Times: Tobi Kahn's Meaningful End-of-life Art

Samuel Freedman in "On Religion" profiles Tobi Kahn's meaningful end-of-life Art. Kahn is a well-known artist and an Orthodox Jew from the German Jewish community in Washington Heights.

We see some of Mr. Kahn's evocative sculptures nearly every day on the grounds of the JCC in Tenafly, New Jersey.

The touching Times article describes how Kahn came to focus on end-of-life art and describes some of what it comprises for this artist. From the article:

This end-of-life artwork also expresses Mr. Kahn’s religious sensibilities, both his lifelong observance of Orthodox Judaism and his commitment to outreach across denominational lines. While his selection for a group show at the Guggenheim in 1985 established his reputation, his work has also been exhibited at such sites as the Museum of Biblical Art in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art in St. Louis.

“One of the common bonds across traditions is the human concern with suffering, love, mortality, immortality,” said the Rev. Terrence E. Dempsey, director of the St. Louis museum. “The role of religious art at the end of life is that it helps us focus on what’s really important — an interior healing, even if there is no physical healing, and finally a sense of gratitude.”

Having already created art for hospices, hospitals and memorial chapels, art ranging from a single canvas to an entire room for meditation, Mr. Kahn has several significant commissions in the near future. The Educational Alliance, a social service center on the Lower East Side, has retained him to create a 10th-anniversary memorial to victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The HealthCare Chaplaincy has selected him as the principal artist for a 120-unit palliative care residence to be built in Lower Manhattan....more...

Hat tip to Bernice for bringing this article to our attention.