In this video artists Mark Podwal, Yona Verwer (Jewish Art Salon Director), and Cynthia Beth Rubin offer insight into their creative processes and share a contemporary view of an ancient ritualized story.
Mark shows his published Haggadot and Passover relevant images including collages from his soon to be published “A Collage of Customs”.
Cynthia and Yona talk about their collaborative Passover interactive art work (with web developer Kris Tonski), as well as their individual works related to this theme.
Curated by Dorit Jordan Dotan and Judith Joseph.
In addition to the curators, this program is produced with the support of team members Cheselyn Amato and Chana Wiesenthal-Elias.
About the artists:
MARK PODWAL
Initially known for his drawings for The New York Times Op-Ed page, Mark Podwal’s works have been exhibited and published worldwide. He is the author and illustrator of numerous books, most of which focus on Jewish themes. His art is represented in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Israel Museum, the Jewish Museums in Prague, Berlin, Vienna, and New York, among many other venues. The French Ministry of Culture named Podwal an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters. Moreover, he received the Foundation for Jewish Culture Achievement Award and the Foreign Ministry of the Czech Republic’s Gratias Agit Award. Czech Television has produced two documentaries on Podwal’s art. A 374-page monograph, Reimagined: 45 Years of Jewish Art by Mark Podwal, received a starred review in Library Journal, which said, “This book is a wonder to behold, especially for lovers of art, books, and Judaica.” https://markpodwal.com/
CYNTHIA BETH RUBIN
Cynthia Beth Rubin is an early adopter of digital imaging, transitioning from paint in the 1980s. Rubin’s prints, videos, and interactive works have been shown on the ICC tower façade in Hong Kong, the Jewish Museum in Prague, the Cotton Club screen in Harlem, the ICA in London, and the Jerusalem Biennale, and numerous international festivals featuring digital art, such as ISEA and SIGGRAPH. Equally fascinated by imagined memories of cultural history and with envisioning the unseen microscopic life of oceans and still waters, her works evoke narratives through interwoven layers of representation and abstraction, frequently combined with interactive experience. http://cbrubin.net/
YONA VERWER
Dutch-born, New York based Yona Verwer is a multimedia artist and muralist whose works explore personal and collective identity, history, tikkun olam, and kabbalah. She holds a MFA from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, The Netherlands. Her series “Book of Yona”, “Troubled Waters”, and “Urim & Tumim” are collaborations with artist Katarzyna Kozera and composers Alon Nechushtan and Dan Schwartz. With artist Cynthia Beth Rubin and web developer Kris Tonski she contributed to the interactive “Zodiacs and the Lower East Side”. Verwer’s work has been exhibited at the Jerusalem Biennale, Andy Warhol Factory, Mizel Museum, Ein Harod Museum, the Holocaust Memorial Center, the Bronx Museum, amongst others. She has been reviewed in the New York Times, the New, Art Criticism, Ars Judaica,and the Huffington Post. And in Ori Soltes’ Tradition and Transformation: Three Millennia of Jewish Art and Architecture. http://www.yonaverwer.com/
This session was recoded live on Zoom on March 9, 2021.
