Rupture and Repair

The exhibition brings together the eighteen works selected as finalists for "The Adi Prize for Jewish Expression in Art and Design," a biennial international competition in the visual arts on a theme related to Jewish thought and tradition, organized by The Adi Foundation. The Foundation, established in 2000 in memory of Adi Dermer, n?e Blumberg, fosters the connection between art and the spiritual values that are at the heart of Judaism. The current competition theme of "Rupture and Repair" was addressed by artists in a variety of media, including painting, textile, installation, video, jewelry, sculpture, photography, drawing, and performance. These works explore "Rupture and Repair" in Jewish history, homiletics, mysticism, and prayer, as well as in individual biographies, embracing the personal experiences of immigration, family relationships, exile, alienation, loss, and suffering. A number of artists created new objects with which to perform existing Jewish rituals of repentance, mourning, and renewal; others reinvented traditional objects and techniques. Ranging from particularistic Jewish narratives of the Shoah and kibbutz life to universal experiences of coping with crises of faith, dislocation, illness, grief, and death, these eighteen works represent creative investigations of form and content as artists confront rupture and seek repair.