The New York Times — Great Expectations for 2014
From the theater to visual arts, opera to pop, critics for The New York Times anticipate the highlights of their fields…
HOW DOES A MUSEUM in a nation’s capital tell the story of a people once deeply knit into that nation’s history and culture — until they were systematically murdered by the millions? The Museum of the History of Polish Jews opened last spring in Warsaw (on a site once in the walled-off Warsaw Ghetto), but the answer will not come until sometime this year, when its core exhibition — including eight galleries occupying more than 40,000 square feet — will finally be complete.
Developed by an international team, with the museum’s curators led by the Canadian scholar Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, the exhibition, in its size, ambition, location and importance, will instantly become a touchstone. If successful, it may influence the evolution of Jewish museums and other identity museums everywhere. — Edward Rothstein, The New York Times, December 31, 2013