Farkash Gallery Old Jaffa

This issue: Fall Preview, featuring The Hateful Eight’s Samuel L. Jackson and Quentin Tarantino

Happy Mother’s Day!

The company that makes Legos has landed at the center of a social-media firestorm after Chinese artist Ai Weiwei complained that it refused to supply a bulk order of the toy bricks for his art.

Ai said he wanted to use the bricks for an exhibition on free speech at Australia’s National Gallery of Victoria. The museum attempted to place an order but was told by the company that it “cannot approve the use of Legos for political works."A post on Ai’s Instagram account said:

"As a powerful corporation, Lego is an influential cultural and political actor in the globalized economy with questionable values. Lego’s refusal to sell its product to the artist is an act of censorship and discrimination.”

A free-speech advocate who was imprisoned by the Chinese government, Ai suggested that Lego was acting under pressure from authorities. The privately held Danish company recently announced that a Legoland theme park will open in Shanghai. 

In response, fans of the artist flooded Twitter and Instagram with offers of Legos, and Ai said he was setting up drop-off points for donations. He also posted a picture of Legos that had been left inside a car on a street in Berlin, where he is serving as a visiting professor at the University of the Arts.

Fans Flood Artist Ai Weiwei With Offers Of Legos

Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

My new vignette illustration for LA NACION’s Ideas section (an Argentine daily newspaper) 30/08/2015 I have drawn it for the article about museums and their mission. What do we mean when we say “museum”? Today, museums have turned into places of experimentation, entertainment, shopping, education and appreciation of other forms of art. © GOSIA HERBA 2015

Three generations of Jewish women drink coffee in the grandmother’s home while incense is burned, Gondar, Ethiopia. A. Abbas.

Brad Wilson’s Affinity II series of animal portraits || See gallery

Photographer Brad Wilson, based in Los Angeles, started his Affinity series of animal portraits in 2010. These are the second part of this series. Brad takes the pictures in a photographic studio, just feet away from the animals. Some, such as the mountain lion and tigers, are deadly. 

Jugend magazine cover (Issue 47) by Julie Wolfthorn, 1897.

Julie Wolfthorn (1864-1944) was a German-Jewish female painter who created many illustrations for Jugend and was a well known and established portrait painter in Germany. Since the art schools did not accept women at that time, she travelled to Paris in the 1890′s to learn painting techniques and skills. She later became involved with the Berlin Secession and became a prominent member of it. Among her clients and friends were many female artists and important figures in society. Her life did not end well though. She later died in her 70′s at a camp established by the SS for Jewish citizens. She was said to have continued her drawing despite the horrific conditions there.

(Source: berlin-woman, wikipedia)

Adapting Traditions for Modern Judaical Art with @tobylouketubah

To see more of Toby’s ketubot and other Jewish cultural art, follow @tobylouketubah on Instagram.

San Francisco-based artist Toby Simon (@tobylouketubah) grew up in a house full of Jewish art and with a very creative spirit. “I had a junk box in my room that was filled with things I collected like: berry cartons, straws, ribbons and random bits of plastic.” Later in college, Toby discovered a passion for Hebrew calligraphy and began designing her own Judaical art, featuring references to Jewish culture ranging from menorahs and poetry to modernizing ketubah, the Jewish marriage contract.

“What I love most about a ketubah is that it connects us to our ancestors, but at the same time by modernizing the text we can now include interfaith, secular or same-sex marriages; marriages that were not accounted for in the earliest Aramaic versions,” she says. “As a ketubah designer I feel proud to be a part of this progression.”

A full-time mom with two children, Toby finds time to create early in the morning or during nap time. For the upcoming Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, she continues to adapt tradition. Her menorahs made of fabric and buttons are a “safe way for children to count out the eight nights of Hanukkah with their parents.”

JUST SOLD! Autumn Fine Art Auction- Lot 289 $2,000 Artist: Pablo Picasso, After, Spanish (1881 - 1973) Title: Homme a la Pipe Assise sur un Tabouret Year of Original Artwork: 1969 Medium: Lithograph on Arches Paper Edition: 500, 34 AP’s Size: 22 in. x 29 in. (55.88 cm x 73.66 cm) Reference: 3 Chromist: Laurent Marcel Salinas Estate of Picasso, (Marina Picasso) pencil signature and embossed blindstamp lower right. Ink stamp verso ‘Approved by the heirs of Pablo Picasso’

Irving Penn.

The Hand of Miles Davis, New York, 1986. Selenium-toned gelatin silver print, printed 1992. 49.9 × 49.5 cm. One from an edition of 9.

The Hand of Miles Davis, New York, 1986. Gelatin silver print. signed, titled, dated, annotation ‘Print made September 1986’. (43.2 x 43.5cm.) Christie’s.

The Hand of Miles Davis, New York, 1986. Selenium-toned gelatin silver print, printed 1992. 50.8 x 48.9 cm. One from an edition of 16. Hamiltons Gallery, London, Phillips.

The Hand of Miles Davis, New York, 1986. Selenium toned gelatin silver print, printed 1992. 47.8 x 47.8 cm. One from an edition of 15. Hamiltons Gallery, London, Phillips.