Light of Hanukkah

Artist: Kurt Nordwall

Tychman Shapiro Gallery, Sabes JCC

Photo courtesy : Robyn Awend

Light of Hanukkah

As an artist and art-historian, I love going to art openings!! Hip art galleries are speckled all over NE, Washington Ave. and the Warehouse district in Minneapolis and other places. However, because I am clever enough to follow TCJewfolk's amazing blog http://www.tcjewfolk.com/

I knew about one of many important and exciting gallery exhibitions this month for art that reflects Jewish life.

It was obvious that the place to be last Thursday evening, was at the Sabes JCC’s Tychman Shapiro gallery. At the opening of the new exhibit, Light of Hanukkah, which displays the works of artist Kurt Nordwall. While there, I saw many familiar people and a huge crowd of viewers, collectors and artists out on a cold week-night to view Hanukiot. It made me long for sufganiots, or little donuts traditionally enjoyed at Hanukkah, the Jewish holiday that Hanukiot are used. The exhibit was so fun and the artwork work so informative and well crafted, it was hard to leave!

What are Hanukiot?? It’s plural for a Hanukkah lamp, or Hanukiah. It is lit each night of the eight-day holiday to symbolize the rededication to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem during the Maccabean Revolt in the second century. What I learned at this opening, that there are a lot of people that are “dedicated” to viewing great works at the JCC’s gallery and that artists are dedicated to exhibiting works there. Most of all, that the gallery, directed by Robyn Awend, is dedicated to providing illuminating exhibitions and programming.

Kurt visited The Jewish Museum, New York http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/ on a work related courier trip for the Registrar department at The Minneapolis Institute of Arts.http://www.artsmia.org/ Kurt gauged that it would take about an hour to see TJM’s Hanukiot from the Middle- Ages. However, several hours later he was still engaged in learning about Jewish ritual objects and material culture. The twelfth to the fourteenth centuries were a creative period for new developments in Jewish ritual objects. Works were specifically used for Jewish life were created, including Hanukiot.

Inspired by what he learned about TJM’s Hanukiot, Kurt was transformed as an artist and continues to use Haunukiot as a source that motivates his works today. The works are mostly inspired by works that reflect Jewish life in North Africa and that region’s architectonic forms. The artist creates forms with a technique which requires braising together hand-cut pieces of metal. For Kurt, it is not enough just to make the object, but he said he felt “responsible to share and to learn [about Hanukiot].” Kurt is committed to furthering his knowledge of Jewish art and material culture by continuing to educate himself on the ritual, spiritual and historical Jewish cultural life and by regularly attending adult learning classes at Temple Israel. http://www.templeisrael.com/

Kurt’s Hanukiot are exhibited with a series of prints reflecting Jewish themes. Kurt is inspired by the “directness, contrast and line” of the prints of Leonard Baskin. The artist uses printing techniques which include intaglio and drypoint. Asked which Hanukiah he thought would serve as an ideal archeological object for recovery by future historians, he laughed, “In other words, pick a favorite?” Impossible, I realized that each one tells of the story of Jewish life today. That is not so different than Jewish life of the twelfth-fourteenth centuries. Jewish learning continues to illuminate artists and others who participate in the responsibility to continue the cycle of Jewish learning, as seen in Kurt’s work at the Sabes JCC.

Light of Hanukkah, features hand-crafted metal Hanukiot (Hanukkah lamps) and a series of new prints by Minnesota-based artist Kurt Nordwall from November 12–December 24, 2009. The exhibit will be on display in the Tychman Shapiro Gallery and included an opening reception on Thursday, November 12, from 6–8 pm and a special Hanukkah celebration on Thursday, December 17, from 6–8 pm.http://www.sabesjcc.org/arts_gallery_current.htm

For further reading on Hanukiot:

Braunstein, Susan L. Luminous Art: Hanukkah Menorahs of The Jewish Museum (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004).

Mann, Vivian B. "New" Examples of Jewish Ceremonial Art from Medieval Ashkenaz”. Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 9, No. 17 (1988), 13-24. IRSA s.c. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1483313