“…With the Kisses of Their Mouth”: Eros and Spirituality

December 6th, 2018 – January 31^st, 2019
City Lore Gallery
56 E. 1st Street, New York, New York
A collaboration between Yiddish New York and City Lore
Curated by Tine Kindermann and Deborah Ugoretz

In Shir HaShirim, the Song of Songs, a poem that appears in Hebrew Scripture, is the lover a person or the deity? Where do the physical and the spiritual body meet? What role does ecstasy play in the religious experience? Can it become a religious experience even in the absence of a defined religion? Many world traditions explore, often controversially, the connection between the sacred and the profane. We ask you: how can this seeming dichotomy be addressed through the visual arts? How can the abstract spiritual be expressed through sensual physical media? Do you see these elements as a contradiction, or do they inhabit a shared space?

Artists: Undine Brod, Gabrielle Broome, Lee Brozgol, William Chaiken, Maximus Clarke, Elaine Clayman, Ethan Cornell, Yael Dresdner, lori field, David K. Friedman, Ed Grant, Beth Haber, Alexis Karl, Kathy Levine, Tsaurah R. Litzky, Randy Matusow, Elaine Norman, Christian Nurzia, Nessa Norich/Hannah Roodman, Sebastian Perinotti, Priscilla Smith, Leona Strassberg Steiner, David Wander, Joyce Ellen Weinstein