Winter 1999-Fall 2000

Los Angeles

Sigmund Freud: Conflict and Culture

(April 4-July 25, 2000)
Vintage photographs, manuscript letters, first editions, rare home movies, and objects from Freud’s study and consulting room are featured in this exhibition which illuminates Freud’s legacy, while film and television clips as well as newspaper and magazine materials highlight the pervasive influence of Freudian psychoanalysis on popular culture. (Presented with the support of The J. Paul Getty Trust.)

The Making of the Animated Film Prince of Egypt

Drawings, Painting, and Film Stills
(December 5, 1999-February 27, 2000)
This exhibition on the Prince of Egypt presents the process of creating the animated movie about Moses and the Exodus from Egypt through story board drawings, paintings created to develop the film’s visual style, layout and background drawings, animation drawing of the characters, and stills from the film.

The Nuremberg Laws

The original Nuremberg Laws, the Nazi code of racial discrimination against Jews that was drafted on September 14 and 15, 1935 and signed by Adolf Hitler, and a ceremonial edition of Hitler’s Mein Kampf will be on view for the first time ever at the HUC-JIR Skirball Cultural Center (SCC).

The Nuremberg Laws stripped German Jews of their citizenship, barred marriage and sexual relations between Jews and Germans, and barred Jews from employing German domestic help. The Mein Kampf is leather and bronze bound, gold-embossed, and was printed in the 1920s on handmade paper as part of a special edition of 100 to be used for rallies and ceremonial presentations. General George S. Patton, Jr.’s troops discovered the documents in a vault in Eichstatt, Germany in 1945 and presented them to him. Patton later gave these artifacts to The Huntington Library in Pasadena, California, which has loaned them for an indefinite period to the SCC. They were temporarily on view as part of the permanent exhibition Visions and Values: Jewish Life from Antiquity to America from June 29 through September 5, and will be on permanent exhibition beginning in December after the expansion and renovation of the galleries.

Niki de Saint Phalle: Noah’s Ark Sculptures

(Through November 1999)On their way to Israel for the year 2000, a giant colorful ram and an oversized gold-headed dove are on view in the main entrance of the HUC-JIR Skirball Cultural Center. Made of ceramic, mirror, glass, and polyester, these large-scale brightly colored sculptures invite visitors of all ages to play, climb, and interact with them. These works are two of twenty-two Noah’s Ark animal sculptures created by de Saint Phalle to be housed in the Noah’s Ark Sculpture Park in Jerusalem, a gift under the auspices of the Jerusalem Foundation. This exhibition has been made possible by the Stolaroff Family Foundation.

Cincinnati

Jewish Carpets: The Anton Felton Collection

(April 2-August 13, 2000)
These world-renowned Jewish pictorial carpets from the Anton Felton Collection of London, England, were produced in Persia and the Bezalel Arts Workshops of pre-state Israel. Woven of silk, wool, or cotton, these decorative and inspirational 19th and 20th century carpets are distinguished by their richness of color, design, and imagery inspired by Biblical and historical experience. The exhibition includes carpets that were used in the synagogue, home, or Sukkah.

Jewish Kitchens: Memories for the Soul

Three tableaus of Jewish kitchens — the milk kitchen, the meat kitchen, and the Passover kitchen — present objects on loan from Cincinnati families, who proudly preserved generations of pots and pans, utensils, bowls, pitchers, candlesticks, and linens. The opening reception, on September 14, features Joan Nathan, the author of Jewish Cooking in America and a PBS host, who will present a slide lecture entitled “The Social History of Jewish Cooking in America;” a dessert reception including Nathan’s recipes will follow the program.

New York

A Mirror of Jewish Life: A Selection from The Moldovan Family Collection

(March 13-June 21, 2000)
Recognized as one of the most important Judaica collections in the world, the Moldovan Family Collection showcases 90 rare works reflecting the broad scope of Judaica collecting: from ritual objects celebrating the Jewish life cycle, embroidered textiles, books, manuscripts and maps, to posters and unusual documents recording Jewish history.

Moral Courage During World War II: Denmark and Bulgaria

Paintings and Drawings by Karen Gunderson
(March 13-June 21, 2000)
Inspired by the rescue of Danish Jewry from the Nazis in 1943, when the people of Denmark, led by King Christian X, assisted their escape to Sweden by boat, and by King Boris III and the remarkable story of how Bulgaria saved its 50,000 Jews from the Nazis, Gunderson seeks to express the safety of friendship within the context of moral courage.

Scrolls of Silence

A Photographic Exhibition by Hagitte Gal’Ed
(January 18-February 29, 2000)
Gal’Ed’s photographic images of nature’s life cycle, including her portraits of trees and water, illustrate the transformative power of light. Evoking creation, her works depict her ultimate goal of creating a culture of worldwide peace.

Digital Drawings: Natan Nuchi

(March 13-June 21, 2000)
Nuchi explores abstraction, scale, and time, as the pixel unit of the computer image becomes the artist’s brush stroke, representational figures dissolve and reappear, and the computer process enters into an art tradition which emphasizes gesture, intimacy, and humanism.

Edith Isaac-Rose: Daily Rage

(November 16 through February 29)
Edith Isaac-Rose, painter, teacher, and director of Art Workshop International, presents a 10-year retrospective of works based on her outrage to daily news media. Strong figurative paintings based on newspaper and television images reveal the contradictions of anger and quiet, order and agitation, serious and absurd, as seen in news photographs. X-ray imagery, underlying representations of self-righteous world leaders and vulnerable young troops sent into battle, expresses the commonality of human frailty, while suited, animal-faced men exude the humor and barbarism of the “civilized” world. Growing up in a Jewish neighborhood in Chicago in the late 1930s-40s, Isaac-Rose was shaped by her mother’s futile attempts to rescue her parents and sibling from Hungary during the Holocaust. Her “daily rage” goes back to her roots and has been honed through her art to impact on all.

Julie Dermansky and Georg Steinböck: At Auschwitz

(September 10 through February 29)
A photographic essay and video installation by artists Julie Dermansky and Georg Steinböck express outrage at the incipient commercialization and banalization of Holocaust memorial sites. Images evoking Jewish suffering during the Shoah are juxtaposed with photographs of contemporary Polish Catholicism and anti-Semitic graffiti. The video installation presents a disturbing view of the tourist cafeteria at Auschwitz, the building where new inmates were processed upon arrival at Auschwitz during the Holocaust, which challenges our vigilance to preserve the integrity of Holocaust memory.