By Rachel Ellner, blog.fitnyc.edu
At the 2016 graduating exhibit last year there was an unusually large turnout for Hendel Futerfas, a student of Fine Arts at the State University of New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology.
Gaiety and critiquing ensued among dozens of hip-looking exhibit-goers who spanned four generations. They endlessly arranged themselves to be photographed in front of Hendel’s installation while his 102-year-old great-grandfather looked on proudly.
“Hendel is a bridge between the art world and our community,” said attendee Chavi Kaufman, 24, a pre-med student from the Lubavitch Hasidim Crown Heights community.
“These Orthodox parents have to be pretty cool to send their kid to art school,” said Hendel’s sculpture professor Sue Willis, after meeting family members.
According to members of this tight-knit ultra-orthodox community, there is greater reverence for the arts than ever before. The impetus, they say, came from a dialog between Hendel’s great, great uncle, the artist Hendel Lieberman, and the influential leader, Rabbi Menaḥem Schneersohn, known as “the Rebbe.”
Three generations later, young artists benefit from this legacy.
“The Rebbe was well-educated and thought art was extremely important, that a true piece of art could change a person’s whole attitude,” says Zev Markowitz, director of the Chassidic Art Institute in Crown Heights.
Markowitz, who wrote a biography of Hendel Lieberman, says that passersby used to cross the street to avoid paintings in the Institute’s window. The nervousness was due to the Talmudic pronouncement that one should not worship graven images.
Markowitz himself contacted the Rebbe during this period. “As a result, things changed overnight,” he said.
Today there are about 25 arts events a year in Crown Heights, including pop-up exhibits and gallery events.
Since graduating, Hendel has completed a six-week artist residency in Korea, has exhibited work in a group show at The Rosemont in East Williamsburg, and for the past four consecutive years, had his work shown at The Beach Minyan in West Hampton Beach.
“I’m currently working on a series on the concepts of growth and transformation that reflect my understanding of my community,” says Hendel. “I use wood, which has the characteristics of being strong and stubborn, yet has an organic flow.”
Hendel then cuts and patterns wooden beams in a way that allows him to bend the wood in shapes and directions he chooses. “I combine and then carve different beams. There are contradictions in the process, which represent an internal process of transformation.”
While the back story of his uncle precedes the young Futerfas, he acknowledges its impact. His connection to Hendel Lieberman, for whom he is named, carries great weight. Lieberman served in the Russian army during World War II. His wife and two children died in the Holocaust. Lieberman then, to avoid Stalin’s repression of Jews, changed his last name from Futerfas, escaped and eventually settled in Crown Heights where he befriended the Rebbe.
Lieberman’s correspondence with the Rebbe (excerpted in his biography) shows the leader’s reverence for the artist’s mission. “An artist reveals…the essence and ‘being’ of his subject,” says the Rebbe. The viewer “realizes that his previous impressions of the object were erroneous. In this way [the artist] serves the Creator.”
Today there are greater opportunities and artistic activity in the Crown Heights Hasidic community. The price of Hendel Lieberman’s paintings have risen greatly.
Young Crown Heights Hasidic artists speak knowledgeably about the Rebbe’s statements to Lieberman and other emerging artists. “Artists have all heard stories like this,” says Elad Nehorai, a blogger and arts organizer. “They’re encouraged that there’s a powerful voice that’s supporting them.”
To see more of Hendel’s work visit his website: HendelFuterfas.com and on Instagram at: h_e_n_d_e_l
Are you selling on Amazon?
Stuff Looks amazing.
You should be selling on Amazon.
The chupah painting is from Rav Yitzchok and Rose Scheinfeld ע״ה they got married in 1958 the 5th Licht on Chanukah the 2nd to last wedding that the Rebbe was Mesaddah Kedushin
Much hatzlacha
Your chavrusa from rostov
I love the paintings of people.
The expressions of the people at the Chuppa.
And the expression of passion at the wall, even with the face turned away.
Hendel is an amazing artist as well as a mench!
I believe he is related to the world famous arrist Eli Toron.
I remember Hendel as a very fine bochur while studying in yeshiva in Minnesota
I still want the aleph
Hot stuff!!!go Hendel!!!