Artist Yevgeniy Fiks is a leader in Yiddish contemporary art, and explores its boundaries not only in its aesthetic forms, but also in its self-definition as a political and cultural force. His exhibition “Himl un Erd” is a selection of the melding of the Yiddish language and mind to the Soviet space program — but this is only one glimpse of the Jewish relationship to imagination and power. Fiks also explores its failures, successes and blurring lines of the Soviet Birobidzhan project for a Jewish national home in the Far East. 

A natural next step is to envision a post-national Yiddish art. As Fiks describes, “While rejecting the dictates of cultural imperialism, Yiddish contemporary art is at the same time open to everything progressive locally and globally.” This is a reference to his Yiddishland Pavillion project, a rebellion against the defined national boundaries of the Venice Biennale. The Pavillion is a series of Yiddish art that is scattered amongst various national exhibitions.

These polarities of Yiddish identification with the Soviet project, its elusiveness to be one with the state boundaries it is given, and a conscious rejection of those lines are, put together, a very thoughtful and artistically engaging contemplation on self and world.

Rabbi Zach Golden will interview Fiks on Sunday, Dec. 7 at 2 PM Pacific / 5 PM Eastern In what will be an eye-opening examination of art, the state, and Yiddishkeit itself.

Register here.

About Yevgeniy:

Yevgeniy Fiks is a Moscow-born New York-based artist, author, and organizer of art exhibitions. Among his projects are “A Gift to Birobidzhan,” “Landscapes of the Jewish Autonomous Region,” and “Himl un erd (Yiddish Cosmos)” that have been exhibited at 2B Galeria, Budapest; Galerie Sator, Paris; 21ST.PROJECTS/Critical Practices Inc., New York; and CCI Fabrica, Moscow. Fiks’s performance pieces “Lily Golden, Harry Haywood, Langston Hughes, Yelena Khanga, Claude McKay, Paul Robeson, Robert Robinson on Soviet Jews” and “Red Kaddish” have been performed at the International Print Center New York and the Museum at Eldridge Street/A Landmark Synagogue Story, both in New York.