By Matt Chaban 9/12/12 3:38pm

Dizzying Designs

8 Photos

Hava Nagila: A Song for the People

Everybody Hava Nagilah! Groovy Installation Celebrates History of Judaism’s Favorite Song

Even if you’re not Jewish, you probably know the song “Hava Nagilah.” It is up there in the canon with “If I Were a Rich Man” and “The Chanukah Song.” Just thinking those words, hava nagilah, you’ve probably already started humming to yourself, clapping your hands, maybe even grabbing the nearest chair and hoisting it over your head. The point is, it is a powerful, meaningful song, rivaling the Macarena.

It is this popularity, this ubiquity that inspired a new exhibition/installation at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, Hava Nagila: A Song for the People. The show brings together the sights, sounds and spirit of the song, its rich temporal and psychic history, and fills them into a colorful, carpeted room at the museum designed by hot young Brooklyn designers Situ Studio and MTWTF. Read More

By Sarah Douglas 9/15/11 4:34pm

fall arts preview

"Monument" (1980-1981) by Susan Hiller, at MoMA P.S.1. (Photo courtesy the artist and Timothy Taylor Gallery, London)

Top Ten Museum Shows

Crafting Modernism
Museum of Arts and Design
Oct. 12, 2011 – Jan. 15, 2012
Lest we forget that, as Tom Wolfe so eloquently put it once, this is the “museum formerly known as craft,” the place is putting on a mammoth exhibition devoted to craft, specifically to the relationship between it and design after WWII. This is a fascinating proposal because while craft slowly became a four-letter word during that period, design became uber-fashionable, to the point where, today, it sells to the same crowd that buys Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, and constantly prompts questions like, “Is it design, or is it art?” But forget the concept. Go for the pieces. The show, which is organized by MAD curators Jeannine Falino and Jennifer Scanlan, who are continuing a series of exhibitions presented at the museum in the 1990s, includes stunning pieces by George Nakashima, Isamu Noguchi and many, many others. Read More

By Michael H. Miller 2/02/11 12:32am

Art

The Crybaby: Laurel Nakadate’s Edgy Elegy at P.S.1

Laurel Nakadate told the young girl to strip to her underwear.

“Why don’t you take your shirt off?” Ms. Nakadate said. “You know you’re the prettiest girl, right? Let’s see your panties.”

The exchange was projected on a screen in a gallery at P.S.1. It was staged. Ms. Nakadate filmed it for a video, Good Read More