Needs and Responses

Arts

Needs

The entire arts sector (not just Jewish arts) has been dramatically impacted by the pandemic. An April 8 article in ArtsNews reports that collectively, arts organizations have already lost an estimated $4.5 billion.

Fundraising challenges due to potential attitude among funders and government sources that the arts are a luxury and non-essential in a time of crisis.

In light of the current crisis, working artists have seen their incomes evaporate. Performances, gallery openings, standing gigs, book releases, all have been cancelled or put on indefinite hold.

Most art forms depend on bricks-and-mortar venues, such as movie theaters, concert halls, gallery space etc., and while some can be featured in virtual/online venues, they lose much of their power and impact in the process.

Even before the current coronavirus crisis, the Jewish arts and culture sector was already struggling from a lack of coordinated funder support, an issue the new funding partnership, CANVAS, was created to address.

Most artists support themselves financially not only with their art, but with freelance and part-time work teaching or in the service sector, fields where large numbers of people have lost income as a result of social distancing closures and the wider economic downturn.

Responses

In October, the CANVAS funding collaborative, together with Jewish artists, arts networks, and museums, launched Dwelling in a Time of Plagues in response to the pandemic and other contemporary challenges.

Dwelling installations were displayed during Sukkot and will be displayed during Passover of 5781. Designed to be viewed outdoors, these $10,000 commissions were awarded to artists eager to respond to the pandemic’s realities and to grapple with other contemporary crises: institutional racism and ageism, forced isolation, global warming, and the crisis for migrants and refugees.

The first three commissions, by artists Mirta Kupferminc, Adam W. McKinney and Tiffany Woolf, coincided with the holiday of Sukkot. A decade ago the critically acclaimed 2010 Sukkah City project in New York City reinterpreted the form of the sukkah (a temporary dwelling) for that time. Dwelling in a Time of Plagues, which has tapped Sukkah City creator Joshua Foer as an adviser to the project, reinterprets the timeless ritual yet again for today’s unique moment. Each artist was asked to develop an artwork that takes into account the themes of Sukkot, while considering the new realities of social distancing, the outside spaces available, special opportunities at each museum, and themes of social justice.

Exhibit sites for the first round of this project included the Jewish History Museum in Tucson, the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education, and the Holocaust Museum LA. Each piece responds to the issues facing its host community, and to our collective plight as Jews and as human beings. The 14th Street Y in New York City will be displaying the art and videos of all three works in its ground-floor windows through December 2020, and the pieces will also be available to view online.

The project is a collaboration of Jewish arts & culture networks Reboot, Asylum Arts, LABA, the Council of American Jewish Museums. The four are grantees of CANVAS, a Jewish Funders Network philanthropic collaborative dedicated to elevating the field of Jewish arts and culture.

“Dwelling is an act of museums and artists responding together,” said Melissa Martens Yaverbaum, executive director of the Council of American Jewish Museums. “In a time when we need art to help illuminate and animate our collective experience, this project brings talents across Jewish culture together to present new, thoughtful, works in time for the holiday.”

“The sukkah is intended to be a shelter for all to reflect, rejoice, share, and acknowledge the changing of seasons,” said Lou Cove, Founder of CANVAS. “Dwelling invites us all — curious, concerned, courageous — to gather under the metaphorical roof of this creative collaboration and share those essential experiences together. For the Jewish creative community, and for the American community as a whole, it is an invitation to connect around the issues that matter most and, in so doing, to become larger than the sum of our parts.”

Learn more about Dwelling in a Time of Plagues and each art installation at www.plaguedwelling.com.

CANVAS, a new arts funding partnership powered by JFN, in April created an emergency fund for artists. Working with its grantees — Asylum Arts, the Jewish Book Council, Reboot, the Council of American Jewish Museums, and LABA — it seeks to provide immediate relief funds to Jewish artists who are experiencing a loss of revenue due to the COVID-19 crisis.

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