Tuesdays and Thursdays, 7 PM
Miles Nadal JCC, 750 Spadina Avenue
$10 ($5 students); $60 Series Pass
A series of seven engaging, illustrated talks on Jewish themes and iconography in Israeli art over the past 100 years given by Koffler’s first scholar-in-residence, Gideon Ofrat.
Generously supported by a grant from the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Foundation.
Tuesday, November 11
Israeli Art 101: An introduction to 100 years of art in Israel with the creation of images of the pioneer, the sabra, secularism, and more. Uncover how Israeli art reflected the shaping of a new “Hebrew” culture that was seen as an alternative to traditional Jewish life.
Thursday, November 13
Who is the New Jew? A critical look at the Zionist dichotomy between the “Old Jew” and the “New Jew,” pointing to the continuous presence of Jewish references in Israeli art despite widely-held assumptions of its largely secular tone.
Tuesday, November 18
Thou Shall Make… Art created in Israel in recent years has increasingly turned to traditional Jewish imagery shirking the prohibition, "Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image."
Tuesday, November 25
A Homecoming for the Wandering Jew : Discover the historical transformation of the anti-Semitic myth of the Eternal Jew and its recent reinterpretation in imagery of the Israeli wanderer.
Thursday, November 27
The Meaning of Milah: Examine the interweaving of language and the body in Israeli art as influenced by the unique duality that milah means both “word” and “circumcision” in Hebrew.
Tuesday, December 2
From the Bible to Battle: How the Biblical tale of the Sacrifice of Isaac becomes a metaphor for tragedy in times of war including Eastern European pogroms, the Holocaust, and battles in Israel.
Thursday, December 4
God-Seekers in Israeli Art: Jewish artists are challenged when portraying God within the confines of traditional statues against figurative art and idol worship. Ofrat demonstrates how Israeli art has confronted the problem of representing the non-representational Jewish God.
About Gideon Ofrat
Gideon Ofrat is a world renowned art historian, curator, professor of philosophy and aesthetics, and author of numerous books, catalogues and articles on Israeli art, art history, and Jewish cultural studies. He has organized countless exhibitions at major museums around the world, including the groundbreaking 1993 and 1995 Israeli Pavilion exhibitions at the Venice Biennale which introduced contemporary Israeli artists to a global audience. In the 1970s and 1980s, Ofrat was the first to organize performance art festivals in Israel as well as nine pioneering exhibitions on the rise of Israeli Post-Modernism, and twenty historical exhibit ions focusing on forgotten or unrecognized trends and artists from the history of Israeli art. In addition to his One Hundred Years of Art in Israel (Harper Collins, 1998) he wrote the three volume book with David Tartakower entitled Bezalel 100 (2006) which chronicled the extraordinary history of Bezalel School of Art in Jerusalem, one of the preeminent art schools in the world. He has published hundreds of articles, thirty books, and written for more than eighty catalogues for Israeli artists and group exhibitions.
For TICKETS, please contact
Ilanit Shohat, Communications and Marketing Associate
416.636.1880 x222 or ishohat@kofflerarts.org