Jewseum: Recent Episodes
Jewseum
Listen to audio stories from artist Jay Blakesberg behind the photographs on view in "RetroBlakesberg: The Music Never Stopped" at The CJM.
Listen to audio stories from artist Jay Blakesberg behind the photographs on view in "RetroBlakesberg: The Music Never Stopped" at The CJM.
Listen to audio stories from artist Jay Blakesberg behind the photographs on view in "RetroBlakesberg: The Music Never Stopped" at The CJM.
Listen to audio stories from artist Jay Blakesberg behind the photographs on view in "RetroBlakesberg: The Music Never Stopped" at The CJM.
Listen to audio stories from artist Jay Blakesberg behind the photographs on view in "RetroBlakesberg: The Music Never Stopped" at The CJM.
Listen to audio stories from artist Jay Blakesberg behind the photographs on view in "RetroBlakesberg: The Music Never Stopped" at The CJM.
Listen to audio stories from artist Jay Blakesberg behind the photographs on view in "RetroBlakesberg: The Music Never Stopped" at The CJM.
Listen to audio stories from artist Jay Blakesberg behind the photographs on view in "RetroBlakesberg: The Music Never Stopped" at The CJM.
Listen to audio stories from artist Jay Blakesberg behind the photographs on view in "RetroBlakesberg: The Music Never Stopped" at The CJM.
Listen to audio stories from artist Jay Blakesberg behind the photographs on view in "RetroBlakesberg: The Music Never Stopped" at The CJM.
Listen to audio stories from artist Jay Blakesberg behind the photographs on view in "RetroBlakesberg: The Music Never Stopped" at The CJM.
Listen to audio stories from artist Jay Blakesberg behind the photographs on view in "RetroBlakesberg: The Music Never Stopped" at The CJM.
Listen to audio stories from artist Jay Blakesberg behind the photographs on view in "RetroBlakesberg: The Music Never Stopped" at The CJM.
Listen to audio stories from artist Jay Blakesberg behind the photographs on view in "RetroBlakesberg: The Music Never Stopped" at The CJM.
Listen to audio stories from artist Jay Blakesberg behind the photographs on view in "RetroBlakesberg: The Music Never Stopped" at The CJM.
Listen to audio stories from artist Jay Blakesberg behind the photographs on view in "RetroBlakesberg: The Music Never Stopped" at The CJM.
Listen to audio stories from artist Jay Blakesberg behind the photographs on view in "RetroBlakesberg: The Music Never Stopped" at The CJM.
Listen to audio stories from artist Jay Blakesberg behind the photographs on view in "RetroBlakesberg: The Music Never Stopped" at The CJM.
Listen to audio stories from artist Jay Blakesberg behind the photographs on view in "RetroBlakesberg: The Music Never Stopped" at The CJM.
Listen to audio stories from artist Jay Blakesberg behind the photographs on view in "RetroBlakesberg: The Music Never Stopped" at The CJM.
Teen Art Connect (TAC) intern Sophie reflects on the Stephen and Maribelle Leavitt Yud Gallery.
Teen Art Connect (TAC) interns Keira and Sora reflect on the Historic Facade of The CJM's building.
Teen Art Connect (TAC) interns Keira and Sora reflect on the Historic Facade of The CJM's building.
Merissa Nathan Gerson talks about the “double mitzvah”—the Jewish mandate on Sabbath lovemaking.
Merissa Nathan Gerson is a freelance writer and educator. She was the intergenerational trauma consultant to Amazon's hit show, Transparent and has writing featured in The New York Times, Playboy Magazine, The Atlantic, Tablet, Lilith, and many others. She teaches about sex and religion and the inheritance of trauma and memory nationwide.
THE REST OF US: DISCUSSIONS ON SOCIAL JUSTICE
Inspired by Sabbath: The 2017 Dorothy Saxe Invitational, this series of gallery chats looks at labor and rest, our right to rest, and the long legal battles that entitled workers to an 8-hour day and weekend.
Rabbi Zac Kamenetz wants to know: What good can I do in this world? What have folks before me tried? Most often, he looks to ancient Jewish sources of wisdom for inspiration to these questions, but he also gets some help from Leonard Cohen, Mark Rothko, and his wife Jen, and little girl. Kamenetz received rabbinic ordination in Jerusalem and has degrees from the University of Maryland and the Graduate Theological Union, and is a qualified instructor of MBSR from the University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness. He is the director of Jewish Living and Learning at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco.
The Rest of Us: Discussions on Social Justice
Inspired by Sabbath: The 2017 Dorothy Saxe Invitational, this series of gallery chats looks at labor and rest, our right to rest, and the long legal battles that entitled workers to an 8-hour day and weekend.
Corinne Goria is the editor of Invisible Hands: Voices from the Global Economy (Voice of Witness) and Assistant Editor of Underground America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives (McSweeney's 2008), a collection of oral histories from undocumented immigrants in the United States that has been featured in The Guardian, on NPR, and in other news outlets. She lives in San Diego, California with her husband and two sons.
Immigration lawyer and Voice of Witness editor Corinne Goria discusses immigrant rights issues, especially concerning labor laws and the right to rest.
Goodman’s hanging paper installation is inspired by the final scene in the tale The Bird of Happiness. This scene reveals the young king’s daily ritual of spending an hour inside of a shack, dressed in the rags he grew up in, looking at his reflection in a mirror. During this hour, the king looks back on where he came from in order to move his kingdom forward.
Julia Goodman creates low relief sculptural paper pieces from pulped, repurposed bed sheets, and T-shirts. These projects recontextualize the history of pre-paper technology, working within narrow material limits of plant-based materials to explore human interconnectedness, life cycles, and symmetry between the celestial and the terrestrial.
In conjunction with The 613 by Archie Rand, contemporary classical musicians perform works by twentieth-century Jewish minimalist composers. The concerts take place in the galleries among the paintings. In this selection from the first program in the series, Brian Adam McCune, and Lily Kaye Sevier, of the Awesome Orchestra, performs Steve Reich's "Nagoya Marimbas".
Death, Dementia, and… Dessert?
Sometimes humor can be found in the most painful and frustrating of circumstances, especially when caring for a loved one at the end of life. Storytellers Josh Kornbluth, Julia Weber, Elizabeth Sale, and Sara Faith Alterman will let us laugh through our tears, as they share deeply personal stories and experiences that all of us can identify with.
The program will be followed by a moderated discussion to cast an unflinching eye at end of life experiences and together create an interactive space to help transform this otherwise difficult conversation into one of engagement, insight, and empowerment.
And of course there will be dessert—never miss an opportunity to eat sweets when discussing bittersweet topics! Presented in conjunction with Roz Chast: Cartoon Memoirs.
Co-presented by Reboot’s Death Over Dinner, Jewish Edition.
Josh Kornbluth has been performing autobiographical monologues since 1989. Among his many solo shows is Andy Warhol: Good for the Jews?, which began as a commission from The Contemporary Jewish Museum. More recently, Sea of Reeds explored the mysteries of interpreting the Torah and making oboe reeds. His latest movie, Love & Taxes, is available online. His upcoming monologue, The Bottomless Bowl, is based on his experiences as artist-in-residence (and, later, a volunteer) at the Zen Hospice Project. Currently, Josh is a fellow at the Global Brain Health Institute, based at UCSF's Memory and Aging Center. Find him at joshkornbluth.com.
During San Francisco Pride week, a giant pink triangle is installed on Twin Peaks. In the gallery chat "Andrew Ramer on Pride Week’s Pink Triangle in Conjunction with Yom HaShoah," Andrew Ramer talks about how the pink triangle went from being a symbol of persecution to a symbol of gay pride. Presented in partnership with Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, and in conjunction with Cary Leibowitz: Museum Show and the commemoration of Yom HaShoah. Recorded on April 21, 2017.
Andrew Ramer is a writer whose work is grounded in narratives from parallel realities. He’s the author of Torah Told Different: Stories for a Pan/Poly/Post-Denominational Era, Queering the Text: Biblical, Medieval, and Modern Jewish Stories, and Two Flutes Playing, which has been called a gay underground classic. The world’s first ordained interfaith maggid (sacred storyteller), he is a longtime member of Congregation Sha’ar Zahav in San Francisco, in whose marvelously innovative siddur many of his prayers and blessings appear.
Five-minute audio clip featuring comedians from "Disabled Comedy Only," produced by Nina G., and recorded live at the Impact Hub in Oakland on Oct 30, 2014.
These audio clips are in conjunction with the "Humor and the Disability Experience: A Stand-Up Comedy Show" on Apr 23, 2017 at The CJM. Learn more: https://thecjm.org/programs/117
Dedication: This program at The Contemporary Jewish Museum is dedicated in memory and honor of the legacy of the founder of The Comedians with Disabilities Act, Michael O'Connell.
For a full transcript of the audio clip: https://www.thecjm.org/learn_resources/281
Nina G., the program’s emcee and organizer, is a well-known stuttering stand-up comedian, disability activist, storyteller, children's book author and educator who uses comedy to help people confront and understand social justice issues such as disability, diversity, and equity.
"Disabled Comedy Only" is the first-ever comedy compilation album featuring, as the title suggests, a lineup of all comedians with disabilities. The album is available on most music sites for streaming or purchase. Download Michael O'Connell's set for free at www.cdbaby.com/cd/comedianswithdisabilitie.
UC Berkeley Professor Mel Gordon discusses the mythical history of the city of Kandor and its allusions to Jewish history in conjunction with Kandor 17 by Mike Kelley.
Mel Gordon is Professor of Theatre Arts at the University of California, Berkeley. A director and writer, he is the author of fifteen books and one hundred and thirty articles on popular culture and American, French, German, Italian, Russian, and Yiddish theatre. His online articles include “Why Madonna’s Kabbalah Is the True Kabbalah” (Jewcy.com).
What We Hold: Teens reflect on how memories extend over generations
It started with a question: “What do we inherit, embody, and echo from previous generations?” What emerged were more questions, conversations, and discoveries. The resulting audio stories share a layered quilt of myth and memory from the perspective of Bay Area teens in 2016. Exploring their own family narratives allowed these students to claim and understand how moments of the past transform, beyond memories, into relationships and outlooks in the present.
What We Hold is the fourth in a series of installations highlighting the experiences and perspectives of The Museum’s Teen Art Connect interns. The high school interns were responsible for every aspect of the recordings, from initial interviews to final edits. In presenting this work, The Contemporary Jewish Museum celebrates the valuable contributions that young people make to the creative landscape of the Bay Area.
What We Hold: Teens reflect on how memories extend over generations
It started with a question: “What do we inherit, embody, and echo from previous generations?” What emerged were more questions, conversations, and discoveries. The resulting audio stories share a layered quilt of myth and memory from the perspective of Bay Area teens in 2016. Exploring their own family narratives allowed these students to claim and understand how moments of the past transform, beyond memories, into relationships and outlooks in the present.
What We Hold is the fourth in a series of installations highlighting the experiences and perspectives of The Museum’s Teen Art Connect interns. The high school interns were responsible for every aspect of the recordings, from initial interviews to final edits. In presenting this work, The Contemporary Jewish Museum celebrates the valuable contributions that young people make to the creative landscape of the Bay Area.
What We Hold: Teens reflect on how memories extend over generations
It started with a question: “What do we inherit, embody, and echo from previous generations?” What emerged were more questions, conversations, and discoveries. The resulting audio stories share a layered quilt of myth and memory from the perspective of Bay Area teens in 2016. Exploring their own family narratives allowed these students to claim and understand how moments of the past transform, beyond memories, into relationships and outlooks in the present.
What We Hold is the fourth in a series of installations highlighting the experiences and perspectives of The Museum’s Teen Art Connect interns. The high school interns were responsible for every aspect of the recordings, from initial interviews to final edits. In presenting this work, The Contemporary Jewish Museum celebrates the valuable contributions that young people make to the creative landscape of the Bay Area.
What We Hold: Teens reflect on how memories extend over generations
It started with a question: “What do we inherit, embody, and echo from previous generations?” What emerged were more questions, conversations, and discoveries. The resulting audio stories share a layered quilt of myth and memory from the perspective of Bay Area teens in 2016. Exploring their own family narratives allowed these students to claim and understand how moments of the past transform, beyond memories, into relationships and outlooks in the present.
What We Hold is the fourth in a series of installations highlighting the experiences and perspectives of The Museum’s Teen Art Connect interns. The high school interns were responsible for every aspect of the recordings, from initial interviews to final edits. In presenting this work, The Contemporary Jewish Museum celebrates the valuable contributions that young people make to the creative landscape of the Bay Area.
What We Hold: Teens reflect on how memories extend over generations
It started with a question: “What do we inherit, embody, and echo from previous generations?” What emerged were more questions, conversations, and discoveries. The resulting audio stories share a layered quilt of myth and memory from the perspective of Bay Area teens in 2016. Exploring their own family narratives allowed these students to claim and understand how moments of the past transform, beyond memories, into relationships and outlooks in the present.
What We Hold is the fourth in a series of installations highlighting the experiences and perspectives of The Museum’s Teen Art Connect interns. The high school interns were responsible for every aspect of the recordings, from initial interviews to final edits. In presenting this work, The Contemporary Jewish Museum celebrates the valuable contributions that young people make to the creative landscape of the Bay Area.
What We Hold: Teens reflect on how memories extend over generations
It started with a question: “What do we inherit, embody, and echo from previous generations?” What emerged were more questions, conversations, and discoveries. The resulting audio stories share a layered quilt of myth and memory from the perspective of Bay Area teens in 2016. Exploring their own family narratives allowed these students to claim and understand how moments of the past transform, beyond memories, into relationships and outlooks in the present.
What We Hold is the fourth in a series of installations highlighting the experiences and perspectives of The Museum’s Teen Art Connect interns. The high school interns were responsible for every aspect of the recordings, from initial interviews to final edits. In presenting this work, The Contemporary Jewish Museum celebrates the valuable contributions that young people make to the creative landscape of the Bay Area.
What We Hold: Teens reflect on how memories extend over generations
It started with a question: “What do we inherit, embody, and echo from previous generations?” What emerged were more questions, conversations, and discoveries. The resulting audio stories share a layered quilt of myth and memory from the perspective of Bay Area teens in 2016. Exploring their own family narratives allowed these students to claim and understand how moments of the past transform, beyond memories, into relationships and outlooks in the present.
What We Hold is the fourth in a series of installations highlighting the experiences and perspectives of The Museum’s Teen Art Connect interns. The high school interns were responsible for every aspect of the recordings, from initial interviews to final edits. In presenting this work, The Contemporary Jewish Museum celebrates the valuable contributions that young people make to the creative landscape of the Bay Area.
What We Hold: Teens reflect on how memories extend over generations
It started with a question: “What do we inherit, embody, and echo from previous generations?” What emerged were more questions, conversations, and discoveries. The resulting audio stories share a layered quilt of myth and memory from the perspective of Bay Area teens in 2016. Exploring their own family narratives allowed these students to claim and understand how moments of the past transform, beyond memories, into relationships and outlooks in the present.
What We Hold is the fourth in a series of installations highlighting the experiences and perspectives of The Museum’s Teen Art Connect interns. The high school interns were responsible for every aspect of the recordings, from initial interviews to final edits. In presenting this work, The Contemporary Jewish Museum celebrates the valuable contributions that young people make to the creative landscape of the Bay Area.
What We Hold: Teens reflect on how memories extend over generations
It started with a question: “What do we inherit, embody, and echo from previous generations?” What emerged were more questions, conversations, and discoveries. The resulting audio stories share a layered quilt of myth and memory from the perspective of Bay Area teens in 2016. Exploring their own family narratives allowed these students to claim and understand how moments of the past transform, beyond memories, into relationships and outlooks in the present.
What We Hold is the fourth in a series of installations highlighting the experiences and perspectives of The Museum’s Teen Art Connect interns. The high school interns were responsible for every aspect of the recordings, from initial interviews to final edits. In presenting this work, The Contemporary Jewish Museum celebrates the valuable contributions that young people make to the creative landscape of the Bay Area.
What We Hold: Teens reflect on how memories extend over generations
It started with a question: “What do we inherit, embody, and echo from previous generations?” What emerged were more questions, conversations, and discoveries. The resulting audio stories share a layered quilt of myth and memory from the perspective of Bay Area teens in 2016. Exploring their own family narratives allowed these students to claim and understand how moments of the past transform, beyond memories, into relationships and outlooks in the present.
What We Hold is the fourth in a series of installations highlighting the experiences and perspectives of The Museum’s Teen Art Connect interns. The high school interns were responsible for every aspect of the recordings, from initial interviews to final edits. In presenting this work, The Contemporary Jewish Museum celebrates the valuable contributions that young people make to the creative landscape of the Bay Area.
What We Hold: Teens reflect on how memories extend over generations
It started with a question: “What do we inherit, embody, and echo from previous generations?” What emerged were more questions, conversations, and discoveries. The resulting audio stories share a layered quilt of myth and memory from the perspective of Bay Area teens in 2016. Exploring their own family narratives allowed these students to claim and understand how moments of the past transform, beyond memories, into relationships and outlooks in the present.
What We Hold is the fourth in a series of installations highlighting the experiences and perspectives of The Museum’s Teen Art Connect interns. The high school interns were responsible for every aspect of the recordings, from initial interviews to final edits. In presenting this work, The Contemporary Jewish Museum celebrates the valuable contributions that young people make to the creative landscape of the Bay Area.
Jamie Metzl is author of the genetics thriller Genesis Code and of The Depths of the Sea, a historical novel about the Cambodian genocide. His new novel, Eternal Sonata, imagines a future global struggle to control the technology for extreme human life extension. Jamie is a Senior Fellow of the Atlantic Council and has served in the US National Security Council, State Department, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as Executive Vice President of the Asia Society, and with the United Nations in Cambodia. He appears regularly on major global media and his writing on Asia, international affairs, and genetics is featured regularly in publications around the world.
A discussion of the visionary film-making of Stanley Kubrick and his prescient observations about man and technology, with Fernando Castrillón, Psy.D., Dr Rodney Hill (The Stanley Kubrick Archives), Chris Noessel (Make It So: Interaction Design Lessons from Science Fiction), and artist Binta Ayofemi. Presented in conjunction with Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition.
Fernando Castrillon, Psy.D., presented "Digital Teleologies, Imperial Threshold Machinic Assemblages and the Colonization of the Cosmos: A Post-Structuralist Interpretation of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey" at Multiversy. Dr. Castrillon is a licensed clinical psychologist and associate professor in the Community Mental Health Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) and is the founding director of CIIS’ The Clinic Without Walls. Dr. Castrillon is also a candidate psychoanalyst and is on the editorial board of The European Journal of Psychoanalysis. His publications include a special double issue of ReVision, entitled “Ecopsychology"; an edited volume: Ecopsychology, Phenomenology, and the Environment: The Experience of Nature (Springer Press); Translating Angst: Symptoms and Inhibitions in Anglo-American Psychoanalysis and Feminine Pathologies. He is currently writing a book on psychoanalysis in California. Dr. Castrillon maintains a private psychoanalytic practice in the East Bay.
Rodney F. Hill is co-author of The Encyclopedia of Stanley Kubrick and a contributor to several other books, including The Stanley Kubrick Archives (now in its third edition from Taschen) and The Essential Science-Fiction Television Reader. Hill is Assistant Professor of Film in the Lawrence Herbert School of Communication at Hofstra University, holds a PhD from the University of Kansas and an MA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His essays have appeared in Film Quarterly, Cinema Journal, Literature/Film Quarterly, and elsewhere.
Chris Noessel is the author of Make It So: Interaction Design Lessons From Science Fiction. Noessel has developed interactive kiosks and spaces for museums, helped to visualize the future of counter-terrorism, built prototypes of coming technologies for Microsoft, and designed telehealth devices to accommodate modern healthcare. He is currently writing a book about the role of UX in narrow artificial intelligence.
Binta Ayofemi is an artist and has presented her work at the Kadist Art Foundation, SFMOMA, Southern Exposure, The Carpenter Center, The Wattis Institute, the Asian Art Museum, The New Museum, and Chicago's Rebuild Foundation. Ayofemi's series Software, a rehearsal of utopian forms, from the Shakers to Soul Train, was initially featured in The Possible exhibition at the Berkeley Art Museum. Upcoming works include a series of urban gardens and tactile landscapes across adjacent lots in Oakland and Chicago, a Black Panther Garden, an urban kitchen, a Black Shaker farm and guild, and a general store. Ayofemi was a Stanford MFA in Art and a Harvard Design Fellow in architecture and urban landscape.
Electronic music journalist and critic Geeta Dayal explores Kubrick's visionary use of sound and Wendy Carlos' pioneering synthesizer music for The Shining and A Clockwork Orange.
Geeta Dayal is a prolific arts journalist and critic, specializing in writing on music, culture, and technology. She has contributed hundreds of articles and reviews to major publications, including Slate, Wired, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Frieze, and many more. Her first book, Another Green World, on the musician Brian Eno, was published in 2009. Dayal is a recipient of a major grant from Creative Capital/The Andy Warhol Foundation in the Arts Writers Program.
Three of the foremost scholars on Kubrick examine his films through a Jewish lens, with Nathan Abrams (The New Jew in Film: Exploring Jews and Jewishness in Contemporary Cinema), Dr Geoffrey Cocks (The Wolf at the Door: Stanley Kubrick, History and the Holocaust), and Dr Marat Grinberg (Woody on Rye: Jewishness in the Films and Plays of Woody Allen). Panel moderated by The CJM's Associate Director of Public Programs, Gravity Goldberg.
Nathan Abrams is Professor of Film Studies at Bangor University in Wales. He is an expert on Jewish cinema, having written The New Jew in Film: Exploring Jews and Jewishness in Contemporary Cinema (Rutgers UP, 2012) and edited Hidden in Plain Sight: Jews and Jewishness in British Film, Television, and Popular Culture (Northwestern UP, 2016). He is also founding co-editor of Jewish Film and New Media: An International Journal. He has been teaching the films of Stanley Kubrick since 2007 and his book exploring the Jewishness of Stanley Kubrick based on original research in the Stanley Kubrick Archives, Stanley Kubrick: New York Jewish Intellectual, is forthcoming from Rutgers UP.
Geoffrey Cocks is Professor of History at Albion College. He is the author of Psychotherapy in the Third Reich: The Göring Institute (1985, 1997); The Wolf at the Door: Stanley Kubrick, History and the Holocaust (2004); and The State of Health: Illness in Nazi Germany (2012). He received his PhD from University of California, Los Angeles in 1975.
Marat Grinberg is associate professor of Russian and Humanities at Reed College. He is the author of "I am to Be Read not from Left to Right, but in Jewish: from Right to Left": The Poetics of Boris Slutsky and co-editor of Woody on Rye: Jewishness in the Films and Plays of Woody Allen. His most recent essays on modern Jewish politics, literature, and cinema have appeared in Commentary, Tablet Magazine, Shofar, and Post Script: Essays in Film and the Humanities. Grinberg spent the summer of 2009 working in the Kubrick archives at the University of London, researching the Aryan Papers materials. He's now writing a book about this unfinished film and Kubrick's Holocaust vision.
Starting with Milkbar set pieces, Dr. Rodney Hill discusses the spectacle of violence in Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange.
Rodney F. Hill, Assistant Professor of Film Studies at Hofstra University, holds a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas and an M.A. from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. He teaches various courses in film studies, on such topics as film authorship, film genres, and documentary film. Hill is co-author of THE FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA ENCYCLOPEDIA and THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF STANLEY KUBRICK, co-editor of FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA: INTERVIEWS, and a contributor to several other books, including THE ESSENTIAL SCIENCE FICTION TELEVISION READER and THE STANLEY KUBRICK ARCHIVES. His essays have also appeared in _Film Quarterly_, _Cinema Journal_, _Literature/Film Quarterly_, and elsewhere. In addition to his academic experience, Rodney Hill worked for several years in film distribution and marketing, handling theatrical campaigns for various international, independent, and documentary films, including Edward Yang's YI YI, Chuck Workman’s THE SOURCE (starring Johnny Depp, John Turturro, and Dennis Hopper) and the Oscar-nominated ON THE ROPES. Prior to joining Hofstra's RTVF faculty in 2012, Dr. Hill taught film and English at several other institutions, including the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Paris XII - Val de Marne.
Janet Delaney examines the social-documentary style of Roman Vishniac’s work, drawing from her experience photographing everyday life in San Francisco and other cities.
Janet Delaney is a photographer and educator based in Berkeley, California. Delaney's projects have received numerous awards, most notably three National Endowment for the Arts Grants. Her work is in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Pilara Foundation, the de Young Museum, San Francisco, and more. She published a book of her 1980s San Francisco images entitled South of Market with Mack Books of London in 2013. From January to June of 2015 her early work from South of Market was exhibited in a one-person exhibition at the de Young in San Francisco. Janet is now revisiting this district with camera in hand.
This program was made possible by the Alan Templeton Endowment in Memory of Lieselotte and David Templeton.
Author and journalist Ingrid Carlberg discusses her award-winning biography about Wallenberg, a Swedish businessman whose heroism in Budapest during the Holocaust saved countless Jewish lives. Presented in partnership with the Consulate General of Sweden.
Ingrid Carlberg is a Swedish author and journalist who worked at Sweden’s most renowned daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter from 1990 to 2010, specializing in investigative and narrative journalism. Her biography of Raoul Wallenberg was first published under the title There Is a Room Here Waiting for You... (Norstedts, 2012) and was awarded the August Prize for the best Swedish work of non-fiction in 2012 as well as the Swedish Academy's Axel Hirsch Prize in 2013 for "a biography of considerable artistic and cultural history merit." Former Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi A. Annan wrote a special introduction for the Quercus edition, the first to be published in English. In January 2008, her book Pillret (The Pill, Norstedts, 2008) was awarded the Guldspaden, a prize for the best work of investigative journalism.
Poet Jake Marmer and guitarist John Schott respond poetically and musically to the exhibition, Roman Vishniac Rediscovered.
Mark Rumold of the Electronic Frontier Foundation discusses the Freedom of Information Act—its latest triumphs and stumbles and how it connects to the exhibition Chasing Justice.
Mark Rumold is a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), focusing primarily on access to information, government secrecy, and national security issues. As part of EFF's Transparency Project, Mark regularly represents EFF in cases under the federal Freedom of Information Act. As a result of his transparency work, tens of thousands of pages of previously secret government documents have been made available to the public.
A featured artist in Chasing Justice, Robbin Henderson, discusses her original scratchboard drawings, and the inspiration for the series, her grandmother, a “Wobbly”—an Industrial Worker of the World (IWW), and early feminist.
Robbin Légère Henderson has been drawing and painting in the Bay Area for over thirty years. She attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon; holds a BA in English Literature from UC Berkeley, and studied painting and printmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute. For many years, she was a facilitator of other artists’ careers as the Executive Director or curator of community art centers, principally the Berkeley Art Center.
Over the past decades Henderson’s work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions throughout the world including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Armory Center for the Arts in Los Angeles, Instituto de Bellas Artes, Managua, Nicaragua. Her work is in public collections in Washington DC (the National Archives, Library of Congress); US National Park Service (Petrified Forest, Arizona); Alameda County Art Collection, and private collections in New York City; Los Angeles, California; Portland, Oregon (Reed College), Taos, New Mexico; Berlin, Germany; Istanbul, Turkey; Masterton, New Zealand; Managua, Nicaragua; and Torino, Italy.
Michael Zagaris photographed the most influential musicians of the Bill Graham years including The Grateful Dead, The Who, Led Zeppelin, and others. Zagaris shares the stories behind the photographs.
Michael Zagaris’s career changed from disillusioned law school dropout to photographer to rock and roll's superstars began when he was pulled backstage by Bill Graham himself. For more on his fascinating story, see rockpaperphoto.com/michael-zagaris.
Jan Harlan acted as Kubrick’s executive producer on major films including The Shining (1980), and Eyes Wide Shut (1999). He shares anecdotes and insights into several of Kubrick’s films.
Jan Harlan acted as Kubrick’s executive producer on all Kubrick’s films from Barry Lyndon onwards, and worked on other unrealised projects. After Kubrick’s death in 1999, Harlan worked with Steven Spielberg on A.I. Artificial Intelligence, made two documentary films for Warner Bros., as well as other independent projects. Harlan is a guest-lecturer at different film-schools and often serves on juries at film festivals. He was instrumental in the formation of the Stanley Kubrick Archive at the University of the Arts London and in creating a large exhibition on Stanley Kubrick with the German Filmmuseum. He lives in Hertfordshire, UK.
Danny Scher discusses the rise of stadium rock and the creation of the Shoreline Ampitheatre.
Danny Scher worked at Bill Graham Presents from 1975-1999. He booked shows with Bill throughout Northern California and beyond, including Winterland, Days on the Green, motor events, broadway shows, closed circuit boxing, and others. He developed amphitheatres, including Shoreline, Cal Expo in Sacramento, and sites that became amphitheatres in Seattle and Yuba County. It was Danny who envisioned a world-class amphitheatre in Mountain View on what was an active garbage dump. He also introduced major corporations to being sponsors at BGP events. He is one of the founders of the Bill Graham Foundation and is its Treasurer, and produces non-profit fundraising events at his backyard amphitheatre, Coventry Grove.
Dr. Vitka Eisen, CEO of HealthRIGHT 360, discusses the history of Bill Graham’s instrumental role in supporting the development of “Rock Med” and the early efforts of the Haight Ashbury Free Clinics.
Dr. Eisen is the Chief Executive Officer of HealthRIGHT 360, and has over 24 years of experience in the human services field, and a lifelong commitment to supporting people and communities struggling with addiction and incarceration. For over four decades, the programs of Walden House have been providing behavioral health services to those in need. They work with clients to match them with effective treatment within a continuum of care that includes residential treatment, outpatient programs, and in-custody services.
Bill Graham biographer unravels the story of Graham's organized protest of President Reagan's visit to the Bitburg cemetery and the subsequent bombing of the Bill Graham Presents offices.
An award-winning novelist, playwright, journalist, and screenwriter, Robert Greenfield is the author of several classic rock books, among them S.T.P.: A Journey Through America with the Rolling Stones as well as the definitive biographies of Timothy Leary and Ahmet Ertegun. With Bill Graham, he is the co-author of Bill Graham Presents: My Life Inside Rock and Out which won both the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award and the Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award.
“Mistress of Design” Arlene Owseichik, Creative Director and poster artist for Bill Graham Presents, talks about the art and artists behind the legendary Fillmore posters.
For twenty years, Arlene Owseichik was art director and creative director for Bill Graham Presents where she created or helped with close to 1,000 commemorative posters for The Fillmore and all the BGP venues—posters renowned in the music and art communities.
Artist Jim Campbell talks about his work in "NEAT: New Experiments in Art and Technology."
Artist Micah Elizabeth Scott discusses her interactive sculpture in "NEAT: New Experiments in Art and Technology."
Artist Mary Franck talks about her work in "NEAT: New Experiments in Art and Technology." #NEAT
Artist Jason Jägel discusses the inspiration behind his mural in "You Know I’m No Good."
Gallery chats are short lunchtime talks with notable speakers, artists, and creatives about the work in the exhibition.
A recording of writer and poet Dodie Bellamy reading her thoughtful essay on San Francisco's changing cityscape and gentrification.
Written in response to "Night Begins the Day: Rethinking Space, Time, and Beauty," the essay is included in the exhibition catalog. #NightBeginstheDay
Prestigious Jewish scholar Bernie Steinberg discusses how Judaism addresses the complex issues of addiction and abuse.
Dr. Bernie Steinberg, Director Emeritus of Harvard Hillel, also served as President of the Harvard Chaplains, lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government, and Vice-President of the Shalom Hartman Institute, North America, West Coast. He now serves as Visiting Scholar at the Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California.
Artist and tattoo master Don Ed Hardy discusses the history and meaning of Amy Winehouse’s tattoos.
Scholar Shaina Hammerman discusses British Jews in pop culture, from Amy Winehouse to Downton Abbey.
French artist Laurent Grasso talks about creating Soleil Noir, included in "Night Begins the Day: Rethinking Space, Time, and Beauty."
Photo by Johnna Arnold.
Poet and performer Brandon Brown responds to Katie Patterson’s "Dying Star Letters" from the exhibition "Night Begins the Day: Rethinking Space, Time, and Beauty."
[Photo by Johnna Arnold.]
Rock critic Greil Marcus discusses Amy Winehouse’s unique interpretation of rock classics, drawing from his recent book The History of Rock ‘N’ Roll in Ten Songs.
Listen to Amy sing The Teddy Bear's catchy record "To Know Him is to Love Him" from 1958. → thecjm.me/1HU7CX8. Marcus says: "I want you to hear what she does with this...the way she makes deep soul music out of this corny, little teenage song." #AmyWinehouse
A gallery chat by CJM Chief Curator Renny Pritikin—discussing the concept of beauty in art and inspirations for the exhibition "Night Begins the Day: Rethinking Space, Time, and Beauty."
Gallery chats associated with "Night Begins the Day: Rethinking Space, Time, and Beauty" are short lunchtime talks with notable speakers about the art in the exhibition. In this talk, Associate Curator Lily Siegel speaks about the paintings of Moira Dryer.
As part of San Francisco Design Week (SFDW), former CJM Design Studio designer (and founder) Brad Aldridge gave a design talk in The Museum on designing The Museum—everything from identity graphics to exhibitions.
Michelle Tea, Eileen Myles, and Jill Soloway talk literature, pop culture, making it in Hollywood, and more. Hilarity ensues.
"In conjunction with "Bound to be Held: A Book Show," all authors have contributed books to "Read by Famous." Introduced by Josh Greene and moderated by Matt Sussman. Recorded on May 7, 2015.
"Dance—in particularly ballet—is not customarily thought of as dangerous or a place for civic disobedience, or political bravery. But this evening, I would like to challenge that."
An excerpt from the public program Disobedient Dances: A Jewish Choreographer in Soviet Russia, featuring Janice Ross' lecture on legendary dancer and choreographer Leonid Yakobson who was a Jew persecuted in Stalinist Russia.
Co-presented by the Museum of Performance + Design and the San Francisco Ballet. Presented in conjunction with Holocaust Remembrance Day. Recorded on Thursday, April 16, 2015.
A powerful recording of Jessica Prentice—food activist and social entrepreneur—reading her recipe for "Grief Soup." Inspired by Fluxus scores, Prentice reinterprets the recipe format to capture the depth of food—the ingredients themselves and the invisible forces within.
Prentice collaborated with artist Helena Keeffe on "A Menu for Recognizing Invisible Forces," an exhibition in our ongoing series, "In That Case: Harvuta in Contemporary Art." On view through Apr 14. Learn more → thecjm.org/Keeffe #havruta
Recorded on January 22, 2015. Image: Helena Keeffe, "A Menu for Recognizing Invisible Forces" stills from time-lapse documentation of gathering, 2015.
In this public program, The Klezmatics’ bandleader and "Letters to Afar" collaborator, Frank London, considers the creation of the exhibition’s music and his own Jewish and musical journey. Recorded on March 6, 2015.
Péter Forgács (Letters to Afar) and Rick Prelinger (Lost Landscapes of San Francisco) use film archives to assemble new films. They discuss their approaches to looking at archival work and provide anecdotes of some of the images they’ve encountered.
Recorded on February 26, 2015.
This program is in conjunction with "Letters to Afar," on view through May 24, 2015. Learn more → thecjm.me/letterstoafar
To accompany her customizable mah jongg set, artist Imin Yeh has generously captured the sounds of the tiles being shuffled, which is arguably one of the best parts of the game.
Lean more about this piece → http://www.iminyeh.info/paper-mahjong Learn more about the exhibition Project Mah Jongg → thecjm.org/mahjongg
Interview with Donald Albrecht, Curator of "Designing Home: Jews and Midcentury Modernism.
On view at The Contemporary Jewish Museum through Oct 6, 2014. Learn more → thecjm.org/designinghome
Interview with Donald Albrecht, Curator of Designing Home: Jews and Midcentury Modernism.
On view at The Contemporary Jewish Museum through Oct 6, 2014. Learn more → thecjm.org/designinghome
Image: George Nelson & Associates, Irving Harper, Vitra Marshmallow Sofa, 1956. Metal, upholstery, and paint. 31 ¼ in. x 52 ½ in. x 31 ¼ in.
Interview with Donald Albrecht, curator of Designing Home: Jews and Midcentury Modernism.
On view at The Contemporary Jewish Museum through Oct 6, 2014. Learn more → thecjm.org/designinghome
Image: Pond Farm entrance sign and barn/studio. Photo by Anthony Veerkamp. Courtesy National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Interview with Donald Albrecht, Curator of "Designing Home: Jews and Midcentury Modernism.
On view at The Contemporary Jewish Museum through Oct 6, 2014. Learn more → thecjm.org/designinghome
Image: Ruth Adler Schnee with Slits and Slats, 1947. Photograph, 8 x 10 in. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives, The Edward and Ruth Adler Schnee Papers.
"Jewish Jersey Italian prom night, Cadillac."
Inspired by Ernest Hemingway's legendary shortest of short stories, "For sale: baby shoes, never worn," SMITH Magazine founder Larry Smith challenged readers to describe their lives in six words. In a special event at The Contemporary Jewish Museum, Director Lori Starr presents her Six-Word Memoir on Jewish Life.
For more Six-Word Memoirs—in words, images, and videos—visit www.sixwordmemoirs.com
"Bad news, but it's not cancer."
Inspired by Ernest Hemingway's legendary shortest of short stories, "For sale: baby shoes, never worn," SMITH Magazine founder Larry Smith challenged readers to describe their lives in six words. In a special event at The Contemporary Jewish Museum, Piper Kerman (Orange Is the New Black) presents her Six-Word Memoir on Jewish Life.
For more Six-Word Memoirs—in words, images, and videos—visit http://www.sixwordmemoirs.com
"Work in Progress: Considering Utopia" was an exhibition about the pursuit of ideal ways of life, and artist Elisheva Biernoff was asked to create work reflecting this theme. She discusses her research on the subject and how it led to "The Tools Are In Your Hands," a highly interactive piece that allowed visitors to create their own utopia with clever magnets in an idyllic landscape.
Pakistani-American artist Shahzia Sikander’s drawings are informed by the intricately detailed miniature painting of the Mughal and Persian traditions. Discussing her work included in the exhibition "Beyond Belief: 100 Years of the Spiritual in Modern Art," As she reveals in her conversation with art historian John Zarobell, her work evokes language in order to complicate, not clarify, the narrative of identity and spirituality in our rapidly globalizing world.
More on the exhibition can be found at http://beyondbelief.thecjm.org
The Beats inspired not only the counterculture's message but its media too, from underground comix and counterculture newspapers to the 'zine revolution and blogs. This lively panel discussion moderated by David Pescovitz (Boing Boing) includes Ron Turner (Last Gasp), RU Sirius (Mondo 2000), V.Vale (ReSearch), and Layla Gibbon (Maximum RocknRoll).
Recorded at the Contemporary Jewish Museum.
Francesco Spagnolo, Curator at the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at UC Berkeley, suggests a role for archives and ritual as our culture re-imagines the idea of memory for a digital age.
A podcast from the Contemporary Jewish Museum.
To celebrate the Jewish New Year, Rabbi Menachem Creditor puts a spiritual lens on the upcoming exhibition, The Radical Camera: New York's Photo League, 1936–1951.
Artist Merav Tzur, through her alter-ego Sarah Gray, has formed a research institute promoting impossible tasks – like recreating the Tree of Knowledge – and performance spaces where everyone can make art. It’s what happens when an artist mixes a kibbutz with a laboratory, then adds YouTube.
Cartoonist and comedian Michael Capozzola describes how humor is truth stretched to its limit, and how he has funneled his Jewish/Italian heritage and ambivalence about technology into his popular comic strips and standup routines.
David Katznelson is all about music. As a founder of the Idelsohn Society, the Grammy-nominated producer helped created the CJM exhibitions Jews on Vinyl and Black Sabbath. In this interview, learn why record covers tell the story of a people, and why “history sounds different when you know where to start listening…”
Ellen Ullman is a writer and computer programmer, whose new novel By Blood takes place in dystopic 1970s San Francisco. We talk with her about the promise and threat of that time in the Bay Area, the difference between human and computer language, and some of the barriers to there being more female programmers.
Comedian Moshe Kasher gets serious (but not too serious) about humor, addiction, and his memoir Kasher in the Rye: The True Tale of a White Boy from Oakland who Became a Drug Addict, Criminal, Mental Patient, and Then Turned 16. Also, the comedy club as grad school, and the backlash to his jokes about Hasidic Jews and his deaf parents on Conan.
In "Dissolving Localities," a multi-media installation at the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at UC Berkeley, Israeli musician, composer, and curator Emmanuel Witzthum created a dialogue between his hometown of Jerusalem and Berkeley. In this conversation, Witzthum explores how contemporary culture, Jewish identity, and Israeli life function best when the “open platform” of art is applied to social, religious and political problems.
Is directing a play similar to designing a building? And in both drama and architecture, when is silence preferable to speech? American Conservatory Theater Artistic Director Carey Perloff, author of the new playHigher, explores the complex rituals of architecture, theater, and memory in her drama about a competition to build a memorial in Israel.
Rachel Schreiber is a historian and artist who works with text and image, often at the same time. Her project Site Reading, which includes photographs of Bay Area places with unexpected stories, was commissioned for the current CJM exhibition California Dreaming: Jewish Life in the Bay Area from the Gold Rush to the Present. In this conversation she explores her artistic process (which begins with a bedrock of research) as well as a career at the sometimes lonely intersection of art and history.
Biographer Kenneth Silverman on Houdini's upbringing, his Jewishness, his innovations as a performer, and the psychics and mediums he worked to discredit. And then there's the matter of Professor Silvermans's own magical past...
Deborah Oropallo is known for her boundary-blurring mixed media work, but she thinks like a painter. She discusses what artists and magicians have in common, and how she embraces the creative gifts of the digital age.
Poet, teacher, and Girls in Trouble front-woman Alicia Jo Rabins discusses her "religiously Jewish, culturally Protestant" upbringing, and how she gets into the minds and hearts of the biblical women she sings about.
Architect and designer Stanley Saitowitz discusses the ideas behind his thoughtful contemporary structures, and what the iPhone and his new line of modern Judaica have in common.
Renowned conjuror Joshua Jay on truth, deception, the difference between good and great magic, and why there are so many Jewish magicians.
Tiffany Shlain, Director of "Connected: An Autoblogography About Love, Death & Technology", explores the ways contemporary culture uses technology to both isolate and relate.