Future in Question for Chicago Loop Synagogue and its Monumental Stained-Glass Window
(JTA) Just three stories high and hemmed into a small 5,000-square-foot lot, the building at 16 S. Clark St. is a small jewel box situated amid this city’s dense urban fabric. Exuding an aura of cool simplicity, the structure’s facade is composed of glass, metal and concrete planes. Its name is etched in delicate gold lettering: Chicago Loop Synagogue.
Perched above the synagogue’s front door, a two-ton sculpture extends over the sidewalk. Created by Henri Azaz in 1963, the work consists of bold letters tumbling over each other spelling the priestly benediction. A pair of massive hands emerges from the words, sloping downward as though placing a blessing on the heads of all those who enter.
The documentary
Bill Traylor: Chasing Ghosts opens with a quotation from Vincent van Gogh, suggesting that people often live unaware of the artists among them. That could be said about Bill Traylor (around 1853-1949), who was born a slave and made pictures in his 80s on the sidewalks of Montgomery, Alabama. The film-maker Jeffrey Wolf explores Traylor’s personal and often playful iconography of animals, people and farm tools, in a blend of choreographed forms, earthy spirituality and satire.
A parallel visual line in the film moves through Traylor’s life and land, with archival photographs and film footage, from the last years of slavery in central Alabama, into the Civil War, and eventually into the segregated Jim Crow South. Two on-screen narrators join members of Traylor’s family to bridge gaps where the documentation falls short, which is almost everywhere. The hybrid style fits a story of assembled fragments.
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Reopened Portland Art Museum offers rare opportunity to see work of activist-artist Ed Bereal
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Ed Bereal is shown in 2019 with his holographic installation, “Exxon: Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” Photo courtesy of David Scherrer and the Whatcom MuseumDavid Scherrer and the Whatcom Museum
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By Alex V. Cipolle | For The Oregonian/OregonLive
The year is 1962 and, in a garden-level San Francisco apartment, legendary activist-artist Ed Bereal sculpts the contours of his lover’s face as a tear runs down her cheek.
Her name was Barbara, and she was pregnant with their child. As young starving artists, they had decided to give up the child for adoption.