The Jewish Museum
212.423.3271'; $contact_1_email='pressoffice@thejm.org'; $contact_2 = ''; $contact_2_email=''; $meta_key='jewish museum, jewish art, museum, jewish culture, jewish identity, judaism, ceremonial art'; $meta_desc=' Art objects hovering in free space, and evocative texts that materialize as if written by an unseen hand, will greet visitors to a dramatic, enclosed environment created in The Jewish Museum by artist Shimon Attie, with technical collaborator Norman Ballard, as a new artwork commissioned for the Museum\'s centennial'; $title='CENTENNIAL ART COMMISSION'; $sub_title=' ARTIST SHIMON ATTIE, WITH NORMAN BALLARD, CREATES A CENTENNIAL ARTWORK FOR THE JEWISH MUSEUM'; $content='Art objects hovering in free space, and evocative texts that materialize as if written by an unseen hand, will greet visitors to a dramatic, enclosed environment created in The Jewish Museum by artist Shimon Attie, with technical collaborator Norman Ballard, as a new artwork commissioned for the Museum\'s centennial. Presented in "chapters" throughout 2004, with the first installment being unveiled on January 21, the artwork evocatively juxtaposes images from the Museum\'s collection and fragments of texts that tell the stories of these objects: how they were made, where they came from, how they arrived at the Museum, and the impressions they have made on curators, critics and the public at large.

An internationally renowned artist whose installations have been described as "collages of time that seem to come from the depths of dreams" (The New York Times), Shimon Attie has exhibited his work in group and solo exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art, the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the Centre Georges Pompidou, among other institutions, and has been the subject of a mid-career retrospective at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. Working with Ballard (who is a protégé and collaborator of Nam June Paik, a noted innovator in the use of lasers, and the contributor of special visual effects to Broadway shows such as Beauty and the Beast and Aida), Attie has responded to The Jewish Museum\'s invitation for a centennial artwork by making an enclosed installation, in which three-dimensional projections and laser writing magically call up objects and snatches of language from The Jewish Museum\'s past. Attie has carefully selected these words and images to suggest the conversations about art, culture, identity and history that have been at the heart of The Jewish Museum, and the Jewish-American experience, over the last century.

In keeping with the theme of time passing, the artwork will change over the course of the centennial year, with new images and texts being added periodically. The first "chapter" presents three-dimensional floating images of

• a stone weight from Israel in the Iron Age, inscribed with the word netzef (a unit of measure) and used in ancient trade;

• an 18th century Torah crown made of silver with white sapphires, agates and amber, which belonged to the Great Synagogue of Danzig;

• a portrait bust by sculptor Malvina Hoffman of Felix Warburg, the German-Jewish banker and philanthropist whose family mansion was donated by his widow Frieda in 1944 to become the home of The Jewish Museum; and

•a 1993 painting by Adam Rolston, exhibited in The Jewish Museum\'s exhibition Too Jewish?, of a Manischewitz matzah box, replacing the familiarity of Andy Warhol\'s Pop art images with something culturally specific.

Further "chapters" in the artwork will evoke diverse aspects of the Museum\'s collections and exhibitions throughout the centennial year.

About The Jewish Museum

The Jewish Museum was established on January 20, 1904, when Judge Mayer Sulzberger donated 26 ceremonial art objects to The Jewish Theological Seminary of America as the core of a museum collection. Today, The Jewish Museum maintains an important collection of 28,000 objects-paintings, sculpture, works on paper, photographs, archeological artifacts, ceremonial objects, and broadcast media. Its distinguished exhibitions, public programs and educational activities have been acclaimed internationally for inspiring people of all backgrounds.

General Information

For general information on The Jewish Museum, the public may visit the Museum\'s Web site at http://www.thejewishmuseum.org or call 212.423.3200. The Jewish Museum is located at 1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street, Manhattan. Museum hours are Sunday through Wednesday, 11am to 5:45pm; Thursday, 11am to 8pm; and Friday, 11am to 3pm. Museum admission is $10.00 for adults, $7.50 for students and senior citizens, free for children under 12 and Jewish Museum members. Admission is pay what you wish on Thursday evenings from 5pm to 8pm.

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