What art can teach us about Jewish rituals (and appreciating the everyday) - Tamar Benzikry Stern

Can art help us to appreciate everyday routines... and illuminate key concepts of Judaism at the same time? Tamar Benzikry-Stern explains how Jewish artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles' work elevates the mundane and illuminates core concepts of Judaism.

In 1969, artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles wrote Manifesto for Maintenance Art, a rallying cry for a new way of seeing maintenance work, of seeing art, and our role in each. Created in a context of burgeoning feminism, environmentalism and labor activism, Ukeles’ work is also deeply rooted in a Jewish consciousness and offers a probing case study for the power of art in the world and in the Jewish Studies classroom.

This talk was part of the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies' 2015 JewDubTalks series, which offers an academic Jewish twist on the popular TED Talks format.

Speaker Bio: Tamar Benzikry-Stern is a Seattle-based arts advocate, curator and administrator for 4Culture. She manages public art projects that bring artists’ ideas to infrastructure, collaboratively transforming utilities, buildings, buses and trails into cultural experiences. Tamar also works with museums, galleries, and educational groups to bring Jewish art to the fore. Tamar received her MA in Jewish Art & Visual Culture from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and her BA in Art History with a minor in Jewish Studies from the University of Washington. She will be teaching a seminar on “Graphic Novels and Jewish Memory” at the UW in Spring 2015.

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