Jewish gallery debuts multimedia artists
Kate Wilcox
Issue date: 9/26/07 Section: News
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The Emerging Artists Fellowship was started last year in order to "foster Jewish students at NYU," said Shulie Seidler-Feller, the coordinator of Avoda Arts, a nonprofit organization that worked with the Bronfman Center on this project. The art shown at the gallery included a musical performance, digital images, film and drawings.
The students met with different types of media experts such as art gallery owners, filmmakers and musicians.
"We all got along really well, we brought out the best in each other," said Chari Pere, artist fellow and School of Visual Arts graduate.
The Bronfman Center used a grant it received last year to sponsor six students from different schools in the city to create projects based on Jewish themes through a series of workshops.
Pere created her work, "The Ultimate Unboring Jewish Calendar," because she thought there was no middle ground between "Jewish calendars with info and no fun, and ones with fun but no info."
"I wanted to incorporate my Jewish pride," she said. "Everything I do, I try to make people laugh and smile."
Some other exhibits included a musical performance by Steinhardt junior and classical pianist Lera Kotok, who played a collection of contemporary Israeli music. Columbia student Deenah Vollmer took a more visual approach, creating a comic about a girl who moves to New York and explores Judaism in the context of the Lower East Side. Vollmer said the comic is based on her own personal experiences.
The other artists are Tisch student Matthew Engler, New School alum Benjy Fox-Rosen and Tisch graduate student Gilad Lotan.
The scholarship is not only for Jewish students, but for any student exploring a Jewish theme through art. Seidler-Feller said the deadline for this year's applications is Dec. 21.
Kate Wilcox is a contributing writer. E-mail her at news@nyunews.com.
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