Joel Mesler: The Rabbis: ADAA: The Art Show

Cheim & Read is pleased to present the work of the painter Joel Mesler at the upcoming ADAA Art Show, which will be held November 2 - 5, 2023 at the Park Avenue Armory, 67th Street and Park Avenue, New York. 

In January of this year, Cheim & Read presented The Rabbis, Mesler’s first solo show at the gallery where he debuted the portrait series that marked a new beginning in his body of work. The paintings at the ADAA Art Show are the latest in this series.

Mesler’s rabbi paintings revivify a poignant if somewhat maligned genre of Jewish portraiture through a complex creative act. They are layered with the artist’s wish to preserve that which is neglected and to redeem through oil paint the imagery of Jewish contemplative thought. As the artist himself has said, he wants to put Judaica back on the wall and secure its existence in the future.

When Mesler inherited his family's rabbi paintings, he reversed his generation’s tendency to discard such works as outdated kitsch memorabilia. He understood as a painter that the best place for these works was on his studio walls. Over time, the images exerted a powerful force on his practice. New rabbi paintings started to come out of the old ones. Each new portrait in the series is based upon an older one in the artist's collection. And so, in a sense, these works are renewals of the persons depicted. 

Mesler’s repertoire of stored imagery has grown larger and larger in recent years. He collects rabbi portraits from various sources. But his pattern of acquiring works has a specific shape and design. With the aim of preserving that which has been abandoned, Mesler only pursues rabbi portraits that are unwanted. He considers himself a custodian of these “lost rabbis” as well as the creator of new ones.

In addition to the paintings, the Art Show booth will include Mesler’s latest book project, More Jews and Other Stories, a volume of hand drawn faces that appear without any written commentary. Mesler has previously enlisted words and short phrases in his paintings, but here he employs the book – the world’s most perfect container and vehicle for narrative – in a pictorially rich and pointedly wordless story.

Mesler gessoed over the pages of a book in his studio and then drew a face with brush and black ink on one side of the open book’s pages. He then closed the book while the ink was still wet to produce a ghost image on the opposite page. Often he would re-engage with the two images and introduce variations. One figure in the book wears a tie while his double on the opposite page does not. One figure is bald while his double is not. Variations like these invite close inspection and they increase the reader’s consideration of adjacent details. Some men wear payot. Some seem care worn. Many appear in profile or three quarter view and they peer out to the side of the reader. Slowly it registers that most of these Jewish men and their doubles have pensive stares. Where the rabbi paintings feature recuperated, stand alone portraits of individuals redeemed through art, the figures here are doubled – they arrive twice – and they suggest that alternate histories are in play. They seem susceptible to redescription by historical forces which haunt the perimeter of the very book that rests in the reader's hands. Facsimiles of More Jews and Other Stories will be available at Cheim & Read’s booth and the artist will be signing copies of the book at 5:00 pm during the Benefit Preview on Wednesday, November 1. At 12:00 PM on Friday, November 3, Mesler will be speaking about his current body of work with Rabbi Korn and Shira Backer at the Colonel’s Room inside the Armory.

Joel Mesler (b. 1974, Los Angeles) earned his MFA in 1999 at the San Francisco Art Institute. A year later he opened his first gallery, Dianne Pruess in Los Angeles, and has since become well known as both an artist and a gallerist operating venues in Los Angeles, New York City, East Hampton, and Hudson, NY. His artwork has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Cheim & Read, New York (2023), Levy Gorvy, Hong Kong (2021), David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles (2021); Harper's Books, New York (2020 and 2018); Simon Lee Gallery, London (2018); and Kantor Gallery, Los Angeles (2017). He lives and works in East Hampton, NY.