“Archie Rand: Sixty Paintings From the Bible,” an exhibition that opens this weekend at the American Jewish Museum, Squirrel Hill, is probably not what you’re imagining. The paintings’ subjects are traditional parables, but the visual style and vocabulary are contemporary.
Mr. Rand will give a free artist talk at 4 p.m. Saturday followed by a reception until 6 p.m.
He is a painter, muralist and Jewish scholar who has exhibited internationally. Mr. Rand, born in 1949, has worked collaboratively with poets such as John Ashbery, John Yau and Allen Ginsberg, and moved in artist circles that included Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. He lives in Brooklyn and is the Presidential Professor of Art at Brooklyn College, CUNY.
But don’t expect a classroom lecture. “He’s a very engaging, lively, fun speaker,” said museum director Melissa Hiller. “He may chew on some meaty topics, but in an atmosphere of levity and casualness. It won’t be a serious academic lecture.”
Ms. Hiller became interested in the artist through “The 613” series, each painting of which was inspired by a commandment and which Mr. Rand requires be exhibited in its entirety. “They look like pulp book covers, but they’re just so powerful.”
As she learned more about the artist, she “found his work to be compelling and laden with intrigue and really important questions.”
In the past century, when spiritual subjects were dismissed by the greater art world and abstraction was prominent, Mr. Rand began to move toward Jewish themes. “He wanted to ask questions from an artistic perspective,” Ms. Hiller said. “He knew it would remove him from the mainstream art world, but he was willing to make this ideological shift.”
Religious imagery had been an important component of the Western art history canon. Then “modernism made it a stigma. He upends that,” Ms. Hiller said.
Even when the artwork doesn’t look particularly Jewish, she said, the derivation is.
“Comics are pretty much an American invention, and pretty much a Jewish American invention. There’s a particular irreverent, bossy Borscht Belt Jewish humor. His work has a beautiful painterly quality. They’re not comic book, not pulp — but he’s nodding to that.”
“The text in Archie’s work goes straight to the punch line. Look at our attention span today. He’s not changing the text, but he’s putting it in the vernacular.
“When Samson is painted by the A-team of artists [like Rubens or Caravaggio], Delilah is depicted as a whore. Samson is this tragic vulnerable hero who was weakened because he fell for the dame. Yet if you really work through that Bible passage, Samson had anger issues. He was full of rage, killed his wife.”
“This show has already inspired these lively conversations about collective assumptions. Why are certain religions looked upon as promoting violence and others not? People say, ‘My religion doesn’t do that.’ It’s making us think so much about the Western canon and who’s gotten to be the author of that.”
The exhibition continues through March 31 in the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh, 5738 Forbes Ave. Admission is free. Information and hours: 412-521-8010 or http://jccpgh.org.
Photography talks
The fifth edition of the PGH Photo Fair will be held April 29-30 at Carnegie Museum of Art, Oakland, featuring dealers in photo-based art from the 19th century through today. The fair’s annual Speaker Series will begin next week. The free public talks will be given at 6:30 p.m. in the Ace Hotel Ballroom, 120 S. Whitfield St., East Liberty.
Feb. 8: Robert E. Jackson has been a collector since 1997. His snapshot collection formed the basis of the National Gallery of Art 2007 exhibition and catalog “The Art of the American Snapshot: 1888-1978.” His second book, “Pure Photography,” was published in 2011. A forthcoming exhibition at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas, will include some of Mr. Jackson’s 19th-century cabinet cards and other items.
March 8: Amanda Hunt, assistant curator at The Studio Museum in Harlem. Her curatorial experience includes positions at the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco; LAXART, Los Angeles; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and Whitechapel Gallery, London.
April 5: Dr. David Kronn. a Dublin-born collector, is also an amateur photographer and chief of medical genetics at Westchester Medical Center and associate professor of pathology and pediatrics at New York Medical College, Valhalla, N.Y. His collection is a promised gift to the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin.
Post-lecture conversations will continue at the hotel bar. Information: www.pghphotofair.com.
M. Thomas: mthomas@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1925.
First Published: February 1, 2017, 5:00 a.m.
