Within the multiplicity of The Jewish Museum's collection stirs the conviction that Jewish history is not a single history. Traditional Jewish teaching is informed by the practice of midrash-- the interpretation of law and contemporary life. This exhibition mirrors the complex nature of Jewish identity, wherein the tradition of interpretation is reinscribed in the act of remembering, questioning, and reconstituting the shared and subjective contexts that commemorate and explicate the past.
These works and objects confront history, visualize the spaces of memory, question the boundaries between abstraction and representation, and enact ritual. Artists position themselves, either directly or indirectly, within historical and contemporary narratives, as they shape into discourses the fragments of memory, myth, and story.
Voice, Image, Gesture: Selections from The Jewish Museum's Collection, 1945-2000 is made possible, in part, through generous support from The Morris S. and Florence H. Bender Foundation, the Louis and Anne Abrons Foundation, the Joseph Alexander Foundation, Inc. and Mr. and Mrs. Dietrich Weismann.