The CJM Blog

It's a good art exhibition that raises more questions than it answers. Some of those questions end up in our comment books, the bound black volumes that invite visitor feedback at the end of an exhibition. The comment book may seem like a retro convention. Social media has ushered in a whole industry dedicated to the capture and sharing of immediate impressions with large groups of people. But comment books have their advantages. Authors can take up as much space as they want, words can be enhanced and intertwined with images, and the flow of comments only moves forward, since remarks can only be seen by those coming to the exhibition after previous visitors have left their mark. Typical comments include praise or critique for curatorial decisions (we do read all messages), simple proofs of presence ("Jerry was here!"), and drawings from aspiring artists hoping perhaps to be discovered. Flipping through the books in the exhibition Beyond Belief: 100 Years ...

Title wall. Photo by Gary Sexton. Brian Scott is the Creative Director of Boon Design, and of our newest exhibitions which deal with the concept of utopia. We asked Brian what inspired this project, and he responded with a self-interview. Presenting Brian Scott interviewing Brian Scott on his process:   What was your approach to creating the identity for the exhibitions Work in Progress: Considering Utopia and To Build & Be Built: Kibbutz History ? I prefer to build from a typographic foundation, which helps to set a tone and tactile presence that we can then expand upon. For The Contemporary Jewish Museum, I first thought about the era during which the first kibbutzim were established, the early 1900s. What was the typography of that era? Was there a modernist typographic equivalent that shared an idealism with these the kibbutz pioneers? I believe that Paul Renner's font Futura (1928) embodies some of these utopian pursuits—Futura strives for geometric balance and h...

Inspired by our collaborative exhibition Beyond Belief: 100 Years of the Spiritual in Modern Art (on view now through Oct 27), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Contemporary Jewish Museum hosted a day of mindful social media. Since “spirituality” means many things to many people, we thought it would be interesting to tackle the big questions raised by the exhibition in short, concise answers. Here’s an overview of the conversation by social media wranglers Kathryn Jaller (The CJM) and Willa Koerner (SFMOMA).

Executive Director Lori Starr with her Banned Books Week selection Banned Books Week began in 1982 in response to so many books being banned and protested in libraries, classrooms, and bookstores. Many classics that have been a part of the literary canon for decades are still being protested and their merit challenged.  J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye , Toni Morrison’s Beloved Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird , William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , Maya Angelou’s I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings , John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men , and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein have all been banned and protested for different reasons. Having just hosted an exhibition on the photographs of Allen Ginsberg and learning about the trial around the publication of HOWL by City Lights Booksellers and Publishers, we're more keenly aware of the fierceness of the fight for the freedom of expression.

Oded Hirsch, Halfman , 2009. Chromogenic print, 40 x 50 in. Courtesy of the artist & Thierry Goldberg Gallery, New York.  Every fall, just after the holiday of Yom Kippur, Jews build a sukkah —an outdoor booth, open on one side, with a roof porous enough to see the stars. And here (traditionally) they eat and sleep for eight days, making a point of inviting in strangers for meals, and trusting in the fragility of the structure and the safety of their surroundings. Not unlike Burning Man, where each summer thousands of people set up temporary homes in the Nevada desert as part of a pop-up utopia, the ancient sukkah reminds us of the possibilities of a better world. This fall the CJM presents two complementary exhibitions—one about utopia, the other about the kibbutz—that ask fundamental questions about a perfectable community. In To Build & Be Built: Kibbutz History , the Museum explores the creation and evolution of this unique Israeli socialist venture. And in...

Bob Dylan’s classic album Highway 61 Revisited has been the soundtrack to the Jewish High Holidays at The Contemporary Jewish Museum this year. This past Sunday, smack in the middle between Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish new year) and Yom Kippur (a holiday of reflection and atonement), UnderCover Presents offered extraordinary live cover versions of each song on Bob Dylan’s epic album Highway 61 Revisited , for the closing program for the exhibition Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg . Ginsberg and Dylan had a father-son style relationship, and were creative allies and confidants. Many see them both as secular Jewish prophets, with Ginsberg’s iconic poem “Howl” and Dylan’s song “Like a Rolling Stone” from Highway 61 Revisited evoking the strident and lyrical moral criticism of the prophets. The social critiques inherent in these works of art evoke the spiritual and sensual disorientation of the Jewish High Holidays, when the life and death of both individuals and th...

Elisheva Biernoff, The Tools Are in Your Hands , proposal drawing, 2013. Courtesy of the artist and Eli Ridgway. This fall, The Contemporary Jewish Museum (The CJM) presents a wide range of perspectives on contemporary and twentieth-century art and ideas—ensuring that The CJM thrives as a place of intellectual excellence and welcomes all people to engage in salient conversations and experiences. In Work in Progress: Considering Utopia (Oct 3, 2013–Jan 20, 2014), The Museum has invited three contemporary artists to reflect on the concept of utopia through a range of participatory works of art that encourage rich dialogue. Oded Hirsch (b. 1976) and Ohad Meromi (b. 1967) were both born on kibbutzim and came of age in Israel during the 1990s; and Elisheva Biernoff (b. 1980), a well-established Bay Area artist, provides a fascinating contrast to both the possibilities and challenges of utopian ideals.