Exhibition Opening “David Stern: The American Years (1995-2008)”, Yeshiva University Museum, New York, NY
Director of the Yeshiva University Museum, Mrs. Sylvia Herskowitz –
Thank you for the warm welcome and kind introduction.
David Stern,
Rachel Stern,
Curator of the Exhibition, Mrs. Karen Wilkin,
Ladies and Gentlemen,Good evening.
I just recently assumed my duties in New York and I already had the pleasure to visit the Leo-Baeck-Institut in this beautiful building. My predecessor Dr. Heimsoeth nurtured the good friendship with the Center for Jewish History and I am looking forward to continue this cordial relationship.
Tonight is my first visit to the Yeshiva University Museum and I am honored to be here. I would like to seize this opportunity to express my joy in being chosen patron of David Stern’s exhibition.
Allow me, to take you ten days back, when Bernward Müller, the Cultural Minister of Thuringa, adressed an audience here at the occasion of the opening of the exhibition “Erfurt: Jewish Treasures from Medieval Ashkenaz.” He emphasized the importance of how “archaelogical finds can teach those of us living today about our country’s past, about our ancestors and their culture”. The handcrafted artifacts of the Erfurt Treasures have become time witnesses of German-Jewish relations in medieval times.
Tonight, we are witnessing and enjoying the opening of an exhibition of contemporary art: The paintings and studies by David Stern, a German Jew, who became an American citizen - created during his American years. This exhibition covers the 13 years since he moved from Germany to New York in 1995.
The first thought that came to my mind, when I was offered the patronage to David Stern’s exhibition, was that we could have already met a long time ago. From the beginning of both our careers, David Stern’s and my paths were geographically close.
In the early 1980s, I spent my lawyers training in Cologne – a city where David Stern used to live. When David Stern attended the nearby Düsseldorf Art Academy, I worked on my PhD in the same bustling Rhine metropolis, that is the capital of North Rhine-Westphalia.
David Stern stayed in his home state of North-Rhine Westphalia, where he was born in the central part of the Ruhr area. You may have heard that the city of his birthplace, Essen, was recently appointed by the European Union to be European Capital of Culture in 2010.
Long before the EU discovered the rich cultural diversity of the Ruhr area, David Stern embraced cultural change. As a German Jew in a post Cold War society, he crossed borders and came to New York.
When he emigrated to New York in 1995 - I returned to Germany from Washington D.C.
Now, more than 20 years after our beginnings in Cologne and Düsseldorf, we are both in the same city again - and we finally meet.
As a diplomat, it is part of my job description to overcome borders, to build bridges of understanding and friendship. An artist can do the same - much more effectively through paintings. And David Stern truly is an “artist without borders.”
The author and Humanist Isaac Assimov once said: “The only constant is change, continuing change, inevitable change”. Especially here in New York, change is ever-present. Change seems to be the dominant factor in today’s world and society.
New York, is of course, a city of contradictions, that pushes and pulls at the same time, that is ebb and flow, day and night. In its fast pace it is also a city of endless opportunities. The metropolis that never sleeps is also called the “City of light” for a reason.
David Sterns paintings capture the energy and dynamics of New York in a new, fascinating light. But they also call for and require a second look. And this second look reveals – that “David Stern’s relation to the visible world and his ways of handling paint have remained constant” – as Karen Wilkin points out in her introduction of the Catalogue.
It is this constant that draws me into David Stern’s work. I feel personally invited to ponder and reflect upon them. For his consistency is so reassuring and calming. Throughout the changes of an increasingly globalized world and David Stern is -what is called - an “active painter”, his paintings capture me in a touching way. I am proud to be the patron of his exhibition tonight.
In closing, allow me to refer to German chancellor Angela Merkel, when she was honored with the Leo-Back-Award in Berlin last year. She said: “I am fully aware of the responsibility incumbent upon me… and I will do everything in my power to promote the partnership with the Jewish community.” And so will I - for the partnership with the Jewish community is dear and important to me.
And to celebrate partnership and friendship, there is no better time in New York than this month: What a beautiful coincidence that David Stern’s exhibition is opening during the German-American friendship week.
