Post­ed by Nao­mi Firestone-Teeter

The Muse­um of Bib­li­cal Art (MOBIA) will present Tobi Kahn: Sacred Spaces for the 21st Cen­tu­ry, an exhi­bi­tion of 30 recent paint­ings, sculp­tures and objects by the not­ed New York artist, from Octo­ber 16, 2009 to Jan­u­ary 24, 2010. As the first exhi­bi­tion to explore Kahn’s notion of sacred space, it marks the pub­lic debut of a com­plex new work – a visu­al­ly cohe­sive envi­ron­ment Kahn has cre­at­ed for the inte­ri­or of a syn­a­gogue, the Con­gre­ga­tion Emanu-El B’ne Jeshu­run in Mil­wau­kee, Wis­con­sin (2008). Anchored by eight mag­nif­i­cent six-foot-high abstract murals in shim­mer­ing tones of gold and white sug­ges­tive of a lim­it­less grandeur, this ele­gant artis­tic ensem­ble draws upon Kahn’s rich aware­ness of his­to­ry to cre­ate a place of wor­ship that departs from tra­di­tion, even as it is informed by it.

Along with the exhib­it, GILES (in asso­ci­a­tion with the Muse­um of Bib­li­cal Art) is pub­lish­ing a cat­a­log by the same name (Tobi Kahn: Sacred Spaces for the 21st Cen­tu­ry). Each work in the vol­ume is accom­pa­nied by a Med­i­ta­tion by nov­el­ist and poet Nes­sa Rapoport. Oth­er pieces will include:

The Mean­ing of Beau­ty by Tobi Kahn
The Art of Engage­ment: Sacred Spaces Past & Present by Ena G. Heller
The Embrace of the World: Art and the Mat­ter of Wor­ship by David Mor­gan
The Ethos of Tobi Kahn’s Sacred Spaces by Klaus Ottman
The Mea­sure of an Infi­nite Object by Jeff Edwards
Sanc­ti­ty in Space by Daniel Sper­ber
Cat­a­log with Songs by Nes­sa Rapoport

The book is due out this October.

If you would like to vis­it the exhib­it, the MOBIA is locat­ed at 1865 Broad­way at 61st Street in Man­hat­tan. More infor­ma­tion can be found on MOBIA’s web­site.