Thursday, June 6, 2024 | 6:30–8:30pm
ADMISSION: Free with advance registration
Join us for a night of art, exploration, and community celebrating the California Jewish Open—an exhibition presenting works by forty-seven artists who are looking to the many aspects of Jewish life to explore connection—and Leah Rosenberg: When One Sees a Rainbow, an installation that transforms the Yud gallery into a luminous, colorful space for mindful reflection and wonder. Enjoy drinks and nosh from Wise Sons Jewish Deli, meet participating artists and curators, and discover expressions of creativity that offer insight into one of our most universal human needs: connection.
Admission is free and open to all. Food and drinks will be available for purchase at Wise Sons Jewish Deli, and CJM Members receive a complimentary first drink and a 10% discount on food. Not a Member? Join today!
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The Museum’s first major open call exhibition invited Jewish-identifying artists in California to submit artworks in response to a central question: How are artists looking to the many aspects of Jewish culture, identity, and community to foster, reimagine, hold, or discover connection? The resulting exhibition brings together the work of forty-seven artists reflecting on their connection to Judaism, the world, and their own history. Through a wide range of media, including paintings, sculptures, interactive video games, video works, photographs, and more, the California Jewish Open illustrates some of the myriad ways in which these artists’ Jewish identity informs their connection to the world at large—and offers a window into the universal human need for connection in all its complexity.
Bay Area artist Leah Rosenberg’s immersive installation When One Sees a Rainbow transforms The CJM’s Yud Gallery through light and color, creating a welcoming environment for visitors to reflect, rest, and wonder. Rosenberg fills the gallery—a space itself created to celebrate light and its connection to Judaism—with new hues, exploring how the wondrous natural phenomenon of rainbows connects to our lives, light, and Jewish practice. Inspired by the Jewish tradition of reciting a blessing upon seeing a rainbow, visitors will also be invited to create their own responses to the colors in the gallery.
Support for the California Jewish Open is generously provided by Judith and Robert Aptekar. The Contemporary Jewish Museum is supported in part by a grant from Grants for the Arts.