The Television Project: You Don’t Have to Be Jewish

September 16, 2016 - February 12, 2017 - The third installment in The Television Project exhibition series, You Don’t Have to Be Jewish, explores advertising produced for Jewish audiences or with Jewish content, and examines the way religion, ethnicity, and identity play out on American television.

Television commercials have been fertile ground for aesthetic invention, with sponsors and advertising agencies turning to modern art and graphic design for ideas. The “new advertising” revolution of the 1950s and 1960s brought innovative elements into the ad format, often characterized by humor, candor and irony. This resulted in one of the medium’s most creative periods in the United States. Commercials were also often on the front line of identity politics as well, targeting (and celebrating) various racial and ethnic demographic markets well before TV programming.