Andy Warhol: Good for the Jews?
For the past month or so, I have been working on my first ever commissioned piece: Andy Warhol: Good for the Jews? Running from — yikes! — Jan. 10-18 at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco (which commissioned the work), it will be my personal response to one of their current exhibits: Warhol’s Jews: A Retrospective.
I have been delighted to spend many hours at the CJM, hanging out at that exhibit and others — and also, quite often, at their fine café, for a man cannot live on art alone. Outside the museum, I’ve also been chatting up a number of experts on Jews, Warhol, art, and philosophy. How much of their collective wisdom will still cling to me by the time my show opens is a very good question. But if you come and check out any of the performances, I can promise you that they will at least look and sound beautiful — as I have had the privilege of collaborating, once again, with director David Dower, designer Alex Nichols, composer Marco d’Ambrosio, and producer Jonathan Reinis. Also, after each hour-long monologue, I will turn into a dialoguist and interview a cool expert on one or another issue raised by the show.
You can get tix and info here. (Your ticket to my show also gets you in to see everything at this wonderful new museum.) And despite the very silly video preview above, I want to assure you that I will try at all times to maintain the decorum befitting this very august setting.
UPDATE: The original six shows have been starting to sell out, so the museum has scheduled an additional performance, on Thurs., Jan. 22, at 7 p.m. Go here for details — and to see the list of incredible talkback guests for the whole run.
ANOTHER UPDATE: All the shows — including the added performance on Jan. 22 — are sold out.
Posted: January 2nd, 2009 under Andy Warhol, Jews, Performances.
Comments: 4
Comments
Comment from admin
Time: April 6, 2009, 7:07 pm
Hey, Alex: I, too, am fond of the word précis — though I doubt I’ll ever get a chance to use it. Nonetheless … “Andy Warhol: Good for the Jews?” begins with my rather visceral response to the 10 portraits that Andy Warhol did in 1980 of famous Jews from the 20th century. In short, I found them to be all surface, which disturbed me greatly. But as I began to explore both Warhol’s life and work and the portraited Jews (especially Martin Buber and Franz Kafka), my perspective changed: I saw those portraits (and Warhol’s work in general) as portals from (in Buber’s terms) “I-It” to “I-Thou.” … And happily, because the Warhol Foundation and Ron Feldman (the art dealer who collaborated with Warhol on that project) have graciously granted me the rights to continue using those images, I will be able to continue working on the piece, and to tour with it. I believe the first run will be early next year on the East Coast; more details to follow on this website. … Thanks so much for your thoughtful comment!
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Time: April 1, 2011, 6:19 pm
[...] saw Josh Kornbluth’s show Andy Warhol: Good for the Jews? recently. In it, he talks about needing to see himself in his father’s eyes in order to know [...]
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Time: May 4, 2011, 10:25 am
[...] “Andy Warhol: Good for the Jews?” Opens next Tuesday, Center Stage in Baltimore [...]
Comment from Alex van Broek
Time: April 3, 2009, 4:32 pm
I was too busy to see your show when it was scheduled and now I want to see it but it closed. Mainly I want to see it because I think the title is hilarious. This reminds me of the time that a group did an all black ensemble performance of Waiting For Godot. I thought that would be really interesting but I did not get around to going and missed it. So now I missed your show and I wish you would do it again. Your work is similar to Waiting For Godot because even though there is a lot of talking there is a silence around the work, like an another, implied, intelligence beyond the work.
I guess you can’t do the show again because with a commissioned piece the more you perform the less you make. Anyway, if you could send a precis that would be great. (I have always wanted to use the word precis.)