Following projects in China, Brazil, Africa, and India, artist extraordinaire Kehinde Wiley takes his “hip-hop meets Old Masters” style on the road again to present The World Stage: Israel at Roberts & Tilton, where the show of 15 paintings on canvas and paper opened on Saturday and remains on view through May 28. Wiley and his scouts found young, handsome European and Ethiopian Jews and Arab Israelis at malls, bars, nightclubs, and sporting events in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and had them to pose for photographs that were later transformed into hyperrealistic paintings of optimistic youth in a conflicted country.
After the success of their first creation, Superman, writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster tried to recreate the magic with Funnyman, the “first Jewish superhero.”
The failed endeavor is chronicled in a new book from Feral House, a collection of essays and images that also examines Superman’s roots in the Jewish storytelling tradition. The volume includes color reproductions of the 1948 Funnyman comic-book series, which openly referenced Jewish humor and coincided with the establishment of the new state of Israel.
Man oh man, Frank O. Gehry is not having a good month. (Maybe it’s true what they say about the end of January, no matter how starchitect-y you are.) Last week came the news that Gehry Partners is being axed as architect of record on the Museum of Tolerance in Israel; now we’re hearing wind of a stop-work order on New York’s own Beekman Tower. At least the band-aids are coming now, rather than three years after construction — as in the case of MIT’s Stata Center, over which Gehry was sued for breach of contract (read: leaks and cracked masonry) in 2007. See what the world will be missing in the form of Israel’s flashiest to-be building, after the jump.
Divisive author and illustrator Joe Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza combines hard reporting with an engrossing graphic-storytelling format to explore the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Sacco uses “comics journalism” — a genre he effectively invented with his previous books Palestine and Safe Area Goražde — to chronicle two reportedly overlooked Palestinian massacres that took place in the ’50s. The result is a poignant portrait of the ongoing conflict through an artistic but unflinching lens.
Lunch is long gone, it’s 4 p.m, Cheney won’t stop acting evil, Dems punked out on Pelosi, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is totally up to talk it out (not!), Rumsfeld put the holy in war, drunk piloting is actually an issue, and work just won’t end. There’s only one way to make it out of this day alive: THE CAT POWER HAPPY HOUR, a new daily pick-me-up from your friends at Flavorpill. After the jump, a picture so cute it’ll turn your cubicle into a den of pure cuddle. (Check back tomorrow, same time, same place for more unhinged adorability).
Lunch is long gone, it’s 4 p.m, Rep. John Murtha may have funneled money, civil war is descending on the District, Turkey is still reeling in the wake of a wedding, Israel is facing another round of inflammatory UN reports, and work just won’t end. There’s only one way to make it out of this day alive: THE CAT POWER HAPPY HOUR, a new daily pick-me-up from your friends at Flavorpill. After the jump, a picture so cute it’ll turn your cubicle into a den of pure cuddle. (Check back tomorrow, same time, same place for more unhinged adorability).
During the last week of 2008, Israel launched an intense military operation against Hamas in the Gaza strip. The purpose was twofold: to dispel rocket attacks that had been terrorizing Southern Israel for months, and to send a powerful message that Israel was more than willing to use overwhelming force to get its zero-tolerance message across. After killing scores of Hamas fighters and civilians in air and ground raids, drawing scorn from much of the world for its actions, Israel abruptly withdrew its forces on January 18. The incursion had lasted 22 days, resulting in hundreds of deaths — another violent chapter in the long history of Middle Eastern hostility.
Like his mythical monster-creature Ooga, self-described pervasive artist Gary Baseman has many heads. The products of his subversively sweet eye have appeared in numerous pubs including Time, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times. Chronicle Books just released a mega-monograph of his art entitled Dumb Luck; his commercial design has been courted by corporate giants, and appears on the packaging of the brainy board game, Cranium. [Editor's note: If you've never played it, this is the best. game. ever.] Baseman also served as creator and executive producer on ABC/Disney’s Teacher’s Pet, an Emmy award-winning animated series featuring a talking dog masquerading as a fourth-grader that was adapted into a feature film in 2004.
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— to chronicle two reportedly overlooked Palestinian massacres that took place in the ’50s. The result is a poignant portrait of the ongoing conflict through an artistic but unflinching lens.
