Reality in black and white
Photographs from NJ couple's collection form exhibit at Rutgers art museum
Two Ladies in the Automat, taken in New York City in 1966 by Diane Arbus
Photos courtesy Zimmerli Museum
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Among the featured photographs in a new exhibit at the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum in New Brunswick is one that shows a small Montana town's rise to solidarity with its Jewish residents in response to an act of anti-Semitic violence.
The 98 works in "A New Reality: Black-and-White Photography in Contemporary Art," are from the collection of Arthur and Anne Goldstein of Saddle River; the exhibit opened Sept. 1 and is on display at the museum on the Rutgers University campus through Nov. 18.
The couple — who is also donating 75 other works by renowned photographers to the museum — has been collecting pictures for 15 years.
Arthur Goldstein, a trial attorney, said he and his wife of 39 years did not have backgrounds in photography when they began collecting.
"It's something we gravitated to once our kids graduated," he said. "We were looking for a hobby we could share together and that would give us the opportunity to learn together."
The couple became interested in black-and-white photography, which, said Goldstein, "was different and unique, and people were overlooking this great work. People at the time were going crazy for color, but we found a sense of surrealness with black-and-white photos."
The works in the museum show span the years from 1950 to the present, exploring the role of black-and-white photography as a medium of visual and historical consequence as well as its conceptual role in contemporary artistry.
Citizens Protesting Anti-Semitic Acts, taken by Frederic Brenner during Hanukka 1994, shows a community unifying against hatred. It is part of the collection of Arthur and Anne Goldstein on exhibit at the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Museum of Art at Rutgers in New Brunswick. Photo courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery
The photo of the Montana community demonstration was taken by Frederic Brenner in 1994. The previous Hanukka, neo-Nazi white supremacists had smashed the window of a Jewish family's home in which a menora had been placed. In a show of support organized by local churches, residents, religious institutions, and businesses were urged to place paper menoras in their windows. After a Billings Gazette editorial denouncing the anti-Semitic act appeared with a paper cut-out menora, as many as 10,000 residents displayed the images of the candle-holders in their windows; some of them also became targets of violence.
The following Hanukka, the march was organized to demonstrate that Billings continued to stand with its Jewish residents. Among the marchers holding aloft menoras in the photo are Native Americans in full headdress, Catholic priests in vestments, uniformed police, and construction workers.
The Billings photo, like many of the other pieces in the exhibit, makes a profound statement — in this case a community unifying against hatred, according to Goldstein. "[W]e look for images…that are consistent with our view of contemporary art, which requires that when you're done looking at the image, you remember it," said Goldstein. "You think about it either because it's difficult, thought-provoking, funny, or otherwise produces some unilateral emotional reaction."
The Goldsteins both serve on the board of the Jewish Community Center of Paramus, where their family has longstanding ties. His parents were among its founders, the couple's children became bar and bat mitzva there, and their granddaughter recently had her baby-naming there.
The couple decided to donate works to the Zimmerli after meeting its senior curator, Jeffrey Wechsler. They were impressed with both his eye for art and his commitment to Rutgers, said Goldstein.
"The Goldsteins are very generous people, and we're obviously very happy about the donation," said Wechsler. "The collection is very important and as a whole features some very well-known people as well as some young, up-and-coming talent."
Michigan, taken in 1981 by Kenneth Josephson
Recognized photographers whose work is in the exhibit include Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, Sherrie Levine, Duane Michals, Vik Muniz, Cindy Sherman, Mike and Doug Starn, William Wegman, and Joel-Peter Witkin. Prominent international photographers include Bernd and Hilla Becher (Germany), Laurent Millet (France), Tacita Dean (Great Britain), Hiroshi Sugimoto (Japan), and Mohammad Eslami-Rad (Iran).
Wechsler added that the museum's photography collection was relatively small, and the Goldstein donation — which will come over a period of years — will "very significantly enhance what we have."
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