The Jewish Museum will present "Pomegranate: a Video by Ori Gersht"

Wednesday, 13 February 2008 21:52

New York, NY - The Jewish Museum will present the video installation, Pomegranate: A Video by Ori Gersht, from March 9 to June 22, 2008.  Referencing a still life by Baroque artist Juan Sánchez Cotán (Quince, Cabbage, Melon, and Cucumber, 1602), Ori Gersht’s eerie and painterly video (3 min., 52 sec.) features a red pomegranate dangling from a string framed with other freshly harvested produce in a window.  In slow motion a bullet slices through the fruit (a Near Eastern food symbolic of Bible, Jewish law, and war) spraying blood-red seeds and flesh in the air.
 
Within Jewish tradition, the pomegranate is ripe with diverse myths and allegories.  The Bible cites the pomegranate as one of the seven fruits and plants characterizing the fertile land of Israel; and according to folklore, the pomegranate contains 613 seeds, the number of commandments in the Five Books of Moses.  The Hebrew word for pomegranate is used as both the word for the ornaments  adorning the Torah scroll and a homonym for hand grenades.  The colors and textures of Gersht’s video, which the artist achieves without digital enhancement, intensify on screen after the fruit explodes.  Similarly our eyes remain fixed on televised acts of violence despite the impulse to look away.                                                                                                
 
Pomegranate was commissioned as part of Single Shot, collaboration between the UK Film Council’s New Cinema Fund and Arts Council England.  The Jewish Museum is the premiere exhibition venue for Pomegranate outside of the United Kingdom.  Like all works created for Single Shot, Gersht’s video was filmed in one unedited take.  Pomegranate is available as a free download on the web at http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/singleshot/videos.shtm.  
 
Ori Gersht (b. 1967, Israel) lives and works in London.  His video and photography have shown at the Israel Museum, The Jewish Museum, Tate Britain, and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.   His work is held in a range of collections including The Jewish Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Victoria & Albert Museum.  He is represented in New York by CRG Gallery.
 
Pomegranate was organized by Andrew Ingall, Assistant Curator, National Jewish Archive of Broadcasting and Media, The Jewish Museum.  The exhibition is presented in conjunction with artis: Israeli Contemporary Art in New York.  
 
About The Jewish Museum

The Jewish Museum was established on January 20, 1904 when Judge Mayer Sulzberger donated 26 ceremonial art objects to The Jewish Theological Seminary of America as the core of a museum collection.  Today, The Jewish Museum maintains an important collection of 26,000 objects – paintings, sculpture, works on paper, photographs, archaeological artifacts, ceremonial objects, and broadcast media.  Widely admired for its exhibitions and educational programs that inspire people of all backgrounds, The Jewish Museum is the preeminent United States institution exploring the intersection of 4,000 years of art and Jewish culture.
 
General Information

Museum hours are Saturday through Wednesday, 11am to 5:45pm; and Thursday, 11am to 8pm.  Museum admission is $12.00 for adults, $10.00 for senior citizens, $7.50 for students, free for children under 12 and Jewish Museum members.  Admission is free on Saturdays.  For general information on The Jewish Museum, the public may visit the Museum’s Web site at http://www.thejewishmuseum.org or call 212.423.3200.  The Jewish Museum is located at 1109 Fifth Avenue at 92^nd Street, Manhattan.