Feathers, Gold + Concrete | Eliahou Eric Bokobza
Guest Project: Maps, Amulets + Wildflowers | Esther Cohen
Curated by Dr. Smadar Sheffi

The exhibit runs through May 31. Free and open to the public.

The JCC presents the exhibition Cities and Valleys: Spring at The Laurie M. Tisch Gallery, which is free and open to the public. Opening on Mar 7, it features Eliahou Eric Bokobza’s Feathers, Gold + Concrete and the guest project Maps, Amulets + Wildflowers by Esther Cohen.

The work of Eliahou Eric Bokobza examines Israeli cultural identity through brightly colored paintings, sculptures, and video animations, all through the lens of his North African Jewish roots. Esther Cohen’s work, on the other hand, traces a cultural journey through her Jewish Yemenite heritage, focusing on silversmithing, subverting the language of traditionally masculine craftsmanship in the process.

This exhibition explores Israel from two different perspectives, focusing on issues such as racism and patriarchal structures that are still topical today through the lens of historical craftsmanship. In tandem, Bokobza and Cohen’s divergent approaches converge to offer a nuanced and multifaceted exploration of Israel, shedding light on the intricate layers of cultural identity and history within the nation’s diverse tapestry.

Gallery exhibits and programs are made possible with the generous support of the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund. Additional support is provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the generosity of individual donors.

Jan 4–Feb 27, 2024

The second annual Books That Changed My Life Festival returned in 2024 to celebrate the transformative power of books. This two-month celebration of literature and culture showcases events inspired by beloved literary works, including a pop-up library, author conversations, workshops, storytime, a gallery exhibit, musical performances, theater, film events, and more.

Hosted by the JCC’s Lambert Center for Arts + Ideas, this festival was a testament to the power of storytelling and the enduring impact of words.

Featuring two exhibits from Contemporary Art Center Ramle (CACR), curated by Dr. Smadar Sheffi. Opening Sep 7. The exhibit runs through Nov 2. Free and open to the public.

Unheimliche, Longing, and the Floor Rag
Artist: Nahed Abo Alhega Hamza
Curator: Dr. Smadar Sheffi

Artist Nahed Abo Alhega Hamza draws on domestic textiles (floor rags, curtains, sheets) associated with cleanliness and the intimacy of a physically and metaphorically cushioned space. A friendly home, the object of longing, embodying family memories, may become an arena for violence and threat, evoking what Freud termed unheimliche, the “uncanny.”

Abo Alhega Hamza’s works present an encounter between home as a safe place and a site of fear. The body of work exhibited evolved after the artist’s mother passed away in 2019, sparking a re-reading of “home” and its components. Her intricate drawings signify our complicated relationships with objects and their symbolic meanings, corresponding with art and ideas from Dada to Surrealism to science fiction. Strong emotions, including pain and anxiety, flow into the large black and blue ink portrait, which is cut out and embroidered on red fabric. Comprising drawings of hands, architectural details, intertwined muscles, plants, bones, and flowing water, it has art historical associations to Arcimboldo and Georg Grosz, among others.

Works on handkerchiefs from her parents’ wedding preserve the folds as a grid of memories, hopes, innocence, and promise, embodying movement, vulnerability, and vitality, with a streak of the uncanny emanating from her oeuvre.

Rifts, Joints, and Rifts
Artists: Anna Hayat + Slava Pirsky
Curator: Dr. Smadar Sheffi

Anna Hayat and Slava Pirsky’s photographs are exquisite. Most are printed on fabric, hand-sewn, and embroidered. This is the first time that the duo is exhibiting sewn images that simultaneously join and break apart. They have an almost corporeal quality, the stitches seeming to throb with pain like a wounded body.

Time itself becomes matter, an additional element in the photographs which comprise past and present, its density evident in the works with flowers. Hayat and Pirsky distill clichéd images and objects, then reilluminate them in a continuous dialogue between photography and painting.

The discourse on time is a central motif of their works. The photographs are shot on a large format view camera using outdated Polaroid film, whose chemicals leave random stains on the image. Solarization creates further uncontrolled reactions; chance becomes part of their aesthetic. Hayat and Pirsky integrate these chance reactions with controlled, precise photography in the tradition of early 20th century American photography, which, when combined with the unexpected, is intriguing.

Sewing the photographs, a new process for Hayat and Pirsky, began after their encounter with kintsugi, the Japanese art of “golden repair” (of broken pottery) without concealing flaws. The works were made while the artists were closely following developments in the war in Ukraine, fearful for the lives of friends and relatives. The many rifts in the works demonstrate a sense of urgency and injury.

Banner Art Credit:
Burdocks | Anna Hayat + Slava Pirsky
Hold On Together | Nahed Abo Alhega Hamza

Curated by Sharon Balaban | Mar 9–Apr 7 | Free + open to the public

About Veni, Vidi, Video

Artists: Sharon Balaban | Hilla Ben Ari | Dara Birnbaum | Shirley Clarke | Keren Cytter | Maya Deren | Hadassa Goldvicht | Mierle Laderman Ukeles | Hila Lulu Lin Farah Kufer Birim | Vivian Ostrovsky | Alix Pearlstein | Nira Pereg | Martha Rosler | Mika Rottenberg | Shelly Silver | Anita Thacher | Rona Yefman | Nevet Yitzhak

Taking its title from the declaration of masculine militancy and conquest attributed to Julius Caesar—Veni, Vidi, Vici (I Came, I Saw, I Conquered)—this exhibit highlights the role of Jewish female artists in shaping video art across many decades. It includes works from trailblazing American and Israeli artists and experimental filmmakers of the 1940s and 1950s and contemporary artists of the 1970s, through today’s works, which utilize new technologies and techniques.

In 1967, Sony introduced the Portapak, an easy-to-use video camera that required no crew, beginning a period of tremendous experimentation for artists. In the United States, and especially in New York City, women dominated the field of video art from early on and were vanguards of the second wave of feminism. In Israel, the 1990s were a turning point in the dominance of female video artists, and signified a larger “opening up” of Israeli art into the international art world.

Videos by 18 artists from these two counties explore the themes of human rights, gender, and social dynamics. Female artists have long used video technology to explore what it means to be female in a patriarchal society. The camera allows them to subvert social conventions and deconstruct cultural apparatuses and narratives, manipulating viewers’ expectations of what to expect from “moving images.”

Exploring work from a range of decades, Veni, Vidi, Video showcases the development of technology and its infiltration into the art and the everyday fabric of our society. These timeless videos remain relevant and continue to make their audience think and feel.

Featured Works

1. Maya Deren: A Study in Choreography for Camera (1945)
2. Shirley Clarke: Bridges-Go-Round (1958)
3. Martha Rosler: Semiotics of the Kitchen (1975)
4. Mierle Laderman Ukeles: Waste Flow (1977–79)
5. Dara Birnbaum: Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman (1978–79)
6. Anita Thacher: Loose Corner (1986)
7. Hila Lulu Lin Farah Kufer Birim: No More Tears (1994)
8. Nira Pereg: Sabbath (2008)
9. Vivian Ostrovsky: The Title Was Shot (2009)
10. Sharon Balaban: Triumph (2009)
11. Hilla Ben Ari: Seeding (2012)
12. Hadassa Goldvicht: Kiss (2012)
13. Nevet Yitzhak: Star Quality (2013)
14. Rona Yefman: I’m So Glad (2008)
15. Mika Rottenberg: Sneeze (2012)
16. Alix Pearlstein: Monogram (2014)
17. Shelly Silver: Turn 16 (2018)
18. Keren Cytter: Terrorist of Love (2016)
19. Sharon Balaban: Spider Blood (Black Ruby #807) (2022)

Gallery exhibits and programs are made possible with the generous support of the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund. Additional support is provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the generosity of individual donors.

Books That Changed My Life Pop-Up Library

Jan 5–Feb 28, 2023

Books That Changed My Life is a new initiative, hosted by the JCC’s Lambert Center for Arts + Ideas, that celebrates the transformational role books play in our lives. Cozy up with a book from the pop-up library in The Laurie M. Tisch Gallery. We hope to bring a bit of joy to each of you as you peruse the shelves, scan the beautiful book covers, and chat with one another about your favorite titles.

 

Learn more about the Books That Changed My Life Festival.

Pop-up Library design: Studio Special Edition (se-design.co.il)

Books That Changed My Life Festival is made possible thanks to The Harold Anfang Foundation, the Israel Office of Cultural Affairs, Consulate General of Israel New York, and PJ Library.

Gallery exhibits and programs are made possible with the generous support of the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund. Additional support is provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the generosity of individual donors.

Sep 8–Dec 15, 2022

Artists: Adam Yekutieli – Know Hope | Arik Weiss | Ashger Zamana | Avihai Mizrahi | Danielle Weinberg | David Tartakover | Dede Bandaid & Nitzan Mintz | Eli Khromov | Faina Feigin | Holyland Civilians – Anat Meshulam & Dor Chen | Jennifer Abessira | Kobi Franco | Lahav Halevy | Liron Lavi Turkenich | Matan Iontef | Naama Nechushtai | Neil Cohen | Noam Benatar | Oded Ben Yehuda | Omri Goldzak | Rotem Cohen-Soaye | Shavit Yaacov | Yossi Lemel | Zvi Narkis

Curators: Michal Shapira and Tom Kohen

Bless is a collection of graphic works by designers and artists from The Shenkar Research Center for Israeli Design, part of the Shenkar Academy, based in Ramat Gan, Israel, in collaboration with 3X3 Active Gallery. The research center, founded in 2006, maintains the most extensive digital collection in Israel of graphics and design by local artists who worked between 1850 and 2022. Bless is part inspiration, part call-to-action, emphatically reminding us that kindness, inclusion, peace, and unity are not simply aspirations but daily practices and individual actions.

3X3 Active Gallery is a dynamic format of curatorial activism, focusing on public spaces offline and online. Founded in 2020 by Michal Shapira and Lihi Gerstner.

Gallery exhibits and programs are made possible with the generous support of the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund. Additional support is provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the generosity of individual donors.

Bless is sponsored by the Israel Office of Cultural Affairs, Consulate General of Israel New York.

Jun 14–Aug 28, 2022
Rotem Reshef

Offering a haven from the bustling city, Rotem Reshef’s painterly environment is created by two islands of color and texture. While suggesting a site of refuge, the site-specific installation presents a dual perspective of an inner world mirroring an exterior landscape, arresting in time the cycle of seasons. Reshef’s practice suggests that painting can shift modes, expand and modify our perception, like a story unfolding. Reshef’s work alludes to a long history of drifting and wandering—of her own, her family’s, and all of us who navigate a world of shifting restrictions—the closing and opening of borders and global migration. Movement through the space may allude to the crossing of the Red Sea, as the dry land offered a fantastical path of rescue and safety, a sudden and unexpected change of events that transformed a catastrophe into a trail for redemption.

Strolling urban environments like Walter Benjamin’s flâneur, Reshef picks up traces of abandoned history and signs of lives that existed and vanished: vegetation waste, twigs and scraps of wood, remains of a landscape, either planned or wild, are gathered once again, into the immortalizing world of art-making. By bringing these anonymous materials into the studio, Reshef offers renewal and healing, creating for viewers an opportunity to experience a revived beauty.

This exhibition continues Reshef’s installation from 2020, A Heartfelt Event, that reacted in real time to the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the political turmoil of that year on Israeli society and the artist’s own private life. Yet this time, Reshef reflects on the age “after” the crisis, its anxiety, and unknown long-term consequences.

Mar 17–Jun 5, 2022

Group exhibition by artists Guy Aon, Elinor Carucci, Omri Goren, Marie Hudelot, Iddo Markus, Michal Pollack, Gideon Rubin, Julie Weitz | Curated by Udi Urman

Unmasked explores the ancient, paradoxical relationship between artists and masks. The eight artists featured in the exhibit approach the concept of masking in ways unique to their cultures and identities. The historical context of masks will also be explored. Masks have been used throughout human history, intertwining traditions and collective identities, including during the Middle Ages, and when Jewish communities began celebrating Purim by wearing masks. In more abstract ways, Jewish people have often worn “masks” and disguised their identities, by changing their last names or physical appearances to avoid life-threatening antisemitism.

The use of masks in contemporary society will also be explored: masks have evolved from physical objects into digital filters flooding social media platforms. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, masks have become a major part of everyday life, saving lives and helping keep communities safe. They have also become a political symbol, bringing to the surface deep social tensions.

Group exhibition by Dana Levy, Gal Cohen, Lee Tal, Michal Geva, Naomi Safran-Hon, Noa Charuvi, Zac Hacmon

The Laurie M. Tisch Gallery
On view December 2, 2021 – February 28, 2022

Floating Walls presents a multidisciplinary survey of works made by seven Israeli artists based in New York. The exhibition incorporates site-specific installation, video, painting, and sculpture. By using a variety of materials across media, the artists explore and reimagine the walls that surround them as both material and metaphor. As Israelis living in New York, the artists in this exhibition are familiar with migration and reconstituting one’s definition of and relationship to home. Additionally, the works on view allow us to reflect on how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted our sense of place, as we entered periods of lockdown in our domestic environment, and renegotiated our position regarding public and shared spaces.

Curated by Aya Goshen

On View February 25 – April 13, 2020

Ritual binds people across time and space, building norms that cultivate personal and collective meaning and structure. Akin to this, rituals captured through experiences of disability and illness create temporalities of time and space that are flexible and fluctuating, not easily defined by static structures designed without disabled and sick people in mind. The artists in this exhibition reconfigure what constitutes and marks the mundaneness of the everyday through ritual, tapping into embodiments of living with illness and disability to create a never-ending flow of curiosity and contemplation. Through abstraction, the artists claim space, mark time, and present expansive ways of understanding illness and disability. These configurations of disability maintain bodily knowledge as vital to a rumination on the corporeal and our existence in an interdependent world. In the artists’ own formulations of sick and disabled aesthetics, time, and space, this exhibition showcases different ways illness and disability have connective and ritual potential.

Listening to our bodies and their needs in all their sick and disabled glory opens opportunity for honoring and caring for the body/mind and for others, insisting on bodily knowledge and care as invaluable in the continued effort toward building understanding and an equitable society. The artists articulate the complexity of exhaustively living with chronic pain, navigating care systems, and reckoning with relationships to self and to others through demarcations of patterning, flickering, shading, scattering, jolting, and reflecting. The range of works presented are linked to the enduring legacy of exercising rituals to hold meaning and structure for living in a complex and chaotic world.

Curated by Ezra Benus.
Rituals is presented in partnership with ReelAbilities: New York Film Festival. 

On View September 3–December 15, 2019

Angelika Sher was born in 1969 in Vilnius, Lithuania. She immigrated to Israel, where she graduated from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem and established erself as a critically acclaimed professional photographer through a series of exhibitions in Israel and abroad. The Laurie M. Tisch Gallery is honored to present a series of her work that explores the mental and emotional changes in her daughter and her daughter’s friends who enlisted in the IDF and the way they encounter cultures, religions, and histories. The series also reflects the change that took place in the artist, as she revisits issues that she explored when she was the age her daughter is now and as both reflect on their role as women and human beings today.

Angelika Sher: Selected Work is presented in partnership with Zemack Gallery, Tel Aviv.

January-April 2019

“Everything good about America begins with a protest.” So declares a handmade poster photographed at the Women’s March on Washington, DC, on January 21, 2017. Indeed, America itself was born of protest when, in 1773, the Boston Tea Party galvanized colonial resistance to the British policy of “taxation without representation,” leading to the American Revolution and the  Declaration of Independence. Over the more than two centuries since, protest has defined and reshaped the landscape of American rights and justice. In partnership with Magnum Photos, this exhibition features photographs of protest from the 1940s to the present day. From street marches and consumer boycotts to civil disobedience and hashtag activism, this exhibit emphasizes protest as a powerful form of civic engagement.

Magnum Photos represents some of the world’s most renowned photographers, who share a vision to chronicle world events, people, places, and culture with a powerful narrative that defies convention, shatters the status quo, redefines history, and transforms lives.

Cosponsored with The Joseph Stern Center for Social Responsibility.