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Contemporary ArtJewish Culture & Ideas

Nicki Green: Firmament

Sep 5, 2024–Feb 2, 2025

Transdisciplinary artist Nicki Green’s first museum solo exhibition delves into questions of identity, transformation, and reinvention of Jewish traditions through new and existing artworks in ceramic, installation, fiber, and more. Inspired by the concept of the firmament—a dividing form referenced in the Torah that separated the earth from the heavens—Green reimagines the gallery space as an environment of welcome and liberation centering trans and nonbinary bodies. Artworks rendered primarily in clay feature motifs that invoke fermentation, mycelium, and reinvented ritual as metaphors for regeneration, transformation, and resilience—concepts that have informed Jewish thinking and practice for thousands of years. By reclaiming parts of her Jewish upbringing, reinventing functional forms of ceramic objects, and reimagining ways of embracing different genders and sexualities, Green challenges and expands the binary limits of our society.

Tickets

This exhibition is included in your general admission ticket. Become a Member to receive free admission. All visitors are encouraged to book their timed tickets online in advance.

Exhibition preview
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Supporters

Support for Nicki Green: Firmament is generously provided by Kristin Eriko Posner and Bryan Posner. The Contemporary Jewish Museum is supported in part by a grant from Grants for the Arts.

Media sponsorship is provided by the Bay Area Reporter.

Image credit

From left: Nicki Green, Drifting Upon Swollen Water (Gavriel), A Slack Unthreading (Raphael), Perforated in the Night (Uriel), Fruitful Vine 2 (Michael), 2024. Courtesy the artist and CULT Aimee Friberg.