Photo By Gail
Deeply enmeshed with his hometown, Alex Israel (b. 1982) explores how popular media and Hollywood are central to the Los Angeles interpretation of the American Dream and the nuclear family. Created specifically for the Jewish Museum, the work reflects on the prominence of portraits of mothers throughout the museum collection.
Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Self Portrait (Mom) By Alex Israel
Photos By Gail
Andi LaVine Arnovitz (b. 1959) transformed her wedding dress, handmade by her grandmother, into the sculpture What We Bring (2023). Thousands of laser-cut women’s names – all 2,611 entries found on the Jewish women’s archive website at the time of making – fill the space that the artist’s body once occupied and spill out to form a teeming train.
Photo By Gail
This intricately pattern painting, Blue Burst Fan (1979), playfully brings together the traditions of decorative and fine arts. Miriam Shapiro (1923 – 2015) cultivated this approach as a key figure of the Pattern and Decoration movement, drawing on myriad textiles ranging from those related to her Russian Jewish heritage to Japanese Kimonos.
Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Miriam Schapiro, Blue Burst Fan
Photo By Gail
Sweeping abstract flows of paint drench torsos and limbs in Illana Savdie’s Cow (2023), sowing perceptual confusion. The effect on the viewer is placelessness and near-disorientation, which the artist uses to disrupt power dynamics. She allows multiple cultural, contexts and inheritances to simultaneously smash into and balance one another, resulting in entirely new formations. Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Cow By Illana Savdie
Photo By Gail
Zoe Buckman (b. 1985) weaves together stories of friendship, trauma, and resilience in multidisciplinary works that explore the undercurrents of women’s lives. The artist uses a range of materials, many related to sewing and textile traditions, historically executed by women in their homes. Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Zoe Buckman, In Full Command of Every Plan You Wrecked