Tag: Art

Sunday, May 5 from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Join Cincinnati artist Judith Serling-Sturm for a hands-on workshop to create your own Torah pointer, or yad. Serling-Sturm, who works in her Pendelton Arts Center Studio, is a mixed-media artist and maker of artist books, handmade blank books, as well as sculpture and one-of-a-kind mezuzot made from natural elements and found objects. A mezuzah is a vessel containing a scroll that is traditionally hung on the doorpost of a Jewish home. Serling-Sturm has conducted workshops for adults and teens throughout the Cincinnati region. The workshop will include a guided tour of the exhibition.
This program is open to adults and children 14 years and older. Space is limited.
Reservations required.

Be dazzled by over 100 antique and contemporary Torah pointers, known by the Hebrew word yad for hand. The yad is used to keep one’s place in the Torah scroll, the central text of the Jewish faith, which is densely hand-written in Hebrew. Created by artists from different ages and cultures and made of diverse materials including wood, precious metals, jewels, ceramics, paper, and more, these yads chronicle the timeless, universal aesthetic guide in reading the Torah. The collection was formed by Virginia resident Clay H. Barr, who began collecting Torah pointers nearly three decades ago in memory of her late husband, Jay D.A. Barr. In addition to acquiring pointers that represent the historic forms of the object, she continues to commission creative new yads from contemporary artists such as Tobi Kahn, Wendell Castle, and Albert Paley. Transcending religious iconography, this exhibition appeals to all who appreciate the beauty and craftsmanship of fine art.

All events below will take place at Mayerson Hall, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, 3101 Clifton Avenue, Cincinnati, OH.  A live stream option is also available by registering through links below.

Opening Night Reception: Reservation Suggested

Be dazzled by over 100 antique and contemporary Torah pointers, known by the Hebrew word yad for hand. The yad is used to keep one’s place in the Torah scroll, the central text of the Jewish faith, which is densely hand-written in Hebrew. Created by artists from different ages and cultures and made of diverse materials including wood, precious metals, jewels, ceramics, paper, and more, these yads chronicle the timeless, universal aesthetic guide in reading the Torah. The collection was formed by Virginia resident Clay H. Barr, who began collecting Torah pointers nearly three decades ago in memory of her late husband, Jay D.A. Barr. In addition to acquiring pointers that represent the historic forms of the object, she continues to commission creative new yads from contemporary artists such as Tobi Kahn, Wendell Castle, and Albert Paley. Transcending religious iconography, this exhibition appeals to all who appreciate the beauty and craftsmanship of fine art.

All events below will take place at Mayerson Hall, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, 3101 Clifton Avenue, Cincinnati, OH.  A live stream option is also available by registering through links below.

Sunday, February 4, 2024 from 12:00 to 1:30 p.m.
Last day to self-tour Eve: I Understand and Motherhood Essence and the Feminine Divine.

Thursday, November 9, 2023 from 12:00 to 1:30 p.m.
Join curatorial consultant Abby Schwartz and preparator and collections manager Sheri Besso for a behind-the-scenes look at the reinstallation of the galleries devoted to Torah, Life Cycle, and Holidays and Festivals. A light lunch will be served.

Registration required.

Thursday, October 26, 2023 from 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
Join artist Ellie Beth Scott and curatorial consultant Abby Schwartz for coffee and conversation about the artist’s latest fabric installation and its relationship to the Skirball’s collection.

Registration required.

After a lengthy closure, the galleries devoted to Torah, Life Cycle, and Holidays and Festivals in the Skirball’s core exhibition An Eternal People: The Jewish Experience, are once again open with new cases, new signage, and ritual objects from the B’nai B’rith Klutznick Collection that have never been on view before. Old favorites are seen in a whole new light, literally and figuratively.

This grand reopening is made even more meaningful by the opportunity to bring the work of Santa Fe-based artist Ellie Beth Scott to the Skirball’s second floor foyer. For her exhibition Eve: I Understand, Scott was inspired by selected ritual objects in the Skirball collection used by women and by practices performed by women, rendering richly colored pieces using fabric, thread, paint, buttons, and beads.

In the fourth-floor gallery, the focus on women continues with Motherhood Essence and the Feminine Divine: Cincinnati and Israeli Artists Interpret The Female Experience, organized by ish in celebration of Israel at 75. Ish, whose mission is to create intentional spaces for connection and acceptance through the arts, brings together four Israeli and four Cincinnati artists to create eight original works of art and four additional works that interpret and “re-art” the work of their colleagues. The works respond to the power of women as community builders, organizers, and healers through times of crisis and change.

All events below will take place at Mayerson Hall, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, 3101 Clifton Avenue, Cincinnati, OH.

Thursday, October 19, 2023 from 5:30 – 8:00 p.m.
5:30 p.m. | Reception
6:15 p.m. | Welcome: Abby Schwartz, curatorial consultant to the Skirball Museum and Marie Krulewitch-Browne, executive director of ish
Remarks: Ellie Beth Scott, Israeli artist Dana Cohen, and Cincinnati artist Avery Plummer share insights on their respective exhibitions, Eve: I Understand and Motherhood Essence and the Feminine Divine.

Registration required.

One might not immediately associate Frank Stella (b. 1936), the American painter, sculptor, and printmaker noted for his work in the areas of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction with a cumulative, lyrical poem that concludes the traditional Seder, or festive meal, on the Jewish holiday of Passover.

Had Gadya (One Little Goat) is one of the earliest recorded songs for children. Just as each verse of the song builds on one before it, Stella builds on the original 1919 series of prints by Russian-Jewish avante-garde artist El Lissitzky (1890–1941). Lissitzky, who began his career illustrating Yiddish children’s books, created a print for each stanza of the famous song. Stella first encountered these works in the Tel Aviv Art Museum in 1981 and was profoundly inspired by their movement and the vibrancy of the simplified, graphic forms.

Frank Stella’s Had Gadya print series took two years to complete. The large prints were created using a combination of various techniques—lithography, linoleum block, silkscreen, and rubber relief with collage elements and hand-coloring. The prints were finally published by Waddington Graphics, London, in 1984. After completing the edition, Stella created between two and nine variants of each of the twelve Had Gadya illustrations.

The Skirball Museum is the second venue for a national tour of the three Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion campuses in North America. Frank Stella: Had Gadya appeared at the Los Angeles campus March 31–December 31, 2022 and will be on view at the Dr. Bernard Heller Museum on the New York campus September 7, 2023 – March 2, 2024.

Siona Benjamin has been making intricately detailed, transnational art with a feminist, Jewish, and political bent for almost two decades. Her distinct and unusual heritage as a descendant of the Bene Israel Jewish community of India informs her artistic perspective. Immigration, gender, the concept of “home”, and the role of art in social change are explored through vibrantly hued paintings.