Garden of Eden Exhibit Takes Artists Back to Where it all Began

THE WASHINGTON POST

By Chris Herlinger | Religion News Service

"Gowanus" (2013) by Alexis Rockman

NEW YORK---Environmental themes are particularly prominent in “Back to Eden: Contemporary Artists Wander the Garden,” which is on view at the museum through Sept. 28. The nearly two dozen pieces on display include paintings, sculptures, works on paper, and installations containing video elements. Of particular interest to the environmentally minded, and those who like large-scale paintings, is Alexis Rockman’s striking and dystopian “Gowanus,” a 2013 work depicting the Gowanus Canal, a long-polluted Brooklyn site that, as museum notes describe it, is notorious among New Yorkers as a “toxic wasteland” reflecting “the disastrous potential for the destruction of nature” by humanity. [link]

Museum of Biblical Art: “Back to Eden: Contemporary Artists Wander the Garden,” (Ends Sept. 28); 1865 Broadway at 61st Street, NYC; mobia.org

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Philbrook Museum of Art Announces Receipt of the Hyatt Collection of Hopi Art

ARTDAILY

The Hyatt family began traveling to the Hopi reservation in northern Arizona in the late 1980s.

OKLAHOMA--- Philbrook Museum of Art announced the important gift of 364 works of Hopi art, including katsinas, basketry and other media from Atlanta and Santa Fe-based collector, Wayne S. Hyatt. Featuring works by more than 160 artists, the Hyatt Collection both expands and strengthens the impressive survey of 20th and 21st century Native American art within the Philbrook holdings. Highlights of the collection include 25 katsinas (carved wooden figures of Hopi spiritual beings) by brothers Wilmer and Wilfred Kaye of the Badger/Butterfly Clan of Third Mesa. [link]

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Bold Color, Pop Culture and Religious Ecstasy: the Art of Corita Kent at MOCA Cleveland

THE CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER
By Steven Litt

OHIO---The Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland prides itself on being an up-to-the-minute kind place that serves as Northeast Ohio's window on the latest doings in the art world. This summer, however, it's taking a vacation from its typical role with a retrospective glance at the colorful, ecstatic and faith-infused art of Sister Mary Corita, whose career peaked in the 1960s and '70s when she taught at a Catholic college in Los Angeles and then broke away to become an independent artist.[link]

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Sinful Saints and Saintly Sinners at the Margins of the Americas

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS
By TAHLIB

CALIFORNIA---Sacred figures all walk the fine line between sinfulness and sanctity, even if we choose to only remember the sacred portions of that walk. That's why the Fowler Museum's "Sinful Saints and Saintly Sinners at the Margins of the Americas" exhibition was so important. Featuring an array of paintings, sculptures, digital arts, mixed-media works, and site-specific installations,  the exhibition examined a series of crucial, and often controversial, divine beings in Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala, Argentina, and the United States. The sin is that exhibition, which opened in March closed on July 20, 2014, but a video is still available to share how artists have interpreted these diverse stories.  The Fowler Museum is located on the north campus of UCLA.

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Florence Museum Concludes Major Exhibition by Mannerist Painter Pontormo

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS 
By TAHLIB

"Visitation" from the parish church of St. Michael in Carmignano

ITALY---The major exhibition, "Pontormo and Rosso. Diverging Paths of Mannerism," attracted 150,000 visitors according to Artdaily. The artist Pontormo, also known as Jacopo Carucci (May 24, 1494 – January 2, 1557) was an Italian Mannerist painter. His work represents a stylistic shift from the calm perspectival regularity that characterized the art of the Florentine Renaissance. He is famous for his use of twining poses, coupled with ambiguous perspective. His figures often seem to float in an uncertain environment, unhampered by the forces of gravity. The exhibition ended on July 20, 2014 at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence.

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A New Generation of Chinese Art Visits Tampa and St. Petersburg

BURNAWAY
By Lilly Wei

Lu Yang, Wrathful King Kong Core, 2011, still from video animation.

FLORIDA---“My Generation,” critic, writer, curator and journalist Barbara Pollack’s expansive exhibition at the Tampa Museum of Art and the St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts (through September 28) salutes the next wave of contemporary Chinese artists, the post-Mao, post-Cultural Revolution generation, all born after 1976 and too young to be part of the tragic Tiananmen Square protests. As China rapidly moved from an agrarian to a modern industrial society in the ’70s, startling changes took place that once again, radically altered Chinese lives. The exhibition emphasizes how much these artists’ attitudes differ from their predecessors (among the first to garner international acclaim). [link]

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Palestinians and Arabs Hang Tough at the New Museum

ARTNET NEWS
By Christian Viveros-Fauné

Installation view, “Here and Elsewhere.” Photo: Benoit Pailley, courtesy New Museum, New York.

NEW YORK---At times walking through the New Museum, with its more than 13 hours of film and video, can feel like an Islamic Cultural Center revival of the French Nouvelle Vague. Early on in their contentious essay for the catalogue accompanying “Here and Elsewhere,” the New Museum’s sprawling, sometimes trying, yet illuminating exhibition of recent art from the Arab world, the show’s curators ask a remarkably timely question: “Is it possible to imagine a history of art that is completely divorced from cultural or social histories?” An exhibition that brings together 45 artists from 12 countries working in different media and from different cultural contexts, “Here and Elsewhere” makes a silk purse from the sow’s ear that is the “progressive” response to exhibitions with a geographical remit. [link]

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Bible Museums Across the U.S. Range from Scholarly to Colorful

MCDONDOUGH VOICE
By Kelsey Dallas

Freer and Sackler Galleries, Washington, D.C.

In a few years, families won't be limited to exploring presidential monuments or walking along the National Mall on vacations to Washington, D.C. They'll also have access to a new Bible museum, scheduled to open in 2017 just a few blocks away from some of America's most famous tourist attractions. The project is sponsored by the family that owns Hobby Lobby. Its nonprofit organization, Museum of the Bible, also funds a traveling exhibit of biblical artifacts and a Bible curriculum for high school students. [link]

Further clues can be found in the Bible exhibits already in operation. Check out these unique sites across the country, which range from scholarly to colorful:

1. Museum of Biblical Art, New York City
2. Dunham Bible Museum, Houston
3. Library of Congress Bible Collection, Washington, D.C.
4. Museum of Biblical Art, Dallas Opened in 2013
5. Freer and Sackler Galleries, Washington, D.C. 
6. The Bible Museum, Goodyear, Arizona
7. BibleWalk, Mansfield, Ohio 
8. Treasuring the Word, Sevierville, Tennessee

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Art Review: ‘Back to Eden,’ at the Museum of Biblical Art

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Ken Johnson

Detail of "Neither Shall You Touch It" by Anonda Bell

NEW YORK---It’s one of the greatest stories ever told, the Bible’s tale of God, Adam, Eve and the Serpent in the Garden of Eden, as related in Genesis 2:4 to 3:24. Derived from Babylonian mythology, it circulated in Jewish oral tradition before being written down in the 10th century B.C. It’s both a strength and a weakness of the exhibition that it leaves you with many more questions than answers. What does Eden represent? A state of mind? A social utopia? An environmentalist dream? A memory of prenatal bliss? Union with the divine, whatever that might be? What would it take to get back to Eden? Perhaps art is a way to sneak back in — if only for occasional brief visits. [link]

“Back to Eden: Contemporary Artists Wander the Garden” continues through Sept. 28 at the Museum of Biblical Art, 1865 Broadway, at 61st Street; 212-408-1500, mobia.org. 

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Utah Museum Exhibits Explore Art and Hindu Belief

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS
By TAHLIB

Bhajan Ashram at Dawn, Vrindavan, India, 2003. Archival carbon inkjet print on handmade
Hahnemuhle photo rag 308 g/m2 paper. © Fazal Sheikh; courtesy Pace/McGill Gallery, New York.

UTAH---The Utah Museum of Fine Arts at the University of Utah is pleased to announce two exhibitions exploring Hinduism in art. The first is "Moksha" a visual story by artist-activist Fazal Sheikh about the widows who've taken refuge in India's holy city of Vrindavan and their hopes of achieving moksha, or heavenly release. A companion exhibition to Moksha that explores the Hindu god Krishna—and the concepts of bhakti (devotion) and moksha (salvation)—through sacred and secular artworks, dating from the 11th century to the 20th, from the UMFA's Asian art collection. Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) mission is to engage visitors in discovering meaningful connections with the artistic expressions of the world's cultures.

Utah Museum of Fine Arts: "Moksha: Photography by Fazal Sheikh" (Ends November 30, 2014) 410 Campus Center Drive, Salt Lake City, UT; (801) 581-7332; umfa.utah.edu

Utah Museum of Fine Arts: "Krisha: Lord of Vrindavan" (August 8–November 30, 2014); 410 Campus Center Drive, Salt Lake City, UT; (801) 581-7332; umfa.utah.edu

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In Brooklyn, a Trove of Hebrew Books From Centuries Past

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Allan Kozinn

A page from Maimonides’s Mishneh Torah from 1574.Credit The Chabad-Lubavitch Library

NEW YORK---The Chabad-Lubavitch movement, a Hasidic group known for its outreach to Jewish communities around the world, has amassed one of the largest collections of rare Jewish manuscripts and books anywhere – on the order of 250,000 items, including some that go back to the 11th century or earlier. The exhibition is open Sundays through Thursdays, noon through 5 p.m., and Fridays, noon through 2 p.m. at Chabad’s headquarters, 770 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. It will run through at least February. [link]

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Family Behind Hobby Lobby Has New Project: Bible Museum

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Alan Rappeport

The proposed museum, shown in this rendering, is scheduled to open in 2017.

WASHINGTON, DC---The evangelical Christian family that owns Hobby Lobby, the chain of craft stores, made history two weeks ago when the Supreme Court overturned the Obama administration’s mandate that family-owned companies must provide contraceptive coverage to their employees. Now, the family is looking to build a permanent presence on the Washington landscape, by establishing a sprawling museum dedicated to the Bible — just two blocks south of the National Mall. Such sentiments have stirred fears about the museum among groups such as the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which promotes separation between church and state. [link]

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Folk Art Collection of Robert Hicks Now on View at Customs House Museum

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS
By TAHLIB

TENNESSEE---The Customs House Museum is exhibiting works from the Folk Art collection of Robert Hicks, the first Tennessean to be included in Art & Antiques magazine’s Top 100 Collectors in America. Folk Art is art which does not come out of the fine art tradition. Folk Artists are typically from rural or pre-industrial societies, and are more closely related to craftsmen than to fine artists. Today, the term “Outsider Art” is often used in place of “Folk Art”. Outsider art is defined as art produced by self-taught artists who are not part of the artistic establishment. The Customs House Museum and Cultural Center is the State’s second largest general museum.

Customs House Museum: "The Outsiders" (Ends September 7, 2014); 200 South Second Street, Clarksville, TN; (931) 648-5780; customshousemuseum.org

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Conceptual Artist Nina Yankowitz Plays Word Games With Sacred Texts

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Joyce Beckenstein

A mannequin styled as a priest, one of five “robotic devotees” in the exhibit.

NEW YORK---The artist Nina Yankowitz is known for projecting words in glass houses, and oh how they can shatter the place. For “Criss-Crossing the Divine,” her current exhibition at Guild Hall in East Hampton, she takes on sacred texts. “Criss-Crossing the Divine” combines scriptures, digital games, video art, three-dimensional animation and robotic avatars. Examining intolerance through the lens of five major religions — Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism — the lively, intuitive piece provides visitors with a different way to experience art, despite its rather serious implications. [link]

Nina Yankowitz: “Criss-Crossing the Divine” is at Guild Hall, 158 Main Street, East Hampton, through July 27. Information: guildhall.org or (631) 324-0806.

In addition to a priest, mannequins depicting a Jew, a Buddhist, a Hindu and a Muslim greet visitors.

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Crow Collection to Present Exhibit on Hindu God Krishna

DALLAS NEWS
By Deborah Fleck

TEXAS---B. G. (Banwarhlal Giridharlal) Sharma came from generations of devotional artists. But unlike many artists of miniature paintings, Sharma created original pictures rather than copying traditional works. During his later years, Sharma, who died in 2007, saw his life’s mission as bringing the caliber of art from the Mughal period of the 18th and 19th centuries to Indian paintings. Artwork from this later period make up the exhibit “Seeing and Believing: Krishna in the Art of B. G. Sharma,” at the Crow Collection of Asian Art, 2010 Flora St. in Dallas. The exhibit runs July 19 through Jan. 18. [link]

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When Snakes Could Walk: Contemporary Artists Take On the Garden of Eden

HYPERALLERGIC
By Allison Meier

Mark Dion, “The Serpent Before the Fall” (2014), installed in ‘Back to Eden’
at the Museum of Biblical Art (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic unless otherwise noted)

NEW YORK---In a 1483 German Bible, the Garden of Eden is depicted as a corralled green circle; Adam and Even are ejected from its manicured grass to a hilly wilderness, with a trail leading off into the unknown. This idealized interpretation of original sin sits alongside more modern takes on our relationship with our environment — where the downfall of humanity is much less refined — in the Museum of Biblical Art’s (MOBIA) "Back to Eden: Contemporary Artists Wander the Garden." At the preview for the exhibition, MOBIA Director Richard P. Townsend explained that he sees it as important to “show contemporary art as integral in the profound impact the Bible has had on tradition” by “looking critically at the good and bad.” [link]

1483 German Bible

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Ancient Ritual Bronzes Grace a Museum Reopening in Massachusetts

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Randy Kennedy

An ancient container for cowrie shells with yaks sculpted on the lid,
in “Cast for Eternity” at the Clark Institute. Credit Shanghai Museum

MASSACHUSETTS---The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, which recently completed a 12-year, $145 million expansion project including new buildings by the Japanese architect Tadao Ando and renovations by the German-born architect Annabelle Selldorf, has reopened its doors in Williamstown, Mass., just in time for the great summer exodus of urban art pilgrims. “Cast for Eternity: Ancient Ritual Bronzes From the Shanghai Museum,” continuing through Sept. 21, features 32 elaborately decorated vessels and bells from China’s Bronze Age, the first of a series of exchanges between the Clark and the Shanghai institution. [link]

The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute: "Cast for Eternity: Ancient Ritual Bronzes From the Shanghai Museum," (Ends September 21); 225 South Street Williamstown, Massachusetts; (413) 458-2303; clarkart.edu

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Museum of Biblical Art Commissions Six New Works for "Back to Eden"

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS
By TAHLIB

"The Fruit Eaters" (2013) by Barnaby Furnas 

NEW YORK---"Back to Eden: Contemporary Artists Wander the Garden" is now open at the Museum of Biblical Art. The MOBIA exhibition explores the direct and indirect influence of the Genesis story of the Garden of Eden on artists working today. For this exhibition, MoBIA commissioned six new works — the first commissions in the museum’s history — as well as 13 pieces created in the past 15 years. The new commissions are by Anonda Bell, Sean Capone, Mark Dion, Dana Sherwood, Mary Temple, and Marina Zurkow. Other artists included in the exhibition include Lynn Aldrich, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Mat Collishaw, Jim Dine, Barnaby Furnas, Adam Fuss, Rona Pondick, Naomi Reis, Lina Puerta, Pipilotti Rist, Alexis Rockman, and Fred Tomaselli. "Back to Eden" will be on view through September 28, 2014.

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Asian Art Museum Welcomes the Works of Arnold Chang and Michael Cherney

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS
By TAHLIB

"After Huang Gongwang 1" (2009) by Michael Cherney (American, b. 1969) and Arnold Chang (American, b. 1954). 

CALIFORNIA--- When Chinese ink painter Arnold Chang and photographer Michael Cherney met for the first time in 2007, they recognized a compatibility between Chang’s personal brushwork and Cherney’s granular photographs, which recall the aesthetics of ink painting. Since 2009, they have been creating joint works that strive to bridge the gap between the traditions of Chinese ink painting and the concerns of contemporary art. Twenty of their works will be showcased at San Francisco's Asian Art Museum in the exhibition "From Two Arises Three: The Collaborative Works of Arnold Chang and Michael Cherney," on view from July 15, 2014, through March 1, 2015.

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‘Other Primary Structures’ at the Jewish Museum, Curated by Jens Hoffmann!

TABLET MAGAZINE
By Jeremy Sigler

Signnage for Jewish Museum Exhibition

NEW YORK---Let’s just say there are two kinds of curators. One is a caretaker for a public or private collection, entrusted to keep the art up on the walls, packed away safely, or shipped off on some boat somewhere. There is another kind of curator who dreams up exhibitions, gathers works from all over the place, and presents “meaning” by “combining”—usually in borrowed temporary quarters. This curator-type is not so much a care-taker, but more a care-maker, using art to illustrate a point, as would a sixth-grader using “visual aids” in an “oral report.” This kind of curator is not “dependent” but “independent.” There have been many independent curators over the years, but one of the most eager and active today in New York is Jens Hoffmann, who is using his high-profile ways to bring the Jewish Museum into a kind of big-budget renaissance. [link]

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