28-year-old artist Michael Levin has always used concepts of Jewish identity as inspiration, whether it was building a shrine to the apocryphal “Red Jews” or painting on shaimos, aka “retired” pieces of scripture. His newest series, Jews of Today, features arresting, intricately detailed depictions of Hasidim in Williamsburg, and is on display starting tomorrow at 7 Dunham Gallery in South Williamsburg. He’s also publishing Jews of Today, an illustrated primer on Hasidic dress, in conjunction with the exhibit.

In the series, Levin zeroes in on the sartorial aspects of Hasidic culture: various styles of beaver hats, the ornate robes worn by the Satmar rebbes, and the “rebbish” hems of shirts worn by boys from prominent families. While his fascination with his pious neighbors borders on reverence, his outsider status and sense of humor keeps the work from becoming a strict homage. I talked to Levin about Italian conversos, Tay-Sachs, Plato, and Orientalism.

Where did you grow up? What is your Jewish background? Was your family observant?

I grew up in Los Angeles, born and raised. Only my father’s family is Jewish; my mother is from an Italian Catholic family in San Francisco, and converted when she married my dad. Of course, there is much speculation about her family origins. Her maiden name is Bonfilio, which is a common name for Italian conversos (Jews who converted to Catholicism during the inquisition).

Regardless, having a mixed background while being raised with a strong Jewish consciousness—a term I use because we were not, nor am I now, religiously observant in any significant way—brought up a lot of issues. For one, friends would constantly say I wasn’t really Jewish, because my mother wasn’t born Jewish. This wasn’t said maliciously at all, just in that casual way that can really stick with you. It was often followed by the acknowledgement that I was the most “Jewish” of all of our friends anyway (in some intangible way that I also could sense but never understand). I guess it got me thinking from an early age about what constitutes “Jewishness,” what that je ne sais quoi is that can make someone so Jewish even without the risk of Tay-Sachs—or without even keeping kosher.

You studied Classics at the University of Chicago. Does this influence your work at all?

I have always been an artist, but not a committed one until my early twenties, after University of Chicago had made an intellectual of me. My studies do inform my painting, but more in terms of big ideas and ways of thinking. I don’t sit down to paint thinking about Plato, but I do think about the issues that interested me in the classics, which centered around the process of cultural exchange and integration, and ways of constructing the insider/outsider dynamic.

When did you move to Williamsburg?

I moved to South 2nd and Bedford in January 2007, about six months after graduating. At that time this was still on the outskirts of what young college grads thought of as “Williamsburg.” I started seeing Hasidim around here and there, and, after deciding to commit myself as an artist, they became the center of my work. At Chicago we were always trained to find “problems”—more like questions that carry the flavor of something wrong or amiss—and make them the starting point for any research. So because of this training, I got very little out of painting landscapes or self-portraits. Hasidim were the only subjects in my view that constituted a “problem” for me. So my painting became a kind of extension of my academic study, and Hasidim a new subject for the same set of questions I had already been dealing with, only now in a more personal sphere, because of my abiding difficulties in establishing my own Jewish identity. Add to that how strangely arresting and beautiful the Hasidic look is, to me at least, and there you have the genesis of this work.

Do you draw mostly from memory? What I’m trying to ask here is: how much skulking around Williamsburg do you do?

It’s almost all from memory, but the way I get my memories is by skulking around Williamsburg, a lot. Part of the reason I’m going to Pratt next year for my MFA and not somewhere else is that I can walk there, and that walk takes me right through the heart of the Hasidic neighborhood. I don’t take pictures of people on the street. I take pictures from my window sometimes, but putting a camera in someone’s face doesn’t feel right to me. Painting is my alternative, a way to preserve my memories and also push my conceptual agenda into them.

Are there any other artistic traditions that inspire your work?

Definitely miniature painting, especially the international Islamic miniature style popular from Persia to India. I want to take Jews out of the European narrative, and there is something about Mughal painting in particular that really suits this subject. Of course 19th century Orientalist painting is a big influence too. I kind of see myself as an Orientalist, because (if you’ve ever read Edward Said), the Orientalist approach was to use exotic cultures to reflect one’s feelings about one’s own heritage, and not to objectively document a different culture.

So I’m looking at Hasidim as this “primitive” eastern culture that nonetheless carries some essence of what makes me me. It’s a laughable idea, and I mean it as a little joke about alienation most of the time. Besides, there is the view that most people have (and never question) that Hasidim are the real, authentic Jews; that we all used to dress like that and then some of us decided to sneak out and put on “white people” clothes. The Hasid is the primitive Jew in the popular imagination, a view which is utterly baseless yet very stubborn.

What’s on the horizon for you? Do you think you will stick with Hasidim as subjects, or do you feel yourself moving in a different direction?

More Hasidim is where my heart is, but the MFA process is bound to push me in some unexpected direction. Whatever happens, I have unfinished business with this subject and will most definitely return to it (if I ever leave it, that is).

Jews of Today is on display at 7 Dunham gallery in South Williamsburg from July 20-31, with an opening reception July 20 from 7-10 p.m. The book is available online and at the exhibit.

The post Hasidic Chic: New Exhibit Explores the Sartorial Elements of Hasidic Culture appeared first on Jewcy.

As a child growing up in suburban Connecticut, I was never a fan of any particular holiday. A notoriously picky eater, I was horrified by Thanksgiving, with its table full of mushy delicacies comprised of indistinguishable ingredients. Halloween always incited an existential struggle—I remember one year I wanted to be a geisha, but when I saw my fat face slathered in garish white paint, I realized with an unnerving clarity that I could never escape myself.

Easter and 4th of July were benign days spent at the country club nibbling on cold salmon or watching fireworks, respectively, and while it was always great to approach one’s bounty on Christmas morning, the rest of the day felt sad and empty after the presents were unwrapped. One year in particular, my brothers and I voraciously tore through our gifts like rabid baby animals, only to find that we had managed to complete Christmas in 20 minutes. The aftermath was the child’s version of a hangover: exhaustion, confusion, and shame at the human lust you revealed.

But there was always one holy day I lived for, one glorious evening in February when the most special people in the universe came out to shine their light on the rest of us: Oscar Night. Even before I was old enough to see the movies nominated for Best Picture, I anxiously settled in front of the television and watched with glee as the stars sauntered down the red carpet outside the Kodak Theater.

I envied them their long, flowing gowns, public acclaim, and the easy camaraderie with which they interacted with other chosen folk. I began taking theater classes at eight years old, and started spending Oscar night commercial breaks practicing my Best Actress acceptance speech while staring at myself in the bathroom mirror. (I’d deal with the distaste for costumes later.) When Anna Paquin, just a year my elder, won Best Supporting Actress in 1994, I was filled with hot envy as she panted nervously through her acceptance speech.

Though I’ve long abandoned the dream of ever receiving an Oscar nod, I’ve maintained my yearly ritual of watching the ceremony. Every year, I hole up at a girlfriend’s house, and we drink red wine and eat pizza and declare outfits horrible or amazing, rarely in between. We place bets on who will win what, and decry the Academy’s gross oversights when our favorites don’t nab the gold statue. To miss even a moment—including less exciting categories like “sound mixing” or “visual effects”—would be unthinkable.

So imagine my chagrin when I realized that this year, the Oscars will air on the 24th of February, also known the 14th day of the month of Adar, when Jews celebrate Purim. As the holiday approached, I received invitations to three events: the first a Megillah reading on Saturday night, the second a full-scale circus on Sunday afternoon (plus Megillah, round two), and the final one, a concert-cum-schmooze-fest starting at 8:30 p.m. on Sunday evening, which cuts seriously into Oscar-viewing time.

You might wonder, based on my references to the Christian celebrations of my youth, why that would be an issue at all, or why I wouldn’t just say “no” to one event and be satisfied with a single Megillah reading and a hamantaschen or two. Couldn’t I easily fit in at least the red carpet? But fact is that I have been steeped in Jewish learning for more than a year now, and I find myself feeling like this is a larger choice than it seems on the surface—one not of scheduling but of spiritual allegiance. Which is more important to me: old traditions or new?

My process started quietly—first it was a fascination with the Hasidim who walk the city streets alongside me, then an interest in the rich and varied literature, and finally a desire to kiss the mezuzah and say the Shema. I began writing about Jewish issues and events in New York City basically as an excuse to insert myself into Jewish environments, and every bit of learning I did, from Hebrew classes to memorizing prayers, I passed off as educational endeavors that would help advance my career.

It was a while before I could admit to myself, let alone anyone else, that all this study was about something deep in my heart, not a general exercise in cultural anthropology, and that what I wanted wasn’t just to observe and comment on Jewish life, but to live it. I wanted to convert to Judaism. Even today, I fear the reaction when I admit this pursuit of mine. Will people make assumptions about me, and why I’m choosing to make this change? Will they scoff in disbelief that I can do the difficult work that conversion entails?

But we know that on Purim, we commemorate that Esther—whose name is derived from the Hebrew satar, which means hidden—revealed her Jewish identity to her husband, the king, and saved the Jewish people from certain slaughter. If she can be brave in the face of death, then certainly I can be too in far less dire circumstances.

This Sunday, I emerge from the want-to-convert closet and declare proudly that my priorities are Jewish ones and my soul a neshama. It’s a small exchange I’m making—a secular costume party for a religious one, a feast of glamour for a feast of tradition, but for me, it feels defining. Instead of critiquing diamond accessories and filling out ballots, I will throw my lot in with the people I love.

Now if I could only decide what to wear…

(Image via Featureflash / Shutterstock.com)

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The post Trading in My Academy Awards Tradition For a New One: Purim appeared first on Jewcy.