Stories about how we look at Jewish artists and how Jewish artists look at the world.
Forward With the Arts
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Culture How an unapologetically vulgar collector horrified fellow Jews — and revolutionized the art world
As two exhibitions in Philadelphia and New York showcase the seven-decade career of America’s greatest living artist, 91-year-old Jasper Johns, two new histories have arrived, revealing the crucial role that has been played by Jewish art collectors, “The House of Fragile Things: Jewish Art Collectors and the Fall of France”and “Belonging and Betrayal: How Jews…
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Culture Your art, your stories — a collection of the paintings and sculptures that inspire our readers
On a wall in Barbara Sander’s apartment in Sarasota, Fla., a seabird flies between two palm trees across a pinkish-orange sky. Ellen Green feels inspired by a deep forest, one she used to gaze at for hours when she was a child. Chani Miller of Highland Park, N.J. finds peace and content when she looks…
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Culture The Asian-Jewish film series ‘LUNAR’ is back for a second season. Watch an episode here
Why are there so few Asian Jews in the movies? What does it mean for a TV show to be “authentic?” What’s up with “Mulan?” All these topics come up on this episode of LUNAR, a film series on Asian-Jewish identity which packs a lot into each of its segments. The project dates 2020, when…
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Culture In this brilliant exhibit, you can’t look at the art unless you let it look at you
At first glance, there’s nothing explicitly Jewish about Barbara Kruger’s work. Yet after viewing “Thinking of You, I Mean Me, I Mean You,” the current retrospective of her five decades of work at the Art Institute of Chicago, on view through January 24, 2022, certain Jewish themes emerge: the value of omnivorous reading, high and…
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Culture The stories behind the art on my (and your) walls
From my desk, I can see a cloudy blue sky. Below it, the Catskills in autumn — lavender mountains and an empty stretch of road beside the water. Lower down, a spoonbill contemplates the water below him. Maybe he’s looking for a fish. Some distance away, unfazed by the incongruous presence of autumn mountains and winter…
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Art After the horrors of the Nazi invasion, a darkly gorgeous fairy tale emerges
The Polish artist Erna Rosenstein (1913-2004) often called herself a fairy or a witch. In letters to a friend, she would sign off as “Fairy Rosenstein.” Rosenstein had a long-running interest in fairy tales and wrote and illustrated her own, like the charmingly surreal, surreally charming “Tiny Tale of Snail and All His Friends.” And…
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Culture At the Cloisters, an oddly-shaped window reveals hints of Jewish life in medieval Spain
Sometime in the 900s, a Spanish monk named Maius painted his version of Jerusalem. Rendered on vellum in precise detail and luminous color, the painting tells a very Christian story, imagining the harmonious city that might emerge after the Day of Judgment. But with its horseshoe arches, distinctive crenellations and tall flying buttresses, this ideal…
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Culture The AIDS crisis strained his relationship with Judaism. Now, it’s integral to his art — and activism.
In 1993, artist and activist Gregg Bordowitz premiered his film “Fast Trip, Long Drop,” a not-quite documentary that made for a biting critique of media coverage of the AIDS crisis. The film, in which Bordowitz plays a defiant talk show guest named Alter Allesman — Yiddish for “old everyman” — was shown widely at LGBTQ…
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Yiddish קורס וועגן ייִדיש אין אוקראַיִנע במשך דעם 20סטן יאָרהונדערטCourse on Yiddish in Ukraine in the 20th century
דער אַרבעטער רינג וועט אויך לערנען אַ קורס וועגן די ייִדישע דיאַלעקטן בײַ די הײַנטיקע חרדים.
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