Recent Acquisitions and Never-Before Exhibited Collection Highlights on View at the Jewish Museum This Fall

New York, NY, September 12, 2024—The Jewish Museum presents Engaging with History: Works from the Collection, a selection of rarely exhibited objects from the Museum’s holdings of over 30,000 works, including new acquisitions from artists such as William Kentridge, Joel Mesler, Michal Rovner, and Carrie Mae Weems, and works by Richard Avedon, Vardi Kahana, and Michal Ronnen Safdie on view for the first time. Open from September 13, 2024, through January 5, 2025, the exhibition features more than 30 paintings, sculpture, photography, ceremonial art, and new media that speak to the Museum’s commitment to collecting and exhibiting works by artists from diverse cultures worldwide that resonate with the global Jewish experience. The exhibition also previews the new narrative that will accompany the complete reinstallation of the Museum’s collections that will open in the fall of 2025, following the transforming renewal of the Museum’s third and fourth Floors, which is currently underway.  

Engaging with History ighlights significant works in the Jewish Museum’s collection that reflect Jewish culture across time and around the world. Arranged thematically, the exhibition explores key ideas of identity, tradition, and memory across the global diaspora, speaking to the Museum’s mission both to feature the cultural history of the global Jewish community and also to explore our shared humanity with all other world cultures. Works on view are presented in three chapters, offering audiences the opportunity to engage deeply with each of these themes, as follows:

Past and Present in Dialogue

“Past and Present in Dialogue” features historical Jewish ceremonial objects in dialogue with contemporary art, reflecting the ways in which tradition and ritual survive and evolve over time. Together, these works reflect the diverse global Jewish experience across time and cultures, while also demonstrating global interconnectedness. Included here is a moving display of nine Hanukkah lamps from the Museum’s collection of more than 1,000 examples dating from the 17th century to the 20th century from countries worldwide including Austria, Germany, Italy, Morocco, and the United States.

Historical objects are presented alongside a selection of contemporary works that speak to the Museum’s ongoing commitment to platforming new generations of artists and demonstrate the resilience of Jewish values and traditions. Works including recent acquisitions Rabbi for Rashid, 2023, by Joel Mesler, and a large scale photograph by Carrie Mae Weems, The Jewish Ghetto – Ancient Rome, 2006, establish a vibrant, and at times defiant and haunting dialogue with the past, as well as illuminating the present.  

Memory

The theme of “Memory” also permeates the Museum’s collections, particularly works acquired following the Nazi persecution of European Jewry, when the Museum served as a central resource for preserving objects from decimated communities. This display focuses on two powerful works that create a moving dialogue between them: a charm bracelet assembled  by Greta Perlman, a survivor of Theresienstadt and Auschwitz, while she was interned in the Theresiendtadt  ghetto-concentration camp from 1941 to late 1944; and Monument (Odessa), 1989-2003, a large installation by French artist Christian Boltanski that memorializes children murdered by the Nazi regime. Perlman’s bracelet, steeped in personal memories, underscores the quiet efforts prisoners made to preserve their individuality and humanity. In Monument (Odessa), Boltanski addresses themes of loss and death through the prism of memory. The works in this installation are on view through Monday, November 25, 2024.

Facing the Boltanski work is a new acquisition, Dark Light, 2024, from the Pragim series, by Michal Rovner. The two-channel digital video installation explores the power and fragility of the wild poppy, a symbol of remembrance, hope, and resilience, and questions the coexistence of beauty and violence in nature.

Portraiture

“Portraiture” examines questions of identity and belonging through a display of portraits from the collection—whether by Jewish artists or of Jewish subjects. Works across several mediums, including photography, painting, and textiles, offer a multifaceted view of Jewish identities focusing on the dichotomies of religion and secularity, otherness and self-assertion. Highlights include a recently acquired tapestry by William Kentridge, titled Horse Series (Promised Land), 2008, fabricated in 2015; a 2019 portrait of Audrey Siegl, an Indigenous Jewish community activist, by Kali Spitzer, a queer, femme, indigenous, Jewish photographer, on view for the first time since its acquisition last year; Double Red Yentl, Split (My Elvis), a 1993 work by Deborah Kass referencing the film Yentl starring Barbra Streisand; a photograph by Richard Avedon of his father, Jacob Israel Avedon, 1969-73, printed in 1980; and Claire, 2004, a photograph by Dawoud Bey of a girl of Ojibwe (Chippewa) and Russian Jewish descent.

Engaging with History: Works from the Collection is organized by Claudia Nahson, Morris & Eva Feld Senior Curator, with Kristina Parsons, Leon Levy Assistant Curator, in consultation with Darsie Alexander, Senior Deputy Director & Susan & Elihu Rose Chief Curator, The Jewish Museum.  The installation is designed by Daniel Kershaw, with graphic design by Yeliz Secerli and lighting by Clint Ross Coller.

The digital guide for Engaging with History: Works from the Collection is supported by Bloomberg Connects.

Reinstallation of the Jewish Museum’s Collection Galleries

A full reinstallation of the Museum’s collection galleries will open to the public in the fall of 2025, as part of a major reinvention of the Museum’s third and fourth floors, transforming half of its public space. Works will be displayed through a new narrative, telling stories about the vibrancy and complexity of Jewish culture over more than 4,000 years, while also examining Jewish culture within a broader historical context that resonates with universal values.

This transformative project also includes the renewal of the Museum’s fourth floor as a center for teaching and learning in gallery settings, reflecting a new commitment to education as a centerpiece of the Museum’s programming for all of its audiences.