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	Messiah at-a-Glance

	Tobi Kahn Sky & Water Neuberger Museum of Art Click on image to download print-quality version

GRANTHAM, Pa. (August 20, 2004) — The Aughinbaugh Gallery at Messiah College will open its fall season on Sept. 13 with “Sky and Water,” an installation by New York artist Tobi Kahn. Mr. Kahn, an artist and first generation orthodox Jew, celebrated for his numinous acrylic paintings, sculptures and objects of devotion, has recently become interested in crafting whole environments for multi-faith use. “Within our gallery, ‘Sky and Water,’ will effectively invoke a contemplative and provocative meditative space,” said Aughinbaugh Gallery Director Sherron Biddle. Tobi Kahn will be in the Aughinbaugh Gallery to talk about his work on Sept. 13 at 6 p.m. , with a reception to follow at 7 p.m. His work will be on view through Oct. 10. Admission to the gallery, the artist’s talk and the reception is free and open to the public.

“Sky and Water,” was reviewed by New York Times art critic Benjamin Genocchio at the Neuberger Museum of Art (N.Y.) last summer. He describes the show as being “ravishingly beautiful” and “ambiguously abstract.” “…The artist [is] showing why he has been the subject of much curatorial and critical attention over the last decade,” he wrote.

About Tobi Kahn

	Tobi Kahn KEI DAHR VIII Acrylic on wood Click on image to download print-quality version

Kahn, an internationally acclaimed painter and sculptor, has been honored with over 40 solo exhibitions and more than 60 museum and group shows since he was selected as one of nine artists to be included in the 1985 Guggenheim Museum exhibition, “New Horizons in American Art.” Most recently, Kahn was honored by the National Foundation for Jewish Culture to receive the prestigious Jewish Cultural Achievement Award in the Arts for 2004. Among his recent shows is “Tobi Kahn: Metamorphoses,” an exhibition of over a decade of his paintings and sculpture curated by Peter Selz that traveled to eight museums from 1997 to 1999, and “Avoda: Objects of the Spirit,” an exhibition of his Jewish ceremonial art that opened in 1999, and is continuing to travel to museums around the country. “Objects of the Spirit: Ritual and the Art of Tobi Kahn,” a book about Kahn’s ceremonial art, was published in June 2004.

In May 2002, a meditative room commissioned by the HealthCare Chaplaincy in New York City , was inaugurated as a permanent installation; the room was chosen by “Art in America ” magazine as one of the most outstanding public art installations of the year. Kahn’s commissioned outdoor sculpture includes a chapel, in New Harmony, Ind., for people of all traditions to mark their rites of passage, and two Holocaust memorial gardens, in Tenafly, N.J., and La Jolla, Calif. “Although Judaism has emphasized text and commentary, I have found the visual elements of the tradition equally illuminating,” says Kahn. “For me, the life of the spirit is integrally bound to the beauty of the world. Like language, what we see can be a benediction.”

Kahn also communicates his vision through his passion for teaching. Since 1985, he has taught fine arts workshops at the School of Visual Arts in New York . He is also designing the curriculum for an arts-oriented high school in New York and a master’s degree program in arts and education for the Fine Arts Department of the University of Southern California . He has a bachelor’s degree from Hunter College and an M.F.A. from the Pratt Institute, which awarded Kahn the school’s Alumni Achievement Award in 2001. Kahn’s next project is a movable meditative space, a 12-panel environment of sky and water paintings that will travel to art museums, public spaces and universities.

His work has been admired by reviewers in the Sunday New York Times and particularly lyrically in the NYArts magazine. Works by Kahn are in the collections of major institutions throughout the United States, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, N.Y.; Jewish Museum, N.Y.; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; Weatherspoon Art Gallery, Greensboro, N.C.; Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, Kan.; Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine; Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Mass.; and Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles, Calif.

About the Aughinbaugh Art Gallery

Located on the lower level of the Climenhaga Fine Arts Center on Messiah College ’s Grantham campus, t he M. Louise Aughinbaugh Art Gallery exhibits the work of internationally recognized artists from around the world, as well as faculty and students. The gallery features new exhibitions on a monthly basis ranging from traditional studio areas and the fine crafts, to conceptual art and installation. Gallery programming supplements campus classroom instruction by bringing practicing artists to campus to demonstrate techniques in classes and by organizing special evening lectures and afternoon gallery talks. The gallery also functions as a hands-on teaching laboratory for students in the college’s course on museum studies. Aughinbaugh Art Gallery is open Mondays through Thursdays, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. ; on Fridays from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. ; and on Saturdays and Sundays from 2–5 p.m. The gallery will be closed Oct. 21-24 during the college’s fall recess.

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ARTICLE DATE: FRIDAY, AUGUST 20, 2004
ARTICLE NUMBER: MC-100-04