NEW YORK, NY.- As the latest iteration of the series Using Walls, Floors, and Ceilings, which brings contemporary art to the Jewish Museum’s Skirball Lobby; a new work by Los Angeles-based artist Alex Israel is on view through April 23, 2017.

Self-Portrait (Mom) (2016) is a painting of the artist’s mother made within an outsize silhouette of his head in profile. It was executed in the traditional Hollywood scenic style, a combination of airbrush and brushwork. Israel’s Self-Portrait first appeared in 2012 as the logo for his online talk show AS IT LAYS, and subsequently as a series of color studies on fiberglass panels.

As the Self-Portraits have evolved, Israel began to depict scenes and symbols fundamental to picturing Los Angeles: the Dodgers baseball team, a palm tree, a director’s chair. The artist enacts a not-so-subtle branding by intertwining his own image with those of his hometown, echoing the silhouette of a big apple filled in with New York City’s most iconic buildings.

Through his artwork, as well as his entertainment and commercial enterprises such as the talk show AS IT LAYS, the forthcoming feature film SPF-18, and a line of sunglasses called Freeway, Israel investigates the notion of the American Dream: the idea that anyone from anywhere, with a combination of hard work and luck, can rise from a Nobody to a Somebody. This concept is alive and well in Los Angeles, where countless flock to become a star. Self-Portrait (Mom) shows the artist’s mother standing on a beach, a timelessly elegant and confident woman comfortable with her place in the world. It echoes the all-American, aspirational advertisements of Ralph Lauren (born Ralph Lifshitz in the Bronx). The success of Jews in the New York garment industry is an example of the American Dream that preoccupies the imagination of Israel, who is also of Jewish descent.

The Warner Brothers film studios were also founded by Jewish immigrants. And it is on the Warner Brothers studio backlot, within the scenic art department’s workshop, that Israel makes his work. Backdrop painters have largely become unemployed as a result of digital printing, and now Israel is the department’s biggest client. Their talents make the fakeness of Hollywood feel real, and the shared willingness — and sometimes need — to believe in artifice is essential to Israel’s art. He manipulates the Hollywood machine to fabricate his own legend, and Self-Portrait (Mom) raises his mother from an unknown to a glossy icon. It is also a double portrait, a story of mother and child, of bringing the artist into the world and fostering his talents.

Using Walls, Floors, and Ceilings showcases newly commissioned, contemporary art in the Skirball Lobby. The series builds on the Museum’s 1970 exhibition Using Walls, which featured commissioned works installed both within and beyond the Warburg Mansion, by artists such as Richard Artschwager, Sol LeWitt, Richard Tuttle, and others. Nearly 45 years later, the Museum revisits this moment in its history by showcasing new work by emerging artists from around the world. Since its launch in 2013, the series has featured artists including Claire Fontaine, Willem de Rooij, Chantal Joffe, Valeska Soares, and Beatriz Milhazes.

The Using Walls, Floors, and Ceilings series is organized by Kelly Taxter, Associate Curator.

Alex Israel was born in 1982 in Los Angeles, California, where he continues to live and work. He received a BA from Yale University, and an MFA from the USC Roski School of Fine Arts. Selected solo exhibitions include #AlexIsrael, Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo, Norway (2016); Sightings, The Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas (2015); Alex Israel at the Huntington, The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California (2015); Alex Israel, Le Consortium, Dijon (2013). His work is in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Centre Pompidou, Paris; and the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Israel is one of 42 artists included in the Jewish Museum’s current exhibition Take Me (I’m Yours).