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]

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Rembrandt's Jewish Jesus in Philadelphia Museum of Art

SACRAMENTO BEE
By Joann Lovinglio

Young Jew as Christ by Rembrandt

PENNSYLANIA - A new exhibit coming to the Philadelphia Museum of Art takes a fresh look at religious paintings, drawings and prints by one of history's most revered artists. "Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus" debuts Wednesday in Philadelphia. "This was very likely the first time in the history of Christian art that Jesus appeared to be Jewish," curator Lloyd De Witt said. "Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus" will make its final stop at the Detroit Institute of Arts from Nov. 20 until Feb. 12. [link]

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Christian Art Gallery Selected to Assist in Pope's Art Exhibit

AOA NEWS

PENNSYLVANIA - Philadelphia's White Stone Gallery was selected to assist in the multi-denominational exhibit, Art & Faith, for Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Madrid, Spain. Contemporary artists from around the world will be featured in this historic exhibit for World Youth Day. For the first time in Europe, contemporary artists from different countries are gathered together to exhibit art influenced by Christian faith. The exhibit is scheduled for August 9-26, 2011 at the Fundación Pons headquarters. White Stone Gallery, a leading gallery in contemporary Christian art is writing an introduction for the exhibit catalog as well as providing a selection of artwork for the show. Photo: Reaching by Ruth Naomi Floyd. [link]

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Ossawa Tanner Retrospective Premieres in Pennsylvania

"Resurrection of Lazarus" (1896) by Henry Ossawa Tanner

ALPHA OMEGA ARTSPENNSYLVANIA - A major exhibition of artwork by African-American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner will premiere at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), on view from January 27 through April 15, 2012. Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit will contain over 100 works, including 12 paintings that have never been shown in a Tanner retrospective and the only two known sculptures that Tanner completed. The exhibition also includes Tanner's famed Resurrection of Lazarus (above), from the collection of the Musée d'Orsay, a career-making canvas that earned Tanner his first international praise when it was exhibited in 1897 and which has never crossed the Atlantic. Organized by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where the artist studied from 1879 to 1885, [it] will tour to the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. www.pafa.org/tanner/ [link]

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Andy Warhol Museum's "The Word of God(ESS): Chitra Ganesh

AOA NEWS

"Tightrope" (Detail), 2011 by Chita Ganesh; courtesy of the Warhol Museum

PENNSYLVANIA - The Andy Warhol Museum's third in The Word of God series, introduces the Hindu religion in "The Word of God(ESS): Chitra Ganesh." The series which examines major world religions and their texts through contemporary art has already this year examined Islam and Judaism. Chitra Ganesh’s artwork combines different visual languages, canons and cultures, including comic books, Bollywood cinema and iconic goddesses from Hindu folklore. Ganesh creates cross-cultural narratives about sexuality and power that sit in comic book frames where interior thoughts are revealed in bubbles or – as in her wall installations – hover in psychedelic space with three-dimensional elements that protrude into contemporary reality. "The Word of God(ESS): Chitra Ganesh" runs from July 9 thru September 4, 2011. [www.warhol.org]

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Marc Chagall's Jewish Lazarus

THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE | ICONIA
By Menachem Weker

Marc Chagall. Resurrection of Lazarus (1910).
Courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

PENNSYLVANIA - Marc Chagall (1887-1985) included two peculiar elements in his painting of the risen Lazarus. According to Michael Taylor, Muriel and Philip Berman curator of modern art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where Chagall’s Lazarus is on exhibit in Paris Through the Window: Marc Chagall and His Circle, Chagall’s decision to render Lazarus in a Jewish context was absolutely intentional. “Chagall reminds the viewer that the tale concerns a Jew,” writes Taylor, who recently accepted the position of director of Dartmouth’s Hood Museum of Art, in his catalog essay. “A key transitional work, Resurrection of Lazarus anticipates the haunting series of Jewish cemetery paintings that the artist would begin later that decade.” [link]

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Art Review: Artist's Work Removes Man's Interpretation from Religious Text

PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE
By Mary Thomas

Ms. Aylon's "Self-Portrait: The Unmentionable."

PENNSYLVANIA - After considerable thought, Ms. Aylon came to the realization that it was not God's voice that was exclusionary, misogynistic, militaristic -- but man's interpretation over time of that voice. She saved the religion. But she challenged the patriarchy that she believes sullies it. The work that both carried out and represents that save -- simultaneously action and metaphor -- is at The Andy Warhol Museum through Sunday [6/26], part of a 2011 exhibition series in which contemporary artists explore texts of the world's great religions. "The Word of God: Helene Aylon's The Liberation of G-d and The Unmentionable," like the artist herself, has soft insistence fueled by a fire within. But the exhibition's more significant achievement is to reacquaint visitors with Ms. Aylon and is best understood within the context of her life's work. [link]

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Sculptor Gary Spinosa's 'Archaic Rivival' on display at Erie Art Museum

THE ERIE TIMES-NEWS
By Karen Rene Merkle

"Archaic Revival: Works by Gary Spinosa" includes this untitled work by the artist. 

PENNSYLVANIA - If you didn't know better, you would think the 100-plus pieces jammed (not uncomfortably) into the Erie Art Museum's Ronald E. Holstein Gallery were relics of other times and places. That's precisely the effect "Archaic Revival" was designed to achieve. Like Egyptian tomb art, ritual bronzes of the Shang people of ancient China and even the treasures of the Vatican, sculptor Gary Spinosa integrates religion, faith and philosophy into his enigmatic yet approachable ceramic-stained porcelains. The difference is that Spinosa doesn't limit himself to one belief system. The show is up June 6 through Aug. 28, 2011. [link]

Twitter Accounts:

• Erie Art Museum [@ErieArtMuseum].
• The Erie Times-News [@GoErie]

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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]

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Farah Osuli's Paintings on Display at Islamic Art Exhibit in Pittsburgh

TEHRAN TIMES
By Arts News Desk

"My Bird, Your Cage" by Farah Osuli

PENNSYLVANIA - “My Bird, Your Cage” from the collection of Iranian artist Farah Osuli is on display at an exhibition of Contemporary Islamic Art in America now underway at the Michael Berger Gallery in Pittsburgh. Entitled “Dis(Locating)Culture, Contemporary Islamic Art in America”, the exhibition features works by four other Iranian artists, Negar Ahkami, Shiva Ahmadi, Shoja Azari, and Amir Fallah, as well as one American and three Arab artists, she added. According to Osuli, the organizers aimed to make use of art to fight against the Western media, which has long tried to distort the image of Islam. As the organizers believe, the exhibition showcases some of the finest Islamic artists and aims to challenge notions of cultural and religious homogeneity. [link]

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Pittsburgh Artist, Dino Guarino Supplies Art for Uptown Church

PITTSBURG POST-GAZETTE
By Kaitlyn Riely

Replica of the Infant Jesus of Praque by Dino Guarino

PITTSBURGH - A few years before the Rev. Carmen D'Amico arrived at Epiphany Catholic Church in 2004, the Uptown parish received a replica of an Infant Jesus of Prague statue, one of only a handful of replicas made. "We wanted to make a fitting shrine for the statue," said Father D'Amico, the administrator for Epiphany, St. Mary of Mercy Church, Downtown, and St. Benedict the Moor, Hill District. The parish wanted to transform the former baptistry in the front of the church into a room for adoration for the Prague statue. Late last year, Father D'Amico accelerated the process and called on his longtime friend, Upper St. Clair artist Dino Guarino, to design a shrine that depicted the sacraments of baptism, communion and penance. On Sunday -- appropriately the feast of the Infant Jesus of Prague -- the parish held a Mass to dedicate the shrine and celebrate the completion of the first of three sets of oil paintings. "It's quite beautiful," Father D'Amico said. [link]

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