The Jewish Museum will present Masterpieces and Curiosities: The Benguiat Collection from September 6, 2019 through July 2020, featuring over 30 works from the Museum’s H. Ephraim and Mordecai Benguiat Family Collection. This collection of 300 examples of decorative and ceremonial art related to Jewish culture is one of the formative groups of the Jewish Museum’s collection. The exhibition includes objects ranging from a newly restored Torah ark curtain from Istanbul (ca. 1735) to an ornately embroidered silk eighteenth-century pillowcase for the Passover Seder from Bulgaria.

The Jewish Museum presents Personas: George Segal’s Abraham and Isaac, an installation of the life-sized plaster sculpture by American artist George Segal (American, 1924–2000), being shown at the Museum for the first time. The artist adapted the biblical story of Abraham, who was commanded to sacrifice his son Isaac as proof of his obedience and faith in God, as an allegory for the 1970 tragedy at Kent State University in Ohio. During the incident, National Guardsmen, who were ordered to control an escalated anti-Vietnam protest, shot and killed four students, wounding nine others. The exhibition will be on view from July 19, 2019 through October 2020.

The Jewish Museum will present Television and Beyond: Workplace Encounters from July 12, 2019 to March 20, 2020, featuring a selection of television clips exploring interactions in the workplace from classics such as The West Wing and contemporary programs like Atlanta and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. One of seven sections that make up the Jewish Museum’s third floor collection exhibition, Scenes from the Collection, “Television and Beyond” draws inspiration from the Museum’s National Jewish Archive of Broadcasting.

The Jewish Museum will present Rachel Feinstein: Maiden, Mother, Crone, the first survey of the New York-based artist in the United States, from November 1, 2019 through March 22, 2020. Three decades of Feinstein’s work in sculpture, installation, painting, drawing, and video, as well as a newly commissioned wall-relief, a panoramic wallpaper, and the artist’s sculptural maquettes will be brought together to emphasize her fascination with the dualistic nature of cultural expression and everyday life, how fundamental yet oppositional concepts coexist and are ceaselessly negotiated in art and the construction of identity. From Feinstein’s earliest to her most recent works, female figures and protagonists dominate — a distinguishing feature of both the artist’s practice and this exhibition. Feinstein probes how notions of “the feminine” manifest in the popular imagination, an investigation that pulses through and binds together Maiden, Mother, Crone.

The Jewish Museum presents The Gift: Works from the Barnett and Annalee Newman Foundation Collection, the first in a series of exhibitions drawn from the Foundation’s donation of artworks to the Jewish Museum.

The Jewish Museum will present Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything, a contemporary art exhibition devoted to the imagination and legacy of the influential singer/songwriter, man of letters, and global icon from Montreal, Canada. The exhibition will be on view from April 12 through September 8, 2019. Organized by the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MAC), where it debuted, the exhibition is curated by John Zeppetelli, Director and Chief Curator at the MAC, and Victor Shiffman, Co-Curator. Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything will embark on a tour, with the Jewish Museum as its first stop. Following its New York presentation, the exhibition will travel to Copenhagen and San Francisco.

The Jewish Museum will present Edith Halpert and the Rise of American Art, the first exhibition to explore the remarkable career of Edith Halpert (1900-1970), the influential American art dealer and founder of the Downtown Gallery in New York City. A pioneer in the field and the first significant female gallerist in the United States, Halpert propelled American art to the fore at a time when the European avant-garde still enthralled the world. The artists she supported — Stuart Davis, Jacob Lawrence, Georgia O'Keeffe, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Ben Shahn, and Charles Sheeler key among them — became icons of American modernism. Halpert also brought vital attention to overlooked nineteenth-century American artists, such as William Michael Harnett, Edward Hicks, and Raphaelle Peale, as well as little-known and anonymous folk artists. With her revolutionary program at the Downtown Gallery, Halpert inspired generations of Americans to value the art of their own country, in their own time.

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 32 wide-ranging and exciting features and shorts from the iconic to the iconoclastic, many of which 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 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.

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.