Skirball Cultural Center presents

MAKING FACES

Playful Portraits of People You Know by Hanoch Piven

March 10–July 18, 2010

Free admission

Israeli artist makes witty caricatures from everyday objects

Left: Albert Einstein, published in The Atlantic Monthly, 1998; light bulb, cables, gears, and gouache on paper.

Right: Madonna. published in Ma’ariv, Israel, 2008;

Hamsa, toy nun, Star of David, Kabbalah string, spiked bracelets, and gouache on paper.

LOS ANGELES—Israeli illustrator Hanoch Piven (b. 1963) has made “drawing with objects” his specialty. Known worldwide for his ingenious caricatures, Piven depicts celebrities in collages that are at once affectionate, irreverent, and incisive. From March 10 through July 18, 2010, the Skirball Cultural Center presents Piven’s artistry in Making Faces: Playful Portraits of People You Know by Hanoch Piven; admission to the exhibition is free. Featuring cultural icons such as Sigmund Freud, Michael Jackson, President Barack Obama, and Madonna, the exhibition will highlight six original collages—including a never-before-seen portrait of Arnold Schwarzenegger—as well as sixteen large-scale photographs of Piven’s most memorable portraits. In addition, Piven will give a public lecture and lead art workshops for adults and children in the early days of the exhibition.

Making Faces showcases Piven’s playful perspective on celebrity and popular culture. Using common everyday objects, Piven evokes a subject’s facial characteristics, personality quirks, and even

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biography. He requires few objects to do so: Albert Einstein is instantly recognized by his electrical-wire mop of hair, Barbra Streisand by her microphone nose. Piven’s choice of items makes for not only humorous but keen commentary on his subjects’ lives. Richard Nixon’s head is a child’s tape player; Homer Simpson has donuts for eyes and a trash-can mouth. Charles Darwin’s passion for the life sciences is captured in his portrait, with feathers representing his signature beard, sea shells standing in for eyes, and a wind-up monkey toy acting as his nose.

Piven describes how he developed his portrait technique: “I started working in this style in the fall of 1990, after Saddam Hussein conquered Kuwait and shortly before the Gulf War began. I happened to drop a box of matches on top of my painting of Saddam, which made me realize that the matches not only made a perfect mustache, but also represented how Saddam was about to light the world on fire.”

Piven teaches his easy-to-learn collage style around the world in workshops for adults and children. He explains, “I teach ‘non-artists’ to draw with objects. The technique allows them to overcome past artistic frustrations by making the process playful and redefining what ‘drawing’ can be.”

The Skirball will give visitors various opportunities to learn from and experience the artist’s techniques hands-on. On Thursday evening, March 11, the artist will discuss his unique methodology in an illustrated lecture entitled “Hanoch Piven—I Make Faces.” The artist will offer family-friendly workshops on Sunday, March 14, and a one-day adult course on Sunday, March 21.

Piven will make several additional appearances in Southern California in a tour supported by the Consulate General of Israel, Los Angeles. In addition to the Skirball, Piven is expected to visit ArtPower! at University of California, San Diego (Monday, March 8); Art Center College of Design, Pasadena (Thursday, March 11); and MATI – Israeli Cultural Center, in collaboration with Israeli House and the Consulate General of Israel (Saturday, March 13).

About the Artist

Born in Uruguay and now based in Barcelona and Tel Aviv, Hanoch Piven has been making his distinctive collage caricatures since 1990. They have appeared on the covers of major publications on both sides of the Atlantic, including Time, Newsweek, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, The Times (London), The Guardian and Israel’s Ha’aretz and Ma’ariv. His work is in the permanent collection of the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. A recipient of the prestigious Gold Medal from the New York Society of Illustrators in 1994, Piven has published six children books in the

United States, notably: What Presidents Are Made Of, selected by Time as one of the Ten Best Children’s Books of 2004; What Athletes Are Made Of (2006); and My Dog Is as Smelly as Dirty Socks (2007). FACES by Hanoch Piven: 78 Portraits from Madonna to the Pope was published in the U.S. in 2002.

Over the last several years, Piven has led dozens of creative art workshops all over the world. He has worked with populations ranging from infant cancer patients in hospitals to street kids in Guatemala

City. In 2008, Piven’s first television program, Superstuff, was created for the Israeli pre-school channel HOP. That same year, Piven created twenty chapters for the award-winning Catalan TV

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program Una Ma de Contes (A Handful of Stories), whose goal is to encourage children to look at the world with fresh eyes.

More information on Hanoch Piven is available at www.pivenworld.com and on his blog, www.drawger.com/piven/.

Related Programs at the Skirball

The Skirball will present the following exhibition-related programs:

• HANOCH PIVEN—I MAKE FACES

Thursday, March 11, 7:30 p.m.

$12 General; $10 Skirball Members; $6 Full-Time Students

Celebrating the opening of the exhibition, Hanoch Piven gives a lively illustrated lecture about his one-of-a-kind art and his notable career.

• FACE TIME WITH HANOCH PIVEN

Making Portraits with Everyday Objects

Sunday, March 14, 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. or 2:30–3:30 p.m.

$15 General; $10 Children 2–12

$10 Skirball Member Adult; $8 Skirball Member Child

Ages 4 and up; children must be accompanied by an adult

Limited space; advance registration recommended

Hanoch Piven leads families on a tour of Making Faces, then teaches participants how to use repurposed materials to create their own Piven-inspired works of art.

• MAKING FACES

Playful Portraits Art Workshop

Sunday, March 21, 2:00–4:00 p.m.

$25 General; $20 Skirball Members; $15 Full-Time Students

Limited space; advance registration required

In this one-day workshop designed especially for adults, Hanoch Piven dmonstrates the relationship between everyday objects and people’s personalities.

For more information about these programs, including ticketing and registration, visit www.skirball.org.

THE EXHIBITION IS MADE POSSIBLE IN PART BY GENEROUS SUPPORT FROM THE CONSULATE GENERAL OF ISRAEL, LOS ANGELES.

Visiting the Skirball

The Skirball Cultural Center is located at 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90049 (exit 405 Freeway at Skirball Ctr Dr). Parking is free. The Skirball is also accessible by Metro Rapid Bus 761. Museum hours: Tuesday–Friday 12:00–5:00 p.m.; Saturday–Sunday 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.; closed Mondays and holidays, including March 30 and May 19. Admission to Making Faces: Playful Portraits of People You Know by Hanoch Piven is free to the public. Admission to all other exhibitions: $10 General; $7 Seniors, Full-Time Students, and Children over 12; $5 Children 2–12. Exhibitions are always free to Skirball Members and Children under 2, and to all visitors on Thursdays.

The Skirball is also home to Zeidler’s Café, which serves innovative California cuisine in an elegant setting, and Audrey’s Museum Store which sells books, contemporary art, music, jewelry, and more.

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About the Skirball

The Skirball Cultural Center is dedicated to exploring the connections between 4,000 years of Jewish heritage and the vitality of American democratic ideals. It welcomes and seeks to inspire people of every ethnic and cultural identity. Guided by our respective memories and experiences, together we aspire to build a society in which all of us can feel at home. The Skirball Cultural Center achieves its mission through educational programs that explore literary, visual, and performing arts from around the world; through the display and interpretation of its permanent collections and changing exhibitions; through an interactive family destination inspired by the Noah’s Ark story; and through outreach to the community.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 4, 2010

Media Contacts:

Katie Klapper, (323) 874-9667, katie@katieklapper.com

Mia Cariño, (310) 440-4544, communications@skirball.org