After a lengthy closure, the galleries devoted to Torah, Life Cycle, and Holidays and Festivals in the Skirball’s core exhibition An Eternal People: The Jewish Experience, are once again open with new cases, new signage and ritual objects from the B’nai B’rith Klutznick Collection that have never been on view before. Old favorites are seen in a whole new light, literally and figuratively.
This grand reopening is made even more meaningful by the opportunity to bring the work of Santa Fe-based artist Ellie Beth Scott to the Skirball’s second floor foyer. For her exhibition Eve: I Understand, Scott was inspired by selected ritual objects in the Skirball collection used by women and by practices performed by women, rendering richly colored pieces using fabric, thread, paint, buttons, and beads.
In the fourth-floor gallery, the focus on women continues with Motherhood Essence and the Feminine Divine: Cincinnati and Israeli Artists Interpret The Female Experience, organized by ish in celebration of Israel at 75. Ish, whose mission is to create intentional spaces for connection and acceptance through the arts, brings together four Israeli and four Cincinnati artists to create eight original works of art and four additional works that interpret and “re-art” the work of their colleagues. The works respond to the power of women as community builders, organizers, and healers through times of crisis and change.
