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Connecting to Jewishness Through Art: Tiffany Shlain and Amy Trachtenberg

Sunday, December 15, 2024 | 11:30am

ADMISSION: Free

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2024-12-15 11:30:00 UTC2024-12-15 23:00:00 UTC America/Los_AngelesThe CJM - 736 Mission St, San Francisco, CAConnecting to Jewishness Through Art: Tiffany Shlain and Amy TrachtenbergThrough their artworks in the California Jewish Open, artists Tiffany Shlain and Amy Trachtenberg explore shared themes of feminism, matrilineal legacy, and how women are uniquely positioned to impact our world. Shlain, an Emmy-nominated filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist, and Trachtenberg, a painter and sculptor known for her work in public art and installations, will come together in the gallery to delve into the intersections of identity and heritage, and their works on view in the exhibition.

Through their artworks in the California Jewish Open, artists Tiffany Shlain and Amy Trachtenberg explore shared themes of feminism, matrilineal legacy, and how women are uniquely positioned to impact our world. Shlain, an Emmy-nominated filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist, and Trachtenberg, a painter and sculptor known for her work in public art and installations, will come together in the gallery to delve into the intersections of identity and heritage, and their works on view in the exhibition.

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About the Series

This program is part of the series Connecting with Jewishness through Art, a monthly series of gallery programs with artists featured in the California Jewish Open, discussing how their artistic practice expresses their Judaism or Jewish identity. At each program, two artists will come together in conversation with each other, the artwork, and the audience to provide context and insights into the complexities of their artwork.

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About the artists
Tiffany Shlain
Tiffany Shlain

Tiffany Shlain is a multidisciplinary artist, Emmy-nominated filmmaker, national bestselling author, and the founder of the Webby Awards. Working across film, art, and performance, Shlain's work explores the intersection of feminism, philosophy, technology, neuroscience, and nature. Her work has shown at the Museum of Modern Art, Madison Square Park, the National Mall and embassies globally. Shlain just had a solo exhibition You Are Here at Nancy Hoffman Gallery in NY and has a joint exhibition with Ken Goldberg for the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time: Art & Science Collide initiative at the Skirball Cultural Center on view until March 2. Shlain has had multiple premieres at the Sundance Film Festival and her awards and distinctions include selection by the Albert Einstein Foundation for their Genius100 list, the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Intellectual Activity, and inclusion in NPR’s list of best commencement speeches. Her Jewish work includes the films The Tribe: An Unauthorized, Unorthodox, History of the Barbie Doll and the Jewish People and The Making of a Mensch and her book, 24/6: Giving up Screens One Day a Week to Get More Time, Creativity, and Connection, which received the Marshall McLuhan Outstanding Book Award. Shlain is represented by the Nancy Hoffman Gallery in New York.

Amy Trachtenberg
Amy Trachtenberg

Amy Trachtenberg’s work spans a multidisciplinary practice grounded in painting that includes sculpture, installation, public commissions, and collaborative works in theater and literary zones. Trachtenberg’s work has been exhibited at The Contemporary Jewish Museum, Anglim Gilbert Gallery, The Luggage Store, Brian Gross Fine Art in San Francisco, The San José Museum of Quilts and Textiles, and The Monterey Museum of Art. Her work has been shown and is part of the collections of The Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, The Achenbach Collection of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, The San José Museum of Art, The Crocker Museum, Sacramento, The De Menil Collection, New York, and The Haitian Embassy, Paris. Trachtenberg has created site-specific installations, including the ceramic tile passenger platform for BART in Silicon Valley, California, the façade at the C.G. Jung Institute in San Francisco, and the interior of Hillview Branch Library in San Jose, California. Trachtenberg was a 2023 Fellow at LABA Bay, a Laboratory for Jewish Culture where she explored the theme of Taboo through studying Torah and Talmud. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, she has been represented by Catharine Clark Gallery since 2021.

About the Exhibition

California Jewish Open

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.

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Supporters

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.

Image Credit

Tiffany Shlain, My Center will Hold, 2023. Courtesy the artist.