Professor David Shneer and CU Art Museum Director Lisa Tamiris Becker

“Through Soviet Jewish Eyes”, a gallery exhibition of photography based on David Shneer’s critically acclaimed book of the same title, opened at the CU Art Museum on Wednesday night.  The exhibition presents 58 photographs, printed at numerous scales over six decades, by the most important Soviet photojournalists including Evgenii Khaldei, Georgii Zelma, and Dmitrii Baltermants.  Also on display are alternate versions of some of the iconic photos, as well as some of the photos in their original Soviet publications and other artifacts, including a rare glass negative from one of the photos shot in Stalingrad.

The museum opening was introduced by CU Art Museum Director Lisa Tamiris Becker, who also co-curated Professor Schneer’s exhibition.

l-r: Paul Harbaugh, Professor Shneer, Teresa Harbaugh.

Among those in attendance were Teresa and Paul Harbaugh, collectors who donated or loaned many of the photographs in the exhibit.  Also attending were Hal Gould, known as the dean of American fine art photography, and his business partner and fellow photographer Loretta Young-Gautier.  This was the 91-year-old Gould’s first public appearance since closing his famous Denver gallery, Camera Obscura, in June and subsequently breaking his leg a few days later.  Gould’s gallery hosted the first American exhibition of Soviet photographer Dmitrii Baltermants’ works.

l-r: Hal Gould, Loretta Young-Gautier, Professor Shneer

“Through Soviet Jewish Eyes” will be on display at the CU Art Museum until October 22.  Professor Shneer will give a lecture and tour of the exhibition on Thursday, September 15, 2011 beginning at 7 pm.  Read more about Professor Shneer and the exhibition in this post from August 29th in the BJN.

More photos from the opening:

Professor David Shneer, Singer Chair in Jewish History at CU. (Photo by Glenn Asakawa/University of Colorado)

Although World War II is one of the most documented conflicts of the twentieth century, western audiences have had little exposure to Soviet photographs of that war. Through Soviet Jewish Eyes, based on David Shneer’s critically acclaimed book of the same title, presents over sixty images that are about Soviet aesthetics and narratives of World War II as much as they are about the Soviet photojournalists who made those images. The majority of Soviet photojournalists were Jewish, coming from mid-sized towns in southern Russia, and raised on the cusp of modernity. In Russia, throughout the 19^th century, most Jews, unless granted special permits, were forced to live in prescribed regions of the Russian provinces, known as the pale of settlement, outside of major metropolitan centers such as Moscow and St. Petersburg. Photography was a new, risky, and entrepreneurial profession, which allowed Jews who came from afar to sustain themselves in St. Petersburg, the capital of tsarist Russia, and then in Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union.  There, they thrived as artists and documentarians and entered an urban sphere of art, politics, and culture, previously unavailable to members of their socio-economic, cultural, and religious spheres.

Dmitrii Baltermants, Russian (1912-1990), Grief, 1942; gelatin silver print, circa 1990; 36 ½ x 43 5/8 inches; Loan from the Collection of Teresa and Paul Harbaugh; Image courtesy of Michael Mattis; © Estate of Dmitrii Baltermant

The exhibition presents 58 photographs, printed at numerous scales over six decades, by the most important Soviet photojournalists including Evgenii Khaldei, Georgii Zelma, and Dmitrii Baltermants. These photographers took aesthetically arresting war images and were also the first to document the liberation of Nazi atrocity sites, three years before better-known photographers like Margaret Bourke White and Lee Miller chronicled the liberation of concentration camps in Germany.

The photographs featured in the exhibition span the Nazi-Soviet war, from June 22, 1941 until V-Day on May 9, 1945, with an opening section that contextualizes the wartime images within the Constructivist and Socialist Realist traditions of Soviet photography in the 1920s and 1930s.  Canonical images appear side by side with photographs that have never before been exhibited.

The exhibition also highlights the central challenge to avant-garde aesthetics and to “art” itself that was posed by the war and by Soviet culture of the time. In this challenge, social and political purpose—as expressed through documentary photography, superseded or in some cases merged with avant-garde modernist sensibilities to create a new aesthetic—one that has continued to echo across art history and influenced future art movements of the 20^th century and beyond.

In addition, Through Soviet Jewish Eyes places canonical images side-by-side with photographs that the curators found in the photographers’ archives currently housed in private collections and that have never before been exhibited to the public. The exhibition also draws attention to the large number of Soviet photographers who were Jewish and explores aspects of what this religious and cultural identity might have meant for the photographers when confronting the war and Nazi atrocities through Soviet and Jewish eyes.

The exhibition also features three vitrines of archival materials, including contact sheets, glass negatives, scrap books, diaries, Soviet publications, and the photographers’ personal book maquettes.

THROUGH SOVIET JEWISH EYES: Photography, War, and the Holocaust

curated by David Shneer, Director, Program in Jewish Studies and Professor of History, University of Colorado and Lisa Tamiris Becker, Director, CU Art Museum

September 8-October 22, 2011

Opening Reception, September 7, 2011, 6 – 8 PM ∙ CU Art Museum, University of Colorado Boulder

Lecture and presentation with Professor David Shneer

Thursday, September 8, 7:30 PM Colorado Photographic Art Center, Belmar Center, Lakewood, Colorado

Lecture and exhibition tour with Professor David Shneer

Thursday, September 15, 7 PM ∙ CU Art Museum, University of Colorado Boulder

Vendor space is available for $50-$60. Har HaShem will advertise the event, which will include free admission, food, face painting for kids, and more.  Vendors should reserve space early; only 40-50 exhibitors will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis.

For information, or to reserve a spot, email images of products no later than August 30th to ARTandGIFT@harhashem.org or call (303) 499-7077.

Consider ritual items such as tallit, tallit clips, yads, personalized kippot, kiddush cups or candlestick holders. Personalization can include inscriptions and even photos!

Popular gifts include jewelry, jewelry boxes or stands, books on Jewish topics like “The Jewish Book of Why,” bookends, tzedakah boxes, shofars, decorative wall hangings, desktop sculptures, or photo albums and keepsake boxes.

Top off any gift with the right card – including money or gift card holders, a Jewish music CD, fun stickers, toys, or candy.

See and touch merchandise in person at Boulder’s largest Judaica store, or browse a broader selection online that isn’t carried in the store. Either way, the profit made on all purchases – in person or online – supports building Jewish community.

When you shop, you support the synagogue. Open since 1974, and led by dedicated volunteers Karen Braverman, Elise Garland and Barbara Margolis, proceeds from the Gift Shop have provided opportunities including Religious School scholarships.

1.) Shop in person or buy a gift certificate at 3950 Baseline Road, Boulder in the North Building lobby. To schedule an appointment during July and August, call (303) 665-7955, (303) 604-2685 or (303) 444-3674.

2.) Shop online anytime where you can also find free Jewish e-cards, a gift registry, kosher gift basket options, and shipping to around the world!

Congregation Har HaShem in Boulder will host an indoor Art and Gift Fair from 10 AM – 2 PM on Sunday, November 6th at 3950 Baseline Road. This will be a great opportunity for vendors of Judaica, as well as general holiday, fine arts, crafts, and gift items to reach a new audience. Vendor space is available for $50-$60.

Har HaShem will broadly advertise the event, which will include free admission, food, face painting for kids, and more. Vendors should reserve space early; only 40-50 exhibitors will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. For information, or to reserve a spot, email images of products no later than August 30th to ARTandGIFT@harhashem.org or call (303) 499-7077.

Ladies Night Out

Local glass artist, Gayle Adler will demonstrate glass painting on recycled bottles and provide each guest with a bottle and materials while guiding her in creating her own design. These beautiful bottles, make wonderful vases, decanters or beverage pitchers to beautify a windowsill or Shabbat table.

Wine, cold drinks and refreshments will be served. Sushi and other menu items will be available for purchase along with my some of Gayle’s own painted glassware. This is a great night out for mothers, friends and daughters age 11 and over.

The event will take place at the East Side Kosher Deli in Denver (499 South Elm Street) from 7-9pm

The charge for the event is $25 at the door or $18 per person for those that are registered by Sunday July 10th. A special group rate of $15 per person is available for groups of ten or more also registered by Sunday.

Please note that wine will only be served to those over 21

To register for the event, call Gayle Adler at 917-837-5440, or email adlergayle@gmail.com. Guests can also register on Facebook by going to the group, “Judaciuts” and posting your rsvp on the event’s wall.  We hope to see you there!

This prim and proper image undergoes an adjustment on Sunday, June 5 at the Boulder Jewish Community Center with an art show and film presenting a more playful face of Orthodoxy.

The evening begins at 6:00 pm with the opening of an art show, “I’ve Never Seen so Many Flying Tzitzis,” featuring photography by Barry Meriash. Meriasch presents the spirit of Chasidic life with the intention of seeing beyond the strange appearance and behavior to the rich world of joy that has been refined in the fire of painful and dark times.

There will be a free kosher wine and cheese reception and an opportunity to meet the artist.

The evening continues at 7:00 pm with a comedy-night-style presentation of “Circumcise Me: The Comedy of Yisrael Campbell.” An intimate look at the “Matisyahu of comedy,” this one-hour documentary combines Campbell’s hilarious stand-up routine with the wild life story that inspires his jokes.

He’s just your average Irish, Italian Catholic kid from Philly, Comic Actor, Sober Alcoholic, Recovering Drug Addict, Husband, Father, Reform, Conservative, Unorthodox, Orthodox Jew.

His name is Yisrael Campbell, (the artist formerly known as Christopher), and this is his story – a spiritual journey stretching across four decades, two continents, and three circumcisions. Poignant, provocative, and powerfully witty, “Circumcise Me” is the true – and truly unforgettable – story of a man who was born to be funny. The Jewish part came later.

More than just a barrel of laughs, “Circumcise Me” is one man’s journey of self-discovery.

Tickets are $10 at the door and include kosher refreshments. Following the film, Rabbi Gavriel Goldfeder will lead a discussion. The event is co-sponsored by Aish Kodesh.