TOO JEWISH?
CHALLENGING
TRADITIONAL
IDENTITIES
Part 2 of 8



TOO JEWISH? CHALLENGING TRADITIONAL IDENTITIES, a provocative group exhibition of contemporary art featuring paintings, drawings, sculpture, installation, assemblage and art videos. More than 20 artists, including Deborah Kass, Cary Leibowitz, Elaine Reichek and Art Spiegelman, are represented in the exhibition.

TOO JEWISH? was organized by The Jewish Museum, New York and the Philadelphia showing is the final stop of a national tour.

The artists in this exhibition use issue-based art to examine a range of influences, from postwar art to recent mass media and popular culture. What binds the group is not a stylistic homogeneity, but rather the attitude present in their ideas and working methods, an obsessive, confrontational, and often humorous approach to different ways of representing identity. Central to their work are the questions: Who are we? Who represents us? How do we represent ourselves? In essence, just what is "too Jewish?" The irony and parody implicit in their projects encourage the viewer to ponder difficult political, social and personal concerns.

Some of these artists, who during the last decade explored ethnic themes, have, according to exhibition curator Norman L. Kleeblatt, "lapsed in their religious observance. Others, who came from non-observant homes, have used their art to interrogate the reasons for their parents' drive for assimilation. Many observed piecemeal, and some create new modes of 'celebration' through their art. But all identify themselves culturally and ethnically as Jews."

Much recent art has embraced complex issues of ethnic identity, following a trend of inclusivity which began in American universities. Museums and galleries have been reversing a long history of discrimination against art about or by African-Americans, Latinos, Native-Americans, Asian-Americans, women, lesbians, and gay men. In this context, some Jewish artists are asking where they can fit in. Although Jews have experienced far less blatant exclusion from the art world and mainstream society since the Holocaust and World War II, their assimilation has often been accomplished by the shedding of ethnic specificity. This pattern of ethnic erasure is precisely what the artists in this exhibition are challenging.

The exhibition is organized into five sections:

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