Release Date: December 15, 2015

The Jewish Museum Open Christmas Day, December 25 with Art Exhibitions, Family Concerts, and More

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NEW YORK, NY – Continuing its popular tradition, The Jewish Museum will be open on Christmas Day, Friday, December 25 from 11 am to 4 pm.  When many people are looking for something special to do, The Jewish Museum offers an eagerly anticipated, fun-filled way to spend the day.  Highlights this year include two ticketed concerts for families starring Oran Etkin at 11:30am and 2:00pm.  Concert tickets are $20 per adult, $15 per child.

All the Jewish Museum’s exhibition galleries will be open December 25, including the special exhibitions Unorthodox; The Power of Pictures: Early Soviet Photography, Early Soviet Film; Becoming Jewish: Warhol’s Liz and Marilyn; Masterpieces and Curiosities: Alfred Steiglitz’s The Steerage; Using Walls, Floors, and Ceilings: Valeska Soares; and The Television Project: Picturing a People.  Also on view are the Museum’s permanent exhibition, Culture and Continuity: The Jewish Journey; and Archaeology Zone: Discovering Treasures from Playgrounds to Palaces, an interactive exhibition for families.

Admission to The Jewish Museum on December 25 is $15 for adults; $12 for senior citizens; $7.50 for students; FREE for visitors 18 and under.

 

DECEMBER 25 AT THE JEWISH MUSEUM

 

FAMILY ACTIVITIES

 

11:30am and 2:00pm –TWO SHOWS!

FAMILY CONCERT: ORAN ETKIN

Oran Etkin will be presenting a new production, "Sing Sing Sing - Benny Goodman in the Kingdom of Swing," incorporating music from Etkin's new CD for adults, What's New? Reimagining Benny Goodman, and playing it in a child-friendly way.  Together with his full five-member band, Etkin takes kids on an adventure through the Kingdom of Swing, meeting King Oliver, Duke Ellington, and a little boy named Benny Goodman who grows up to become the King of Swing.  Just as Benny Goodman was welcomed by the regal masters that came before him, children too are encouraged to express themselves and find their own voices in the Kingdom of Swing through this fun and interactive concert experience.

Oran Etkin is an internationally acclaimed clarinetist and composer who can be heard on major concert stages throughout the world and on a recent Grammy Award-winning anti-bullying compilation. Yet Etkin feels equally at home sitting on the floor surrounded by a gaggle of spellbound children presenting a riveting story about Tito Puente, Mahalia Jackson or his musical travels in Indonesia. Etkin has hand selected and trained a core group of creative educators who have taught Timbaloolooo classes to over 1,000 young children using his method in schools and homes throughout New York City.  Recently, Herbie Hancock saw a video of Etkin teaching children about his music and invited Timbalooloo to perform at UNESCO's International Jazz Day in Paris.

Concert tickets (includes Museum admission): $20 per adult; $15 per child; $17 adult Jewish Museum family level member; $13 child Jewish Museum family level member

 

12:30pm – 4:00pm

DROP-IN ART WORKSHOP: SCULPTURAL TRANSPORTATION

Families can experiment with paper sculpture to invent imaginative forms of magical transportation that might travel to other worlds, drawing inspiration from the exhibition, Masterpieces & Curiosities: Alfred Stieglitz’s The Steerage.

Free with Museum admission

 

EXHIBITION FOR FAMILIES

ARCHAEOLOGY ZONE: DISCOVERING TREASURES FROM PLAYGROUNDS TO PALACES

In Archaeology Zone: Discovering Treasures from Playgrounds to Palaces, an engaging and thoroughly interactive experience, children become archaeologists  as they search for clues about ancient and modern objects.   Visitors discover what happens after archaeologists unearth artifacts and bring them back to their labs for in-depth analysis.

 

EXHIBITIONS ON VIEW DECEMBER 25

 

UNORTHODOX

Unorthodox is a large-scale group exhibition featuring 55 contemporary artists from around the world whose practices mix forms and genres without concern for artistic conventions. Though the artists in Unorthodox come from a wide variety of backgrounds and generations, they are united in their spirit of independence and individuality. Through over 200 works, the exhibition highlights the importance of iconoclasm and art's key role in breaking rules and traditions.

 

THE POWER OF PICTURES: EARLY SOVIET PHOTOGRAPHY, EARLY SOVIET FILM

From early vanguard constructivist works by Alexander Rodchenko and El Lissitzky, to the modernist images of Arkady Shaikhet and Max Penson, Soviet photographers played a pivotal role in the history of modern photography. The Power of Pictures: Early Soviet Photography, Early Soviet Film examines how photography, film, and poster art were harnessed to disseminate Communist ideology, revisiting a moment in history when artists acted as engines of social change and radical political engagement. Covering the period from the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution through the 1930s, the exhibition explores how early modernist photography and film influenced a new Soviet style while energizing and expanding the nature of the media.

 

BECOMING JEWISH: WARHOL'S LIZ AND MARILYN

Becoming Jewish: Warhol’s Liz and Marilyn presents a close look at two of Andy Warhol’s muses, Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe, exploring the Jewish identities of Warhol’s most celebrated subjects. Both Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor converted to Judaism in the 1950s. Warhol was fascinated by their star power and used publicity stills to create his now iconic portraits in the early 1960s. This intimate, single-gallery exhibition features several portraits of these renowned actresses alongside a large selection of photographs, letters, and ephemera, shedding new light on their relationships with Judaism and Warhol’s interest in celebrity culture.

 

MASTERPIECES & CURIOSITIES: ALFRED STIEGLITZ’S THE STEERAGE

Showcasing an acclaimed work by the photographer Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946), Masterpieces & Curiosities: Alfred Stieglitz's The Steerage continues a series of exhibitions focused on individual works in the Jewish Museum's world-renowned collection. This exhibition focuses on Stieglitz's enduring 1907 photogravure of steerage-class passengers aboard the ocean liner Kaiser Wilhelm II. This much-reproduced image has often been regarded as evidence of the poor conditions under which many immigrants arrived in America, but in fact was taken on a voyage from the United States to Europe. As such, it is a document of people who were likely denied entry and citizenship to the United States. Stieglitz's concerns, however, were largely aesthetic rather than social-minded: he was moved more by the picture's formal qualities than its subject matter.

 

THE TELEVISION PROJECT: PICTURING A PEOPLE

With a new, ongoing exhibition series called The Television Project, the Jewish Museum is introducing visitors to a dynamic part of its collection: the National Jewish Archive of Broadcasting (NJAB), the largest and most comprehensive body of broadcast materials on 20th century Jewish culture in the United States. The inaugural exhibition, The Television Project: Picturing a People, features artistically significant program excerpts celebrating the brilliance of writing, directing, performance, and production in American television, as well as related works of art, artifacts, and ephemera. Picturing a People includes clips from The Ed Sullivan Show, Northern Exposure, The Twilight Zone, The Goldbergs, The Simpsons, My Name is Barbra, and Eichmann Trial Coverage (ABC News).

 

USING WALLS, FLOORS, AND CEILINGS: VALESKA SOARES

The Jewish Museum's lobby features an installation by Brazilian-born, New York-based artist Valeska Soares, be on view as part of the ongoing series Using Walls, Floors, and Ceilings, which brings newly commissioned contemporary art to the Jewish Museum’s Skirball Lobby. Titled Time Has No Shadows, the piece features a large, vintage carpet onto which poetic texts are placed, with antique pocket watches hanging down from above. The installation draws on the artist’s enduring fascination with the subjectivity of time and language, and investigates the history of Jewish migration and resettlement.

 

CULTURE AND CONTINUITY: THE JEWISH JOURNEY

This vibrant, two-floor exhibition, comprised of close to 800 works, examines the Jewish experience as it has evolved from antiquity to the present over 4,000 years. Visitors to the 4th floor see the Ancient World galleries, featuring archaeological objects representing Jewish life in Israel and the Mediterranean region from 1200 BCE to 640 CE, and a dazzling installation of selections from the Museum’s renowned collection of Hanukkah lamps.  On the 3rd floor alone close to 400 works - including ceremonial objects, fine arts, photographs and videos - from the 16th century to the present are on view in this dramatic and evocative experience.

About the Jewish Museum

Located on Museum Mile at Fifth Avenue and 92nd Street, the Jewish Museum is one of the world's preeminent institutions devoted to exploring art and Jewish culture from ancient to contemporary, offering intellectually engaging, educational, and provocative exhibitions and programs for people of all ages and backgrounds. The Museum was established in 1904, when Judge Mayer Sulzberger donated 26 ceremonial objects to The Jewish Theological Seminary as the core of a museum collection. Today, the Museum maintains a collection of over 30,000 works of art, artifacts, and broadcast media reflecting global Jewish identity, and presents a diverse schedule of internationally acclaimed temporary exhibitions.  

 

The Jewish Museum is located at 1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street, New York City. Museum hours are Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, 11am to 5:45pm; Thursday, 11am to 8pm; and Friday, 11am to 4pm. Museum admission is $15.00 for adults, $12.00 for senior citizens, $7.50 for students, free for visitors 18 and under and Jewish Museum members. Admission is Pay What You Wish on Thursdays from 5pm to 8pm and free on Saturdays. For information on the Jewish Museum, the public may call 212.423.3200 or visit the website at TheJewishMuseum.org.

Press contacts

Anne Scher, Molly Kurzius, or Alex Wittenberg

The Jewish Museum

212.423.3271 or pressoffice@thejm.org