Self Portrait

Photo is courtesy of Judith Weinshall Liberman who sent me the following caption:

SELF PORTRAIT OF A HOLOCAUST ARTIST #10 is part of Judith Weinshall Liberman's SELF PORTRAITS OF A HOLOCAUST ARTIST series. This work is 10" by 8" (25 cm by 20 cm) and was created in 1997. It is in the permanent collection of the Ghetto Fighters House Museum in Israel. Another version of this work is in the permanent collection of the William Benton Museum of Art at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Connecticut, U.S.A. The SELF PORTRAITS OF A HOLOCAUST ARTIST series consists of over 150 small mixed-media works in which the artist places herself in Holocaust settings in an effort to explore her emotional relationship to the subject of the Shoah and to express her empathy with its victims.

Born in Haifa, Israel, Judith Weinshall Liberman came to the United States after completing high school. She earned four American university degrees in social studies and law, including a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School and an LL.M. from the University of Michigan Law School. She studied art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and at the DeCordova Museum School in Lincoln, Massachusetts. She completed all course work for the M.F.A. degree at Boston University School for the Arts and is certified as an art teacher. Ms. Liberman is an award winning author and illustrator. Her art has been extensively exhibited in museums and other public institutions in the United States and in Israel. Her work is represented in numerous public collections, including the collections of the Yad Vashem Museum in Jerusalem, the Haifa Museum of Modern Art in Haifa and the Ghetto Fighters Museum at Kibbutz Lochemai Hagetaot, Israel. Some of the American museums that own her artworks are the DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, the Jackson Homestead Museum, Newton, the Museum of Our National Heritage, Lexington, in Massachusetts; the Temple Museum of Religious Art, Cleveland, Ohio; the William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut and the Florida Holocaust Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida. Her archives can be found at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art in Washington DC as well as at the Fine Arts Department of the Boston Public Library in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

IMHO this work is a brilliant way to say: I (=my portrait) identify with the victims of the Holocaust (=Yellow Badge and the word Jew).
All rights reserved to Judith Weinshall Liberman 2007

Vered Shomron Fabian

Photo is courtesy of Vered Shomron Fabian who wrote to me

I am an Israeli artist. I live in the last two years in San Francisco area, but in the four years before I came here I was busy drawing and painting Stars of David. I made a series titles Tattoo and presented it here in an exhibition. Lately I made a new series which includes also Stars of David, but along with Cross and Crescent. I started showing here this series in group exhibitions. In my website there are photos from both series and you would surely feel that the Star of David is very meaningful for me not only as an artist but also socially and politically.

Copyright: Vered Shomron 2007

Judith Weinshall Liberman, Triangles

Photo is courtesy of Judith Weinshall Liberman who sent me the following caption:

TRIANGLES is a wall hanging - a work on fabric - and is part of Judith Weinshall Liberman's Holocaust Wall Hangings series. This wall hanging is 33" by 114" (102 cm by 285 cm) and was created in 1998. Fourteen of the Holocaust Wall Hangings, including TRIANGLES, are in the permanent collection of the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, U.S.A., together with the artist's Holocaust Paintings series and other works by this artist. The focus here is on six of the insignia worn by Jewish inmates of Nazi concentration camps. The insignia were composed of triangular fabric patches of various designated colors – red for “Political”, green for “Hardcore Criminal”, blue for “Emigrant”, purple for “Jehovah’s Witness”, pink for “Homosexual” and black for “Antisocial” – superimposed upside down upon the “basic” yellow triangle indicating “Jew”. The presentation is based on the row entitled “Insignia for Jews” in the table of insignia of concentration camp inmates as seen in an original document in the camp museum at Dachau.

All rights reserved to Judith Weinshall Liberman 2007

Against Assimilation

Photo is courtesy of sculptor Betty Wachsstock who wrote to me:

The idea of the sculpture is to show a hand with people walking to the top, and entering into the Magen David, inside of it, inside of Judaism.
The hand rests on a Magen David as well, and it is a symbol against assimilation, which is the subject of the sculpture.

On the Magen David there’s a verse from Malachi 3:24

He shall reconcile parents with children and children with their parents

The statue was made for Bar lan University who gave it to The Rappaport Center for Assimilation Research and Strengthening Jewish Vitality

[It] is an independent R & D center at Bar Ilan University. The Center focuses on analyzing various aspects of Jewish life in order to identify what might be contributing to alienating Jews from Judaism, and on characterizing and formulating options for mending and repair.

Copyright: Betty Wachsstock

Race Defiler

Photo is courtesy of Judith Weinshall Liberman who sent me the following caption:
RACE DEFILER is a wall hanging - a work on fabric - and is part of Judith Weinshall Liberman's Holocaust Wall Hangings series. This wall hanging is 44" by 21" (110 cm by 52 cm) and was created in 1998. Fourteen of the Holocaust Wall Hangings, including RACE DEFILER, are in the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, U.S.A., together with the artist's Holocaust Paintings series and other works by this artist. Two of the insignia worn by Jewish inmates of Nazi concentration camps are featured in this work. Both insignia represented “race defilers”, a term used by the Nazis to describe Jews – male or female – suspected of having engaged in sexual relations with “Aryans”. Both insignia combine a yellow triangle, which indicates “Jew”, with a black triangle. The two insignia are based on illustrations found in a row of “Special Insignia” in the table of insignia of camp inmates contained in an original document at the camp museum in Dachau.
All rights reserved to Judith Weinshall Liberman 2007

Avinoam Damari, Peace

Photo is courtesy of my dear friend, Avinoam Damari. This Star of David mosaic, with the word Peace in Hebrew in its center, is part of a series of mosaics in the shape of Star of David that Avinoam intends to make on the fence of his house in Ness Tziona, Israel. So far he made, aside from the above-mentioned work, a Yellow Badge mosaic, which I also published in this blog.

About half a year ago I visited the empty fence, and took a photo of it so that in a few years I’ll have the opportunity to compare it to a fence full with many Star of David mosaics, each would tell a story of a period and all of them would tell the story of the nation.
Copyrights: Avinoam Damari, 2007

Avinoam Damari, Yellow Badge

Photo is courtesy of my dear friend, Avinoam Damari, who works in the Israeli Educational TV in his working hours and on the mosaics on the fence of his house in his spare time. Avinoam Damari wrote to me that this Yellow Badge mosaic is a reminder for the Jewish people to do what is necessary in order to never again be in a situation of holocaust.
I find it interesting that although Avinoam Damari’s family is from Yemen – and didn’t suffer in Europe during WWII - he chose to express his Jewish identity by the Yellow Badge.
Another interesting point is that he chose street art, which becomes part of everyday life, and not art that is closed in galleries and books.
IMHO there are too few art works in the Israeli neighborhood – it seems that Israelis carry the traumas of their previous generations, and find it hard to invest in beautifying their environment, afraid that they will have to leave it in the near future.
These considerations make a respected room for this Yellow Badge mosaic in “my virtual exhibition” titled “Star of David on a Yellow Badge”.

BTW I think that showing art on the internet is a kind of art street that makes art works accessible to those who never put a foot in a gallery.
Copyright: Avinoam Damari, 2007