NEWS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Anne Hromadka

Jewish Artists Initiative (JAI)
(469) 323-4096
http://www.jaisocal.org

The Jewish Artists Initiative Southern California

and Hebrew Union College- Jewish Institute of Religion/ LA present:

Memory and Transformation

Donna Stein, Guest Curator

Details regarding Memory and Transformation:

Where: Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of
Religion/LA | 3077 University Avenue | Los
Angeles | CA | 90007
Dates: September 30, 2010 -December 31, 2010
Featuring: The Jewish Artists Initiative (JAI)
Artist’s Reception: Wednesday, November 17,
6:30-8:00 pm (FREE)

• 7:00 pm Remarks by Donna Stein, Guest Curator

• RSVP: 213.765.2106 or dsauerwald@huc.edu

*Parking lot entrance on Hoover Street between 30th and 32nd Streets

LOS ANGELES (September- December, 2010)

The Jewish Artists Initiative (JAI) and Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion/Los
Angeles (HUC-JIR/LA) are pleased to present “Memory and Transformation”. JAI members
were encouraged to submit artwork for inclusion and thirty-three artists were selected to
participate in this exhibition. The artist’s reception on November 17, 2010 is free and open to
the public.

JAI’s exhibition programming aligns closely with our mission and vision as an organization
committed to fostering visual art by Jewish artists and promoting dialogue about Jewish
identity and related issues among members of the arts community and
the community at large. JAI is the recipient of a Cutting Edge Grant
from the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles. The
Foundation’s generous support insures that JAI can offer diverse
exhibitions and programming opportunities such as the Memory and
Transformation exhibition.

Memory as defined by guest curator, Donna Stein is, “a person’s ability

to store, retain and recall information. The genius of memory is that it is
choosy, chancy and temperamental. Memories are not carved in stone,
but tend to become erased, changed or, as time goes by, transformed
by the incorporation of new experiences and perceptions. Memory is
what makes our lives. It is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even
our action. ‘Without it,’ Luis Buñuel observed, ‘we are nothing.”

Each JAI artist approached the theme of “Memory and Transformation” Bill Aron & Victor Raphael, Tallit
from their own perspective. They value the dynamic process of cultural Steps, Old City, Jerusalem, Gold
change often connecting their ideas to religious or political ones, linking and Metal Leaf on Black and White
Photograph. 2009.
phenomena previously thought unconnected. No matter the historical or
material reference, these artists have taken an optimistic stance,
suggesting hope and redemption.

Donna Stein is the Director of Development for the Gayle Garner Roski School of Fine Arts
at the University of Southern California, a curator and essayist. Stein worked as an art
historian and curator for more than 30 years, moving between Los Angeles and New York
City, Europe and Asia. In 1999, she returned to Los Angeles, where she was born and
raised.

She has curated exhibitions in all media, for United States institutions such as The Museum
of Modern Art in New York, The National Gallery of Art and The Corcoran Gallery in
Washington, D.C., The Toledo Museum of Art, The Center for the Fine Arts in Miami, The
Municipal Art Gallery in Los Angeles and The Pasadena Museum of California Art as well as
institutions throughout Asia and Europe. She has received numerous awards and published
over 100 articles and more than 40 books related to her curatorial interests.

See the attached addendum for detailed information about the artists and the hosting
institution. Attached photograph may be reprinted.

About the Jewish Artists Initiative (JAI)

The goal of the Jewish Artist Initiative has been to establish a forum for artists whose work is informed by their
identity and to create avenues of support for their work in relation to the Jewish cultural sphere. Our group
believes in the transformational power of art and its ability to transcend barriers of language and culture. We
have benefited from the emergence of Los Angeles as a world-class center for the arts and from the unique
confluence of cultures that enrich the fabric of life in our region. Currently, the JAI operates under the 501(c) 3
umbrella of the USC Roski School of Fine Arts. For more information, please visit http://www.jaisocal.org.

About The Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles

Established in 1954, the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles is the largest manager of charitable assets and the
leader in planned giving solutions for Greater Los Angeles Jewish philanthropists. The Foundation currently manages assets
of $706 million (as of 12/31/09) and ranks among the 12 largest Los Angeles foundations. In 2009, The Foundation and its
more than 1,000 donors distributed $62 million in grants to hundreds of organizations with programs that span the range of
philanthropic giving. For more information, please visit www.jewishfoundationla.org.
Artists Addendum
Memory and Transformation
September 30- December 31, 2009
Artist’s Reception: Wednesday, November 17, 6:30- 8pm
RSVP: 213.765.2106 or dsauerwald@huc.edu

Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Los Angeles (HUC-JIR/LA)

and the Jewish Artists Initiative (JAI) are partnering to bring to our community a
group exhibition of artwork by thirty-three Los Angeles artists. These artists’ subject
matter and chosen media vary greatly and represent well both the cultural continuity
and vibrant variety of West coast contemporary Judaism.

Memory and Transformation will include work by Melinda Smith Altshuler, Bill
Aron, Madeleine Avirov, Pat Berger, Elizabeth Bloom, Terry Braunstein, Jean
Edelstein, Sam Erenberg, Benny Ferdman, Bruria Finkel, Max Finkelstein, Simone
Gad, Shelley Gazin, Baila Goldenthal, Carol Goldmark, Bonita Helmer, Gilah Yelin
Hirsch, Kathryn Jacobi, Marcie Kaufman, Karen Koblitz, Nancy Goodman Lawrence,
Eileen Levinson, Laurel Paley, Victor Raphael, Yoella Razili, Elena Mary Siff, Doni
Silver Simons, Ruth C. Snyder, Debra Sokolow, Erella Teitler, Ruth Weisberg,
Eugene Yelchin and Harriet Zeitlin. The works of art created by these artists
represents the exhibition’s theme from their own perspective. For example, Ruth
Weisberg’s Alight (2006) is from a series of images that narrate clandestine
journeys to Palestine in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Weisberg
conceives of life as a journey and in this color monotype investigates the 20th
century history of the Jews in relation to issues of survival and new beginnings.

The work of Madeleine Avirov is driven by a desire to participate in

what the Greek call kairos, “the appointed time,” when the eternal
breaks in upon chronos, chronological time. Old Jew with Bird
(2009) is a portrait of Avirov’s father who died in 2004 at 89. As she
describes it, “I was driven by the hope that by inserting my father
into an invented interior, whose every wall, window, garment,
outsized crow would be self-evidently numinous by virtue of how I
had described them, that I could force open a door into the details of
the past, and that the details would yield a new story. I wanted to
change the past by wrenching meaning from its unconscious
crowded darkness.” Nancy Goodman Lawrence’s The Goodman
Kids #2 (2007) is a double portrait of the artist and her younger
brother when they were children. She completed the collage a year
after he died.

Simone Gad immigrated to Boyle Heights with her Holocaust Madeleine Avirov, Old Jew With Bird, 2009
oil on canvas 48” x 24”
 survivor Polish-born parents in 1951 from Brussels, Belgium, where she was born.
Her work focuses on the built environment in homage to old Los Angeles and is a
clarion call for preservation of the city’s rich architectural heritage beginning with the
Victorian, Craftsmen and Art Deco structures. Her painting of Front Gate at Night—
Chinatown Plaza (2009-10) evokes memories of her early childhood when she often
visited Chinatown and its exotic architecture.

The simple vessels of Karen Koblitz’s Tattoo Series emulate ancient

burial objects found in Azerbaijan, the exotic crossroads of the
Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian Sea. Koblitz was inspired by
archaeologist’s drawings that map the surface symbols found on a
container’s exterior. Dotted sgrafitto patterns on the surface of her pots
are repeated on paper and hang on the wall behind each vessel in the
group. The images included on Red Creek Valley (2009) reproduce her
niece’s tattoos. All the symbols recall significant memories and at the
same time serve as body ornamentation.

Karen Koblitz, "Tattoo Sam Erenberg’s enigmatic watercolor Mementos (Idaho

Series- Red Creek 1892)
Valley," 2009, ceramic
and graphite on paper, (2008) commemorates the first miner’s strike in Coeur d’Alene,
36" H x 33.5" W x 10" D Idaho. In response, the mine owners infiltrated the union in an
effort to break it up because of the miner’s demands for a living
wage.

The minimalist work of Yoella Razili is based on the recognition and

transformation of physical material. She examines the characteristic qualities
and inconsistencies of different substances. While working and reworking the
surface of A Square With Holes (2005), her efforts call to mind memory as well as
fresh beginnings.
Sam Erenberg, Mementos
(Idaho1892), 2008, watercolor,
No matter the historical or material reference, each artist included in Memory 16”x12”
and Transformation has taken an optimistic stance, suggesting hope and
redemption.

About Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion

Founded in 1875, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion is the nation’s oldest institution of higher Jewish
education and the academic, spiritual, and professional development center of Reform Judaism. HUC-JIR educates
men and women for service to American and world Jewry as rabbis, cantors, educators, and communal service
professionals, and offers graduate and post-graduate degree programs for scholars of all faiths. With campuses in
Cincinnati, Los Angeles, New York, and Jerusalem, HUC-JIR’s scholarly resources comprise renowned library and
museum collections, the American Jewish Archives, biblical archaeology excavations, research centers and institutes,
and academic publications. http://www.huc.edu