Mel Alexenberg
Encyclopedia
Mel Alexenberg is an artist and art educator best known for his explorations of the intersections between art, science, technology and culture through his artworks, teaching, writing and blogging.
He was born and educated in New York City
, where he earned degrees in biology
from Queens College and in education from Yeshiva University
, and an interdisciplinary doctorate in art, science, and psychology from New York University
. He lives in Petah Tikva
, Israel
, with his wife, artist Miriam Benjamin.
Alexenberg’s artworks are in the collections of more than forty museums worldwide including Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art in New York, High Museum of Art
in Atlanta, Baltimore Museum of Art
, Cincinnati Art Museum
, Denver Art Museum
, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
in Kansas City, Portland Museum of Art
in Oregon, the Smithsonian Institution
in Washington, DC, Museum der Moderne Kunst in Vienna, Victoria and Albert Museum
in London, Haags Gemeentemuseum in the Netherlands, Israel Museum
in Jerusalem, and Malmo Museum in Sweden.
As an educator in the US, Alexenberg served as professor of art and education at Columbia University
, head of the art department at Pratt Institute
, research fellow at MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies, and dean of visual arts at New World School of the Arts
in Miami. In Israel, he has taught at Tel Aviv University
, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, University of Haifa
, Bar-Ilan University
, and Ariel University Center of Samaria. He is Head of the School of the Arts at Emuna College in Jerusalem.
He has written numerous papers and book chapters: including: "Space-Time Structures of Digital Visual Culture: Paradigm Shift from Hellenistic to Hebraic Roots of Western Civilization" in Inter/sections/Inter/actions: Art Education in a Digital Visual Culture (2010), "Autoethnographic Identification of Realms of Learning for Art Education in a Post-Digital Age" in International Journal of Education through Art (2008), “Ancient Schema and Technoetic Creativity” in Technoetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research (2006), “From Science to Art: Integral Structure and Ecological Perspective in a Digital Age” in Interdisciplinary Art Education: Building Bridges to Connect Disciplines and Cultures (2005), “Semiotic Redefinition of Art in a Digital Age” in Semiotics and Visual Culture: Sights, Signs, and Significance (2004), "Creating Public Art through Intergenerational Collaboration" in Art Education (2004), "An Interactive Dialogue: Talmud and the Net" in Parabola
(2004), “Wright and Gehry: Biblical Consciousness in Postmodern Architecture” in Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education (2003), and “Jewish Consciousness and Art of the Digital Age’ in Journal of Judaism and Civilization (2003). He is former art editor of The Visual Computer: International Journal of Computer Graphics.
He was born and educated in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, where he earned degrees in biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
from Queens College and in education from Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University is a private university in New York City, with six campuses in New York and one in Israel. Founded in 1886, it is a research university ranked as 45th in the US among national universities by U.S. News & World Report in 2012...
, and an interdisciplinary doctorate in art, science, and psychology from New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
. He lives in Petah Tikva
Petah Tikva
Petah Tikva known as Em HaMoshavot , is a city in the Center District of Israel, east of Tel Aviv.According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, at the end of 2009, the city's population stood at 209,600. The population density is approximately...
, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, with his wife, artist Miriam Benjamin.
Alexenberg’s artworks are in the collections of more than forty museums worldwide including Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art in New York, High Museum of Art
High Museum of Art
The High Museum of Art , located in Atlanta, is the leading art museum in the Southeastern United States and one of the most-visited art museums in the world. Located on Peachtree Street in Midtown, the city's arts district, the High is a division of the Woodruff Arts Center.-History:The Museum was...
in Atlanta, Baltimore Museum of Art
Baltimore Museum of Art
The Baltimore Museum of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, was founded in 1914. Built in the Roman Temple style, the Museum is home to an internationally renowned collection of 19th-century, modern, and contemporary art. Founded in 1914 with a single painting, the BMA today has 90,000 works...
, Cincinnati Art Museum
Cincinnati Art Museum
The Cincinnati Art Museum is one of the oldest art museums in the United States. Founded in 1881, it was the first purpose-built art museum west of the Alleghenies. Its collection of over 60,000 works make it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Midwest.Museum founders debated locating...
, Denver Art Museum
Denver Art Museum
The Denver Art Museum is an art museum in Denver, Colorado located in Denver's Civic Center.It is known for its collection of American Indian art,and has a comprehensive collection numbering more than 68,000 works from across the world....
, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is an art museum in Kansas City, Missouri, known for its neoclassical architecture and extensive collection of Asian art....
in Kansas City, Portland Museum of Art
Portland Museum of Art
The Portland Museum of Art is an art museum in Portland, Maine. Founded as the Portland Society of Art in 1882, it is located in the downtown area known as The Arts District, and is the largest and oldest public art institution in the U.S...
in Oregon, the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
in Washington, DC, Museum der Moderne Kunst in Vienna, Victoria and Albert Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...
in London, Haags Gemeentemuseum in the Netherlands, Israel Museum
Israel Museum
The Israel Museum, Jerusalem was founded in 1965 as Israel's national museum. It is situated on a hill in the Givat Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem, near the Bible Lands Museum, the Knesset, the Israeli Supreme Court, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....
in Jerusalem, and Malmo Museum in Sweden.
As an educator in the US, Alexenberg served as professor of art and education at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, head of the art department at Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute is a private art college in New York City located in Brooklyn, New York, with satellite campuses in Manhattan and Utica. Pratt is one of the leading undergraduate art schools in the United States and offers programs in Architecture, Graphic Design, History of Art and Design,...
, research fellow at MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies, and dean of visual arts at New World School of the Arts
New World School of the Arts
New World School of the Arts is a public magnet high school and college in Downtown Miami, Florida with dual-enrollment programs in visual arts, dance, theatre, musical theatre, instrumental music, and vocal music. Both the college and the high school are accredited by the Southern Association of...
in Miami. In Israel, he has taught at Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University is a public university located in Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel. With nearly 30,000 students, TAU is Israel's largest university.-History:...
, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, University of Haifa
University of Haifa
The University of Haifa is a university in Haifa, Israel.The University of Haifa was founded in 1963 by Haifa mayor Abba Hushi, to operate under the academic auspices of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....
, Bar-Ilan University
Bar-Ilan University
Bar-Ilan University is a university in Ramat Gan of the Tel Aviv District, Israel.Established in 1955, Bar Ilan is now Israel's second-largest academic institution. It has nearly 26,800 students and 1,350 faculty members...
, and Ariel University Center of Samaria. He is Head of the School of the Arts at Emuna College in Jerusalem.
Work
His works explore relationships between digital age art and Jewish patterns of thought, participatory art and community, and space-time systems and electronic technologies. Millions throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia have seen his blogart, environmental sculptures, multi-media installations, telecommunications art events, and exhibitions of paintings and prints that explore digital technologies and biological and cultural systems. The leading American art magazine, ARTnews, praised his LightsOROT exhibition created in collaboration with Otto Piene at MIT for Yeshiva University Museum in New York by writing: “Rarely is an exhibition as visually engaging and intellectually challenging.”Solo art exhibitions
- Cyberangels: Aesthetic Peace Plan for the Middle East (Jewish Museum in PragueJewish Museum in PragueThe Jewish Museum in Prague is a museum of Jewish heritage located in Prague, Czech Republic.The Jewish Museum in Prague was founded in 1906 by historian Dr. Hugo Lieben and Dr. Augustin Stein, who later became head of the Prague Jewish Community...
, 2004) - Hidden Garden: An Art Journey into a Leaf (Jerusalem Botanical GardensJerusalem Botanical GardensThe Jerusalem Botanical Gardens is located in the neighborhood of Nayot in Jerusalem, on the southeastern edge of the Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....
, 2007–2009) - Photograph God (Kuhn Fine Arts Gallery, Ohio State University, 2010)
Publications
- The Future of Art in a Postigital Age: From Hellenistic to Hebraic Consciousness (2011) ISBN 978-1-84150-377-6.
- Educating Artists for the Future: Learning at the Intersections of Art, Science, Technology and Culture (2008) ISBN 9781841501918
- Dialogic Art in a Digital World: Four Essays on Judaism and Contemporary Art (2008) in Hebrew ISBN 9789650902278
- The Future of Art in a Digital Age: From Hellenistic to Hebraic Consciousness (2006) ISBN 9781841501369
- Aesthetic Experience in Creative Process (1981) ISBN 9652260134
- Light and Sight (1970)
He has written numerous papers and book chapters: including: "Space-Time Structures of Digital Visual Culture: Paradigm Shift from Hellenistic to Hebraic Roots of Western Civilization" in Inter/sections/Inter/actions: Art Education in a Digital Visual Culture (2010), "Autoethnographic Identification of Realms of Learning for Art Education in a Post-Digital Age" in International Journal of Education through Art (2008), “Ancient Schema and Technoetic Creativity” in Technoetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research (2006), “From Science to Art: Integral Structure and Ecological Perspective in a Digital Age” in Interdisciplinary Art Education: Building Bridges to Connect Disciplines and Cultures (2005), “Semiotic Redefinition of Art in a Digital Age” in Semiotics and Visual Culture: Sights, Signs, and Significance (2004), "Creating Public Art through Intergenerational Collaboration" in Art Education (2004), "An Interactive Dialogue: Talmud and the Net" in Parabola
Parabola (magazine)
Parabola: Where Spiritual Traditions Meet, whose founder and editor was D.M. Dooling, began publishing in 1976 as a quarterly magazine on the subjects of mythology and the world's religious and cultural traditions. It is published by The Society for the Study of Myth and Tradition, a not-for-profit...
(2004), “Wright and Gehry: Biblical Consciousness in Postmodern Architecture” in Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education (2003), and “Jewish Consciousness and Art of the Digital Age’ in Journal of Judaism and Civilization (2003). He is former art editor of The Visual Computer: International Journal of Computer Graphics.