Arts & Entertainment
New Works/Old Story
Artists explore traditional Jewish ideas and highlight their contemporary
and universal relevance in Passover art exhibit.
Suzanne Chessler
Special to the Jewish News
ohn Bankston never attended
a seder, but he recently found
strong motivation to teach him-
self about Passover traditions.
Bankston, a African-American painter
who grew up in Benton Harbor and now
lives in San Francisco, did the research
after being invited to plan and showcase
a project for "New Works/Old Story: 80
Artists at the Passover Table."
The exhibit, which captures innova-
tive design related to seder plates, runs
through June 2 at the Contemporary
Jewish Museum in San Francisco.
While Bankston has designed a non-
functional work, Reflection — Seder Plate,
the only other Michigan artist asked to
be part of the invitational has created a
piece, World Book, which actually can be
used at a holiday table. Lynne Avadenka
of Huntington Woods, a text-based artist,
designed a three-dimensional work for the
show.
At first, Bankston thought he would
represent the idea of ritual dinners as
cementing cultural identity. He remem-
bered his own family dinners in keeping
with Baptist traditions.
"I used the form of a plate, a stretched-
canvas circle 12 inches in diameter, and
painted with oils and acrylics," says
Bankston, 46, whose designs are part of
the collections of the De Young Museum in
San Francisco, Studio Museum in Harlem
and the Harold Washington Memorial
Library Center in Chicago.
"As I was working, I started to think
about the Passover themes of justice,
freedom and renewal; and the plate came
together differently than I had thought.
I tried to relate the items on the plate to
some modern images and have them flow
from one to another"
Bankston, also represented in the
exhibit "30 Americans" at the Rubell
Family Collection in Miami, started his
plate painting with the traditional egg and
placed an image of Martin Luther King Jr.
beneath it to extend the idea of seeking
freedom. Chains morphed into tears that
morphed into bitter herbs.
After representing charoset, captured
with a wine goblet as well as nuts and
apples, the artist pre-
sented a tree leading
into an image of
a lamb as the
7113%
source of the
shankbone.
"I learned
about
another
Jewish tra-
dition —
spice boxes
— because
of an earlier
CJM invita-
tional," says
Bankston, who
earned a master's
degree from the Art
Institute of Chicago and
has shown his work in indi-
vidual and group exhibits around the
country.
The plate exhibit becomes the most
recent CJM project in a series that builds
on the museum's longstanding custom of
inviting artists of various backgrounds
to explore specific ceremonial concepts
and objects. This year, the exhibit became
known as the Dorothy Saxe Invitational,
named in honor of a museum trustee and
noted collector.
Those viewing the exhibit will notice
that Bankston has incorporated Hebrew
words into his painting. They offer marked
contrast to the Hebrew text in Avadenka's
piece, a globe of the world inscribed with
the entire Haggadah on the surface.
"I had globes sitting in my studio and
loved them as a form," says Avadenka, 54,
who has worked with text art for some
20 years. "I like the metaphor of a globe
encompassing everything and the idea
of Passover being celebrated all over the
world."
Avadenka worked with a sculptor to
cut the globe in half so it could open to
hold metal matzah and seder plates. Kept
in place with magnets, the plates can be
removed for cleaning.
"I'm usually doing works on paper:' says
Avadenka, whose retrospective, "Then and
Now;' includes some very new pieces and
will be up through April 18 at the Lemberg
Gallery in Ferndale.
"I liked working with this different
medium used in World
Book and presenting
Jewish tradition
in a new way.
Although
I have
addressed
Judaic
themes
through-
out my
career,
most of
my work is
not Judaica
as the seder
plate is."
John Bankston: Reflection — Seder
Plate, mixed media on canvas; 2009.
The image of Martin Luther King Jr.
extends the idea of seeking freedom.
Lynne Avadenka: World Book, cardboard
globe, wood, paint, ink; 2008. The globe
is inscribed with the entire Haggadah on
its surface.
Avadenka worked with a sculptor to cut
the globe in half so it could open to hold
metal matzah and seder plates.
Avadenka, who earned a bachelor's
and a master's degree at Wayne State
University, has exhibited in America and
other countries and has taught text art
at WSU, the University of Michigan and
the College for Creative Studies. Although
she'll be in Michigan to celebrate Passover
with family, Avadenka will be conduct-
ing a class at Dartmouth College in New
Hampshire this spring.
Avadenka, whose work is part of many
collections including those at the Library
of Congress and Jerusalem's Jewish and
National Library, will be in a two-person
exhibit at the Birmingham Bloomfield Art
Center starting in June.
"The powerful combination of Judaic
content and my choices as a contemporary
American artist make for a continually
compelling exploration," Avadenka says.
"The challenge is to create a synthesis,
inspired by tradition and informed by
modernity, and to preserve the ancient
spirituality of the material while connect-
ing it to a wide audience in the present."
Other works at the invitational include
Amy Klein Reichert's limestone and brass
plate divided according to foods of slavery
and freedom, Rachel Schreiber's photo-
graphic interpretation featuring six round
portraits and Melissa Schiff's video instal-
lation offering changing images of food.
"The Dorothy Saxe Invitational embod-
ies the museum's mission of presenting
artistic excellence, exploring contempo-
rary perspectives on Jewish culture and
ideas and providing opportunities for art-
ists to explore traditional Jewish ideas and
highlight their contemporary and univer-
sal relevance,' says Connie Wolf, museum
director and CEO.
"The invitational provides a unique
venue through which artists can interpret
the ideas and engage audiences of all
ages and backgrounds to consider the old
anew."
"New Works/Old Story: 80 Artists
at the Passover Table" runs through
June 2 at the Contemporary Jewish
Museum, 736 Mission Street, in San
Francisco. Some of the works can
be seen on the museum's Web site,
www.thecjm.org . For more informa-
tion, call (415) 655-7821.
April 9 • 2009
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