yet, the program sees to it that its students shine.

Who can ask for anything more?

Send us your sons and daughters, your grandchildren, your nieces and nephews as well as your neighbor’s kids.

Great opportunities await!

Power to the people

joselitJuly 13, 2014November 16, 2017Leave a comment

I’ve just returned from a busman’s holiday in San Francisco where I ate myself silly, walked until my shins ached and talked and talked -- with former GW students and their families (what a treat!), with colleagues, with friends -- until my voice turned into a veritable foghorn.

I had come to San Francisco at the invitation of the Contemporary Jewish Museum to give a presentation about the relationship between mid-century design and the Jewish experience, the subject of a current exhibition “Designing Home: Jews and Midcentury Design.” For years now, I’ve been interested in the ways in which taste and style are as much collective phenomena as individual ones and am grateful to the museum for the opportunity to share some of my thoughts on the topic.

What really galvanized me, though, was the Contemporary Jewish Museum itself. Housed in a former power station that once provided electricity to downtown San Francisco and fortuitously located in a bustling area of San Francisco -- the Yerba Buena district -- that draws visitors and natives alike, the museum is a monument to thinking big.

But it’s not just the museum’s compelling location or its visually arresting architecture that powers the imagination. What really gets things going is the institution’s commitment to re-conceptualizing the ways in which museums might function these days.

Taking its cue from teaching hospitals, the Contemporary Jewish Museum likens itself to a teaching museum. Under the innovative stewardship of its new executive director, Lori Starr, it doesn’t just mount exhibitions, dispense information or engage in creative programming (an “Out of Order Seder,” anyone?). Without a permanent collection of its own, the CJM, as it’s called, places more of a premium on process than on display, on exposure more than exhortation, on collaboration in lieu of showmanship. It invites participation at every turn, from commissioning artwork and sponsoring pop-up stores like Dwell, a timely response to its current exhibition, to bringing educators together with technologists so that they might benefit from one another’s company.

In the course of things, the CJM reverses the traditional relationship between the front of the house and the back of the house, between what is known and how we know it, underscoring the primacy of discovery. It calls on the viewer as much as the curator to make connections.

What a concept! Here’s hoping the notion of a teaching museum given over to Jewish culture in all of its many manifestations will serve as a beacon bright from coast to coast.

On the go

joselitJune 23, 2014November 16, 2017Leave a comment

This past week marked the debut of GW’s Program in Experiential Education and Jewish Cultural Arts, which has been in the works for quite some time now. Although I’ve written often, at some length and with passion about the program here and elsewhere, I’m delighted to report that nothing quite beats the thrill of implementation.

Mosaic The Institute — Mosaic brochure (click to open)

To set things in motion, GW hosted a three day retreat for students and faculty before the formal start of classes. Actually, to call it a ‘retreat’ isn't quite apt: ‘embrace’ is more like it. On the go from morning to night, we went behind the scenes at GW’s museum-in-process and gathered in front of the footlights at Theater J; participated in a master class on Jewish art song and another class on trans-media and the Jews; and listened as professionals from a wide variety of institutions from grand museums to aspiring ones spoke freely about the challenges they face, day in and day out. Through it all, the students began to lay claim to and take the measure of the vast array of treasures, both human and institutional, that make up the arts and culture scene in D.C.

Our whirlwind encounter, at once dazzling and dizzying, was called ‘Mosaic,” a testament to the process by which fragments constitute a whole, as well as a call to the students to pick up the pieces that define Jewish culture and to fit, or, as the current lingo would have it, “embed,” them in new patterns of meaning.

It won’t be easy. But the rewards of thinking smartly and imaginatively about loss and absence, demystification and exposure, process and context – to name just a few of the themes that surfaced, time and again, these past few days – are well within reach.