Jews on Vinyl
FINAL WEEKEND! Closes September 5, 2010
ADMISSION
- Included with Museum admission: $10 General; $7 Seniors and Full-Time Students; $5 Children 2–12; Free to Members and Children under 2; Free to all on Thursdays
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Trace a cultural journey buried in the grooves of recorded vinyl, featuring music by Neil Diamond, Barbra Streisand, The Barry Sisters, among many others.
To create this multisensory exhibition, guest curators Roger Bennett and Josh Kun embarked on a far-reaching journey, scouring the country to collect thousands of vinyl LPs from attics, garage sales, and dusty archives. Pieced together, these scratched, once loved, and now forgotten audio gems tell a vibrant tale: the story of Jews in America.
Based on Bennett and Kun's findings, Jews on Vinyl spans the history of Jewish recorded music from the 1940s to the 1980s, weaving an account that begins with sacred songs and ends with the triumvirate of Neil Diamond, Barbra Streisand, and Barry Manilow. Set in a retro 1950s-style living room equipped with listening stations, the exhibition features a soundtrack of LP highlights—much of it no longer available in any format—providing an unprecedented opportunity to experience lost moments in American Jewish pop history and new perspectives on Jewish identity. Complementing the music will be an abundance of often kitschy and surprising album art to discover and enjoy!
The exhibition was developed in association with the publication And You Shall Know Us By the Trail of Our Vinyl: The Jewish Musical Past As Told By the Records We Have Loved and Lost (Crown, 2008), a project of the non-profit Idlesohn Society for Musical Preservation, which reissues select classic recordings and has created a digital online home for Jewish musical memory in an attempt to restore missing legacies to our contemporary view of Jewish America.
JEWS ON VINYL HAS BEEN ORGANIZED BY THE CONTEMPORARY JEWISH MUSEUM WITH GUEST CURATORS ROGER BENNETT AND JOSH KUN. THE EXHIBITION HAS BEEN MADE POSSIBLE BY THE GENEROUS SUPPORT OF KENNETH AND ANNA ZANKEL. ADDITIONAL SUPPORT HAS BEEN PROVIDED BY HOWARD RICE NEMEROVSKI CANADY FALK & RABKIN, A PROFESSIONAL CORPORATION.
Read about other current and upcoming exhibitions at the Skirball.
IMAGE CREDITS (top to bottom):
Bagels and Bongos, Irving Fields Trio, Decca, 1959. Courtesy of Josh Kun and Roger Bennett.
Shalom, The Barry Sisters, Roulette, 1962. Courtesy of Josh Kun and Roger Bennett.
Batman and Rubin, Marty Allen and Steve Rossi, Mercury, 1967. Courtesy of Josh Kun and Roger Bennett.
What's On
