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  • REVISIONS Amy Berk: Recoverings, Feb-Aug, 2007, Amy Berk's Text For Brochure

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    'Recoverings' is a group show at the judah l. Magnes museum in new york. Artist Amy berk is a rabid recycler and a fan of the synagogue's textile collection. The festival Kiddush cloth is a goldmine of information and inspiration for her work.

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    REVISIONS Amy Berk: Recoverings, Feb-Aug, 2007, Amy Berk's Text for Brochure

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    'Recoverings' is a group show at the judah l. Magnes museum in new york. Artist Amy berk is a rabid recycler and a fan of the synagogue's textile collection. The festival Kiddush cloth is a goldmine of information and inspiration for her work.

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    60 views2 pages

    REVISIONS Amy Berk: Recoverings, Feb-Aug, 2007, Amy Berk's Text For Brochure

    Uploaded by

    magnesmuseum
    'Recoverings' is a group show at the judah l. Magnes museum in new york. Artist Amy berk is a rabid recycler and a fan of the synagogue's textile collection. The festival Kiddush cloth is a goldmine of information and inspiration for her work.

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    REVISIONS

    Amy Berk: Recoverings


    Judah L. Magnes Museum
    February 5 - August 5, 2007

    Looking through the Magnes Museum’s textile collection, I was particularly fascinated
    by the Jewish folk art: the ‘craftiness’, the good and bad workmanship, and how these
    objects allow us to get a glimpse into the daily life of Jewish families as well as how they
    fit into surrounding cultures. I also responded to the tradition of donating household
    textiles to the synagogue: As a rabid recycler, and someone whose work has very often
    taken common household or utilitarian objects and brought them into the sanctified
    space of the white cube of the gallery, this reuse truly resonated.

    The collection’s festival Kiddush cloth is a goldmine of information and inspiration.


    The embroidery is delightful and serves as a folksy counterpoint to the more formal
    motifs and machine-made embroidery in the table linens that were left to me by my
    grandmother. Traveling almost halfway around the world from its point of origin and
    after 250 years of use and display, this Kiddush cloth carries with it a tremendous sense
    of history, place, and memory.

    The materials in my work here, too, have traveled far from their first home and even
    farther from their starting points. (Many of the textiles most likely were made in China.)
    The linens that I selected to use in my fabric ‘paintings’ are mostly beige in color, some
    yellows, ochres, and some whites. Some of the napkins and tablecloths are embellished
    with monograms or leaf or floral patterns. Others have a sheen that I chose to highlight
    and use as an optical counterpoint to their flatness.

    Most of these linens were used on my grandmother’s table in the 60s and 70s when she
    hosted holidays (Jewish and secular); she was known for her hospitality and good and
    ample spread. Many of these fabrics show stains, proving their heavy use, and some
    also include traces from their time in storage in my aunt’s basement in New Jersey
    awaiting my reclamation. I often use materials given to me by other people as it taps
    into my inclination to recycle and infuses the materials with the spirit of the giver,
    motivating me to make something meaningful in their honor.

    The flaws or stains on these otherwise perfect grounds captured my imagination and
    provoked me to present them as paintings. I became intrigued by the markings,
    attracted to them aesthetically, and interested in not only how they occurred but how
    these imperfections are viewed. Along with being difficult to remove, stains can have
    negative connotations, referring to sullied reputations as well as gravy that missed the
    boat. A stain can also refer to a material used to create a shift in color. For me, the
    discolorations of time and the remnants of the act of hosting holiday gatherings enriched
    rather than diminished the materials, and provided a space for reflection as well as a
    surface/platform for aesthetic contemplation.
    Bio:

    Amy Berk (b. Brooklyn, 1967) received an M.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute in
    1995 and a B.A. from Wesleyan University in 1989. She has exhibited her hybrid brand
    of feminist pop art both nationally and internationally at venues such as the Museu du
    Republica in Rio de Janeiro, Kraushaar Gallery in New York City, Yerba Buena Center
    for the Arts, Southern Exposure, the Craft and Folk Art Museum, and Meridian Gallery
    in San Francisco, the Oakland Museum, Oakland Art Gallery, and Traywick
    Contemporary in the East Bay. She was the co-founder/co-director of the innovative
    Meridian Interns Program and currently teaches in the first year program at the San
    Francisco Art Institute, University of California Berkeley Extension, co-publishes
    stretcher.org, a site for art and culture, and collaborates on public interventions with
    Together We Can Defeat Capitalism.

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