The Opening Reception at the Manny Cantor Center took place on Tuesday, Oct. 13 2015, 6:00 – 9:00pm
Click here for our photo album
Review in the Jewish Week
See Catalog Bellow:
Click here for our photo album
Review in the Jewish Week
See Catalog Bellow:
More information
Rooted is available as a traveling show - book this show now NOW!
Art Kibbutz’s exhibition, co-sponsored by the Jewish Art Salon explores the dual role of art embedded in the environment and Jewish identity. In a world where global warming and Israeli current events are in the daily news, modern visual arts provide a platform to continue a conversation about a shared experience felt by the selected artists.
A wide survey of media ranging from unconventional raw materials like dirt, branches and bones to innovative technology like embedded Augmented Reality highlights the complex relationship an artist experiences while being rooted in the changing environment and Jewish culture. Each artist, as an observer and participant, has an individual relationship to their surrounding ecological system, whether it is with Earth or Judaism, or both. The shared experience fully developed within the gallery space, when viewers are encouraged to participate in questioning and understanding the world around them.
Rooted aims to highlight the active role of immersing oneself as an artist, as a Jew and as a viewer in the process of understanding the connection between Jewish identity, art and nature. The artist’s perspectives range from literally digging deep into the soil of the land, like Ken Goldman’s Dirty Jew, a self-portrait that depicts the Israeli artist proudly drenched in the organic waste of the 350 milking cows on the kibbutz in Israel that he calls home; to artworks that straddle nature and technology, like Cynthia Beth Rubin’s Roots, which uses Augmented Reality to show source material such as plankton in water. Complete with conceptual and commissioned work, the exhibition also displays the art of two pioneers of ecological art, Jackie Brookner and Helène Aylon, who have devoted decades to teaching art as activism and “rescuing” the body, the Earth and G-d.
Most exhibiting artists represent the Art Kibbutz artist community, who each found a different meaningful Jewish connection through the arts. Their work had been widely informed by their artist residency experiences at Art Kibbutz. Each residency program was created to harness and maximize residents' creative work related to Jewish responses to the environment, farming, and sustainability.
Visitors are encouraged to contemplate their own roots of their upbringing and environment. This incentive is further was further realized in the Art Kibbutz Creative Catalyst symposium dedicated to art activism in memory of Jackie Brookner, a former Art Kibbutz resident and activist.
About The Manny Cantor Center and the Educational Alliance
The exhibition successfully took place at the Jewish Communal Fund and the Ernest Rubenstein Galleries of the Manny Cantor Center on the Lower East Side of NYC in October – December 2015.
Acknowledgements
Rooted was selected into the ArtCop21 as the only Jewish participant - an exceptional global festival of art and cultural activity on climate change that ran from September to December 2015, alongside COP21 in Paris. The exhibition was also selected to participate in Heshvan, the Jewish Social Action Month of UJA Federation of New York & the National Arts and Humanities Month of the Americans for the Arts.
About The Manny Cantor Center and the Educational Alliance
After years of planning, the Educational Alliance’s historic East Broadway headquarters has been transformed into the Manny Cantor Center: a settlement house of yesterday and a community center for today, and tomorrow. Offering exciting events, award-winning programs, and critical services for people ages 0 to 100+, the Manny Cantor Center is a hub of diversity and inclusivity, of health and fitness, of education and of excellence. We hope the Manny Cantor Center will provide a space for growth, achievement, enjoyment and connection for all Lower East Siders today.
About Jewish Art Salon
The Jewish Art Salon, founded in 2008, is an international artist-driven community that strives to promote understanding and appreciation of contemporary and innovative Jewish visual art. It uses the power of collaboration to provide important resources and programs that develop lasting partnerships with the global art community and the general public. The Jewish Art Salon builds community, as well as produces events. It organizes dynamic exhibits, inter-active art events, and (in the New York area) bi-monthly salon sessions engaging international artists and scholars, in order to create an appreciation for cutting-edge Jewish art.
About Aimee Rubensteen
Aimee Rubensteen is a curator and writer living in New York City. She focuses on modern and contemporary art that utilizes unconventional materials and challenges traditional notions of Jewish identity. Her recent projects include curating Waiting in Wonder, a group exhibition that explored a traditional Jewish counting ritual through modern visual arts for a multi-purpose gallery in Brooklyn; and co-curating JOMIX- Jewish Comics; Art & Derivation, a survey of contemporary Jewish artists using comics as a medium to express and address their Jewish identity and cultural experience, currently on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art. Additionally, Aimee works at Sotheby's as the Administrator of the Egyptian, Classical, and Western Asiatic Antiquities Department.
Book This Show
This exhibition is available as a traveling show - with workshops. Email us now to for more details and/or to book it.
Rooted is available as a traveling show - book this show now NOW!
Art Kibbutz’s exhibition, co-sponsored by the Jewish Art Salon explores the dual role of art embedded in the environment and Jewish identity. In a world where global warming and Israeli current events are in the daily news, modern visual arts provide a platform to continue a conversation about a shared experience felt by the selected artists.
A wide survey of media ranging from unconventional raw materials like dirt, branches and bones to innovative technology like embedded Augmented Reality highlights the complex relationship an artist experiences while being rooted in the changing environment and Jewish culture. Each artist, as an observer and participant, has an individual relationship to their surrounding ecological system, whether it is with Earth or Judaism, or both. The shared experience fully developed within the gallery space, when viewers are encouraged to participate in questioning and understanding the world around them.
Rooted aims to highlight the active role of immersing oneself as an artist, as a Jew and as a viewer in the process of understanding the connection between Jewish identity, art and nature. The artist’s perspectives range from literally digging deep into the soil of the land, like Ken Goldman’s Dirty Jew, a self-portrait that depicts the Israeli artist proudly drenched in the organic waste of the 350 milking cows on the kibbutz in Israel that he calls home; to artworks that straddle nature and technology, like Cynthia Beth Rubin’s Roots, which uses Augmented Reality to show source material such as plankton in water. Complete with conceptual and commissioned work, the exhibition also displays the art of two pioneers of ecological art, Jackie Brookner and Helène Aylon, who have devoted decades to teaching art as activism and “rescuing” the body, the Earth and G-d.
Most exhibiting artists represent the Art Kibbutz artist community, who each found a different meaningful Jewish connection through the arts. Their work had been widely informed by their artist residency experiences at Art Kibbutz. Each residency program was created to harness and maximize residents' creative work related to Jewish responses to the environment, farming, and sustainability.
Visitors are encouraged to contemplate their own roots of their upbringing and environment. This incentive is further was further realized in the Art Kibbutz Creative Catalyst symposium dedicated to art activism in memory of Jackie Brookner, a former Art Kibbutz resident and activist.
About The Manny Cantor Center and the Educational Alliance
The exhibition successfully took place at the Jewish Communal Fund and the Ernest Rubenstein Galleries of the Manny Cantor Center on the Lower East Side of NYC in October – December 2015.
Acknowledgements
Rooted was selected into the ArtCop21 as the only Jewish participant - an exceptional global festival of art and cultural activity on climate change that ran from September to December 2015, alongside COP21 in Paris. The exhibition was also selected to participate in Heshvan, the Jewish Social Action Month of UJA Federation of New York & the National Arts and Humanities Month of the Americans for the Arts.
About The Manny Cantor Center and the Educational Alliance
After years of planning, the Educational Alliance’s historic East Broadway headquarters has been transformed into the Manny Cantor Center: a settlement house of yesterday and a community center for today, and tomorrow. Offering exciting events, award-winning programs, and critical services for people ages 0 to 100+, the Manny Cantor Center is a hub of diversity and inclusivity, of health and fitness, of education and of excellence. We hope the Manny Cantor Center will provide a space for growth, achievement, enjoyment and connection for all Lower East Siders today.
About Jewish Art Salon
The Jewish Art Salon, founded in 2008, is an international artist-driven community that strives to promote understanding and appreciation of contemporary and innovative Jewish visual art. It uses the power of collaboration to provide important resources and programs that develop lasting partnerships with the global art community and the general public. The Jewish Art Salon builds community, as well as produces events. It organizes dynamic exhibits, inter-active art events, and (in the New York area) bi-monthly salon sessions engaging international artists and scholars, in order to create an appreciation for cutting-edge Jewish art.
About Aimee Rubensteen
Aimee Rubensteen is a curator and writer living in New York City. She focuses on modern and contemporary art that utilizes unconventional materials and challenges traditional notions of Jewish identity. Her recent projects include curating Waiting in Wonder, a group exhibition that explored a traditional Jewish counting ritual through modern visual arts for a multi-purpose gallery in Brooklyn; and co-curating JOMIX- Jewish Comics; Art & Derivation, a survey of contemporary Jewish artists using comics as a medium to express and address their Jewish identity and cultural experience, currently on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art. Additionally, Aimee works at Sotheby's as the Administrator of the Egyptian, Classical, and Western Asiatic Antiquities Department.
Book This Show
This exhibition is available as a traveling show - with workshops. Email us now to for more details and/or to book it.
