Metropolitan Museum Presents Spectacular Loan Exhibition of Art from Korea’s Silla Kingdom

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS 

Bodhisattva in pensive pose, probably Maitreya (Korean: Mireuk). Korea, Silla kingdom, late 6th–early 7th century. Gilt bronze; H. 36 7/8 in. (93.5 cm). National Museum of Korea, National Treasure 83

NEW YORK---The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present "Silla: Korea’s Golden Kingdom," an exhibition dedicated to the magnificent art created between ca. 400-800, the seminal era of this intriguing kingdom, beginning November 4. This is the first exhibition in the West to focus exclusively on the art of Silla, tracing its rise from a small polity to a powerful and cosmopolitan kingdom both on the peninsula and within the broader framework of Eurasia, to which Silla was connected via trade, and at times political and diplomatic exchanges. Drawn from the holdings of the National Museums of Korea in Seoul and Gyeongju.

Metropolitan Museum of Art: Silla: Korea’s Golden Kingdom,"(November 4, 2013 – February 23, 2014); 1000 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY; (212) 535-7710; metmuseum.org

Read More

The Met's Spectacular Display of Mishneh Torah: Maimonides Would Have Approved

WALL STREET JOURNAL
By Tom L. Freudenheim

More than a work of scholarly interest, it's a rich visual feast. The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, for Michael and Judy Steinhardt, by Ardon Bar-Hama

NEW YORK---One page of a spectacular illustrated volume of the Mishneh Torah, a Jewish-law codex, is now on view in a modest special exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The book—created in Northern Italy in the 1450s and jointly acquired this year by the Met and the Israel Museum, where it had been on loan—is far more than a work of Judaic scholarly interest. It's a rich visual feast, though we get only a delightful first course in the Met display. But even that single serving deserves serious attention. [link]

Read More

Saint Louis Art Museum Urges Visitors to Take a Religious Leap for it's 20th Anniversary

SAINT LOUIS BEACON
By Nancy Fowler

"Paranirvana" (1999-2012) by Lewis deSoto, installed at MOCRA in 2013.

MISSOURI---An invitation to cross thresholds into unfamiliar territory is the theme as Saint Louis University’s Museum of Contemporary Religious Art (MOCRA) marks two decades of existence. “Thresholds: MOCRA at 20” is a two-part exhibit reprising segments of previous shows dating back to the museum’s 1993 debut. Part One, open through Dec. 15, revisits MOCRA’s first 10 years. Works examining all religions and spiritual quests have always had a place at MOCRA. Founding director Terry Dempsey wants to continue and expand that diversity. “We’re trying to build a bridge among various faith traditions,” Dempsey said. [link]

Museum Of Contemporary Religious Art: "Thresholds: MOCRA at 20" (Part One ends Dec. 15); Saint Louis University, Saint Loius, MO; 221 N. Grand Blvd; (314) 977-7170; slu.edu/mocra

Read More

Reaching for Utopia: CJM Exhibit Studies Kibbutz Movement, Struggle to Make the World a Better Place

JEWISH WEEKLY
By Renee Ghert-Zand

“In the Kibbutz,” a poster issued by the Jewish National Fund in Jerusalem

CALIFORNIA---If the state of the world is getting you down, head over to the Contemporary Jewish Museum for a glimpse of utopia. The new exhibit “Work in Progress: Considering Utopia” explores the concept of utopia from Jewish and contemporary perspectives. It features installations by two New York–based Israeli artists — sculptor Ohad Meromi, and photographer and video artist Oded Hirsch — and a mural by local artist Elisheva Biernoff. [link]

Contemporary Jewish Museum: “Work in Progress: Considering Utopia,” (Ends Jan. 20, 2014), 726 Mission St., San Francisco, CA.; 15.655.7800; thecjm.org

Read More

Marisa Martin Wonders if Marc Chagall was a Christian Believer

WND
By Marisa Martin

"Exodus" by Marc Chagall

NEW YORK---The most famed Jewish artist in history created more than 100 startling crucifixion scenes, but didn’t anyone think to ask him, “Why?” Many writers and art historians claim that Chagall was a secular artist, and to a point that seems true. He was not a particularly observant Jew, but claiming his interests in the Bible were motivated to protect his heritage alone doesn’t match his words, much less his work. Quoted in Jackie Wullschlager’s biography, Chagall claims to have been “captivated by the Bible” since early childhood: “It has always seemed to me and still seems today the greatest source of poetry of all time.” Did Marc Chagall struggle with the possibility that Christ is the Jewish Messiah? [link]

Read More

Tate Art Museum Exhibition is Reminder of Christian Taliban Actions of the Tudors

CATHOLIC HERALD
By Leanda De Lisle

Portrait of King Henry VIII who led the destruction of Catholic Religious Art

UNITED KINGDOM---The slashed and broken medieval images displayed in the new "Art Under Attack" exhibition at the Tate are a reminder of what we lost in the hundred and fifty years after the Reformation. Even now there is denial about the scale of the erasing of our medieval past. The Tate estimates we lost 90% of our religious art. It was probably even more than that. The destruction was on a scale that far outstrips the modern efforts of Islamist extremists. And it was not only art we lost, but also books and music. In churches rood screens, tombs with their prayers for the dead, and stain glass windows, were smashed. Books too were burned on a vast scale. Organs were torn out of churches. [link]

Read More

"Sacred" Describes a "Remarkable" New Show at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts

INLINE

MINNEAPOLIS---There’s a remarkable new show at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts that deploys works from the museum’s collection, plus a few borrowed items, in a way that may surprise museumgoers. Sacred juxtaposes deeply traditional items of religious art—a holy water stoup, priests’ robes, icons, Qur’an pages—with edgy contemporary works, like a grey felt suit created by conceptual-art icon Joseph Beuys, a stunning faux-suit of armor by Korean artist Do-Ho Suh, and images by that ambivalent Catholic, Andy Warhol. “Sacred” is the second in a series of innovative installations featuring imaginative combinations of contemporary and historic artworks throughout the museum’s Target Wing.

Minneapolis Institute of Arts: "Sacred" (Ends July 13, 2014); 2400 Third Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN; (888) MIA ARTS (642-2787) (Toll Free); artsmia.org

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

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Hosts Exhibition of Pages of Quran

AHLUL BAYT NEWS AGENCY

MASSACHUSETTS---“Sacred Pages: Conversations about the Quran” offers visitors a way to broaden their understanding of the Quran, Islam, and Islamic art. Drawing upon the MFA’s rich collection of loose pages from Qurans dating from medieval to modern times, this exhibition showcases 25 examples, illustrating their significance as masterful and sacred works of art and exploring how these objects are understood by individual followers of Islam living in the Boston area today. The exhibition started on July 13, 2013 at E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation Gallery (Gallery 178) and will remain open until February 23, 2014. [link]

Read More

Rare, Recently Acquired Illuminated Manuscript of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah on View at Metropolitan Museum

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS

The Mishneh Torah: Book of Judges (Sefer Shoftim). Written by Moses Maimonides (1135-1204). Painted by the Master of the Barbo Missal (active mid-1400s) North Italian, ca. 1457. Tempera and gold leaf on parchment. Photo © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, for Michael and Judy Steinhardt, by Ardon Bar- Hama.

NEW YORK---One of the finest illuminated Hebrew manuscripts ever created went on display at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on October 1. The rare 15th-century handwritten copy of the Mishneh Torah by the renowned medieval scholar Moses Maimonides will be shown in New York for the first time since it was acquired jointly by the Metropolitan Museum and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in April. Previously in the collection of Judy and Michael Steinhardt, New York, the manuscript will be exhibited at the two museums on a rotating basis.

Read More

The Seventh Day Exhibit at the Hebrew Union College-JIR Museum

JEWISH ART SALON

Image courtesy of the Jewish Art Salon

NEW YORK---The exhibition addresses the ever changing and life enhancing merit of the celebration of the Sabbath. The three Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Islam and Christianity each adhere to the teachings of the Hebrew Bible. The act of 'creation' is our beginning. Genesis reveals and Exodus repeats “remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy”. Each generation, building on the shoulders of the past, fine-tunes and/or embellishes the patterns of previous traditions. Over 50 leading international artists, many of them members of the Jewish Art Salon, have created new works including ritual objects in silver, glass, wood, ceramic and textiles. [link] (October 3, 2013 – June 27, 2014)

Read More

Russian Religious Art Demystified in North Carolina

NEWS OBSERVER

“Windows into Heaven: Russian Icons from the Lilly and Francis Robicsek Collection of Religious Art” at The N.C. Museum of History features “Vladimir Mother of God.”

NORTH CAROLINA---“Windows into Heaven” features 36 Russian icons from the 18th and 19th centuries that exemplify the visual richness of the Russian Orthodox Church during the Romanov period. These items are from the collection of Lilly and Francis Robicsek of Charlotte. “The Tsars’ Cabinet” includes more than 230 objects displaying artistic craftsmanship during the period of the Romanov tsars. The Romanov Dynasty – also known as the House of Romanov – began 400 years ago, governing Russia from 1613 until 1917. Rulers of the period included Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and Nicholas II. [link]

North Carolina Museum of History: “Windows into Heaven” (October 4, 2013–March 5, 2014); 5 East Edenton Street, Raleigh, North Carolina; (919) 807-7900; ncdcr.gov/ncmoh

Read More

‘The Odyssey and Art of John H. Less’ Exhibition Comes to Museum in Newark

THE RECORD | NEW JERSEY.COM

'Escape' by former township resident John H. Less will be shown in an exhibition at The Jewish Museum of New Jersey

NEW JERSEY---The Jewish Museum of New Jersey presents, "Berlin — Shanghai — Newark: The Odyssey and Art of John H. Less," an exhibition of paintings that primarily focuses on the artist's life as a German Holocaust refugee in Shanghai from 1940 to 1947. Less, who passed away in 2011, lived in Millburn for 50 years. In the exhibition, he portrays his uprooting from a culture in which he and his family believed themselves to be at home and secure to their abrupt transformation into complete outsiders. The exhibition begins with a reception on Sunday, Oct. 6, from 1 to 5 p.m., and will be open on Sundays through Sunday, Dec. 15. [link]

The Jewish Museum of New Jersey: "Berlin — Shanghai — Newark: The Odyssey and Art of John H. Less," (Oct. 5-Dec. 15); Congregation Ahavas Sholom, 145 Broadway, Newark, NJ;  (973) 698-8489; jewishmuseumnj.org. 

Read More

Pakistani Art by Imran Qureshi Takes on NYC in MOMA’s Roof Garden Commission

INDO AMERICAN NEWS
By Aseem Kulkarni

The painting installation set against Central Park and the Manhattan skyline
provides a stark contrast and sets a morose but hopeful atmosphere.

NEW YORK: Pakistan, one of the largest Islamic republics in the world, is continually characterized by extreme violence and poverty, religious fanaticism, conflicts with neighboring countries, and no faith in government rule. However, Pakistani artist Imran Qureshi has found a visual outlet to provide hope out of the ever present bloodshed and turmoil. Even though the most recent Boston Marathon Massacre has evoked many feelings similar to the effect of September 11, to the South Asian community, whether you are from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc., violence and terrorism are sadly, common occurences. The exhibit is on view on the rooftop garden of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (weather permitting) until November 3. [link]

Qureshi takes a “paint dripping” approach similar to Jackson Pollock to
depict an emotional response to the blood spattering in the bombings throughout Lahore.

Read More

Marc Chagall's Jewish Jesus on PBS

PBS | RELIGION & ETHICS WEEKLY

"The Crucified" (1944) by Marc Chagall; pencil, gouache, and watercolor on paper

NEW YORK---This modern artist’s body of work was based on the Hebrew Bible and the Jewish Jesus, often depicted with tallit and phylacteries. In the crucified Christ he saw the personification of Jewish suffering, pain, and sadness. View a selection of Chagall’s paintings from the exhibition “Chagall: Love, War, and Exile” at the Jewish Museum. [view]

Read More

LDS Museum to Display European Paintings in 360-Degree Panoramas Reflecting Original Altar Settings

DESERET NEWS
By Katie Harmer

"Agony in the Garden" by Frans Schwartz, an oil on canvas painting.

UTAH---Participants at BYU's Campus Education Week in August received a sneak peek of the upcoming "Sacred Gifts" exhibit at the university's Museum of Art. The two-hour presentation — "Sacred Gifts: The Religious Art of Carl Bloch, Heinrich Hofmann and Frans Schwartz" — introduced the audience to the artists behind the paintings that will be on display Nov. 15 through May 10, 2014. However, Schwartz may not be as well-known to the LDS community. Schwartz's "Agony in the Garden" will be the first painting participants will see as they enter the gallery. Like the 2010 exhibit, "Sacred Gifts" will not display the paintings in the typical museum frame. Rather, makeshift altars will be built around each painting to reflect the their permanent homes in chapels across Europe. [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

Art Review: "Iran Modern" at Asia Society Museum

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
By Melik Kaylan

"Untitled" (1977) by Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmain

NEW YORK---When a museum in the Western world focuses on a problematic foreign country, it usually wants to temper the antipathy between the two cultures by going beyond stereotypes, illustrating the other culture's "vibrancy," emphasizing its rich past, pointing up our shared history. All of which applies to "Iran Modern," an exhibition at the Asia Society of more than 100 modernist works by 26 influential Iranian artists from the 1950s to the time of the Islamic Revolution in 1979. On exiting, one realized what an emotional grip the show had exerted. Those objects, eloquent of a dawn interrupted, could finally tell their collective, poignant story to the wider world that had inspired them. [link]

Read More

Italian Treasure, Stolen, Recovered, and on Display at Museum of Fine Arts Boston

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By TAHLIB

"Senigallia Madonna" (1470s) by Piero della Francesca

MASSACHUSETTS---The Museum of Fine Arts Boston presents another visiting masterpiece as part of the 2013 Year of Italian Culture. Piero della Francesca’s 15th-century tempera and oil on panel, the "Senigallia Madonna" (1470s) is normally on view in the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, in the Ducal Palace of Urbino. This exceptional work by one of the masters of the Renaissance was one of three stolen paintings recovered in 1975 by Italy’s famed Carabinieri Cultural Heritage Protection Command (CCHPC), specializing in protection of Italy’s cultural heritage on a national and international level. It will however be on display in Boston through January 2014.

Museum of Fine Arts Boston: "Visiting Masterpiece: Piero della Francesca, Senigallia Madonna," (Ends January 6, 2014), Avenue of the Arts, 465 Huntington Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts; (617) 267-9300, mfa.org

Read More

Kansas City Art Museum Offers an Engaging Look at Islamic Art Through the Ages

KANSAS CITY STAR
By Alice Thorson

Shirin Neshat, Iranian, b. 1957. Stories of Martydom (detail), 1994.
Black and white RC print and ink. Photo by permission of the artist and lender.

TOPEKA---Although Americans’ relationship with Islam is often fraught with fear and suspicion, a small but highly engaging exhibit at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art offers multiple points of positive contact, from the sheer beauty of historical works to the abhorrence of violence expressed in contemporary pieces. Called “Echoes: Islamic Art and Contemporary Artists,” the exhibit brings the culture of Islam to life with stellar objects, striking pairings, moving images and music. [link] 

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: “Echoes: Islamic Art and Contemporary Artists” (Ends April 27), 4525 Oak St., Kansas City, MO; (816) 751-1278, nelson-atkins.org

Read More