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“Fascinating! [Melissa Shiff's Postmodern Jewish] Wedding is wonderful juxtaposition of modern and meaningful tradition.” –Gertrude Levy

[On Melissa Shiff] “Fabulous imagery, thank you for sharing your gift.” –G. Jara Marinwood

 ”What a wonderful and generous idea to allow the public to watch artists during the process of creation and let them discover how hard it is…art is love.”

–Xanou, Monaco

“Great and fun and interesting!” –Robert

“Exciting…although I don’t think I understood it so well!” –Elise, Stockholm

“Inspired to create–thank you.” –Arlene

“Color at last!” –Lisa, Darien, CT

“Fabulous. All art classes in NYC schools especially Hebrew Day Schools from elementary school and older should be exposed and INSPIRED by the CREATIVITY.” –MSW, Englewood, NJ

“For Levi Okunov: It was great meeting the artist–you are very creative and lovely. Good luck” –Miriam and Zelda

“Re: Socalled, the tunes are incredible…keep up the good work!” –Alex

“What a wonderful visual experience, and what a wondeful interactive experience!” –Ellen

“Off the wall indeed. Keep doing this.”

“To Levi and the curators from The Jewish Museum: Fabulous. My compliments on an excellent show.” –Prof. S. Gradman

Thank you to all our visitors for your helpful feedback!

The Off the Wall Team

Okunov is seen as a model not just for having transcended his story, but for having incorporated it into a larger story without abandoning it completely. The standard narrative of lapsed religious Jews (or any Jews, for that matter) is that they are forever suspended in inner turmoil and guilt. This is the narrative popularized by the Nathan Englanders and Shalom Auslanders of the world, and especially beloved by secular Jews for confirming a smug fantasy that religion is oppressive and unhealthy.

But Okunov does not seem fraught with existential angst, perhaps because he has a loving relationship with his family. Although his parents were distressed when he first left the fold, they now have a close relationship with him, speaking with Okunov on the phone regularly and always welcoming him home. His mother believes that he is somehow saving souls through his work and has said she would eagerly attend one of his fashion shows if there were a divider separating men and women.

Okunov seems to find nothing contradictory about being a fashion designer and bon vivant who spontaneously breaks into Yiddish song and still considers himself a Hasid, if not in practice then certainly in spirit. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about him is that in his mind, everything is OK. It might seem incongruous from the outside, but to Okunov, juggling the pieces of his seemingly disparate identities feels perfectly fine.

Full story.

Before the Fashion Show and Closing Night Party on March 27, Off the Wall artists and exhibition designers gave presentations at a salon hosted by the Jews and Media Working Group, based at NYU’s Center for Religion and Media. Co-faciliators Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Jeffrey Shandler offered some commentary and questions. Here are notes from my presentation:

Off the Wall was a response to press and scholarly analysis on New Jewish Culture, a phenomenon in which a younger generation of Jews expresses religion and identity in ways that are both earnest and playful, and, at times, transgressive. Over the past five years, much has been written about Jewish music, theater, and publishing, but very little attention paid to visual artists and visual art venues. http://www2.jewishculture.org/publications/research/culturestudy/newsitem.2006-06-01.1732478823

This was an area in which we thought The Jewish Museum could contribute to the discussion.

We wanted to maintain the vitality of the subject matter. So instead of placing Heeb magazines and Jewcy t-shirts in a vitrine–which would only perpetuate the belief that museums are mausoleums for art–we opted for a live art laboratory: an open studio format borrowed from artist-in-residence programs at nonprofit galleries. Examples in New York include Smack Mellon and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

While New Jewish Culture has unique qualities, it isn’t that new. The same holds true for Off the Wall at The Jewish Museum. Every generation reinvents itself with new ideas and technologies. Historical precedents for Off the Wall at The Jewish Museum include

the Tobe Pascher Workshop for contemporary ceremonial art founded in 1956 where resident artists like Moshe Zabari and Ludwig Wolpert worked in the museum’s basement studio. Software (1970), a pioneering exhibition about information technology and interactive art, was off the wall in its day. Museum visitors carried transistor radios which picked up a continuous broadcast of poetry readings gathered by John Giorno. Seek, a project by Nicholas Negroponte’s Achitecture Machine Group (a precursor to the MIT Media Lab), featured a computer-controlled robotic enviornment that, in theory, reconfigured itself in response to gerbil behavior. We didn’t have a rodent habitrail as part of Off the Wall, but we exhibited new media with Jewish content–something that may have been beyond imagination for the contemporary art world circa 1970. I also think Off the Wall wouldn’t be possible without Allan Kaprow’s Happenings forty years ago or Rirkrit Tiravanija’s socially interactive art projects during the 1990s.

There was no open call for Off the Wall artists. I chose artists under 40 who use Jewish concepts and themes in their work or consider themselves part of a Jewish social network. I encouraged artists to do site-responsive work–to take advatage of the fact that they would be in residence at a collecting institution like The Jewish Museum. Diwon selected audio material from our broadcast archive, Melissa Shiff borrowed traditional Judaica imagery for her mandalas, Levi Okunov used Torah ornaments and Hanukkah lamps as inspiration for his Fall collection, musician Alicia Jo Rabins offered a live musical docent tour and podcast of the permanent exhibition.

Museums are not only about objects, but also about people. Alina and Jeff Bliumis used staff and visitors as resource for their American Dream project. Evan Tapper adapted his video on misogyny, Jewish education, and dating based on comments from a visitor.

The project was successful and we still need some time to digest everything. More later….

As a textile and installation artist one of my many interests lies in working with the fusion of texts, images and textures of many cultures for creating cloths of compassion.

When Levi asked me to work with him on this project I asked him what was the most important feeling that he wanted to convey for The Jewish Museum. He replied that he was inspired by the Hanukkah lamp collection and he also wanted to create garments based on the Torah’s material culture: the scriptures on parchment, mantles, and crowns. He wanted to convey the idea that the garments are sacred and empowering to whomever wears them. Torah teaches light, joy, creativity, peace, and love.

We printed the following poem by the Persian poet Rumi on the linings of the garments:

Love gives Joy to all Creations
Love is what gives Joy to giving Joy!
I was born from Mother at the Beginning!
Endless Blessings

The Arabic was translated by Levi’s sample maker Sam who is of Arab descent and Levi translated it phonetically into Yiddish.

One of the interesting aspects of this process was the cross pollination of other cultures. Levi translated it to Yiddish. But instead of writing it in the usual way Yiddish would be written from right to left. He took poetic license and wrote it vertically similar to the way Asian calligraphy would be written. I wanted the color of the Arabic to be blue like the sky and sea….endless space. The letters of the Yiddish is the color of red clay.

Life is always full of surprises. The first one was finding out the colors had been reversed. The second one was realizing the inks that had been used on the parachute fabric were not correct. There was also a challenging moment when the ink began to peel off the fabric.

Levi and I looked at each other and simultaneously thought of a technique that might solve this problem.

Many fabrics that I have created utilize this technique.
We fused with heat transparent organza on the parachute fabric which allowed for there to be visual clarity of the writings while preserving the silkscreened fabric that was chipping. This gave us a new dimension in regards to texture and weight of fabric.

The fused fabric’s properties are very different than a lighter fabric.
We were able to add color to the fusion fabric which gave a new depth to the doves, menorahs, peace symbols and Yiddish texts.

We were happy with our new discoveries……then one new variable occurred. The veil of organza which had been fused to the parachute fabric was peeled away. Andy stood there and proclaimed: “The Museum has a new Dead Sea Scroll fragment.”

When the organza which had been heat sealed parted from the parachute fabric to disclose our process, we observed that the more you carefully peel away the fabric, both sides of the print are left on the two different materials.

Now our wonderful taffetta-like dress has yet another new element: the fluidity of the printed transluscent organzas…….which is part of the many levels of transparencies needed to make the interconnection for peace.