Colin Lang

Monica Bonvicini has created a multi-layered, internationally acclaimed oeuvre of installations, sculptures, and drawings, for which she was ­awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 1999 and, just recently in 2020, the Oskar-­Kokoschka-Prize in Vienna. This volume now ­presents two current series of drawings: one ­continues the series "Hurricanes and Other ­Catastrophes," begun in 2006 on the occasion of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, and expands the scope, initially focused on the sudden devastation following the hurricane in New Orleans, to include views of homes that ­exhibit damage due to ongoing changes in ­climate. The second series--developed during the lockdown--leads into gray and rose-­coloured landscapes defined by fences, chains, and lines of text. The latter are contrasted with smooth backgrounds and appear amazingly real and present. The words that Monica Bonvicini sprayed on are originally by Roland Barthes, Judith Butler, Natalie Diaz, Soraya Chemaly, as well as by Andrea Dworkin, yet twisted, shortened, or otherwise changed, resulting in a completely new, poetic dimension: "Weep Me Crude," "Power Joy Humor & Widerstand."

Bringing together a career's worth of professional expertise in law and commerce and a lifetime's worth of personal experience in traditional Judaism, Colin Lang meditates on the role this ancient ethic continues to play in our lives. While narrating everything from his family history to important changes in Britain's legal system that occurred during his tenure, Lang skilfully weaves in a spiritual lesson about justice as conceived of in the Hebrew Bible. Lang is particularly well situated to tell this story, growing up as a member of the Jewish community in England, where he attended Oxford, and, following National Service, practiced law for some fifty years, in which he served as a judge for two decades. In addition, as an elected member of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, he is well qualified to describe the deep divisions within the Jewish world and to ponder what a future Jewish identity might look like. The inevitable collision of the author's secular and religious experiences has resulted in compromise, alienation, and guilt, all of which he acknowledges and thoughtfully invites readers to consider. Although his story is bookended by the appeasement of tyrants, Lang's faith ultimately transcends worldly transgressions, ending on a note of hope that the biblical imperative of justice may still prevail.

Imi Knoebel is one of the most important European representatives of non-representational art, and he has devoted a lifetime to developing it. Around 1966, his first work was influenced by Kasimir Malewitsch's paintings and by Joseph Beuys, who taught him. Layering, sequencing, and stacking became his trademark techniques once he discovered masonite and its potential for creating large three-dimensional work. However, Knoebel also adopted a constrasting approach by producing extremely pared-down images which have no material form, to represent the immaterial. The catalogue of the exhibition provides a concentrated review of his early years; a newly-created complex of his works provides an insight into the essence of his multi-form work. Text in English and German. SELLING POINTS: . Imi Knoebel is one of the most important European representatives of non-representational art . This catalogue provides a concentrated review of his early years

Using the ideas of the celebrated Anglo-Jewish historian, the late Judge Israel Finestein QC, as the intellectual framework for this original work, the author explores the history of division which has formed and fractured the modern Anglo-Jewish world. Colin Lang invites the reader to consider Anglo-Jewish history in terms of Jewish identity, purpose, and survival. This book focusses on the Anglo-Jewish experience from the Emancipation at the beginning of the nineteenth century to the present day. It looks at the impact of the Reform, Liberal, and Masorti secessions, and asks 'whither orthodoxy?' It recounts the impossible search for pluralism in the face of unbridgeable religious divisions, and considers the stresses imposed on communal institutions, and on a leadership obsessed with unity. The author examines the divisive impacts of Zionism and the great immigration, which between them transformed the Jewish world. He looks at other areas of Jewish life affected by competing interests, such as the governance of the community, the rise to prominence of women in the secular (but not yet religious) world, the importance of the provinces, and the role of the secular Jew. What emerges is a convergence of totally separate, self-contained (often antagonistic) communities, with Israel at the center, both inspiring Jewish life in the Diaspora, and, at the same time threatening the cohesion of the Jewish world. The author concludes that, despite a history of fragmentation and ceaseless argument, what the Jews have in common far outweighs what divides them. And, in some cases, as in Anglo-Jewry, the lack of unity and a greater pluralism has enabled the community to thrive.