In the Beginning: Artists Respond to Genesis with Shirley Shor, Alan Berliner, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Matthew Ritchie and Ben Rubin :: November 22, 2009 - February 28, 2010 :: Yeshiva University Museum at the Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, NYC.

Shirley Shor uses computer technology to create vibrantly colored digital worlds that are both mesmerizing and powerful. Often integrating these animations into sculptural environments, Shor provides a context and narrative to her computer-generated patterns. In The Well, Shor considers how biblical language manifests itself in everyday language — the casual and personal writing that is ubiquitous on the Web. In the center of the room is a watering well—the social meeting place in biblical stories, and a metaphor for the network of online communities and information exchange in contemporary times. Shor set up search engines that mined Hebrew and English Internet sites such as blogs and social networks to search for texts that used the biblical phrase “In the beginning,” from Genesis. She also mined the Internet for the phrase “Thou shalt not,” as its proscriptive tone is a counterpoint to the possibility inherent in the words “In the beginning.”

On the reflective surface of the well, an endless stream of phrases, in both Hebrew and English, spiral around. Much like the Web itself, these remnants from online conversation range from the banal to the provocative. “In this piece,” notes Shor, “the Bible and the Internet function as The Well, a physical and virtual meeting place. The Well becomes a source of knowledge both sacred and mundane; both perfect and flawed.”

In the Beginning: Artists Respond to Genesis explores the continuing relevance of the story of creation in Genesis Chapter I. For this exhibition, the Museum commissioned new installations by seven significant contemporary artists: Alan Berliner, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Ben Rubin, Matthew Ritchie, Kay Rosen, Shirley Shor, and Mierle Laderman Ukeles. These works, ranging from multi-media and sound installations to computer animations, projections, and wall drawings, are presented in a unique dialogue with a compelling array of historical works, some rarely seen in public, and never before seen together. Featured works include: illuminated manuscripts from the Medieval and Renaissance periods; 18th and 19th-century drawings by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and William Blake; modern and contemporary works by Auguste Rodin, Marc Chagall, Barnett Newman, Jacob Lawrence, Ann Hamilton, and Tom Marioni. The exhibition is uniquely designed to create a lively dialogue between the new installations by the contemporary artists and the historical representations of the story of creation.