Celebrate Hanukkah on Your Smartphone with Free App From the Jewish Museum

YAREAH MAGAZINE

NEW YORK---The eight day holiday of Hanukkah begins at sundown on Wednesday, November 27th 2013.The Jewish Museum’s Hanukkah app, which debuted in 2012 and has now been expanded, is available for free in the App Store and on Google Play. The app is perfect for those without a menorah, travelers, students, or anyone seeking a flexible, fun way to mark the holiday. Light My Fire: A Hanukkah App allows users to select a contemporary or traditional Hanukkah lamp from the Museum’s renowned collection, choose a unique background to place it on, light the lamp, and then share it with their family and friends. [link]

Read More

RELIGIOUS ART | NEWS OF WEEK

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS 
By TAHLIB

This week's disasters in the Philippines and for Healthcare Reform, are reminders of "Paradise Lost", a 17th century poem where Satan works his way in to bring destruction to the experiment known as the Garden of Eden. John Milton's epic poem is captured on a grand scale at three gallery venues in NYC this week; and that's why "Paradise Lost" (above) by Raqib Shaw at Pace Gallery is my NEWS OF WEEK. Shaw's dazzling and monumental fusion of Hindu man-beasts with the colossal sin & death story of "Genesis" induces feelings of complete awe and despair; but it also glimmers with hope. What do you do when your Paradise feels Lost?

In other religious art news from across the USA, and around the world:

• Buddhist Art of Week: Carlito Dalceggio Fuses Buddha and Mickey Mouse. [More News]
• Christian Art of Week: Broadway's Fantastical "Big Fish" to Close on December 29. [More News]
• Hindu Art of Week: Raqib Shaw Blends Hindu & Christian Mysteries. [More News]
• Islamic Art of Week: Houston Hosts New Calligraphy in Islamic Art Exhibit. [More News]
• Judaic Art of Week: Marc Chagall's Torment Glows at Jewish Museum. [More News]

We are all believers (and some skeptics too), united in the search for human meaning through art from the religious imagination. For us, it's more than Art. It's Religion. We follow artists who dare to explore religious ideas with their creative vision. When you are a believer, you join other believers. Some of us join as one of the "Judges" of the A&O Project who make the final decisions; others as "Collectors" when they donate to the A&O Prize Artist Fund; and most of us join as "Subscribers" to this "free" weekly newsletter; (or follow on: Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, or Soundcloud). All are welcome.

Read More

A&O Meetup in NYC: Marc Chagall, on Nov. 16, 2013

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By Gregory Disney-Britton

"In Exodus" (1952-1966) by Marc Chagall

NEW YORK---Meetup with Greg and Ernest Disney-Britton at "Chagall: Love, War and Exile," at the Jewish Museum of New York this Saturday to share the experience of "Marc Chagall: Love, War, and Exile. It's on view until February 2, 2014, but the Disney-Britton's are only at the Jewish Museum NYC on Saturday.

• Artist:  Marc Chagall (1865-1985) 
• Exhibition: "Marc Chagall: Love, War, and Exile" 
• Periods: Expressionism, Surrealism, Cubism, Fauvism
• Location: Jewish Museum, 1109 5th Ave, New York, NY
• When: Saturday, November 16, 2013, 11:00 a.m.
• How: A&O believers wear blue, or call (317) 919-0570.
• Cost: "Free" for Sabbath Saturday.

An app is available for both iPhone and Android, but that's not the same as being there in person. So, let's Meetup and share the journey on November 16, 2013.

Read More

Art Review: Chagall: Love, War and Exile

JEWISH PRESS
By Richard McBee

The Wedding Candles (1945) by Marc Chagall

NEW YORK---Groundbreaking and courageous. The current exhibition at the Jewish Museum has tackled what is easily the most vexing subject in the career of the most famous of Jewish artists: Marc Chagall (1887–1985) – namely, his persistent, indeed obsessive, use of the crucifixion as a symbol of Jewish suffering and persecution. The exhibition: “Chagall: Love, War and Exile,” under the expert direction of Senior Curator Emerita Susan Tumarkin Goodman, has traced Chagall’s lifelong fascination with the emblem of Christianity, especially in his work created during the Holocaust. [link]

Read More

2013 A&O Prize for Museum Exhibition is “Chagall: Love, War and Exile”

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By TAHLIB

NEW YORK---The board, and the members of Alpha & Omega Project for Contemporary Religious Arts are pleased to announce the 2013 inductee for museum exhibition of the year: "Chagall: Love, War and Exile". This exhibit of Marc Chagall’s paintings at New York’s Jewish Museum includes many images of the Jewish Jesus, a subject of great interest in recent years by museum curators as exemplified by the blockbuster impact of "Rembrandt's Jesus" of 2012. "It's a  relatively new exhibit, that has already helped with the rebuilding of the Jewish-Christian relationship" explains Gregory Disney-Britton, chairman of Alpha Omega Arts. "It increases our capacity to talk about our similarities in ways both groups have chosen to forgot." The Jewish Museum of New York's “Chagall: Love, War, and Exile,” ends in February 2, 2014.

Since 2008, Alpha Omega Arts has been surveying members about the influence of Religious Art in the United States, and awarding the ALPHA OMEGA PRIZE.

"Persecution" (1941) by Marc Chagall

Read More

Chagall’s Jewish Jesus Exhibit at NYC’s Jewish Museum

ALGEMEINER
By Bernard Starr

"The Falling Angel" (1923-47) by Marc Chagall

NEW YORK---Last week I viewed the new exhibit of Marc Chagall’s paintings at New York’s Jewish Museum (Chagall: Love, War and Exile). The show features images of the Jewish Jesus, a subject of great interest to me as the author of the recently published book, Jesus Uncensored: Restoring the Authentic Jew. On entering the first gallery I was surprised to see an orthodox Jew in traditional dress staring at a large painting, The Falling Angel. Set in Chagall’s shtetl, his small Jewish village in Vitebsk, Belarus, this striking work depicts a fiery angel plummeting upside down to Earth, signifying the age of terror for Jews (the Nazi era). The painting also includes an image of Jesus nailed to the cross, a mother embracing a baby, and a frightened rabbi escaping with a Torah scroll. It’s the largest and most impressive painting in the exhibit. [link]

Read More

Chagall’s Dark Side on Display in New York

TABLET MAGAZINE
By Chavie Lieber

Detail of "Fallen Angel" 

NEW YORK---Most people associate the work of Jewish modernist painter Marc Chagall with with dynamic colors illustrating Eastern European Jewry’s vibrant folk culture. But Chagall also had a deeper, darker side to his art, one that reflected the artist’s tormented conscience after witnessing Europe’s anti Semitism, persecution, and poverty in the years leading up to the Holocaust.
 “Chagall: Love, War, and Exile,” a new exhibit at New York’s Jewish Museum open through February 2, 2014, offers 53 pieces of the artist’s work that explore the darker ethos of Chagall. Focusing on the years between 1930 and 1948, during the rise of fascism and the Holocaust, the exhibit provides a visual reckoning with the emotions that plagued the artist. [link]

Read More

Resurrecting Chagall’s Jesus at the Jewish Museum

ART NEWS
By Robin Cembalest

"Persecution" (1941) by Marc Chagall, pastel, gouache and watercolor on paper.

NEW YORK---Marc Chagall is the prototypical Jewish artist, whose green Fiddler on the Roof became an enduring symbol of the precarious, joyful life of Eastern Europe’s Jews. He is less celebrated, though, for his paintings of another iconic figure who obsessed him throughout his career: Jesus. Starting with a line drawing of the Crucifixion he made in 1908 while studying art in St. Petersburg, Chagall depicted Christ on the cross dozens of times. Some Chagall Christs resemble the Eastern Orthodox icons the artist knew from his childhood in Russia. Others don’t look like the Christ in churches anywhere: they wear Jewish prayer shawls in place of a loincloth, and sometimes Tefillin, the leather boxes Jews strap to their foreheads and arms. [link]

The Jewish Museum, New York: “Chagall: Love, War, and Exile,” (Opens September 15) 1109 5th Ave at 92nd St, New York, NY; (212)423-3271, thejewishmuseum.org.

Read More