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American Jewish Museum
Current Exhibitions:
Nests launches the third of three exhibitions in a year-long series at the AJM entitled Love/Fences/Nests: Projects by Ally Reeves, Ben Schachter and Anna Divinsky.AJM's Nests by Anna Divinsky on YouTube For her residency, Anna Divinsky uses hand painted and textured fiber to construct a larger-than-life bird nest that she will install in the AJM. Throughout the residency she will add to the nest installation, making it change and grow. Divinsky utilizes nest imagery as a metaphor to examine the impact immigration plays on people’s lives and its influence on one’s perception of the past and present. She collaborates with people of different age groups from diverse communities, exploring memories of leaving home and building a new life. While leading a number of workshops and collaborations, each geared toward exploration of old rituals and new customs, the artist will direct students to express their personal experiences, or understanding of migration through art making and story telling. Each group utilizes images of nests and birds as recurring visual vocabulary conveyed in innovative ways. A significant part of the exhibit will be the artist’s collaboration with her mother as they embark on a journey of recollecting familiar traditions and art practices. Originally from Kiev, Ukraine, Anna Divinsky immigrated to Pittsburgh with her family in 1993. Divinsky is currently a member of the adjunct faculty in the University of Pittsburgh's Studio Arts Department and Penn State's School of Visual Arts. Ms. Divinsky received a Master of Fine Arts in Printmaking from Penn State University, and a Bachelor of Art in Studio Arts and Art History from the University of Pittsburgh. She is a member of Group A., Associated Artists of Pittsburgh and the Fiberarts Guild of Pittsburgh. PresentationSunday, April 26th 1 pm “Reflections on Pittsburgh’s Resettled Jews from the Former Soviet Union” Presentation by Harriet N. Kruman, author of The Huddled Masses: Jewish History in the Former Soviet Union: First-hand Interviews with the Émigrés For more information contact the AJM Director, Melissa Hiller, at mhiller@jccpgh.org. image credit: Anna Divinsky, Nests (detail), watercolor on silk, 2009 Nests is curated by Leslie Golomb. Funding for this exhibit is provided by The Heinz Endowments' Small Arts Initiative, Dr. and Mrs. Sidney Busis, the Anna L. Caplan and Irene V. Caplan Philanthropic Fund of the United Jewish Federation Foundation, and an anonymous donor. The AJM is supported in part by grants from the Allegheny Regional Asset District, and the Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts, the regional arts funding partnership of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency. Media sponsorship is provided by WDUQ-FM. Nests | Anna Divinsky FencesProject by Ben Schachter January 2 - August 31  Fences launches the
second of three exhibitions in a year-long
series at the AJM entitled Love/Fences/Nests: For his residency, Schachter explores the concept of eruv, a Hebrew term meaning “to mix or join together.” The function of an eruv is to protect Orthodox Jews from transgressing prohibitions against carrying on the Sabbath, which is considered a form of work. An eruv also creates a particular community by conjoining private and public properties into one larger domain, extending the boundary of private space into public space. Using the concept of eruv as a launching point to consider the intermingling of public and private, Schachter invites visitors to explore how community defines their lives and how their experiences are shaped by the community they live in. Together, they experiment with ideas of sacred space in urban areas through various art making exercises. Schachter is coordinating the fabrication of a large communal eruv that evolves from participants using tape on the museum floor to mark their navigation and daily routes. This encourages people to experience their physical movements through space and to reflect on the proximity of their movements to others. He is also leading a series of workshops culminating in a community eruv installed in the museum. The themes of the workshops are influenced by surveys visitors submit that answer questions prepared by Schachter about definitions and meanings of home, community and neighborhood. Ben Schachter is currently Chair and Professor of Fine Arts at Saint Vincent College. He received a master of fine arts from Pratt Institute, a master of science in art history and criticism, and bachelor of art from Wesleyan University. He has published numerous scholarly articles on the subject of post-modern sculpture and lectures regularly on contemporary art. Opening Reception Tuesday, March 3, 7 pm Presentation Rabbi Yisroel Miller of Congregation Poale Zedeck Sunday, March 22nd 1 pm Rabbi Miller leads a discussion surrounding the history, development and significance of eruvim. For more information, visit the
artist’s website at: www.benschachter.com,
or contact the
AJM Director, Melissa Hiller, at mhiller@jccpgh.org. Love/Fences/Nests is curated by
Leslie Golomb and is
supported in part by a grant from The Heinz
Endowments’ Small Arts Initiative and
the Anna L. Caplan and Irene V. Caplan Philanthropic Fund of the United
Jewish
Federation Foundation. The AJM is supported in part by grants from the
Allegheny Regional Asset District, and the Pennsylvania Partners in the
Arts,
the regional arts funding partnership of the Pennsylvania Council on
the Arts,
a state agency. . Media sponsorship is provided by WDUQ-FM. Fences | Ben Schachter Image credit: Ben Schachter, Untitled, thread on paper, 2008 Eruv: Its History and Development
Presentation by Rabbi Yisroel Miller of Congregation Poale Zedeck American Jewish Museum • 5738 Forbes Avenue, Squirrel Hill 1 pm, March 22, 2009 Free Corresponding with Fences, AJM’s current exhibition, Rabbi Miller will discuss the meaning, history, and above all, the spirit symbolized by the eruv as well as that spirit's significance for both Jews and non-Jews. Fittingly, when Rabbi Miller took the pulpit almost 24 years ago, his first public talk was at the dinner inaugurating the Squirrel Hill Eruv. In addition to being the Rabbi of Congregation Poale Zedeck in Squirrel Hill, Rabbi Miller is a member of the executive committee of the Vaad, the Rabbinical Council of Greater Pittsburgh, and is the author of four books of essays on Jewish thought. Falling InArtist Ally Reeves Falling In launches the AJM's new season, Love/Fences/Nests: Projects by Ally Reeves, Ben Schachter and Anna Divinsky. The artists will each participate consecutively in a three-month residency presenting multi-media installations that result from collaborations with community members. They will set up studios in the AJM gallery and complete their installations while working in the museum, which will be open to the public. The informal, experimental ambience of Love/Fences/Nests will intrigue audiences as the artists unsettle notions of how art is customarily displayed in museum spaces, while stretching the boundaries of traditional art. Although each project will be on view independently, the concepts of feeling at home in public and the intersection of public versus private spheres in everyday lives, weave the exhibits together. Reeves' Falling In is a synergistic happening between her and members of the community. During the first phase of the exhibition, participants will share with her their stories about falling in love. Reeves will then transform the narratives into illustrations and Flash animations as the basis for the exhibition. Interpreting participants' personal stories, Reeves will explore how cartoons and animation use both representational and abstract visual language and messages to narrate the human condition. Falling In is a synthesis of low-tech social engagement, new media techniques, performance and installation. Like Falling In, many of Reeves' projects explore the dissolution of boundaries between art and life. Bringing art to people in an outdoor setting, she bicycled through Pittsburgh's parks with the Look-See Tree, a human-powered mini-theater she constructed and attached to a bicycle that was part of the Robot 250 program offered in conjunction with Pittsburgh's 250th anniversary. Combining art with social action, she helped organize The One Mile Meal and The One Mile Garden, projects in collaboration with inner-city and rural communities exploring their relationship with — and understanding of — their local agricultural resources including food production, distribution and sustainability. Reeves is a recent graduate of the MFA program at Carnegie Mellon University, a CMU fellow at the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry and the founder of the Mobile Museum, a project funded by a Seed Award from the Sprout Fund. Love/Fences/Nests is curated by Leslie Golomb. Funding for Falling In is provided by The Heinz Endowments' Small Arts Initiative and the Anna L. Caplan and Irene V. Caplan Philanthropic Fund of the United Jewish Federation Foundation. The AJM is supported in part by grants from the Allegheny Regional Asset District, and the Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts, the regional arts funding partnership of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency. Media sponsorship is provided by WDUQ-FM. Falling In | Ally Reeves Partners:
General support for the American Jewish Museum is provided by the Allegheny Regional Asset District, the Anna L. Caplan & Irene V. Caplan Philanthropic Fund of the United Jewish Federation Foundation, the Jewish Healthcare Foundation and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Media sponsorship is provided by WDUQ 90.5 FM. | ||||||||||||
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