In her tryptich of videos called CycleSpun, currently up at MoMA, Israeli artist Sigalit Landau employs water, landscapes, and the body to explore the cyclical nature of life and religion. All three videos -- Day Done, DeadSee and Barbed Hula -- are set in Israel, and provide the viewer with scenes that are at once engrossing, disturbing and beautiful. Here are some stills from the videos, and an image from the instillation, which is lit by Dead Sea salt-encrusted chandeliers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last week: Psychedelic Hebrew

It's not officially Hump Day anymore, but with all the Passover goings-on it can be easy to lose track of time. It may be a day late, but here's your weekly serving of Hump Day Art.

In JAMS2 (Jewish Animated Mandala Series), artist Melissa Shiff used Judaica from the Jewish Museum in her kaleidescope-like video for the Off the Wall exhibit. This is not the first time Shiff has played off of Jewish iconography; she's reinvented the Jewish wedding, and decked out entire rooms in matzo.

At the end of Off the Wall, Shiff displayed a series of video projections featuring swirling, colorful Hebrew letters that served as the backdrop for a fashion show and performance. The work is both gorgeous and surprising, as she finds the geometry and patterns in the letters. Here are some stills from the projections at the museum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last week: Modern Day Exodus

Just in time for Passover, lots of religious pet news! This week we learned that Pope Benedict XVI's loves cats -- he even has an authorized biography written by a furry friend named Chico who was his neighbor in Germany. The book is called “Joseph and Chico: The Life of Pope Benedict XVI as Told by a Cat" (as told to journalist Jeanne Perego).

As for Jewish furballs, a recent article at Petside.com suggests that Passover is the perfect time to have your pets keep kosher too. While the dogs at my seder (there were four!) seemed to enjoy a stray matzoh ball, the article doesn't offer much insight into KforP pet food. It does, however, provide some helpful hints for keeping Fido kosher the rest of the year:

The companies that now provide kosher kibble adhere to the strict separation of meat and dairy to qualify the food as kosher for animals. This does not make the pet food kosher for human consumption, and in a kosher household, the animal’s dish would have to be washed in a bathroom or laundry room sink, separate from the kosher supplies in the kitchen.

Of course, there are no Jewish laws stating that pets must keep kosher, but for pet owners, it can be a way to ensure that beloved dogs and cats are getting high quality food. In no time at all, they'll be ready for their Bark Mitzvahs.

With Passover beginning this week, the theme of exodus seems inescapable. Luckily, artist and Six Point Fellow Avishai Mekonen has found the nuances in the term, which in recent history has often been applied to the Ethiopian Jews' migration to Israel. Mekonen uses photography and sound in his project Seven Generations, documenting how the lives of Ethiopian immigrants have changed as they adapt to a new culture, and how traditions have been preserved.

Mekwanent Tamena, 2007

 

Sisters, 2007

 

The boy, 2007

 

Gitanna Kivret, 2007

 

Girls, 2007

Last Week: The American Dream Via Russia

Related: Hump Day Art: More to the Lower East Side Than Hipsters

Sudanese Refugees in Israel

Let my people go: Ancient Egyptian prison scenePassover is a time to commemorate our freedom, but as New York Magazine points out, perhaps no one understands the meaning of the holiday more than the Jewish inmates at Otisville Prison. The Jewish prisoners, who number about 60, hold a yearly Seder at the medium-security facility in upstate New York. Unlike the ancient Israelites, who were enslaved by Pharaoh against their will, the inmates at Otisville are mostly white collar criminals. Still, prison chaplain Gary Friedman argues that the Seder allows the men to celebrate freedom, at least in the metaphorical sense. “The Haggadah has a line that reads ‘Tonight we are all free men,’ and for the duration of the Seder, they are.”