Information - Press Room - LIGHT x EIGHT: THE HANUKKAH PROJECT 2002

To celebrate Hanukkah this year, The Jewish Museum will present Light x Eight: The Hanukkah Project 2002 from November 22, 2002 through February 2, 2003. This exhibition of contemporary art features works which create or manipulate light, by eight living artists, including Julian LaVerdiere, Tatsuo Miyajima, Sheila Moss, Philippe Parreno, Liz Phillips, Ben Schachter, Xavier Veilhan, and Leo Villareal. Their works will be installed in unexpected locations throughout the Museum. This dynamic exhibition will constitute a non-traditional, highly conceptual means of marking the eight night holiday and will transform the physical structure of The Jewish Museum into an unconventional, active, quasi-Hanukkah lamp. Selected for the different ways in which they explore light as medium and metaphor, the eight works offer a variety of experiences and interpretations. Highlights include Liz Phillips’s Intermingling in the Museum’s lobby and Philip Parreno’s Mont Analogue, on view next door in the windows of the Museum’s brownstone after dark. Hanukkah begins at sundown on November 29 and ends at sundown on December 7, 2002.

Light x Eight: The Hanukkah Project 2002 is The Jewish Museum’s third exhibition on this theme (the first two took place in 1998 and 2000). It celebrates the Hanukkah festival and provides an opportunity for dialogue on perception, and the ephemeral and empirical nature of light through the visitor’s response to the art works – sculpture, on-site multimedia installations, and projections – on view.

Julian LaVerdiere’s Golden Section (1999), on view in the second floor elevator lobby, is a tribute to the geometric ratio known as the Golden Section, discovered by ancient mathematicians and used by architects and artists throughout the ages. The Golden Section defines the rectangular proportions of both the Parthenon in Athens and the United Nations building in New York. In LaVerdiere’s piece, electroluminescent light forms the proportions of the Golden Section. As metaphor, this work attests to the transcendent power of ancient knowledge.

Tatsuo Miyajima’s Floating Time (Marine Blue) (2000), located in the elevator lobby of the Museum’s B-level, is projected from the ceiling onto the floor, creating an aqua-colored environment with floating numbers to suggest the mechanics and effects of time. The numbers will dance and slither off visitors’ bodies, creating the effect of becoming disoriented in time and space.

Sheila Moss’s Watermarks (2002) is a site-specific installation that hangs from the ceiling of the fourth floor elevator lobby. The work responds to the inlaid map on the floor that introduces the permanent exhibition, Culture and Continuity: The Jewish Journey. In Watermarks, light projected through moving cylinders casts shadows across the map on the floor. These pools of light appear as shimmering reflections on water. The rotating shadows transform the symbolic map into an active environment.

Philippe Parreno’s Mont Analogue (2002) will appear as flashing patterns of colored light in the second-floor windows of the brownstone next door to The Jewish Museum at 1 East 92nd Street after 5:00 pm, Sundays through Thursdays. These monochrome light sequences transmit a story, inspired by French author René Dumal’s allegorical novel, Mont Analogue. Parreno’s patterned-light version of the story is based on the Morse code alphabet.

Liz Phillips’s Intermingling (2002) is a site-specific, interactive installation that responds to activity in the main lobby of The Jewish Museum. Ultrasonic sensors stimulate sounds and patterns of neon light that register the presence and absence of passersby. The installation transforms the lobby into a musical instrument, attuned to the motions of visitors.

Ben Schachter’s Chess (2002), on view on the fourth floor in Culture and Continuity: The Jewish Journey, the Museum’s permanent exhibition, reflects on the various ways chess has been interpreted in art, from the playful leisure of genre scenes to Marcel Duchamp’s characterization of chess as “somewhat like religious art.” By substituting chess pieces with lightbulbs of various shapes, Chess captures both the serious and playful associations of the game, playing with the use of light as a metaphor for the illumination of thought and spirit.

Xavier Veilhan’s Naked Men (2001), on view on the fourth floor in the introductory gallery of Culture and Continuity: The Jewish Journey, is a 5-foot square grid of lightbulbs onto which a moving film is projected. The men in the film are stripped of setting and context so they appear generic. The visitors’ experience of the light machine is both perceptual and physical: both the heat from the lightbulbs and visual sense of the projected image are determined by where observers stand.

Leo Villareal’s Red Life (1999), in the stairwell between the first floor and the B-level, is composed of fifty-six red lightbulbs sequenced to display mathematician John Conway’s Game of Life. As in the game, each pixel in the display either lives or dies (turns on or off) based on the activity of its neighbors, visually demonstrating how complex formal designs in nature result from simple mathematical rules.

The artists in this exhibition come from Japan, France, New Jersey, New Mexico, and New York. The works in Light x Eight: The Hanukkah Project 2002 were selected by a Jewish Museum curatorial committee including Karen Levitov, Joanna Lindenbaum, Mason Klein, and Fred Wasserman. The exhibition has been coordinated by Shira Brisman, Curatorial Assistant at The Jewish Museum.

Light x Eight is supported by the Barbara S. Horowitz Contemporary Art Fund and the Melva Bucksbaum Contemporary Art Fund.

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11/15/02

The Jewish Museum is located at 1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street, Manhattan. Museum hours are: Sunday, 10 am to 5:45 pm; Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, 11 am to 5:45 pm; Thursday, 11 am to 8 pm; Friday, 11 am to 3 pm; closed Saturday. Museum admission is $8 adults; $5.50 students and senior citizens; free admission for children under 12. On Thursday evenings from 5 to 8 pm admission is pay what you wish. For general information, the public may call 212.423.3200, or visit The Jewish Museum's Web site at http://www.thejewishmuseum.org.


	Press contacts: Anne Scher or Alex Wittenberg 212.423.3271 or pressoffice@thejm.org FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE LIGHT x EIGHT: THE HANUKKAH PROJECT 2002 OPENS NOVEMBER 22 AT THE JEWISH MUSEUM To celebrate Hanukkah this year, The Jewish Museum will present Light x Eight: The Hanukkah Project 2002 from November 22, 2002 through February 2, 2003. This exhibition of contemporary art features works which create or manipulate light, by eight living artists, including Julian LaVerdiere, Tatsuo Miyajima, Sheila Moss, Philippe Parreno, Liz Phillips, Ben Schachter, Xavier Veilhan, and Leo Villareal. Their works will be installed in unexpected locations throughout the Museum. This dynamic exhibition will constitute a non-traditional, highly conceptual means of marking the eight night holiday and will transform the physical structure of The Jewish Museum into an unconventional, active, quasi-Hanukkah lamp. Selected for the different ways in which they explore light as medium and metaphor, the eight works offer a variety of experiences and interpretations. Highlights include Liz Phillips’s Intermingling in the Museum’s lobby and Philip Parreno’s Mont Analogue, on view next door in the windows of the Museum’s brownstone after dark. Hanukkah begins at sundown on November 29 and ends at sundown on December 7, 2002. Light x Eight: The Hanukkah Project 2002 is The Jewish Museum’s third exhibition on this theme (the first two took place in 1998 and 2000). It celebrates the Hanukkah festival and provides an opportunity for dialogue on perception, and the ephemeral and empirical nature of light through the visitor’s response to the art works – sculpture, on-site multimedia installations, and projections – on view. Julian LaVerdiere’s Golden Section (1999), on view in the second floor elevator lobby, is a tribute to the geometric ratio known as the Golden Section, discovered by ancient mathematicians and used by architects and artists throughout the ages. The Golden Section defines the rectangular proportions of both the Parthenon in Athens and the United Nations building in New York. In LaVerdiere’s piece, electroluminescent light forms the proportions of the Golden Section. As metaphor, this work attests to the transcendent power of ancient knowledge. Tatsuo Miyajima’s Floating Time (Marine Blue) (2000), located in the elevator lobby of the Museum’s B-level, is projected from the ceiling onto the floor, creating an aqua-colored environment with floating numbers to suggest the mechanics and effects of time. The numbers will dance and slither off visitors’ bodies, creating the effect of becoming disoriented in time and space. Sheila Moss’s Watermarks (2002) is a site-specific installation that hangs from the ceiling of the fourth floor elevator lobby. The work responds to the inlaid map on the floor that introduces the permanent exhibition, Culture and Continuity: The Jewish Journey. In Watermarks, light projected through moving cylinders casts shadows across the map on the floor. These pools of light appear as shimmering reflections on water. The rotating shadows transform the symbolic map into an active environment. Philippe Parreno’s Mont Analogue (2002) will appear as flashing patterns of colored light in the second-floor windows of the brownstone next door to The Jewish Museum at 1 East 92nd Street after 5:00 pm, Sundays through Thursdays. These monochrome light sequences transmit a story, inspired by French author René Dumal’s allegorical novel, Mont Analogue. Parreno’s patterned-light version of the story is based on the Morse code alphabet. Liz Phillips’s Intermingling (2002) is a site-specific, interactive installation that responds to activity in the main lobby of The Jewish Museum. Ultrasonic sensors stimulate sounds and patterns of neon light that register the presence and absence of passersby. The installation transforms the lobby into a musical instrument, attuned to the motions of visitors. Ben Schachter’s Chess (2002), on view on the fourth floor in Culture and Continuity: The Jewish Journey, the Museum’s permanent exhibition, reflects on the various ways chess has been interpreted in art, from the playful leisure of genre scenes to Marcel Duchamp’s characterization of chess as “somewhat like religious art.” By substituting chess pieces with lightbulbs of various shapes, Chess captures both the serious and playful associations of the game, playing with the use of light as a metaphor for the illumination of thought and spirit. Xavier Veilhan’s Naked Men (2001), on view on the fourth floor in the introductory gallery of Culture and Continuity: The Jewish Journey, is a 5-foot square grid of lightbulbs onto which a moving film is projected. The men in the film are stripped of setting and context so they appear generic. The visitors’ experience of the light machine is both perceptual and physical: both the heat from the lightbulbs and visual sense of the projected image are determined by where observers stand. Leo Villareal’s Red Life (1999), in the stairwell between the first floor and the B-level, is composed of fifty-six red lightbulbs sequenced to display mathematician John Conway’s Game of Life. As in the game, each pixel in the display either lives or dies (turns on or off) based on the activity of its neighbors, visually demonstrating how complex formal designs in nature result from simple mathematical rules. The artists in this exhibition come from Japan, France, New Jersey, New Mexico, and New York. The works in Light x Eight: The Hanukkah Project 2002 were selected by a Jewish Museum curatorial committee including Karen Levitov, Joanna Lindenbaum, Mason Klein, and Fred Wasserman. The exhibition has been coordinated by Shira Brisman, Curatorial Assistant at The Jewish Museum. Light x Eight is supported by the Barbara S. Horowitz Contemporary Art Fund and the Melva Bucksbaum Contemporary Art Fund. # # # 11/15/02 The Jewish Museum is located at 1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street, Manhattan. Museum hours are: Sunday, 10 am to 5:45 pm; Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, 11 am to 5:45 pm; Thursday, 11 am to 8 pm; Friday, 11 am to 3 pm; closed Saturday. Museum admission is $8 adults; $5.50 students and senior citizens; free admission for children under 12. On Thursday evenings from 5 to 8 pm admission is pay what you wish. For general information, the public may call 212.423.3200, or visit The Jewish Museum's Web site at http://www.thejewishmuseum.org.