Revolution of the Eye: Modern Art and the Birth of American Television, the first exhibition to explore how avant-garde art influenced the look and content of network television in its formative years, is on view at the Jewish Museum from May 1, 2015 through September 27, 2015. From the late 1940s to the mid-1970s, the pioneers of American television – many of them young, Jewish, and aesthetically adventurous – adopted modernism as a source of inspiration. Revolution of the Eye looks at how the dynamic new medium of television, in its risk-taking and aesthetic experimentation, paralleled and embraced cutting-edge art and design.

Compared by critics to Kafka and Joyce, H. G. Adler is quickly gaining recognition as a key figure in 20th-century fiction. Adler is author of The Wall, a fictional account of his life as a survivor of the Holocaust; and Theresienstadt 1941–1945: The Face of a Coerced Community, the first scholarly monograph to describe the particulars of a single concentration camp, to be published in a new translation in October 2015. The Jewish Museum will present H.G. Adler: A Survivor's Dual Reverie, an author talk featuring Daniel Mendelsohn, Peter Filkins, Ruth Franklin, and H.G. Adler’s son Jeremy Adler, on Thursday, May 7 at 7pm. Edwin Frank will serve as moderator for the discussion. This program is co-presented with the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature, May 4-10, 2015.

Two-time Grammy nominee Elizabeth Mitchell and You Are My Flower will perform a folk rock concert for families on Sunday, May 3 at 11:30am at The Jewish Museum.  Mitchell, a singer and guitarist known for reinterpreting classic folk songs for children and their parents, will be joined by her thirteen-year-old daughter Storey, her husband Daniel Little, and special guests Simi Stone and The M Shanghai Stringband. Concert attendees can enjoy cherished folk classics such as You Are My Sunshine and Peace Like a River, as well as soulful originals from Mitchell’s most recent album, Turn Turn Turn, her collaboration with Dan Zanes.

Bang on a Can: Revolution of the Eye, a concert featuring New York’s electric chamber ensemble, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, will take place at the Jewish Museum on Thursday, May 14 at 7:30pm. Tied to the Museum exhibition Revolution of the Eye: Modern Art and the Birth of American Television—the first exhibition to explore how avant-garde art influenced and shaped the look and content of network television in its formative years, from the late 1940s to the mid-1970s—the performance will highlight the relationship between music and image. This program is the fourth concert of the Jewish Museum and Bang on a Can’s partnership to produce a series of dynamic musical performances at the Museum inspired by the Jewish Museum’s diverse slate of exhibitions.

Beginning May 1, two walls of the Jewish Museum’s lobby will be filled with over 30 new portraits by the London-based painter Chantal Joffe. This body of work explores Jewish women of the twentieth century, focusing on those who made major contributions to art, literature, philosophy, and politics - including Diane Arbus, Nancy Spero, Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Susan Sontag, and Hannah Arendt. Portraits of these women and others will be hung salon-style across two walls of the lobby. Using Walls, Floors, and Ceilings: Chantal Joffe will be on view from May 1 through October 27, 2015.

The Jewish Museum's 2015 slate of lectures, discussions, and events continues in April with a conversation between acclaimed artist Laurie Simmons and author Lynne Tillman. Other highlights include an evening focusing on the work of video artist Keren Cytter; an author talk with Peter Grose; and a discussion of issues in contemporary photography featuring Barbara Kasten and Chris Wiley.

Singer/guitarist Brady Rymer will perform a concert for families at the Jewish Museum on Sunday, April 19 at 11:30am. Just in time for Earth Day, Rymer and the Little Band That Could will celebrate spring with catchy rhythms and soulful rock in a show featuring songs from their Grammy-nominated 2014 album, Just Say Hi! such as “Ice Cream Girl” and “Gettin' My Ya Ya's Out.”

The Jewish Museum presents a series of recent, large-scale photographs by artist Laurie Simmons, on view from March 13 to August 16, 2015. The six new works in Laurie Simmons: How We See draw upon the “Doll Girls” community, people who alter themselves to look like Barbie, baby dolls, and Japanese anime characters through make-up, dress, and even cosmetic surgery. Evoking the tradition of the high-school portrait — when teenagers present their idealized selves to the camera — Simmons photographed fashion models seated in front of a curtain, cropped from the shoulders down. Prismatic lighting and small, surprising details in the models’ clothing give these otherwise banal images a psychedelic effect, which is exaggerated by each girl’s preternaturally large, sparkling eyes. They stare out at the viewer with an uncanny, alien gaze, created by lavishly painting eyes onto the models’ closed eyelids—a technique used by the “Doll Girls” themselves.

The Jewish Museum's 2015 slate of lectures, discussions, and events continues in March with Wish You Were Here, a discussion between Jens Hoffmann, The Jewish Museum's Deputy Director, Exhibitions and Public Programs, and Sarah Bernhardt, as presented by curator Carol Ockman.  Other highlights include artist Nicole Eisenman discussing her painting, Seder, on view at the Museum; lectures by Jewish Museum curator Susan Braunstein, scholar Deborah Dash Moore, and journalist Lucette Lagnado; and a screening of the documentary, Advanced Style.

Artists throughout history have commonly employed repetition— artworks in series, multiples, and copies— for reasons ranging from the commercial to the subversive, while the value placed on duplicates in comparison with “original” works has varied widely. On view at the Jewish Museum from March 13 to August 16, 2015, Repetition and Difference explores these concepts through over 350 historic objects from the collection and recent works by contemporary artists, demonstrating how subtle disruptions in form, color, or design can reveal intriguing information about their creation and meaning. Large groups of seemingly identical objects, including silver coins struck in ancient Lebanon and 19th- to 20th-century Iranian marriage contracts, are juxtaposed with recent works by emerging and established international artists  Walead Beshty, Sarah Crowner, Abraham Cruzvillegas, N. Dash, John Houck, Koo Jeong  A, Kris Martin, Amalia Pica, and Hank Willis Thomas.

Showcasing a painting commissioned by the Jewish Museum in 2010, Masterpieces & Curiosities: Nicole Eisenman’s Seder continues a series of exhibitions focused on individual works in the Museum’s world-renowned collection. On view from March 13 to August 9, 2015, this exhibition presents Eisenman’s painting Seder with over 25 seldom seen yet important portraits by such artists as Jules Pascin, Theresa Bernstein, Raphael and Moses Soyer, and Edouard Vuillard that help illuminate her painterly approach and chosen subject.  The diverse breadth of techniques and styles used in these works will demonstrate how Eisenman looks to the past as inspiration for her unique narratives of 21st century life. Also included is a selection of Passover Seder plates from the Museum’s collection, ranging from the 18th to 21st centuries.

Claudia Gould, Helen Goldsmith Menschel Director of the Jewish Museum, announced today that the Museum’s highly anticipated annual gala will be a festive masked ball at Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan on Wednesday evening, February 25, 2015. The evening of celebration and dancing will honor artist/photographer/filmmaker Laurie Simmons for her outstanding artistic achievements and in anticipation of her upcoming exhibition at the Museum, and Eugene and Emily Grant will be receiving the Mayer Sulzberger Award for their lifelong commitment to art, culture and education in the context of the Jewish experience.