Monday, November 23, 2015
6 – 8 pm
Skirball Lobby and Cooper Shop

As it were … So to speak
A Museum Collection in Dialogue with Barbara Bloom
$35; Members, $31.50

Join Barbara Bloom, artist and author, at the Jewish Museum to launch her new book As it were … So to speak: A Museum Collection in Dialogue with Barbara Bloom (Yale University Press, 2015).

In this beautiful artist’s book, Bloom revisits her landmark 2013 solo exhibition at the Jewish Museum. The book features images of the museum’s galleries reconstructed as rooms in a fictive house—the music room, the boudoir, the analyst’s office—formed of objects from the permanent collection. These staged spaces are intertwined with fragments of text and images drawn from intellectuals, artists, and authors, both historical and contemporary. Ranging from the charming (Torah pointers tipped with tiny hands, poised above a piano keyboard; silver spice containers shaped like peaches and pears) to the poignant (an empty, worn velvet case for a shofar horn; a Nazi playing card created from a defaced Torah), each object is infused with profound significance.    

Barbara Bloom is a conceptual artist based in New York City.  Her installations have captivated audiences for decades.  Since the 1970’s, her work has consistently redefined the way in which viewers understand objects.  Bloom siphons meaning from the things with which we surround ourselves, and crafts an experience that is at once personal and universal

Free with RSVP