Oy/Yo

I first encountered Deborah Kass's 2017 sculpture in front of the Brooklyn Museum, when I read it as "YO."  Context is everything.

Is there a more expressive language than Yiddish?  Not if you live in New York.  Oy!

"The Joys of Yiddish" by Mel Bochner (2012)

Until my most recent visit, I didn't think of the Jewish Museum as having a "permanent collection," mostly because I've been drawn by a series of excellent temporary exhibits (Isaac Mizrahi, Florine Stettheimer, Leonard Cohen & Louise Bourgeois).  Now, it takes up an entire floor.

Eastern European and Russian immigrants created beautifully painted and bejeweled wooden horses for carousels at Coney Island.  

Carousel Horse by Charles Carmel (ca. 1914)

Carousel Horse by Marcus Charles Illions (ca. 1915)

George Segal sculpted this Biblical tableau as a symbol of inter-generation conflict to memorialize the 1970 killings of four college students at Kent State by members of the National Guard.  When the college asked for changes, Segal refused and gave a bronze cast to Princeton (where he had taught) instead.

Abraham & Isaac (1978)

Did you know that Louise Nevelson was born in Ukraine?

Self-Portrait (1935)

Jews definitely punch above their weight culturally and intellectually, as a pair of portraitists demonstrate. I prefer the work of Chantal Joffe.

Gertrude Stein

Susan Sontag

Diane Arbus

It's a little harder to assess Jac Lahav's intent.

Monica Lewinsky

Anne Frank

Alan Greenspan

Noam Chomsky

Bob Dylan

Lee Krasner (as Marcia Gay Harden)

One of Krasner's abstracts is displayed around the corner.

Untitled, from the "Little Image" series (1948)

Kehinde Wiley put in an unexpected appearance, too.  In a series called "The World Stage:  Israel" he painted 19 men of color.  A 19th-century Ukrainian paper cut from the museum's collection inspired Wiley's background. 

Dozens of smaller, mostly ceremonial items are displayed in "Taxonomies," a contemporary take on 19th century cabinets of curiosities.