Contemporary Art/Recent Acquisitions brings together a selection of works created since 1975 and acquired in the past two years that explore the elusive nature of memory, shifting concepts of identity, and multiple interpretations of history.
The eighteen artists presented in this exhibition use video, photography, painting, sculpture, and drawing to delve into these issues. Reflecting upon the intangibility of memory, artists evoke specters of the past in post-war Europe, childhood memories, and the distortions of recollection over time. The artists investigate personal identity through depictions of the body as well as reflections on youth culture, AIDS, politics, and familial relationships. Other artists respond to historical phenomena as varied as racketeering in 1920s New York, everyday life in post-apartheid South Africa, the fate of a young heroine of the Minsk resistance movement, and the anxieties and hopes embodied in the landscape of Israel.
As part of The Jewish Museum's continuing process of collecting contemporary art, this exhibition offers an opportunity to show how art can cross geographical, cultural, and chronological boundaries in examining the diversity of Jewish experience.
