The Jewish Identity Project: New American Photography

It seems you are new to The Jewish Culture Log of Arts, so we would like to recommend that you subscribe to our RSS feed to keep yourself up-to-date of the best art from the Jewish Community. Thank you for your visit!

visit the San Francisco´s Contemporary Jewish Museum

This exhibition features thirteen emerging and mid-career artists who were commissioned by the Museum to create ten projects focusing on different Jewish communities in the United States. Through the works of these photographers, the exhibition addresses issues relevant to Jewish and non-Jewish audiences, as it looks at real and constructed boundaries between people. Using Jewish culture as a lens, The Jewish Identity Project examines the hybrid and complex racial, national and cultural identity of contemporary Americans.

The Jewish Identity Project explores the heterogeneity of contemporary American society through the lens of Jewish identity. Its themes of ethnic, racial, religious and multicultural identity, diversity and inclusion are potent issues for millions of Americans. American Jews are commonly pictured as a homogenous ethnic group, yet conversion, adoption, intermarriage, immigration, multi-racial, and gay and lesbian families have transformed the fabric of Jewish communities. This trend parallels the changing and multifaceted definition of what it means to be an American in the 21st century.

Chris Verene, Prairie Jews, 1997-2005, from the series Galesburg, Sabbath, 2004, Type C Archival print, with artist’s handwritten text in oil, 30 x 36 in. (76.2 x 91.4 cm). Courtesy Chris Verene Studio—ChrisVerene.com.

Organized into three thematic sections, the exhibition considers race, community and home. The first section, “Who is a Jew?,” investigates race and how the experiences of being Jewish and Asian, Jewish and Latino, Jewish and Black, or Jewish and interracial can be represented visually. It includes projects by Dawoud Bey, Nikki S. Lee, Shari Rothfarb Mekonen and Avishai Mekonen, and Chris Verene. The second section, “What is Community?,” reconsiders the roles played by boundaries, rituals, and cultural and ethnic heritages. Projects by Yoshua Okon, Jaime Permuth, and Tirtza Even and Brian Karl examine the tension between individuals and the various racial or ethnic groups they simultaneously navigate. In the final section, “Where is Home?,” Rainer Ganahl, Jessica Shokrian, and Andrea Robbins and Max Becher explore to what extent America becomes “home” to Jews who emigrate to the U.S., and to what degree an individual lives in perpetual exile.

To investigate contemporary American Judaism, The Jewish Museum in New York selected artists known for exploring issues of identity. Representing a wide range of lifestyles and ethnicities, the artists’ cumulative vision demonstrates that identity is a process of becoming variable, multilayered and socially constructed. The works raise provocative questions about Jews and our multicultural society in general. Who is a Jew? What does it mean to be Jewish? Who gets to decide?

By collaborating with their subjects through a variety of means, the exhibition artists have pushed the limits of traditional documentary and aesthetic approaches to probe the nature of photographic media and its ability to convey a truthful impression. Employing both traditional and experimental approaches, these innovative projects use classic black-and-white photographs, large-scale color photographs, multi-channel video projections, and multimedia installations to depict the complex and often surprising ways Jewish Americans grapple with their identity.

Take a Tour

Free public tours every Sunday and Wednesday at 12:30 pm. Private tours of the exhibition are available for adults, seniors, families, and school groups. Bring your friends, office staff, book club, knitting circle, youth group, photography class, or running buddies for your own specially tailored tour!

- Si te gustó el artículo, deja una marca social (usando el botón “Compártelo” aquí abajo) y compártelo con el mundo. El universo te lo agradecerá, ¡No lo dudes! -