Zoya Cherkassky-Nnadi | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Zoya Cherkassky 1976 |
| Nationality | Israeli |
| Movement | Barbizon |
| Children | 1 |
Zoya Cherkassky-Nnadi (formerly Cherkassky) is a Ukrainian-Israeli [1] [2] artist, born in Kyiv in 1976, who emigrated to Israel in 1991. [3] Her works focus on her personal experiences, including childhood in the Soviet Union and immigrant life in Israel. [4] [5] Cherkassky-Nnadi also helped found the New Barbizon Group with four other painters, all born in the former USSR. [6]
In 2015, Cherkassky-Nnadi created a collection of art pieces depicting everyday scenes she observed throughout her childhood in the Soviet Ukraine. The works display particularities of her own childhood, such as her nightly routine of watching out the window for her mother to return home from work, as well as more general norms of Soviet life at that time, such as the cramped apartments that many people lived in, and the food that was commonly enjoyed during May Day festivities. "It’s childhood so even if it’s something unpleasant you remember it with some sort of nostalgia," she said, in one of her first ever English-language interviews. [3]
As the granddaughter of a food store manager, Cherkassky-Nnadi had access to a wider variety of foods than many of her childhood peers. This can be seen in some of her works revolving around food, such as "May Day" and "Tomatoes." Cherkassky-Nnadi worked on this collection while she was pregnant with her first child, and the artist feels this contributed to the warmth of the pieces. [7]
Cherkassky-Nnadi and her family immigrated to Israel in 1991, just two weeks before the collapse of the USSR. In 2010, Cherkassky-Nnadi began working on an exhibit entitled Pravda (truth), which was published in 2018, depicting the experience. [8] Similar to the Soviet Childhood exhibit, Pravda includes scenes from Cherkassky-Nnadi's own experience with immigrating, as well as scenarios that she portrays as a common experience for those migrating from the former Soviet Union to Israel at that time. Some of these scenes include the arrival of the new immigrants, like in her painting titled "New Victims," as well as the struggles these new immigrants faced when trying to fully integrate into the Jewish lifestyle, as can be seen in "The Rabbi's Deliquium" and "The Circumcision of Uncle Yasha." [9] Some of the works in the exhibit also portray the discrimination some immigrants experienced. Cherkassky-Nnadi specifically addresses some of the stereotypes placed on Russian women in Israel, such as her work entitled "Aliyah of the 1990s" which depicts the stereotype of the "Russian whore," or in her painting "Iztik," which not only shows the stereotypical Russian woman - fragile, blonde, fair-skinned - but also portrays a very stereotypical Mizrahi man, including the dark skin, large nose, and thick lips. The painting was the subject of much criticism due to its portrayal of both groups of people, but the painting is intended to portray the habit of stereotyping that occurred in Israel at the time. [9]
In 2010, Cherkassky-Nnadi founded the group alongside four Soviet-born artists also living in Israel: Olga Kundina, Anna Lukashevsky, Asya Lukin, and Natalia Zourabova. The name refers to the Barbizon School of Painters that were active in France in the 19th century and encouraged realism both in painting and in perspective. [6] A section of The New Barbizon Group's work incorporates African art, which allows them to stray away from typical Western standards, while also allowing them to immerse themselves in the prominent African culture that exists in different areas of Tel Aviv. African culture is so prominent in some parts of Israel due to the thousands of African asylum seekers that have entered Israel starting in 2006. [10] Due to the artists' own experience with immigration and the feeling of not belonging, they can identify with the African immigrants who are going through the same things the artists themselves went through. The group's works focusing on these African immigrants show the different burdens they carry, whether that be racially-motivated violence, or the anxiety that comes when one feels that they do not belong, as these are all experiences that the artists also faced after their own immigration. [6]
Following the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, Cherkassky-Nnadi has received attention for her work relating to the events of October 7. [11] These mixed-media works, mostly using pencils, watercolor, and wax crayons, depict scenes from the attacks on civilians in Israel's south. [12] They have been exhibited at the Jewish Museum in New York City [13] and at the Jewish Museum Vienna. [1]
Cherkassky-Nnadi’s works depicting the events of October 7 have been subject to protest in the United States. On February 12, 2024, protestors disrupted a talk Cherkassky-Nnadi was giving at New York’s Jewish Museum, calling her work “imperial propaganda” and characterizing the museum’s exhibition of her work as “manufactur[ing] consent for genocide.” [14] Commenting on this event, Cherkassky-Nnadi said, “It's hard to defend the current Israeli government to them because I think the government bears major blame for what happened. On the other hand – on October 7, babies were kidnapped and killed. Can't they feel compassion for these people? […] in this massive negative reaction from the art world, I see white people coming from privileged countries who think they know how to solve the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict.” [15]
Due to the controversial topics that Cherkassky-Nnadi addresses in her art, viewers have many different opinions. While some viewers criticize the politics behind Cherkassky-Nnadi's art, others criticize the art itself, feeling that the extent to which she comments on society takes away from the actual art. [5] Cherkassky-Nnadi has also received mixed responses to her portrayal of the Soviet Union; some critics fault her for depicting too much poverty and negativity, while others suggest she underplayed the poor living standards during that time. Cherkassky-Nnadi appreciates the responses to her work, and is glad they have sparked discussion on such important topics. [7] Other critics point out the continuity of Cherkassky-Nnadi's visual language with late-Soviet artistic practices [16] and the need to place her works within broader conceptual frameworks. [17]
While much of Cherkassky-Nnadi's work is based directly on her own experiences, some of her work is also inspired by other media. A section of her work in Pravda was inspired by the Russian film Little Vera. [9]
Cherkassky-Nnadi is married to a Nigerian labour migrant. [5] Her husband is from Ngwo, Nigeria. [18] The couple have one child, a daughter named Vera. [19]
Ofakim is a city in the Southern District of Israel, 20 kilometers (12.4 mi) west of Beersheba. It achieved municipal status in 1955. It has an area of 10,000 dunams. In 2022, it had a population of 35,506.
Tel Aviv Museum of Art is an art museum in Tel Aviv, Israel. The museum is dedicated to the preservation and display of modern and contemporary art from Israel and around the world.
Jewish American literature holds an essential place in the literary history of the United States. It encompasses traditions of writing in English, primarily, as well as in other languages, the most important of which has been Yiddish. While critics and authors generally acknowledge the notion of a distinctive corpus and practice of writing about Jewishness in America, many writers resist being pigeonholed as "Jewish voices." Also, many nominally Jewish writers cannot be considered representative of Jewish American literature, one example being Isaac Asimov. Modernism and speculative fiction are major focuses in post-Holocaust Jewish American literature.
Adi Nes is an Israeli photographer. He has had solo exhibitions at Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio and the Legion of Honor in San Francisco.
In the years leading up to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and for just over a decade thereafter, a particularly large number of Jews emigrated from the Soviet Union and the post-Soviet countries. The majority of these emigrants made aliyah, while a sizable amount immigrated to various Western countries. This wave of Jewish migration followed the 1970s Soviet aliyah, which began after the Soviet government lifted the ban on the country's refuseniks, most of whom were Jews who had been denied permission to leave the country.
The Herzliya Biennial of Contemporary Art was an art biennial event held in the city of Herzliya, Israel.
Maya Cohen Levy, also known as Maya Cohen-Levy, is an Israeli painter and sculptor.
Sigalit Landau is an Israeli sculptor, video and installation artist.
Sh'Chur is a 1994 Israeli drama film starring Gila Almagor, Ronit Elkabetz and Hanna Azoulay-Hasfari. It was written by Hanna Azoulay Hasfari and directed by her partner Shmuel Hasfari. Sh'Chur received critical acclaim and was the 1994 official Israeli submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. It was also awarded the Ophir Award for best film by the Israeli Film and Television Academy. After its release, the film garnered various discussions in the Israeli press over its representation of the Moroccan community in Israel.
Shy Abady is an Israeli artist. Over the years, Abady created "biographical" series, which followed individual figures. Other series addressed historical-political themes .In some other series,, Abady examines the language of art itself and the aesthetic influences and relationships between Western-Christian art and Jewish-Israeli art. Abady's work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in many galleries and museums in Israel and abroad.
Visual arts in Israel or Israeli art refers to visual art or plastic art created by Israeli artists or Jewish painters in the Yishuv. Visual art in Israel encompasses a wide spectrum of techniques, styles and themes reflecting a dialogue with Jewish art throughout the ages and attempts to formulate a national identity.
Yona Verwer is a Dutch-born visual artist, living in New York City.
The Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art is contemporary art museum with a collection of over 1000 artworks. It curates four exhibitions each year.
IfNotNow is an American Jewish group which opposes the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Its membership demonstrates against politicians, United States policies, and institutions it perceives as supporting occupation, usually seeking to apply pressure through direct action and media appearances. It has been characterized variously as progressive or far-left.
The Birds' Head Haggadah is the oldest surviving illuminated Ashkenazi Passover Haggadah. The manuscript, produced in the Upper Rhine region of Southern Germany in the early 14th century, contains the full Hebrew text of the Haggadah, a ritual text recounting the story of Passover – the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt – which is recited by participants at a Passover Seder. The text is executed in block calligraphy and accompanied by colorful illustrations of Jews performing the Seder practices and reenacting Jewish historical events.
Maya Bash is an Israeli fashion designer.
Alex Rif is an Israeli poet, cultural-social entrepreneur and community organizer whose works are published in the Hebrew language.
Rita Kogan is a Hebrew author, poet, essayist and translator based in Tel Aviv. Born in Leningrad, she immigrated to Israel as a part of the 1990s post-Soviet aliyah, when she was 14 years old. After being trained as an engineer, Kogan eventually turned to poetry.
Passing Mother's Grave, also known as Passing the Churchyard, is an oil painting on canvas made in 1856 by Jozef Israëls, a Dutch realist artist and a representative of the Hague School of painters. The subject of the painting is a widowed fisherman walking past his deceased wife's grave with his two children.
Anat Schwartz is an Israeli filmmaker, television director, data analyst, and freelance writer. Her films and the films she worked on, comprising mostly short documentary and narrative films, have been screened at major festivals, including the Cannes Film Festival. She gained significant media attention outside of her film work in 2024, in the context of broader controversies around the media coverage of the Israel–Hamas war, as one of the authors of "Screams Without Words" – a New York Times article about sexual and gender-based violence in the 7 October attack on Israel – which was heavily criticized for the quality of its reporting, which further led to a social media controversy and dissent within the paper.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| Other | |
