Jewish in America

Separated by time and distance from their forebears' struggles and triumphs, how do young Jewish artists raised in the U.S. affirm their creative identities?

The simple answer is with as much confidence, conflict, confusion and chutzpah as their American counterparts.

The more complex answer can be found in an intriguing exhibit at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University in Waltham.

Sometimes provocative, often challenging, "The New Authentics: Artists of the Post-Jewish Generation," asks profound questions about "Jewishness" through 54 works by 16 artists.

It features an impressive combination of paintings, photographs, sculptures, videos and several distinctive installations.

Rose Director of Education Emily Mello described the show as a "generation specific" effort in "self-definition" by Jewish artists born in the 1960s and 1970s.

The self-image of today's "Post-Jewish" artists, she said, was "less fixed and more fluid" than their forebears whose shared experience of 20th century persecutions, the Holocaust and Diaspora forged a more cohesive Jewish identity.

While museum information describes the contributors as "American artists ...prominent in the global contemporary art world," many non-specialists will encounter their works as new, often exciting, sometimes bewildering and variously accessible.

While impossible to generalize, these 16 artists seem to regard their religion and culture as important but not exclusive cornerstones of their identity.

Lilah Freedland's seems to challenge traditional ideas of Jewish identity in a series of deadpan photos titled "Hebrew School Pin-ups" that are equally funny and insightful. A Hasidic youth, smoking a cigarette, slouches against a graffiti-scared wall like a Jewish James Dean. A tattooed woman in an unflattering bathing suit hitchhikes by the roadside carrying a sign that states "Israel or bust."

Two very different installations explore their creators' search for self-identity at opposites ends of the "accessibility" spectrum.

Johanna Bresnick shares her family's painful history through her poignant installation "Ohne Lebenstraum." Its title refers to Hitler's call for "living space" for Germans which resulted in the loss of property and lives for millions of Jews. Bresnick has sculpted a lifelike female mannequin representing herself stitching a carpet, one of the only heirlooms her grandparents could keep on their flight from Nazi Germany. Despite its multiple levels, it's a work that should move viewers of any culture.

For sheer inventiveness, nothing matches David Altmejd's "The Settler," a fantastic wolf-man constructed of mirror shards, synthetic hair and foam that seems to be transforming itself from a hairy beast to a sandal-wearing human.

While prompting head-shaking wonderment at its elusive meaning, it might just suggest the painful metamorphoses that history has often thrust upon Jews and even the artists in this show.

While several artists allude to the Holocaust, photographer Collier Schorr forces viewers to confront its memory in her striking black-and-white image of a contemporary German youth dressed in a replica Nazi uniform. While his haughty Aryan features and Nazi insignia must provoke horrific memories, the photo's inclusion in a show about post-war identity reminds viewers that even such images conjure different reactions from different generations.

While non-Jews might mistakenly regard Jews as a homogenous religious culture, the show includes works by ethnically diverse artists who are Jewish by birth, marriage or conversion.

The exhibit's multi-leveled exploration of "Post-Jewish" identity makes it enriching for Jews and non-Jews in different ways.

While Jewish viewers are more likely to grasp the complex layers of self-awareness and irony, non-Jewish visitors might struggle for a work's elusive meaning, which might also be the artist's intention.

Mello observed, "The answers are never simple. The show is meant to encourage dialogue."

It achieves that goal for viewers of all faiths. Organized by Staci Boris of the Spertus Museum in the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies in Chicago, the exhibit in the Rose's upper and lower levels runs through July 27.