Schusterman Visiting Artist Program
About
One of the largest organized residency programs of Israeli artists ever to launch in the U.S., the Schusterman Visiting Artist Program began in Fall 2008 and offers unprecedented opportunities for Americans to experience Israeli culture. The Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation supports the Schusterman Visiting Artists Program to provide Israeli artists from various disciplines with time spent in North America. These residencies last for two to four months and take place at some of the nation's most esteemed universities and museums, as well as Jewish Community Centers and alternative cultural organizations. The program has a special focus on fostering high levels of interaction between the artists and the local communities where they are based.
Goals
The goal of the new program is to engage American audiences with Israeli artists, musicians, filmmakers, writers, and choreographers. Also, the program is intended to provide professional development experiences and cultural exposure for Israeli artists outside their home country. From fall 2008 through spring 2009, the foundation supported five visiting artists and in 2009-10, there will be twelve artists. Residencies will foster deeper impact and complement, for example, the more standard touring company performances and single readings by authors already underway across the U.S.
"We want to enable Americans to experience, in depth, the vibrant and creative face of Israel that is embodied in its artists, many of whom are doing some of the most exciting and innovative work anywhere in the world today," said Lynn Schusterman, chairperson of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation and the Schusterman Foundation-Israel. "Right now, Israel is enjoying an unprecedented degree of success in several cultural realms, including film, music and choreography. Its visual artists also are showing in major museums outside Israel and achieving a degree of international recognition previously unknown. The artist-in-residence format offers a unique opportunity to import some of this remarkable talent during this particularly fertile period in the cultural history of Israel,” said Schusterman.
Program to date:
Spring 2010
Eight artists will participate this spring. Filmmaker Ayelet Bargur, director of The House on August Street, will be artist-in-residence at the Pittsburgh Jewish and Israeli Film Festival. AXUM (Judah--Gilor Yehuda and Tedross--Reuben Aragai) will be hosted by the Emory Hillel. AXUM adds its unique Middle Eastern and Ethiopian sounds to Israeli hip-hop and reggae. Choreographer Idan Cohen, whose recent Swan Lake has been a smash in Israel and Europe, will be hosted by the Amherst and Smith College Hillels and the Five College Dance Department (Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, Smith and UMass Amherst).
Alex Epstein, one of Israel's rising stars in the literary world, will be at Denver University. Documentary filmmakers Dan and Noit Geva will be in residence at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore; Dan will also teach a class on Israeli film at Johns Hopkins University. Under the sponsorship of the Institute for Southern Jewish Life, which is based in Jackson, Mississippi, Amir Gwirtzman, a veritable Pied Piper, will take his 20 instruments on the road to perform in communities across the southeast.
Fall 2009
This past fall, seven more artists participated in the program. Author (and founder and proprietor of the Jerusalem literary café “Tmol Shilshom”) David Ehrlich was hosted by Portland State University (Oregon). Etty Ben-Zaken, a vocalist and specialist in Sephardic music, and her husband, composer Eitan Steinberg, were in Houston, Texas, where they lectured and performed at the JCC, Rice University, University of Houston and other venues in the area. Elyassaf Kowner was in the San Francisco area (Peninsula JCC, Foster City). Kowner, an interdisciplinary artist working in video, photography and music, engaged with the community to create new works and screen and exhibit his own work.
Photographer Roi Kuper, who has been honored with solo exhibitions at the Herzliya Museum, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and the Tate Modern in London, was at the University of New Mexico and the University of New Mexico Art Museum. He also exhibited his work in Albuquerque.
Documentary filmmaker Ram Loevy, recipient of the Israel Prize, the highest award given in Israel for achievements in art, science and the humanities, taught at Duke University. While in Durham, Loevy lectured at Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies, among other venues. Renana Raz, a choreographer, taught at the University of Texas at Dallas and offered master classes at several other area universities in the Dallas-Fort Worth area also.
Spring 2009
David Polonsky, artist-in-residence at the Brown RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) Hillel in spring 2009, developed the aesthetic approach, created the artwork for the animation and supervised the artistic aspects of the award-winning animated feature film Waltz with Bashir. Ronen Sabbo was an artist-in-residence at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco. Sabbo, a musician, DJ and music producer, performed regularly in San Francisco clubs, at Jewish community events in San Francisco and Los Angeles and created artistic collaborative opportunities within the Jewish community and the Bay Area arts and music community-at-large.
Fall 2008
The first artists-in-residence in the fall of 2008 were performance artist Anat Pick, film historian Yael Munk, and curator and art historian Gideon Ofrat. Pick was the first-ever artist-in-residence at The International Dada Archives at the University of Iowa and was co-hosted by the University of Iowa Hillel in Iowa City. Pick is involved with innovative language-oriented performances or "sound texts" and has performed her voice works in contemporary music festivals around the world. Munk, whose residency took place at the Jewish Community Center of Chicago, is an authority on Israeli film. Ofrat, who became artist-in-residence at the Koffler Centre of the Arts in Toronto, is the author of 100 Years of Art in Israel, which was published in 1998 and is considered the standard text on the subject.
Are you interested in serving as an institutional host?
Are you an Israeli artist interested in becoming an artist-in-residence?
Please contact:
Marge Goldwater
Schusterman Visiting Artist Program
margegoldwater@gmail.com
Goldwater works with an advisory committee in Israel to select a group of artists for the program twice a year.
The Foundation for Jewish Culture provides fiscal sponsorship for the program.
Established in 1987, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation is dedicated to helping the Jewish people flourish by supporting programs that spread the joy of Jewish living, giving and learning. The Foundation also provides assistance to non-sectarian charitable organizations dedicated to enhancing the quality of life in Oklahoma. More information is available at www.schusterman.org.