Inspired by her daughter's diagnosis of bipolar disorder and her desire to
connect with people and their everyday experiences, Brodsky uses photographic
imagery to bring audiences into the routines of people affected by mental
illness. Brodsky is a documentary photographer, author and professor of
photography at Carnegie Mellon University. Her book, Knowing Stephanie,
was recognized as one of the American Association of University Presses'
outstanding illustrated books of 2004. Street, Ms. Brodsky's book with
poet Jim Daniels, won the 2007 Tillie Olsen Award given by the Working Class
Studies Association. Ms. Brodsky's work is exhibited regionally and nationally.
The AJM is supported in part by grants from the Allegheny Regional Asset
District, BNY Mellon Audience Development Fund and the Pennsylvania Partners in
the Arts. Media sponsorship is provided by WDUQ-FM.
For more information about hosting the exhibit, contact Melissa Hiller, AJM
Director, at (412) 521-8011, ext. 105, or via email at
mhiller@jccpgh.org.
The reception includes a poetry reading by Zilka Joseph, Odissi performance by Sreyashi Dey and artist talk by Charlee Brodsky.
Photographer Charlee Brodsky initiates collaborations with writers so that her pictures and their text share equal ground.
Typifying Bordsky's customary collaborative style, India: A Light Within is an exhibit of Brodsky's photographs with creative nonfiction and poetry by poet Zilka Joseph and writer Neema Bipin Avashia. The exhibit is divided into four thematic sections: Kolkata street scenes; photographs of Sreyashi Dey's hands; a photographic triptych; and digital time-based pieces.
Dey, founder of SPARSH Foundation and Odissi dancer, invited Brodsky to India in 2007 to make photographs for the foundation she created. SPARSH funds heart operations for Indian children and behavioral health care for women. Influenced by the experience, Brodsky created a body of work from the photographs she took. She invited writers Avashia and Joseph to collaborate with her to create works conveying a multi-layered experience of India. For the past year, the creative team has been combining photographic imagery, creative nonfiction and poetry to express the depth and complexity of Indian life.
Publicity
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteThe exhibition is made possible by The Pittsburgh Foundation.
Past Exhibitions:
Tempted, Misled, Slaughtered. The Short Life of Hitler Youth Paul B.
November 2-December 31, 2009
OPENING RECEPTION
Monday, November 2, 2009, 7 pm
Levinson Hall, JCC Kaufmann Building
5738 Forbes Avenue
Guest Speaker: William Meinecke, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
Presented in collaboration with The Holocaust Center of the United Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh and The American Jewish Museum of the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh, and is part of Light/The Holocaust & Humanity Project.
This exhibit narrates the story of the nazification of the youth of Germany focusing on the life and death of Paul Bayer. It shows how the Nazi state, through its control of the education system and through a propaganda effort, seduced the youth of Germany into active participation in its destructive mission.
Dessert Reception to follow; dietary laws observed. Please RSVP to (412) 421-1500
Click Photographs to Enlarge
This exhibit supported by: The Holocaust Center of the United Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh Exhibition Endowment Fund
American Jewish Museum of the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh
Pennsylvania Humanities Council, the Federal-State partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities
Exhibit on display in the Fine Perlow Weis Gallery
Body of Work: Philip Mendlow
October 12-December 18, 2009
Click here to watch Body of Work: Philip Mendlow opening exhibit
The first comprehensive look at his extensive career that spanned nearly five decades, Body of Work surveys
Pittsburgh artist and teacher Philip Mendlow. Drawn from his personal collection, the work in the exhibit represents
the breadth of Mendlow's creative output. Revealing the connections and differences in his two and three-dimensional
forms the exhibit comprises approximately 50 paintings, works on paper and sculptures.
American Jewish Museum/JCC of Greater Pittsburgh
5738 Darlington Road - Berger Gallery
Events are free and open to the public
Please call (412) 521-8011, ext. 105, for more information.
Click Photographs to Enlarge
Beginning as a painter, his work throughout the 1950s and 60s depicts landscapes, nudes, self portraits, still-lifes, and interior scenes. Deeply influenced as a Carnegie Institute of Technology student by notable Abstract Expressionist painter and professor, Balcomb Greene, Mendlow's style hinted toward a strong affinity for abstraction, although his work remained representational. A deft painter, he captured ordinary, idiosyncratic moments and utilized vibrant colors and gestural brush strokes to evoke a sense of mood among his solitary figures.
Turning to three-dimensional work by the late 1960s, Mendlow spent the greater part of his career creating biomorphic, geometric and figural sculptures. Remembered primarily as a sculptor by colleagues, it is in his wood, clay and welded steel sculptures where he fully engaged his interest in abstract rhythms and where his personal vocabulary matured and intensified.
Working at area universities, art centers, high schools and the Allegheny County Jail, Mendlow's teaching career spanned decades. An educator through 2006, a year before his death, he cultivated and influenced numerous aspiring artists, most notably Keith Haring and Corliss Cavalieri.
About the artist: Philip Mendlow was born in Pittsburgh in 1933. After earning a B.F.A. from (then) Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1954, he served in Paris, France, in the United States Army during the Korean War. Upon his discharge, he stayed in Paris, studying printmaking at the venerable William Stanley Hayter's Atelier 17 and painting and art history at the University of Paris, Sorbonne. He traveled extensively throughout Europe, exploring the Loire Valley, Barcelona and the Balearic Islands. Returning to Pittsburgh in 1958 he established a career as an arts educator, teaching drawing and painting, and later becoming the academic dean of the Ivy School of Professional Art. After the school's 1980 closure he continued teaching art at La Roche College, Carlow University, Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh as well as Pittsburgh's Creative and Performing Arts High School (CAPA).
Mendlow exhibited widely throughout the sixties and seventies throughout Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania, and his sculptures are in numerous private and museum collections. Although in his later years he concentrated on teaching and caring for his wife, he continued his artistic pursuits, experimenting with new styles and developing new bodies of work. Mendlow was also involved with area arts organizations, including the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh Society of Sculptors, and Western Pennsylvania Regional Scholastics, where he served in lay leadership capacities. He died in Pittsburgh, in November 2007.
Funding for this exhibit is provided by the Anna L. Caplan and Irene V. Caplan Philanthropic Fund of the United Jewish Federation Foundation. The AJM is supported in part by grants from the Allegheny Regional Asset District, and the Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts, the regional arts funding partnership of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency. Media sponsorship is provided by WDUQ-FM
Past Exhibitions
Nests launches the third of three exhibitions in a year-long series at the
AJM entitled Love/Fences/Nests: Projects by Ally Reeves, Ben Schachter and Anna
Divinsky.
AJM's Nests by Anna Divinsky on YouTube
For her residency, Anna Divinsky uses hand painted and textured fiber to
construct a larger-than-life bird nest that she will install in the AJM.
Throughout the residency she will add to the nest installation, making it change
and grow.
Divinsky utilizes nest imagery as a metaphor to examine the impact
immigration plays on people’s lives and its influence on one’s
perception of the past and present. She collaborates with people of
different age groups from diverse communities, exploring memories of leaving
home and building a new life.
While leading a number of workshops and collaborations, each geared toward
exploration of old rituals and new customs, the artist will direct students to
express their personal experiences, or understanding of migration through art
making and story telling. Each group utilizes images of nests and birds as
recurring visual vocabulary conveyed in innovative ways. A significant part of
the exhibit will be the artist’s collaboration with her mother as they
embark on a journey of recollecting familiar traditions and art practices.
Originally from Kiev, Ukraine, Anna Divinsky immigrated to Pittsburgh with
her family in 1993. Divinsky is currently a member of the adjunct faculty in the
University of Pittsburgh's Studio Arts Department and Penn State's School of
Visual Arts. Ms. Divinsky received a Master of Fine Arts in Printmaking from
Penn State University, and a Bachelor of Art in Studio Arts and Art History from
the University of Pittsburgh. She is a member of Group A., Associated Artists of
Pittsburgh and the Fiberarts Guild of Pittsburgh.
Presentation
Sunday, April 26th 1 pm
“Reflections on Pittsburgh’s Resettled Jews from the Former Soviet Union”
Presentation by Harriet N. Kruman, author of The Huddled Masses: Jewish
History in the Former Soviet Union: First-hand Interviews with the Émigrés
For more information contact the AJM Director, Melissa Hiller, at mhiller@jccpgh.org.
image credit: Anna Divinsky, Nests (detail), watercolor on silk, 2009
Nests is curated by Leslie Golomb. Funding for this exhibit is provided by The Heinz Endowments' Small Arts Initiative, Dr. and Mrs. Sidney Busis, the Anna L. Caplan and Irene V. Caplan Philanthropic Fund of the United Jewish Federation Foundation, and an anonymous donor. The AJM is supported in part by grants from the Allegheny Regional Asset District, and the Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts, the regional arts funding partnership of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency. Media sponsorship is provided by WDUQ-FM.
Nests | Anna Divinsky
The Jewish Chronicle: (http://thejewishchronicle.net/bookmark/2558502)
Fences
Project by Ben Schachter
January 2 - August 31
Fences launches the
second of three exhibitions in a year-long
series at the AJM entitled Love/Fences/Nests:
Projects by Ally Reeves,
Ben
Schachter and Anna Divinsky.
For
his residency, Schachter explores the concept of eruv, a Hebrew term
meaning
“to mix or join together.” The function of an eruv
is to protect Orthodox Jews
from transgressing prohibitions against carrying on the Sabbath, which
is
considered a form of work. An eruv also creates a particular
community by conjoining private and public properties into one larger
domain,
extending the boundary of private space into public space. Using the
concept of
eruv as a launching point to consider the intermingling of public and
private,
Schachter invites visitors to explore how community defines their lives
and how
their experiences are shaped by the community they live in. Together,
they
experiment with ideas of sacred space in urban areas through various
art making
exercises.
Schachter is coordinating the
fabrication of a large
communal eruv that evolves from participants using tape on the museum
floor to
mark their navigation and daily routes. This encourages people to
experience
their physical movements through space and to reflect on the proximity
of their
movements to others. He is also leading a series of workshops
culminating in a
community eruv installed in the museum. The themes of the workshops are
influenced by surveys visitors submit that answer questions prepared by
Schachter about definitions and meanings of home, community and
neighborhood.
Ben
Schachter is currently Chair and Professor of Fine
Arts at Saint Vincent College. He received a master of fine arts from
Pratt
Institute, a master of science in art history and criticism, and
bachelor of
art from Wesleyan University. He has published numerous scholarly
articles on
the subject of post-modern sculpture and lectures regularly on
contemporary
art.
Opening Reception
Tuesday, March 3, 7 pm
Lecture by Ben Schachter: Jewish Law and Jewish Art
Reception sponsored by Miriam and Jim Leib
Presentation
Rabbi Yisroel Miller of Congregation Poale Zedeck
Sunday, March 22nd 1 pm
Rabbi Miller leads a discussion surrounding the history, development and
significance of eruvim.
For more information, visit the
artist’s website at: www.benschachter.com,
or contact the
AJM Director, Melissa Hiller, at mhiller@jccpgh.org.
Love/Fences/Nests is curated by
Leslie Golomb and is
supported in part by a grant from The Heinz
Endowments’ Small Arts Initiative and
the Anna L. Caplan and Irene V. Caplan Philanthropic Fund of the United
Jewish
Federation Foundation. The AJM is supported in part by grants from the
Allegheny Regional Asset District, and the Pennsylvania Partners in the
Arts,
the regional arts funding partnership of the Pennsylvania Council on
the Arts,
a state agency. . Media sponsorship is provided by WDUQ-FM.
Fences | Ben Schachter
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Review: (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09077/956323-42.stm)
Pittsburgh Tribune Review: (http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/ae/s_605046.html)
The Jewish Chronicle Review: (http://thejewishchronicle.net)
Image credit: Ben Schachter, Untitled, thread on paper, 2008
Eruv: Its History and Development
Presentation by Rabbi Yisroel Miller of Congregation Poale Zedeck
American Jewish Museum • 5738 Forbes Avenue, Squirrel Hill
1 pm, March 22, 2009
Free
Corresponding with Fences, AJM’s current exhibition, Rabbi Miller will
discuss the meaning, history, and above all, the spirit symbolized by the eruv
as well as that spirit's significance for both Jews and non-Jews. Fittingly,
when Rabbi Miller took the pulpit almost 24 years ago, his first public talk was
at the dinner inaugurating the Squirrel Hill Eruv.
In addition to being the Rabbi of Congregation Poale Zedeck in Squirrel Hill,
Rabbi Miller is a member of the executive committee of the Vaad, the Rabbinical
Council of Greater Pittsburgh, and is the author of four books of essays on
Jewish thought.
Falling In
Artist Ally Reeves
Love/Fences/Nests Project
January 5 - August 31, 2009
Alex & Leona Robinson Building
5738 Darlington Road, Squirrel Hill
Falling In launches the AJM's new season, Love/Fences/Nests: Projects by Ally
Reeves, Ben Schachter and Anna Divinsky. The artists will each participate
consecutively in a three-month residency presenting multi-media installations
that result from collaborations with community members. They will set up studios
in the AJM gallery and complete their installations while working in the museum,
which will be open to the public.
The informal, experimental ambience of Love/Fences/Nests will intrigue
audiences as the artists unsettle notions of how art is customarily displayed in
museum spaces, while stretching the boundaries of traditional art. Although
each project will be on view independently, the concepts of feeling at home in
public and the intersection of public versus private spheres in everyday lives,
weave the exhibits together.
Reeves' Falling In is a synergistic happening between her and members of the
community. During the first phase of the exhibition, participants will share
with her their stories about falling in love. Reeves will then transform the
narratives into illustrations and Flash animations as the basis for the
exhibition. Interpreting participants' personal stories, Reeves will explore how
cartoons and animation use both representational and abstract visual language
and messages to narrate the human condition. Falling In is a synthesis of
low-tech social engagement, new media techniques, performance and
installation.
Like Falling In, many of Reeves' projects explore the dissolution of
boundaries between art and life. Bringing art to people in an outdoor setting,
she bicycled through Pittsburgh's parks with the Look-See Tree, a human-powered
mini-theater she constructed and attached to a bicycle that was part of the
Robot 250 program offered in conjunction with Pittsburgh's 250th anniversary.
Combining art with social action, she helped organize The One Mile Meal and The
One Mile Garden, projects in collaboration with inner-city and rural communities
exploring their relationship with — and understanding of — their local
agricultural resources including food production, distribution and
sustainability.
Reeves is a recent graduate of the MFA program at Carnegie Mellon University,
a CMU fellow at the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry and the founder of the Mobile
Museum, a project funded by a Seed Award from the Sprout Fund.
Love/Fences/Nests is curated by Leslie Golomb.
Funding for Falling In is provided by The Heinz Endowments' Small Arts Initiative and the Anna L. Caplan and Irene V. Caplan Philanthropic Fund of the United Jewish Federation Foundation. The AJM is supported in part by grants from the Allegheny Regional Asset District, and the Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts, the regional arts funding partnership of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency. Media sponsorship is provided by WDUQ-FM.
Falling In | Ally Reeves
Pittsburgh Tribune Review: (http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/living/finearts/s_601103.html)
Post-Gazette Review: (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09006/939762-51.stm)
Partners:
Support for the American Jewish Museum is provided by the Allegheny Regional Asset District, the Anna L. Caplan & Irene V. Caplan Philanthropic Fund of the United Jewish Federation Foundation and the Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts [PA Partners], the regional arts funding partnership of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency. Media sponsorship is provided by WDUQ 90.5 FM.
I Thought I Could Fly Postcard • Fact Sheet
