Kansas Art Gallery's Exhibit Inspired by Judaica Collection

KANSAS CITY JEWISH CHRONICLE
By Barbara Bayer

Photo by Kevin Blayney: Michael Klein (left) discusses the upcoming ‘Between Thee & Me’ exhibit at Epsten Gallery with the gallery’s curator, Marcus Cain. Klein is holding a 1950s Bible with beautiful sterling silver bookbinding.

KANSAS - Michael Klein began collecting Judaica quite by accident. Now his Judaica is the inspiration for a new exhibit, Between Thee & Me — Artists Respond to the Judaica Collection of Michael Klein and the Van Ackeren Collection of Religious Art at Rockhurst University. This project features two independent, invitational group exhibitions, the first of which will be presented at the Epsten Gallery at Village Shalom July 24 through Sept. 4. It opens with a reception at 2 p.m. Sunday, July 24, with an artists’ discussion at 3 p.m. A second group exhibition will be presented at The Greenlease Gallery at Rockhurst University Aug. 26 through Oct. 1. [link]

Read More

Long-Delayed Show of Buddhist Art From Pakistan Is to Open in NYC

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By JANE PERLEZ

A piece in Asia Society's show of Gandhara art

NEW YORK - A long-planned exhibition of nearly 70 pieces of Buddhist art from Pakistan will finally open at Asia Society on Aug. 9, after political intrigue in Pakistan and a breakdown in American-Pakistani relations delayed it for six months. Anti-Americanism, which soared in the aftermath of the killing of Osama bin Laden, helped put the show in jeopardy, said Melissa Chiu, the director of Asia Society Museum. The death of a major advocate, Richard C. Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s senior diplomat for Pakistan and a former chairman of Asia Society, also complicated matters, she said, as did problems with getting American visas for the Pakistanis chosen to accompany the objects to New York. "The Buddhist Heritage of Pakistan: Art of Gandhara" runs from August 9 thru October 30. [link]

Read More

Philly Museum Present's Rembrandt's Faces of Jesus

THE INQUIRER
By Stephan Salisbury

The Supper at Emmaus (1648) by Rembrandt on loan from Louvre

PENNSYLVANIA - On an otherwise unremarkable day about a decade ago, Lloyd DeWitt found himself poking around in the storage vaults of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Among the paintings packed away in the darkness was a small head of Christ painted on wood and attributed by a stream of scholars to Rembrandt's workshop, but not to the great 17th-century master himself. The panel is now one of seven similar heads of Christ, drawn from collections worldwide, that are the core of Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus, which opens at the Art Museum on Wednesday for a run through Oct. 30. The show - 22 paintings, 17 drawings, and nine prints - is the first in Philadelphia to feature Rembrandt paintings, and the first Rembrandt exhibition of any kind here since 1932, when the Art Museum hosted a show of prints. Also in this exhibition: the Louvre's newly cleaned The Supper at Emmaus (1648) and The Hundred Guilder Print (c. 1649), so called because of its immense value. [link]

Read More

NYC Mayor Defends Atheist Attack on 9/11 Cross

GOTHAMIST
By Christopher Robbins

NEW YORK - Mayor Bloomberg defended the group of atheists that are suing to prevent the September 11 Cross from being installed in the 9/11 memorial and museum at World Trade Center site. The lawsuit, filed by the American Atheists, drew jeers because it alleged that the cross injured atheists by giving them "dyspepsia, symptoms of depression, headaches, anxiety, and mental pain and anguish." [link]

Read More

The Generous Gifts of Islamic Art at California Museum

PALISADIAN-POST
By Elizabeth Marcellino

"Sindukht Comes to Sam Bearing Gifts," a folio from the Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp, Iran, Tabriz (1525-35)

CALIFORNIA - Ramadan begins next week [today]. The ninth month of the Islamic calendar is a time for spiritual reflection and fasting, and the fast will be broken with a celebration that includes gifts for children, those in need and loved ones. It is just one of several occasions for gifts in a culture that promotes giving as an essential practice. The Gifts of the Sultan, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, uses that custom of generosity as a thematic frame for a notable exhibition of Islamic art. Organizing a show around the notion of gifts was an entirely new idea, as gift-giving has been an area of more interest to anthropologists than art historians, until recently. But Komaroff hoped that such a universally understood concept would emphasize our shared humanity. Gifts of the Sultan: The Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts will run through September 5 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. [link]

Read More

Collector Gives Tibetan Art Collection to Smithsonian

FOX NEWS

WASHINGTON, DC - A New York art collector has announced the donation of Tibetan art, including a shrine room, to the Smithsonian's Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. Alice Kandell announced the donation of her collection at a ceremony with the Dalai Lama at the Smithsonian on Saturday. She built the collection over 40 years. The shrine room contains hundreds of Tibetan Buddhist bronzes, paintings and objects created between the 12th and 19th centuries on the Tibetan Plateau and in China and Mongolia. There are also textiles and painted chests dating from the 19th and early 20th centuries. The shrine room is on view at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City. PHOTO: Smithsonian Affiliates.[link]

Read More

Hindu Deities Coming to New Orleans Museum of Art

AOA NEWSLOUISIANA - On Friday, August 5, the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) will premiere The Elegant Image: Hindu, Buddhist and Jain Bronzes from the Indian Subcontinent in the Siddharth K. Bhansali Collection. The exhibition includes over 100 bronze sculptures of Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain deities, presenting a rich diversity of figures of the three major religions of ancient India. Hinduism is the oldest and third largest religion in the world with about one billion adherents, and American museums have recently begun to embrace Hindu art with a new vitality as exemplified in exciting exhibitions in Cleveland, New York City, Nashville, etc; as well as a controversey in Idaho. "The Elegant Image" will run from Aug. 5 to Oct. 23. [link]

Read More

Cleveland Museum of Art Displaying Hindu Dieties

THE CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER
By Steven LittOHIO - Every art season has a sleeper — an exhibition that sounds minor but that turns out to be absolutely terrific. This summer’s example comes courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art. It’s a show of Kalighat paintings, a little-known genre of 19th-century Indian street art, which flourished for a half-century in Calcutta (now Kolkata), then the capital of the British Raj in the East Indian state of West Bengal. The paintings were produced originally by anonymous artists between the 1830s and 1880s and sold as souvenirs in bazaars around the Kalighat Temple, devoted to the goddess Kali, in south Kolkata. The Kalighat exhibition runs through September 18. [link]

Read More

Indianapolis Museum of Art Offers Peek at Life with African Sacred Rulers

INDIANAPOLIS STAR
By Jay HarveyINDIANA - The largest and most inclusive display from the ancient spiritual home of Africa's Yoruba people ever to tour the West [is now on view] at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. "Dynasty and Divinity: Ife Art in Ancient Nigeria" has just three other stops on its U.S. tour -- Houston, Richmond, Va., and in a still-to-open New York City museum. That museum, the Museum of African Art, organized the display of 104 items with the Fundacion Botin of Santander, Spain, collaborating with the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments. Descendants of the creator-god became the sacred rulers ("Ooni") of Ife,a monarchical line that continues to this day.[link]

Read More

Kehinde Wiley's "Saint Francis of Paola" at the Toledo Museum of Art

AOA NEWS
By TahlibOHIO - Meeting Kehinde Wiley is like meeting a spiritual force of nature, and the same is experienced each time I come face-to-face with one of his paintings. "I consider my work Opera on a static stage," said Wiley. His art, with underpinnings of hip-hop and rap music embedded into the equally forceful traditions of the Baroque has had an enormous impact on the contemporary art world. His work reinterprets Old Master paintings, formats, poses, and titles, and combines them with portraits of contemporary African-American men, and other men of color across the globe. In this work (above), "St. Francis of Paola" in the collection of the Toledo Museum of Art, he demonstrates this intersection of traditional art history and contemporary culture. As Wiley explains, his art is about bringing "different traditions … together and gelling [them] into forms we could have never imagined."

Read More

Israeli Govt. Gives Go Ahead to Build Tolerance Museum atop Muslim Burial Ground

ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTIONAL
By Associated Press
ISRAEL - The Israeli government has approved a Jewish group's plan to build a museum over a centuries-old Muslim graveyard in Jerusalem, an official confirmed Wednesday, in the final go-ahead for a project delayed for years by Muslim opposition. The irony of a Jewish-sponsored Museum of Tolerance going up in part on a Muslim cemetery has made the project a target for critics since it was announced in 2003.[link]

Read More

Review: "Thumbs Up" for Bible Exhibit at Oklahoma City Museum of Art

EXAMINER OKLAHOMA
By Briana Joyce
OKLAHOMA - This season's special exhibit at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art is truly incredible. Art aficionados, bibliophiles, young and old, and members of all faiths will enjoy the Passages exhibit celebrating the 400th Anniversary of the King James Bible. Passages explores the Bible's history from its origins in Jewish scripture to its important English translation under King James. The Passages exhibit will be in Oklahoma City until October 16, but don't miss your last chance to see it in the USA—its next destination is Vatican City! [link]

Read More

African Religious Art at the Indianapolis Museum of Art

AOA NEWS
By TahlibINDIANA - "Dynasty & Divinity: Ife Art in Ancient Nigeria" opens at the Indianapolis Museum of Art tonight and runs thru January 16. Previously shown at the British Museum , the exhibition was described by critics as “flabbergasting”, “once in a lifetime” and containing “artworks that rank with the Terracotta Army, the Parthenon or the mask of Tutankhamun as treasures of the human spirit”. Artists of the Kingdom of Ife (in what is today southwestern Nigeria), created sculptures that were among the most beautiful and sophisticated works of art being produced anywhere in the world at the time. Dating from the 12th to 15th centuries A,D., the arts of Ife are noteworthy for their visual power, iconic complexity and variability of form. The exhibition is organized by the Museum for African Art in New York, in collaboration with the Fundación Marcelino Botín of Santander, Spain, and the Nigerian National Commission on Museums and Monuments.

Read More

Amy Blakemore at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art

Plasters Marys, 1992 by Amy Blakemore (American, b 1958)
Gelatin silver photograph

Read More

Museum of Biblical Art's July Celebrations of King James Bible

AOA NEWS

NEW YORK - The Museum of Biblical Art and the American Bible Society are commemorating the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible by presenting a series of free events in July. Since its first publication in 1611, the King James Bible has become one of the most significant books in history. It was designed to be the common translation that united Bible readers everywhere. The KJB has become an enormous influence, not only on the English language, but also on churches and cultures throughout the world. All programs, unless otherwise noted, will take place at 1865 Broadway at 61st Street, in New York City. [More]

Read More

$100 Million Facelift Transforms Israel Museum

THE JEWISH CHRONICLE
By Dina Kraft

Tim Hursley, courtesy of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem

ISRAEL - A tawny sandstone sculpture of Nimrod, an ancient Hebrew warrior and hunter figure with a razor-straight back and proud stare, sits at the intersection between modern Israeli art and native art from Africa and the South Pacific at the recently renovated Israel Museum. The 1939 sculpture by Israeli artist Yitzhak Danzinger is an example of the kind of cultural and aesthetic contextual links that James Synder, the Israel Museum director, hopes to evoke in the reopening of the museum following a $100 million facelift he calls a "renewal." [link]

Read More

Lecture on Ritual in Himalyan Art at Nevada Museum of Art

AOA NEWS

CHINA - Read Global presents a lecture entitled "Encountering the Sacred: Ritual in Himalayan Art" at the Nevada Museum of Art on June 29th. Featuring Dr. Dina Bangdela, Associate Professor of Art History at Virginia Commonwealth University, she will explore ways in which art serves as a religious tool while at the same time remaining an intrinsic part of the underlying ritual. Dr. Bangdel is a specialist in South Asian, Indian and Himalayan art. [link]

Read More

Local Artisans Recreate Islamic Lamps for Metropolitan Museum of Art

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
By Katie Nelson

Kevin Kutch works glass from his Red Hook studio warehouse.
His art glass company has created 16 lanterns for Metropolitan Museum of Art.

NEW YORK - A Red Hook art glass company has created 16 mosque lanterns for the new Islamic wing of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The series is a modern take on the traditional ceramic mosque lamps made in the Middle East, adding a local touch to the museum's 15 new Islamic-themed galleries.The couple started on the lantern project more than four years ago when they took measurements from two Islamic Mamluk Dynasty-era lamps that date back to sometime between 1250 and 1517, according to Sheila Canby, head of the Met's Islamic Art Department. The final product is about 14 inches tall, maybe 10 inches wide and weighs about 6 pounds. [link]

Read More

Imprisoning Religious Art in the Museum

BUSTED HALO
By Kevin Kirby

GREAT WORKS of art are so often stuffed into museums not easily accessible and therefore lose a part of the humanity that was their inspiration. The saddest version of this is surely when devotional images of any religion are pilfered from houses of worship and placed in sterile mediocrity. I get this awful feeling whenever I walk by a work of art with a religious focus. From bountiful Buddhas to carved Crucifixes and small Shinto tokens, it is a sad fact that so many religious items are housed in our museums. In the next century we must make a concerted effort to move religious art out of museums and back into places of worship, where they were intended to be experienced in the first place.[link]

Read More

A Jewish Marriage Made at the Museum

JEWISH DAILY FORWARD
By Jenna Weissman Joselit

Source: Jewish Theological Society

NEW YORK - Now that June is upon us, it’s high season for weddings — and reason enough for The Jewish Museum in New York to mount an exhibition of ketubot, Jewish marriage contracts. “The Art of Matrimony” showcases 30 different versions of the age-old document. Elsewhere within the museum world, the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia has gone a step further in its commitment to the ketubah by operating a Ketubah Gallery where happy couples can have this “monumental milestone marker,” as one museum official would have it, made to order. [link]

Read More