Council of American Jewish Museums
          E-News | May 2013   
 
In This Issue
Keeping Up With Trends
CAJM Rep on AAM Board
San Francisco Partnership
Developments at Ben Uri
CAJM is ... 
Jewish art and history museums, historic sites, historical and archival societies, Holocaust centers, synagogue museums, Jewish Community Center galleries, children's museums, and university galleries ...  the professionals and volunteers who work in them ...  the children, adults, and families who visit them ...  the patrons who support them ...  the organization that keeps them vital.

 

TRENDS TO WATCH

Prior to its Annual Meeting, which concluded on May 22nd, the American Alliance of Museums
issued a fascinating report that should be of great interest and use to museum professionals.

TrendsWatch 2013:  Back to the Future of Museums was produced by the Center for the Future of Museums and highlights six emergent trends that CFM"s staff and advisors determined to be highly significant to museums and their communities, based on a year of scanning and analysis.

No Wifi
Digital Shoe, TOTeM LabsThe six are: the changing shape of giving; the develop- ment of 3-D printing; the growing importance of
"microcredentials" obtained in informal education settings; the various forms of digitally networked objects (e.g. left, courtesy of
TOTeM Labs
and
AAM
); the value of disconnecting from technology (e.g. right, courtesy of AAM, Kit Kat and JWT Amsterdam), and expanding migrations back to cities. The report explains each trend, presents its meaning in the world at large, and offers ways that museums might respond to the trend. AAM is suggesting that museums conduct their own forecasting workshop with constituents and that they share this report with opinion leaders. Lots to think about!  Read it here 

 

MARGLES TO SERVE ON AAM BOARD

Past CAJM Chair Judith Margles has been elected to the Board of Directors of the American Alliance of Museums. The organization's governing board is comprised of a chair, vice chair, Margles immediate past chair and 24 members-at-large. All are museum professionals from institutions diverse in type, size, and geographic AAM logo location; community leaders who have demonstrated support for the museum field; or independent professionals with long-term dedication to and experience working within the museum field. Congratulations to Judy, who continues to serve us well as a CAJM board member. She is Executive Director of the Oregon Jewish Museum, where she has organized numerous exhibitions emphasizing the Jewish experience in Oregon; in addition, she consults on other exhibit projects in the Portland area, and has contributed entries to Jewish Women: A Historical Encyclopedia, a project of the Jewish Women's Archive. CAJM member Karen Franklin, independent curator and former Director of The Judaica Museum at the Hebrew Home for the Aged at Riverdale (today, the Derfner Judaica Museum), previously paved the way as our first representative on the AAM board.

 

CJM PARTNERS WITH SFMOMA
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is closing in June for three years as it embarks on a major $610 m. expansion project designed by international architecture firm Snohetta. In tandem with the closure, the museum will be on the go, presenting new art experiences around the Bay Area in other locations, drawing from its holdings. And its first stop? 

Klee SpiritThe Contemporary Jewish Museum, where Beyond Belief: 100 Years of the Spiritual in Modern Art will open June 28th. Co-organized by the two cultural institutions, the exhibition features more than 60 works, spanning 1911 to 2011, on loan to the CJM from NJP TV BuddhaSFMOMA's acclaimed collection. Exhibition artists range from early- and mid-twentieth-century innovators like Paul Klee and Mark Rothko to leading postwar and contemporary artists Agnes Martin, Nam June Paik, and Teresita Fern�ndez. The exhibition team includes CJM's curator Karen Tsujimoto, curatorial associate Jeanne Gerrity, and writer-in-residence Daniel Schifrin, working in collaboration with SFMOMA curators. Their objective was to provide a fresh perspective on this provocative subject and these important works in their new, temporary context.

(Above left, Paul Klee's A Spirit Serves a Little Breakfast; above right, Nam June Paik's TV Buddha, both courtesy of SFMOMA.)

 

NEW COLLECTION GALLERY AT BEN URI

A festive event took place May 23rd in London's St. John's Wood, when Ben Uri, the London Jewish Museum of Art, celebrated a newly designated permanent collection gallery. A longstanding CAJM member, the Ben Uri is dedicated to addressing contemporary issues through art and social history. Over the past decade, according to Chief Executive David Glasser (below right), the museum has added more than 200 works to a collection that now exceeds 1,200 items. New
B.U., Rosenthal
acquisitions include Daniel Quintero's portrait of curator and art historian Sir Norman Rosenthal (left). The permanent gallery in the museum's Boundary Road location represents only a fraction of these treasures, and the museum continues to seek a permanent home in central London so that the entire collection can be made accessible to the public. In the meantime, the museum Glasser
continues to present temporary exhibitions in offsite locations and at its headquarters, the most recent focusing on Boris Aronson and The Avant-Garde Yiddish Theater. And more news from Ben Uri:  Since April, in response to austerity conditions across the country and with support from a leading funder, Manya Igel Fine Arts, the museum has eliminated all admission fees.
 

LET US PUT A SPOTLIGHT ON YOU

USHMM Hall
CAJM offers resources for learning all year round on our website and at our annual conference; models professional standards; offers opportunities for information exchange; and works on behalf of Jewish museums and museums with Jewish content, like the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which, anticipating many trends watchers, was an early innovatior in its use of both digital/interactive technologies and contemplative spaces (to right, the solemn but sunlit Hall of Remembrance, designed for individual reflection).
 
Meet new colleagues & grow

your skills:

Become a Member
___________
Stay current:
Join Our Mailing List