ART EXHIBIT AT THE OLD CITY JEWISH ARTS CENTER

Jerry Jofen's Collages/Happening Fuse the Magical with the Mundane.
Extended through June 26th, 2016

A Migrant in Search of Light.
Curated by Rosa Katzenelson

Kafka's K in NYC 1968, size; 4.5 " by 6"

Exhibit Extended through June 26th, 2016

First Friday Reception

Friday, June 3th, 2016 7:00-9:00 PM.

Followed by a Taste of Shabbat, a Traditional Shabbat Dinner beginning at 9:00 PM.

The Artist's Reception featured both image, film, lectures and workshops by a variety of presenters: Jerry’s widow, Ellen Jofen-Gordon, and David Kurland, Jerry's friend and collaborator will share their memories of the Artist making his art work and films. 

It also featured some of his film work, movies: Voyage and We’re Getting On.

There will be a lecture and a workshop on “Storytelling, Culture and Revolution.” presented by Shimona Tzukernik, ‘The Kabbalah Coach'.

OCJAC- OLD CITY JEWISH ARTS CENTER

119 North 3rd St, Philadelphia, PA 19106

215-923-1222 - www.ocjac.org

Since 2006 The OCJAC has been exploring the universal messages of Judaism through the study and appreciation of the arts in their diverse forms and expressions.

OCJAC is open 12-5pm Sunday-Thursday, 

Private viewings can be made by appointment by calling, 215-923-1222 or emailing: info@ocjac.org 

Iconographic-Flavored Kabbalistic Creations Speak to our Collective Wanderings.

Mixed media collage, 'Untitled ' Page from Wallpaper Book, 1962  size: 11.5" by 14.5" 

Jerry Jofen’s collages and paintings evoke the complexity and subtlety of life. Arranged layer upon layer they capture our physical and internal wanderings. The multi-dimensional superimpositions also serve to dissolve time and space thereby spiritualizing physical reality.

Writer and curator Klaus Kertess said of Jerry’s collages, "(They) are diaries of homelessness and displacements. He gathered leftovers from Manhattan's streets, held them together by staples. This putting together of the found and discarded parallel the serendipity of immigrant life. His collages are diaries of displacement.”

New American Cinema Exposition 1965, press conference at the Overseas Club. 
(L to R) Gregory Markopoulos, P. Adams Sitney, Andy Warhol, Ron Rice, Jonas Mekas.

Jonas Mekas, writing in “The Village Voice,” echoed this idea when he said of Jerry’s film Voyage, “The film is marked by an almost mystic drive towards pure motion, color, light experience. (It was) 40 minutes of most beautiful, spiritual, almost heavenly cinema experience.”  

The Center intends to create an exhibition that captures both these underlying themes of Jofen’s work: That of homelessness, wanderings and emerging from exile. And of making the mundane magical, spiritualizing the physical.

To these ends, the show will display collages ranging from the 1960’s to the 1970’s.

Jerry Jofen 

[1925-1993]
 Sunday night, May 8th marks Jerry's 23rd yahrtzeit (passing).

Jofen was an artist and filmmaker and an illusive presence in New York's art world in the late 1950's, 60's and early 70's. He was involved with many of the artists whose work is now resurfacing, such as Bob Thompson and Ray Johnson who were close friends, and Jack Smith, who appears in his films.

Photo from 1962, from left to right; Taylor Mead, Jerry Jofen, Ron Rice - from library of Amy Rice.

Although Jerry was well known among the denizens of the scene he was not known by the public and his collages were rarely seen. However his films were screened in New York at the museum of modern Art and the jewish museum of American Art. The collages were shown at the Allan Stone Gallery in NYC, the Pavel Zoubok Gallery and the International Center of Collage. Jerry actively created collages and films until 1975, when he became ill and suffered paralysis and severe disability until his death in 1993. 

Hope you find Jerry Jofen's work of interest,-

Emunah Wircberg , Co-Director

Life and career

Zalman "Jerry" Jofen was born in Bialystok, Poland, to a scholarly rabbinical family. In 1941 he fled with his family to the United States to escape the Nazis, arriving in San Francisco on the last refugee ship from Japan. Later he moved to New York City, where he spent much of his time in Greenwich Village. Starting out as a painter, he began to explore film and other media in the 1960s. Jofen is best known for his part in the New York underground film scene, where he collaborated with artists such as Jack Smith, Ken Jacobs, and Angus MacLise. Few of his films survive, mainly because he had a habit of destroying them or leaving them unfinished. Nevertheless he was a noted experimental filmmaker in his day, making innovative use of superimposition and other techniques, and influencing other artists such as Andy Warhol, Stan Brakhage, Ron Rice, and Barbara Rubin.

In 1965 Jofen's work was included in the New Cinema Festival (also known as the Expanded Cinema Festival), an extensive series of multimedia productions in New York presented by Jonas Mekas and featuring the work of such artists as Robert Rauschenberg and Claes Oldenburg. Mekas was impressed with Jofen, writing in the Village Voice, "The first three programs of the New Cinema Festival – the work of Angus McLise [sic], Nam June Paik, and Jerry Joffen [sic] – dissolved the edges of this art called cinema into a frontiersland mystery. Jofen's entry also made a lasting impression on the playwright Richard Foreman, who recalled it years later as one of his favorites.