48 Jews
The Work of
Abshalom Jac Lahav
HELD OVER BY POPULAR DEMAND
through September 27, 2009
Abshalom Jac Lahav is a conceptual painter interested in issues of representation and identity. Born in Israel, he received his education in this country, studying painting at the School of Visual Arts and Cooper Union, and earning his MfA from Brooklyn College.
Lahav’s series 48 Jews combines two elements that are essential for truly significant art: a learnedness that places new work in the context of what has gone before and the ability to ask different and interesting questions. In the portraits before you both elements are easily detectable: the title alone makes reference to important prior artists – it reminds us of Gerhard Richter and Andy Warhol with their respective portrait series. The styles chosen by Lahav, significantly different for each painting, span many centuries of classical painting as well, from Rembrandt van Rijn to Piere Bonnard to Gerhard Richter. His portraits are thus put in the context of a shared history.
Lahav also asks questions that provide something essential and new to our understanding of visual representation. What can be captured in a portrait? More importantly, how do we represent a particular identity – what it is to be a Jew – especially when the subjects of these portraits define their own identity in idiosyncratic ways or are defined by forces outside of themselves? Are only those with Jewish mothers “Jewish?” Can you declare yourself to be Jewish on a whim, or based on a Jewish father, as Frida Kahlo did? Do you have to practice Judaism, or have some genetic markers that can be traced back to Jewish lineage? Can you be defined as Jewish if the world believes you are, even if you yourself deny it? Are you still Jewish if you converted to a different religion?
These paintings in all their colorful, rambunctious and intelligently risk-taking approach
will challenge our minds while also seducing our eyes, making us think and feel at the same time.
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