From NYC to Vienna and Jerusalem: Lenore Cohen Bridges Worlds in Three International Shows

Conceptual artist Lenore Cohen is showcasing her work internationally this season, with exhibitions in New York City, Vienna, and Jerusalem. Cohen, who is based in NYC, creates work that is heavily influenced by her Syrian Jewish heritage. Her art examines the confluence of this 2,000-year-old Middle Eastern culture with its modern life in the West. Using mediums like Arabic calligraphy, paper cut, and embroidery, she explores themes of heritage, forced migration, and cultural identity, often using her art to create conversations about the little-understood history of Jews in the Middle East.

In Austria, Cohen will present a major new work at the Jewish Museum of Vienna for the exhibition Black Jews, White Jews? On Skin Color and Prejudice. The show, which runs from October 22, 2025, to April 26, 2026, explores Jewish identity in the context of skin color, self-definition, antisemitism, and racism.

Cohen's conceptual work, By Any Other Name, was commissioned by the museum for the exhibition. The piece is a massive 36 by 12-foot floating sculpture that took a full year to create. It is made of "thousands of flowers, each fashioned from an Arabic name that used to be common in the Syrian Jewish community but that is now seldom used since the community relocated to the United States". The piece powerfully visualizes the theme of cultural erosion and the ways immigrants "participate in their own erasure," as the flowers "fade in color and become transparent toward the top of the artwork". During her visit to Vienna, Cohen will also lead an Arabic calligraphy workshop at the museum.

Find more information about this show here: Jewish Museum Vienna

In her home city of NYC, Cohen’s work is featured in the group exhibition Proverbs, Adages, and Maxims at the Bernard Heller HUC Museum. The show, which is on view until June 2026, features 55 artists of diverse backgrounds offering visual interpretations of familiar sayings.

Cohen's contribution is a paper cut piece titled What’s Past is Dead. The work is representative of a "dual truth," exploring whether leaving things in the past is a positive or negative act, depending on one's perspective. The title phrase comes from a collection of Judaeo-Arabic maxims that the artist continually revisits in her work.

Find more information about this show here: Hebrew Union College

Finally, Cohen’s work was recently featured in a group show in Jerusalem, created by The Jerusalem Biennale. The long-awaited show, which was originally postponed due to COVID, was displayed at the original campus of the National Library and ran until September 26. 2025.

The exhibition's curators, Ruth Schreiber and Ram Ozeri, invited artists to use a hexagonal format to present "two sides of any issue." Cohen's piece explored the tension between chaos and control. Created during a time when she lived in Israel, the "Chaos panel" provided a personal snapshot of her life, including "to-do lists in three languages."