Schnabel dives into another mind with a visual poem

By Tom Freudenheim
Published on November 29, 2007

I don't recall anyone ever classifying Schnabel as a "Jewish artist" -- even if his mother was a Hadassah president and his father an active member of B'nai B'rith. Unlike the parody of pushy Jewish parents aiming their son at medical school, Schnabel says that his parents encouraged him to do anything he wanted -- which may explain a kind of restlessness as an artist that sometimes feels like a lack of focus, and an oeuvre of uneven quality and interest. But if the result is a work of art as accomplished as Schnabel's latest film, then such antsy-ness is laudable.

An Artistic Homage to Big Brother

By Naomi Pfefferman
Published on January 29, 2004

Not many artists begin an ambitious new series at 76, but Arnold Mesches did just that after receiving a large box stuffed with FBI documents in 1999. It had taken the Jewish American painter three years and dozens of letters to obtain the 760-page dossier, his FBI file from 1945 to 1972. The papers -- obtained under the Freedom of Information Act -- chronicle his left-wing activities from the Communist red scare of the 1950s to the Vietnam War era.