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"You
People": Phil Blank
February 13-May 9, 2008
Opening: Wednesday, February 13
Free and open to the public
Discussion with Phil Blank: 6:30-7:30 p.m.
Reception: 7:30-8:30 p.m.
In
"You People," Phil Blank-a native Philadelphian
working and living in Chapel Hill-explores issues of authenticity,
identity, ethnicity, modernity, class, and race in boldly
graphic, decidedly pictorial art. Pairing a rigorously inquisitive
and philosophical nature with deep affection and respect for
folk and popular culture-from American "roots" music
to comics to the poetry of Allen Ginsberg-Blank created an
entirely new body of work for this exhibition. His large-scale
drawings and watercolors-which he describes as "poetic
non-fiction"-meditate upon and illustrate connections
between seemingly unrelated topics ranging from the Jewish
Diaspora to Native American traditions to contemporary American
race relations.
Artist's
Statement
As an American Jew, I've often found myself wandering in the
vast middle space between "white" and "person
of color." In every area of life, I can feel lost, overshooting,
walking in circles. The works in this show are all little
dots on the map of this territory for me. Living with these
images helps me return to these places and navigate the territory
a little better.
There
is a film of a Roma musician singing a love song. After the
song, the filmmaker asked the singer to repeat the lyrics.
The singer could not since he made it up on the spot. He looked
at the filmmaker with pity-how could one sing a love song
with prefabricated lyrics? In the American South, where I
live, musical improvisation is almost always traced back to
the inventions of people who don't self-identify as "white."
Improvisation is a subtle thing, but it creates a very particular
sort of person and community. Without it, the source of creativity
is someone else's and what it has produced cannot be changed.
But what is more Jewish than improvisation? The Torah, Talmud,
and all the study and debate that have followed represent
millennia of dancing around questions of practice, belief,
and life. We've reinvented ourselves countless times and in
innumerable ways over thousands of years in the Diaspora.
That's what I hear in the music of my fellow Jewish banjo
players.
In
addition to mapping personal and artistic terrain, these paintings
celebrate those Jews who "left" Judaism and Jewishness
only to discover that the other banjo players in the mountains,
the other monks in the zendo, the other atheist dreamers-they
were Jewish, too!
"You
People": Phil Blank is accompanied by a publication made
possible by a generous gift from Joan and Hyman Sall.
The
exhibition is organized by Matthew F. Singer, Curator, Philadelphia
Museum of Jewish Art.
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| The
Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art presents contemporary art
that illuminates the Jewish experience. Since 1975, the Museum
has organized solo and group exhibitions of work in the broadest
range of mediums by artists of diverse backgrounds. In addition
to its special exhibition gallery, the Museum features a permanent
collection of important works by accomplished artists, including
William Anatasi. Chaim Gross, Tobi Kahn, Joan Snyder, Shelley
Spector, Boaz Vaadia and Roman Vishniac. In a review in the
Jewish Exponent Rita Poley said, “through abstract forms
contemporary artists find they can explore the Judaism of ideas
and the best place in the city to view this art is the Philadelphia
Museum of Jewish Art. Visitors to the Museum engage in an ongoing
visual dialogue with “Judaism of visual ideas. |
