//literary & arts//
Spring 2018
Curating Judaism
The Jewish Museum’s “Scenes from the Collection”
Estie Berkowitz
The painting is surrounded by an ornate frame, one which suits the thick, elaborate brushstrokes on the canvas. It’s an image of a church. The artist, Camille Pissarro, a French Jew, captured its facade in a distinctly Impressionist manner. On the wall next to it is a photograph that depicts the interior of a building so filled with light that it almost emits a glow. This is the inside of the Beth Sholom Synagogue in Philadelphia, which was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright—perhaps America’s most famous architect—and photographed by Candida Höfer, a Cologne-based photographer. In any other location, these pieces would likely never be displayed together. But here, in the Jewish Museum’s revamped permanent collection, they are mounted side by side.
Having never been to the Jewish Museum, I had envisioned a space full of old menorahs and mezuzahs. When I emerged from the elevator into a room filled with paintings and sculptures, I was surprised to see what looked like any other art museum. As I explored, I realized what I was seeing was far less predictable.
What is a Jewish museum? A forum meant to relay Jewish history? A venue to educate those unfamiliar with Jewish ritual? A gallery in which to display the work of famous Jewish artists? The Jewish Museum uses its “Scenes from the Collection” as a platform to explore these fundamental questions.
The wall text at the entrance of the exhibit explains that pieces from the collection have been divided into seven scenes, each of which “suggests a different filter through which we may understand art.” These filters range widely; one scene explores the history and usage of the Star of David, while another features the museum’s collection of antique stereographs.
One scene in particular, entitled “Constellations,” seems to embody what the exhibit as a whole attempts to accomplish: it approaches Judaism through a variety of bite-sized thoughts and themes and leaves the museum-goer to come to their own larger definitions and conclusions. In this section, for example, the “Grand Costume” wedding dress worn by Moroccan Jewish brides is placed beside a quasi-sculptural costume titled “Golum.” However, the exhibit neither attempts to fully analyze Jewish costumery nor strives to explore differences between Sephardic and Ashkenazic approaches to art throughout history. Though the pairing hints at both of these themes, it does not explicitly explore either of them.
The exhibition focuses less on the individual pieces of art and more on the conversations between works. Some of the themes that connect the seemingly disparate works are more obvious than others. One wall displays a series of works that all feature writing, ranging from pieces with unintelligible symbols to an enormous canvas that contains nothing but the word “Jew.” The grouping of these works together serves to inspire thought on the complex relationship between Judaism and language. In other cases, pieces seem to only have been included in order to highlight features of others, like the elaborately-decorated Ark on display next to the 2011 painting by Kehinde Wiley (himself not a Jew) Alios Itzhak (The World Stage: Israel). The resemblance between the background of the Wiley painting, which depicts an Ethiopian Jew, and the carving on the Ark—a ritual cabinet used to hold the Torah—is one of the many ways in which the museum demonstrates that even such dissimilar objects, with different subject matters and uses, still technically belong within the same exhibit.
As I walked through the galleries, I wondered: What do I consider necessary qualifications for making a painting “Jewish”? Given its emphasis on Judaism and the display of “Jewish art,” the exhibition often requires viewers to consider the biographies of the artists more than the pieces themselves. An untitled painting by Eva Hesse feels particularly out of place. Its wall label cites the work as a response to sexism within the art world—a topic that is certainly not specific to Jews. Though this painting resembles others in the room, and creates an interesting dialogue with them, in order to understand its presence individually, one must focus on Hesse’s Jewish background.
I was particularly drawn to the Pissarro painting Portail l'église Saint-Jacques à Dieppe (1901), in part because I had discussed a painting by Monet with a similar subject matter on a tour of The Met for one of my classes. While I reminisced in the gallery, I realized how the structure of each exhibit completely influenced my engagement with the paintings. The Monet painting was surrounded by similar Impressionist pieces, encouraging the viewer to see it as the product of a larger artistic movement. The Pissarro’s placement encouraged a different approach. I was not driven to think about the style of his brushstrokes, the selection of this specific church as the subject of the painting, or of the distinct time of day invoked by the shadows and lighting. Instead, I stood there thinking about Pissarro’s Jewishness and why his painting of a church might qualify as “Jewish art.”
After visiting the museum, I learned that the exhibit will cycle in new “scenes” every six months. In this way, the Museum’s permanent collection display will constantly become new again, encouraging museum-goers to return. This plan uniquely suits a Jewish museum, since there are endless ways in which art can yield discussion about a subject as multifaceted as Jewish life.
“Scenes from the Collection” successfully challenges its viewers to question what Judaism is, and how it manifests itself in art and visual culture. Despite my grasp of Jewish history and my familiarity with many aspects of Jewish culture and ritual, I left the exhibit asking new iterations of those very questions. And in a place like New York City, where the abundance of information about Judaism does not need to be concentrated in one location, issuing that challenge seems like an appropriate purpose for a Jewish museum.
Having never been to the Jewish Museum, I had envisioned a space full of old menorahs and mezuzahs. When I emerged from the elevator into a room filled with paintings and sculptures, I was surprised to see what looked like any other art museum. As I explored, I realized what I was seeing was far less predictable.
What is a Jewish museum? A forum meant to relay Jewish history? A venue to educate those unfamiliar with Jewish ritual? A gallery in which to display the work of famous Jewish artists? The Jewish Museum uses its “Scenes from the Collection” as a platform to explore these fundamental questions.
The wall text at the entrance of the exhibit explains that pieces from the collection have been divided into seven scenes, each of which “suggests a different filter through which we may understand art.” These filters range widely; one scene explores the history and usage of the Star of David, while another features the museum’s collection of antique stereographs.
One scene in particular, entitled “Constellations,” seems to embody what the exhibit as a whole attempts to accomplish: it approaches Judaism through a variety of bite-sized thoughts and themes and leaves the museum-goer to come to their own larger definitions and conclusions. In this section, for example, the “Grand Costume” wedding dress worn by Moroccan Jewish brides is placed beside a quasi-sculptural costume titled “Golum.” However, the exhibit neither attempts to fully analyze Jewish costumery nor strives to explore differences between Sephardic and Ashkenazic approaches to art throughout history. Though the pairing hints at both of these themes, it does not explicitly explore either of them.
The exhibition focuses less on the individual pieces of art and more on the conversations between works. Some of the themes that connect the seemingly disparate works are more obvious than others. One wall displays a series of works that all feature writing, ranging from pieces with unintelligible symbols to an enormous canvas that contains nothing but the word “Jew.” The grouping of these works together serves to inspire thought on the complex relationship between Judaism and language. In other cases, pieces seem to only have been included in order to highlight features of others, like the elaborately-decorated Ark on display next to the 2011 painting by Kehinde Wiley (himself not a Jew) Alios Itzhak (The World Stage: Israel). The resemblance between the background of the Wiley painting, which depicts an Ethiopian Jew, and the carving on the Ark—a ritual cabinet used to hold the Torah—is one of the many ways in which the museum demonstrates that even such dissimilar objects, with different subject matters and uses, still technically belong within the same exhibit.
As I walked through the galleries, I wondered: What do I consider necessary qualifications for making a painting “Jewish”? Given its emphasis on Judaism and the display of “Jewish art,” the exhibition often requires viewers to consider the biographies of the artists more than the pieces themselves. An untitled painting by Eva Hesse feels particularly out of place. Its wall label cites the work as a response to sexism within the art world—a topic that is certainly not specific to Jews. Though this painting resembles others in the room, and creates an interesting dialogue with them, in order to understand its presence individually, one must focus on Hesse’s Jewish background.
I was particularly drawn to the Pissarro painting Portail l'église Saint-Jacques à Dieppe (1901), in part because I had discussed a painting by Monet with a similar subject matter on a tour of The Met for one of my classes. While I reminisced in the gallery, I realized how the structure of each exhibit completely influenced my engagement with the paintings. The Monet painting was surrounded by similar Impressionist pieces, encouraging the viewer to see it as the product of a larger artistic movement. The Pissarro’s placement encouraged a different approach. I was not driven to think about the style of his brushstrokes, the selection of this specific church as the subject of the painting, or of the distinct time of day invoked by the shadows and lighting. Instead, I stood there thinking about Pissarro’s Jewishness and why his painting of a church might qualify as “Jewish art.”
After visiting the museum, I learned that the exhibit will cycle in new “scenes” every six months. In this way, the Museum’s permanent collection display will constantly become new again, encouraging museum-goers to return. This plan uniquely suits a Jewish museum, since there are endless ways in which art can yield discussion about a subject as multifaceted as Jewish life.
“Scenes from the Collection” successfully challenges its viewers to question what Judaism is, and how it manifests itself in art and visual culture. Despite my grasp of Jewish history and my familiarity with many aspects of Jewish culture and ritual, I left the exhibit asking new iterations of those very questions. And in a place like New York City, where the abundance of information about Judaism does not need to be concentrated in one location, issuing that challenge seems like an appropriate purpose for a Jewish museum.
//ESTIE BERKOWITZ is a junior in Columbia College and Contributing Editor of The Current. She can be reached at a.berkowitz@columbia.edu. Photo courtesy of The Jewish Museum.