The Jewish Museum is presenting Accumulations: Hanukkah Lamps featuring over 80 Hanukkah lamps representing four continents and six centuries of artistic production.  The eight-night holiday takes place this year from sundown on December 2 through sundown on December 10, 2018. One of seven sections that make up the Jewish Museum’s third floor collection exhibition, Scenes from the Collection, “Accumulations” spotlights an aspect of museum collecting: the accumulation of multiple examples of a given work or similar works. The Jewish Museum’s collection of Hanukkah lamps is the largest in the world at nearly 1,050 pieces, and was amassed over the 114 years of the Museum’s existence.  The Hanukkah lamps on view reflect a wide variety of stylistic influences and decorative techniques

The Jewish Museum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center will present the 28th annual New York Jewish Film Festival (NYJFF), January 9-22, 2019. Among the oldest and most influential Jewish film festivals worldwide, the NYJFF each year presents the finest documentary, narrative, and short films from around the world that explore the diverse Jewish experience. Featuring new work by fresh voices in international cinema as well as restored classics, the festival’s 2019 lineup includes over 30 wide-ranging and exciting features and shorts from the iconic to the iconoclastic, of which many will be screening in their world, U.S., and New York premieres. Screenings are held at the Walter Reade Theater, 165 West 65th Street, NYC.

The Jewish Museum will present Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything, a contemporary art exhibition inspired by the themes of Leonard Cohen’s life and work. This is the first exhibition entirely devoted to the imagination and legacy of the influential singer/songwriter, man of letters, and global icon from Montréal, Canada.

In conjunction with the exhibition Martha Rosler: Irrespective, the Jewish Museum will present a series of public programs, featuring a discussion between artist Martha Rosler and Darsie Alexander, Susan and Elihu Rose Chief Curator, The Jewish Museum, on November 8, and a concert by the avant-garde string quartet ETHEL on February 28.

The Jewish Museum will present Martha Rosler: Irrespective, a survey exhibition of the work of the influential artist Martha Rosler, from November 2, 2018, through March 3, 2019. Rosler is considered one of the strongest and most resolute artistic voices of her generation; she is also a prolific writer, lecturer, professor, and advocate for social justice. She skillfully employs diverse materials to address pressing matters of her time, including war, gender roles, gentrification, inequality, and labor. From her feminist photomontages of the 1960s and 1970s to her large-scale installations, Rosler’s vital work reflects an enduring and passionate vision.

The Jewish Museum presents Untitled (Flora), a new site-specific installation by sculptor Eva LeWitt on view in the Museum’s lobby from November 2, 2018 through March 19, 2019. Eva LeWitt’s primarily abstract work addresses the sculptural concerns of weight and volume and plays with the tension between industrial and hand fabrication. Using soft and pliable, semitransparent and semiabsorptive materials, including acetate, latex, and sponge, she subtly renders variations in tone.  Alongside these formal investigations, LeWitt explores the expressive properties of light, both in the works themselves and in the spaces they inhabit.

The Jewish Museum and The New York Public Library (NYPL) have jointly acquired the complete series of 57 gouaches on paper created by designer, author, illustrator, and artist Maira Kalman for the 2005 edition of The Elements of Style. 

Bang on a Can and the Jewish Museum’s 2018-2019 concert season, pairing innovative music with the Museum’s exhibitions and showcasing leading female performers and composers, continues on Thursday, November 15, 2018 at 7:30 pm. Mystical Soviet-era Russian composer Galina Ustvolskaya meets American minimalist master composer Philip Glass in a brilliant contrast of works for solo piano, featuring the New York premiere of Glass’ Passacaglia, performed by the remarkable Jenny Lin. Set alongside the Jewish Museum’s exhibition Chagall, Lissitzky, Malevich: The Russian Avant-Garde in Vitebsk, 1918-1922, this concert features a collision of recently re-discovered music from early 20th century Russia with some of the most acclaimed piano works by contemporary legend Philip Glass. Jenny Lin is a New York-based pianist by way of Taiwan and Austria. Celebrated for her performances of classical and contemporary music, she has joined Philip Glass over the last five years in his ongoing world tour of his complete Piano Etudes.

Highlights include fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi in conversation with author Caroline Weber on October 11; an author talk with artist Maira Kalman and her son Alex Kalman on November 7; and appearances by Marc Chagall’s granddaughter Bella Meyer on December 6 and noted architect Daniel Libeskind on December 13 in conjunction with the exhibition Chagall, Lissitzky, Malevich: The Russian Avant-Garde in Vitebsk, 1918-1922.

The Jewish Museum will offer museum visitors a rare opportunity to explore a little-known chapter in the history of modernity and the Russian avant-garde. On view from September 14, 2018 through January 6, 2019, Chagall, Lissitzky, Malevich: The Russian Avant-Garde in Vitebsk, 1918-1922 will focus on the People’s Art School (1918-1922), founded by Marc Chagall in his native city of Vitebsk (in present day Belarus).  The exhibition explores the extraordinary years following the Russian October Revolution of 1917, during which Vitebsk – a small city with a significant Jewish population – became an incubator of avant-garde art. Through nearly 160 works and documents loaned by museums in Vitebsk and Minsk and major American and European collections, the exhibition will present the artistic output of three iconic figures – Marc Chagall, El Lissitzky and Kazimir Malevich – as well as works by students and teachers of the Vitebsk school, such as Lazar Khidekel, Nikolai Suetin, Ilya Chashnik, David Yakerson, Vera Ermolaeva, and Yuri (Yehuda) Pen, among others. Chagall, Lissitzky, Malevich: The Russian Avant-Garde in Vitebsk, 1918-1922 is organized by the Centre Pompidou, Paris, in collaboration with the Jewish Museum, New York.

In conjunction with the exhibition Chagall, Lissitzky, Malevich: The Russian Avant-Garde in Vitebsk, 1918-1922, the Jewish Museum will present a series of public and family programs featuring speakers such as Marc Chagall’s granddaughter Bella Meyer on December 6 and noted architect Daniel Libeskind on December 13, and a family day on October 21.

The Jewish Museum kicks off its fall 2018 season of family programs in September with concerts, family days, art workshops, and more. The Museum welcomes three new acts to its slate of family concerts, with Sonia De Los Sontos, The Moonlights, and Nefesh Mountain  joining long-time favorites The FunkeyMonkeys and Joanie Leeds and the Nightlights. Other programs on the schedule are the annual Hanukkah Family Day on December 2; drop-in art workshops every Sunday and on selected holiday weekdays; and family art activities. See below for details about each program.