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AVODA 2
September - 12 October 2003 opening
reception with the artist Sunday, 7 September, 2 - 5 p.m.
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Tobi Kahn is an internationally acclaimed painter and sculptor whose work is found in the collections of major institutions throughout the United States, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and The Jewish Museum, New York, NY. His commissions include a large outdoor sculpture at New Harmony, IN, and two Holocaust memorial gardens, in Tenafly, NJ, and La Jolla, CA. "Avoda" is the Hebrew noun for "work," as well as for "prayer/worship," and the active mode implied by this title reflects Kahn's interpretation of the rising interest and active participation in spiritual expressions. The exhibition Avoda: Objects of the Spirit consists of 42 Jewish ceremonial objects that demonstrate Kahn's interpretation of old and new ritual observances, as well as his artistic commitment to natural forms. These are highly personal works, created as they were for ritual moments in the life of his family: a chair created for his son's circumcision ceremony, child-sized spice boxes used in Sabbath observances. Exhibition curator Laura Kruger writes that these works are "strikingly contemporary in their refusal to allude to familiar and domestic conventions of Judaica. Instead, they point to a sacred and mysterious realm, beyond conscious knowledge, while retaining Kahn's persisting commitment to the hand of the artist. For Kahn, these objects are fashioned not only to be used but to be handed down as embodiments of love and community." MOCRA is pleased to bring to St. Louis audiences the opportunity both to enjoy and appreciate Kahn's Judaica, but also to come through them to a deeper understanding of their own faith traditions as well as those of others. |
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Hear
an interview with artist Tobi Kahn, Avoda Education Director Debbie
Krivoy, and MOCRA Director Rev. Terrence Dempsey, SJ |
| Museum
of Contemporary Religious Art
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