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“Albert Einstein” in Conversation with Jens Hoffmann at the Jewish Museum March 3

Sylvester James Gates, Jr,

Release Date: February 23, 2016

“Albert Einstein” in Conversation with Jens Hoffmann at the Jewish Museum March 3

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Renowned Physicist Sylvester James Gates, Jr. to Portray Einstein

New York, NY - The Jewish Museum will present Wish You Were Here: Albert Einstein on Thursday, March 3 at 6:30pm.  Jens Hoffmann, Deputy Director, Exhibitions and Public Programs, will speak with "Albert Einstein" as portrayed by theoretical physicist Sylvester James Gates, Jr, recipient of the National Medal of Science. The evening will offer an interactive component, integrating questions and comments from Twitter and other social media platforms received in advance. Over a period of two years, Hoffmann is interviewing the subjects of Andy Warhol's Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century (1980), interpreted by prominent experts, as if each were coming to the Museum to have a conversation in the present day.

Tickets for the March 3 program are free with Pay-What-You-Wish Admission - RSVP is recommended.  Further program and ticket information is available online at TheJewishMuseum.org/calendar.  The Jewish Museum is located at Fifth Avenue and 92nd Street, Manhattan.

Sylvester James Gates, Jr. is currently a University System Regents Professor, the John S. Toll Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland, and Director of the String and Particle Theory Center; and serves on President Barack Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.  He is the 2015 – 2016 Roth Family Visiting Professor at Dartmouth College. Gates coauthored Superspace, the first comprehensive book on the topic of supersymmetry. Gates has been featured extensively on many NOVA PBS programs on physics, notably “The Elegant Universe” in 2003 and ‘‘The Fabric of the Cosmos’’ in 2011.  In 2012, he was named a University System of Maryland Regents Professor, only the sixth person to be so recognized since 1992.  He is past president of the National Society of Black Physicists, and is a NSBP Fellow, as well as a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  In 2013, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, becoming the first African-American physicist so recognized in its 150-year history; and was awarded the National Medal of Science, the highest honor bestowed by the United States Government upon scientists, engineers, and inventors. Prof. Gates can currently be seen in a national commercial for Turbo Tax.

Highly regarded curator Jens Hoffmann joined the Jewish Museum in a newly created position as Deputy Director, Exhibitions and Public Programs in November 2012. Hoffmann is conceptualizing ideas and strategies for exhibitions, acquisitions, publications, research, and public programs, drawing on his global perspective and deep knowledge of contemporary art and visual culture. Formerly Director of the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art in San Francisco from 2007 to 2012 and Director of Exhibitions and Chief Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London between 2003 and 2007, Hoffmann has organized more than 40 shows internationally since the late 1990s. Hoffmann is known for applying a multi-disciplinary approach to his curatorial practice.

Albert Einstein was a theoretical physicist and the most famous scientist in human history. He developed the general theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics, alongside quantum mechanics. He is perhaps best known in popular culture for his mass/energy equivalence formula E=mc2. In 1921 he received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his “services to theoretical physics”, and in particular his discovery of the photoelectric effect, a pivotal step in the evolution of quantum theory.

This program has been funded by a donation from Lorraine and Martin Beitler who gifted Andy Warhol's Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century to the Jewish Museum in 2006.

Public programs are made possible by endowment support from the William Petschek Family, the Trustees of the Salo W. and Jeannette M. Baron Foundation, Barbara and Benjamin Zucker, the late William W. Hallo, the late Susanne Hallo Kalem, the late Ruth Hallo Landman, the Marshall M. Weinberg Fund, with additional support from Marshall M. Weinberg, the Rita J. and Stanley H. Kaplan Foundation, the Saul and Harriet M. Rothkopf Family Foundation, and Ellen Liman. Additional support is provided by Lorraine and Martin Beitler, the Edmond de Rothschild Foundations, Genesis Philanthropy Group, and through public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

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