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Daphna Westerman’s Postcards in Motion

One of Daphna Westerman’s postcards, front view. © Jewish Museum Berlin, Photo: Lisa Albrecht

Did you find a postcard like this one in your mail box as well? Or have you even pulled the entire road movie by Daphna Westerman out of our Art Vending Machine? By now the Machine is sold out completely. But no need to stop the movie! Let’s just rewind a little…
Before the work of the Israeli artist ended up in the museum’s Art Vending Machine, I received a postcard with a black and white photograph. Except for my address and the title, “U-Bahn Berlin. From In and between the cities, 2011. A film by Daphna Westerman,” there was nothing more to it. A few days later more cards were in the mail. Time to phone Daphna. → continue reading

Portrait of Ruthe Zuntz © Ruthe Zuntz

Less than three months after our art vending machine was filled with another 1,400 commissioned art objects, it has sold out. Visitors to the museum might have pulled a picture by Ruthe Zuntz from the machine. Pieces from her “PHOTOMAT: Challenging WallMAT” series, as the photographer entitled her square Dibond aluminum prints which cover ten different motifs, could be sparkling in many new households – like Ruthe herself whom I recently met.

Ruthe, you’re actually known for large, space-filling installations. And yet, for the art vending machine you produced a series of small photo prints. How did that happen?

I found the project really exciting because it matches one of my basic philosophies: → continue reading

Circumsized or not, he is already practising … © private

Signe and Darrell have been together a long time. They met in the USA, have shared an apartment in Berlin for nearly 15 years, and now have two daughters and a son together. Signe’s family is Jewish American on the mother’s side, German Protestant on the father’s. Darrell is 100 % North American – in his family, you can find just about everything: Puritan pastors, Unitarian ministers, Mormons, Catholic liberation theologians, liberal Muslims, secular Jews. I talked with the two of them about circumcision and the role that Jewish tradition has played in raising their children.

You first had a daughter, then twins. One of the twins is a boy. Did you think a lot about the question of whether to circumcise your son while you were pregnant?
Signe: When I found out that one of the twins was going to be a boy, my first thought was → continue reading