Year of Rembrandt: Postdigital Art to COVID-19 Pandemic to Abraham Accords. What a Year!

I created the Global Tribute to Rembrandt blog to document the 'Year of Rembrandt' that began on the 350th anniversary of Rembrandt's death on Oct. 29, 2019 and came to an end on Oct. 28, 2020.  

The 'Year of Rembrandt' was celebrated by exhibitions of the great artist's works in museums throughout the world. 

The year began as the worldwide homage to Rembrandt, followed by the outbreak of the novel corona virus pandemic reached everyone everywhere and with the Abraham Accords that is bringing peace to the Middle East that has been allusive for a century.

In this blogpost, I present a brief chronology of the 'Year of Rembrandt' through five of my cyberangel artworks. In the Rembrandt House Museum image, I am in period dress sending a cyberangel on a circumglobal flight from the etching press in his studio. 

Scroll down through this blog to see images and read texts describing Rembrandt-inspired angels of peace on virtual flights from the Israel Museum to more than 30 museums on five continents, from the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam, The Met and MoMA in New York, to the Louvre Abu Dhabi.

Cyberangels of Peace Fly from Israel Museum to Bahrain Museum of Contemporary Art

    American-Israeli artist Mel Alexenberg is launching Rembrandt-inspired cyberangels of peace on flights from the Israel Museum to the Bahrain Museum of Contemporary Art.

    These cyberangel flights virtually follow the first El Al flight to Manama from Ben-Gurion Airport. They honor Israel and Bahrain on their establishing peaceful and diplomatic relations that build upon the Abraham Accords signed by Bahraini Foreign Minister Al-Zayani in Washington.   

    Alexenberg’s digital artwork shows a cyberangel of peace ascending from the Israel Museum’s Shrine of the Book, where the oldest Bible texts are exhibited, and entering into the Bahrain Museum of Contemporary Art. It expresses a historic event of biblical proportions that heralds the emergence of a different spirit reshaping relationships between the Arab and Jewish peoples.

    Four thousand years after Abraham’s sons Ishmael and Isaac came together to bury their father, their heirs came together in brotherhood on the White House lawn. Muslim foreign ministers of Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, the Jewish prime minister of Israel, and the Christian president of the United State of America, representatives of the three Abrahamic religions launched a new era of peace in the Middle East.

 

Children in Jerusalem draped in flags of Bahrain, Israel, and UAE 

     Alexenberg documents the digital flights from Israel to Bahrain and the Emirates on his blog Global Tribute to Rembrandt (http://globaltributetorembrandt.blogspot.com). His blog also documents cyberangel flights from Israel to thirty museums on five continents that have his artworks in their collections. These images are augmented by texts on the impact of digital culture on contemporary art by the artist, former art professor at Columbia University, research fellow at MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies, and professor at universities in Israel.

     Mel Alexenberg's exhibition Cyberangels: Aesthetic Peace Plan for the Middle East at the Jewish Museum in Prague anticipated this historic event in Manama. It presented aesthetic values derived from Islamic art that invites a perceptual shift through which Muslims see Israel as a blessing expressing Allah’s will rather than as an alien presence in the midst of the Islamic world. His blog Aesthetic Peace (http://aestheticpeace.blogspot.com) shows how Islamic carpets symbolize a Jewish state living in peace surrounded by friendly Muslim states.

      At the Sabbath eve meal, the artist and his family join Jewish families throughout the world singing, “May your coming be for peace, Angels of Peace, angels of the Exalted One.” The song begins with the words shalom aleikhem (may peace be with you). Shalom aleikhem is the traditional Hebrew greeting when people meet, akin to the Arabic greeting salam aleikum. Indeed, the word Islam itself is derived from the same root as salam (peace). May the Hebrew Malakh Shalom and the Arabic Malak Salam be recognized as one and the same Angel of Peace.

    Also see UAE participation at Cyberangels of Peace Fly from Israel Museum to Louvre Abu Dhabi. 

    For further information and requests for interviews, contact Prof. Mel Alexenberg at melalexenberg@yahoo.com, international call +972-55-855-1223. Images to illustrate this article at Global Tribute to Rembrandt were created by Mel Alexenberg who gives permission to use them in any article based upon this press release.

Cyberangels of Peace Fly From Israel Museum to Louvre Abu Dhabi

American-Israeli artist Mel Alexenberg is launching cyberangels of peace on flights from Israel Museum to Louvre Abu Dhabi. These digital flights of Rembrandt-inspired cyberangels honor the signing of the Abraham Accord between Israel and United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in Washington.

This historic event forging ties between Israel and its Arab neighbors occurs during the year that Rembrandt is being honored on the 350th anniversary of his death by museums from Leiden where he was born, to Amsterdam where he established his art studio, to Oxford, Madrid, Ontario, New York, and Abu Dhabi.

 Louvre Abu Dhabi presented the exhibition Rembrandt, Vermeer & the Dutch Golden Age, masterpieces from The Leiden Collection founded by the American Thomas S. Kaplan whose wife Dafna in the daughter of Israeli artist Mira Recanati. Dr. Kaplan writes “More than any other painter’s legacy, we believe Rembrandt’s ability to touch the soul represents a uniquely fitting expression of this visionary Franco-Emirati project seeking to promote tolerance and the common civilization of mankind.”

Alexenberg documents the digital flights from Israel to the Emirates on this Global Tribute to Rembrandt blog. He created an artwork that shows a cyberangel of peace ascending from the Israel Museum’s Shrine of the Book, where the oldest Bible texts are exhibited, and entering into the Louvre Abu Dhabi.

Also see Cyberangels of Peace Fly from Israel Museum to Bahrain Museum of Contemporary Art.

His blog also documents cyberangel flights from Israel to thirty museums on five continents that have Rembrandt-inspired artworks by Alexenberg in their collections. These images are augmented by texts on the impact of digital culture on contemporary art by the artist, former art professor at Columbia University, research fellow at MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies, and professor at universities in Israel.

Mel Alexenberg's 2004 exhibition Cyberangels: Aesthetic Peace Plan for the Middle East at the Jewish Museum in Prague anticipated this historic event on the White House lawn. It presented aesthetic values derived from Islamic art that invites a perceptual shift through which Muslims see Israel as a blessing expressing Allah’s will rather than as an alien presence in the midst of the Islamic world. Weavers of beautiful Islamic carpets include a small counter pattern in their designs that can symbolize a Jewish state living in peace surrounded by friendly Muslim states. His blog Aesthetic Peace includes testimony from Islamic leaders on the religious validity of his concept of aesthetic peace. The photo above shows the artist explaining his aesthetic peace plan to the ambassadors of the United States and Israel at the opening of the exhibition.  

One of his Digital Homage to Rembrandt cyberangel artworks has been in Washington in the collection of The National Museum of American History since 1987 as a historic exemplar of computer-generated fine art printmaking. These cyberangels that have been dormant in the museum’s flat files have awakened in 2020 both as a tribute to Rembrandt and to the historic Abraham Accords uniting the decedents of Abraham’s two sons Isaac and Ishmael.

His cyberangel flight from Israel to the Gulf coast was preceded by Alexenberg’s cyberangel faxart flight around the globe via AT&T satellites on the 320^th anniversary of Rembrandt’s death. On the morning of October 4, 1989, it ascended from New York, flew to Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam to Jerusalem to Tokyo to Los Angeles, returning to New York on the same afternoon. When it passed through Tokyo, it was already the morning of October 5^th. Cyberangels cannot only fly around the globe, they can fly into tomorrow and back into yesterday. The photo above shows Mel Alexenberg in period garb receiving his Rembrandt-inspired cyberangel in his studio in Rembrandt House on its circumglobal flight.

Mel Alexenberg was invited to create one of his early Rembrandt-inspired cyberangel artworks by the Israel Museum affiliated graphics center in Jerusalem at the time he was head of the art department at Pratt Institute in New York where he taught “Fine Art with Computers.” It shows cyberangels ascending from a NASA satellite image of the Land of Israel as an expression of the biblical commentary that the angels in Jacob’s dream go up a ladder from the Land of Israel and come down to earth throughout the world. This serigraph is in the collection of the Israel Museum.

 These cyberangels emerge from a smartphone screen on the cover of Professor Alexenberg’s most recent book Through a Bible Lens: Biblical Insights for Smartphone Photography and Social Media. A smartphone has the power to make this biblical vision a reality. 

Before partaking of the Sabbath eve meal, Jewish families sing, “May your coming be for peace, Angels of Peace, angels of the Exalted One.” The song begins with the words shalom aleikhem (may peace be with you). Shalom aleikhem is the traditional Hebrew greeting when people meet. It is akin to the Arabic greeting salam aleikum. Indeed, the word Islam itself is derived from the same root as salam (peace). May the Hebrew Malakh Shalom and the Arabic Malak Salam be recognized as one and the same Angel of Peace.

For further information and requests for interviews, contact Prof. Mel Alexenberg at melalexenberg@yahoo.com, phone in Israel 052-855-1223, international call +972-52-855-1223

International Museum Day Celebrated by Cyberangels Virtual Flights

Rembrandt Cyberangels Fly Worldwide from Israel on International Museum Day

International Museum Day on May 18, 2020 coincides with the global tribute to Rembrandt on the 350^th anniversary of his death and the global closure of museums by the coronavirus pandemic.

The theme of International Museum Day, “Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion,” celebrated throughout the world is being realized by artist Mel Alexenberg launching Rembrandt-inspired cyberangels to 30 museums on five continents that have his “Digitized Homage to Rembrandt” artworks in their collections.

As an artist who has pioneered in creating art in virtual space, he is sending cyberangels from the Israel Museum in Jerusalem to each of the 30 museums listed at end of this press release.

Alexenberg created the Global Tribute to Rembrandt blog to visually document each of the cyberangel virtual flights. The documentation was augmented by texts on the impact of digital culture on art that he developed as research fellow at MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies and professor at Columbia University and universities in Israel.

The coronavirus indiscriminately attacked all humanity equally forcing the doors of museums throughout the world to close. However, many have creatively responded to the closure of physical space by opening virtual windows to the world.

High Museum of Art in Atlanta represents an exemplary digital age response. On opening the museum’s website, you read: “COVID-19: Our building may be closed, but you can still experience art 24/7. Explore High.org for social connection, virtual events, inspiring images, art activities, and informative videos.” 

It is significant that many museums throughout the world have closed their physical space but opened in virtual space. As the pandemic has forced us to stay at home away from everyone, the world of smartphones, laptops, Zoom, and the Internet is inviting us to come out and connect to anyone. 

Mel Alexenberg launched a cyberangel on a faxart flight around the globe via AT&T satellites on the 320^th anniversary of Rembrandt’s death. On the morning of October 4, 1989, it ascended from New York, flew to Amsterdam to Jerusalem to Tokyo to Los Angeles, returning to New York on the same afternoon. When it passed through Tokyo, it was already the morning of October 5^th. Cyberangels cannot only fly around the globe, they can fly into tomorrow and back into yesterday.

As the digitized angel passed through the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam, Alexenberg received it in Rembrandt’s studio dressed in period garb.

He is reactivating a cyberangel team led by the angel Raphael to return to museums when they reopen to herald the grand finale of the corona plague. The angel Raphael works to heal bodies, minds and spirits. “Raphael” is related to the word rophe, the divine healer in biblical Hebrew (Exodus 15: 26), and medical doctor in contemporary Hebrew.

Cyberangels emerge from the cover of Professor Alexenberg’s highly acclaimed book Through a Bible Lens that offers biblical insights for the new media age. The cover shows cyberangels ascending from a NASA satellite image of the Land of Israel as they emerge from a smartphone screen. It illustrates the biblical commentary that the angels in Jacob’s dream go up from the Land of Israel and come down to earth throughout the world. “A ladder was standing on the ground, its top reaching up towards heaven as divine angels were going up and down on it.” (Genesis 28: 12) A smartphone has the power to make this vision a reality.

Through a Bible Lens was published shortly before the corona pandemic erupted, anticipating the need for spiritual insights for coping with the radical changes in our lives in physical isolation while demonstrating how new media can connect us in virtual space. The book demonstrates to people of all faiths how biblical insights can transform life, in good times and bad, into imaginative ways of seeing spirituality in all that we do.

For further information, contact Mel Alexenberg, melalexenberg@yahoo.com, phone +972-52-855-1223 in Israel where the artist lives

Artist Mel Alexenberg’s “Digitized Homage to Rembrandt” artworks are in the collections of the museums listed below. Scroll down on this blog to see separate posts about each museum.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; Museum of Modern Art, New York City; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York; National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama; Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee; Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio; Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio; Meridian Museum of Art, Meridian, Mississippi; University of Kentucky Art Museum, Lexington, Kentucky; New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, Louisiana; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri; Midwest Museum of American Art, Elkhart, Indiana; University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, Michigan; San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, Texas; Greenville Museum of Art, Greenville, North Carolina; University of Wyoming Art Museum, Laramie, Wyoming; Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax, Canada; Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel; Haifa Museum of Art, Haifa, Israel; Jewish Museum in Prague, Czech Republic; Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary; Museum of Modern Art, Vienna, Austria; Malmo Art Museum, Malmo, Sweden; Rembrandt House Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Art Museum of The Hague, The Netherlands; Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England; Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, Tasmania, Australia;  Museum of Contemporary Art, Caracas, Venezuela

Cyberangels Fly from the Holy Land to High Museum of Art in Atlanta to Herald End of the Corona Plague

High Museum of Art in Atlanta represents an exemplary digital age response of an art museum whose doors were closed by the coronavirus pandemic.  Other museums participating in Global Tribute to Rembrandt cyberangel events are listed at the end of this blog post. Scroll down to see individual blog posts for each of the 30 museums.

Open the website of High Museum of Art and you’ll read that it’s closed: “COVID-19: Our building may be closed, but you can still experience art 24/7. Explore High.org for social connection, virtual events, inspiring images, art activities, and informative videos.” 

It is significant that High Museum of Art has closed its physical space but opened in virtual space. As the coronavirus pandemic has forced us to hide at home away from everyone, the world of smartphones, laptops, and the Internet is inviting us to come out of hiding and connect to anyone.

As an artist who has pioneered in creating art in virtual space, I launched cyberangels from Israel to High Museum of Art and 30 other museums throughout the world as an homage to Rembrandt on the 350^th anniversary of his death on October 4^th.  These museums have my Rembrandt inspired artworks in their collections. My “Digitized Homage to Rembrandt: Day Angels” lithograph has been in the collection of the High Museum since 1987. 

Blog post for High Museum https://globaltributetorembrandt.blogspot.com/2019/09/high-museum-of-art-in-atlanta-6456.html

I sent cyberangel on a faxart flight around the globe via AT&T satellites in 1989 on the 320^th anniversary of Rembrandt’s death. On the morning of October 4^th, it ascended from New York, flew to Amsterdam to Jerusalem to Tokyo to Los Angeles, returning to New York on the same afternoon. When it passed through Tokyo, it was already the morning of October 5^th. Cyberangels cannot only fly around the globe, they can fly into tomorrow and back into yesterday.

This Global Tribute to Rembrandt documents cyberangels entering the High Museum and each the 30 other museums with images enriched with texts on the impact of digital culture on art that I developed as professor at Columbia University and research fellow at MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies. The blog post’s title is “High Museum of Art in Atlanta: 6,456 miles from Jerusalem, Israel; 340 miles from JerUSAlem, Georgia; or 0 cybermiles via the Internet Cloud.”   

I am reactivating a cyberangel team led by the angel Raphael to return to High Museum when it reopens to herald the grand finale of the coronavirus plague. The angel Raphael works to heal bodies, minds and spirits. “Raphael” is related to the word rophe, the divine healer in biblical Hebrew (Exodus 15: 26), and medical doctor in contemporary Hebrew.

These digitized angels, dormant in museum flat files, awakened to adorn the cover of my book Through a Bible Lens with biblical insights for the new media age. The book’s cover is based upon my artwork in the collection of the Israel Museum that I created in Jerusalem. It shows cyberangels ascending from a NASA satellite image of the Land of Israel as they emerge from a smartphone screen. It illustrates the biblical commentary that the angels in Jacob’s dream go up from the Land of Israel and come down to earth throughout the world. “A ladder was standing on the ground, its top reaching up towards heaven as divine angels were going up and down on it.” (Genesis 28: 12) A smartphone has the power to make this vision a reality.

Through a Bible Lens offers biblical insights for the new media age. It was published shortly before the coronavirus pandemic erupted, anticipating the need for spiritual insights for coping with the radical changes in our lives in physical isolation while demonstrating how new media can connect us in virtual space. The book demonstrates to people of all faiths how biblical insights can transform life, in good times and bad, into imaginative ways of seeing spirituality in all that we do.

The cyberangels will herald the end of the COVID-19 pandemic by taking virtual flight to the High Museum of Art and 30 other museums on five continents when they reopen. They will begin their flight from the Israel Museum’s Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem, home of ancient Bible scrolls. People throughout the world will “Awaken and shout for joy” (Isaiah 26: 19) when the curtain comes down at the end of the plague.

Museums with Mel Alexenberg’s “Digitized Homage to Rembrandt” artworks are in their collections:

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; Museum of Modern Art, New York City; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York; National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama; Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee; Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio; Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio; Meridian Museum of Art, Meridian, Mississippi; University of Kentucky Art Museum, Lexington, Kentucky; New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, Louisiana; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri; Midwest Museum of American Art, Elkhart, Indiana; University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, Michigan; San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, Texas; Greenville Museum of Art, Greenville, North Carolina; University of Wyoming Art Museum, Laramie, Wyoming; Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax, Canada; Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel; Haifa Museum of Art, Haifa, Israel; Jewish Museum in Prague, Czech Republic; Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary; Museum of Modern Art, Vienna, Austria; Malmo Art Museum, Malmo, Sweden; Rembrandt House Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Art Museum of The Hague, The Netherlands; Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England; Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, Tasmania, Australia;  Museum of Contemporary Art, Caracas, Venezuela

Cyberangels Link Sister Cities Wuhan (China) and Ashdod (Israel)

I created the work of digital-age art above in which Rembrandt-inspired cyberangels bring spiritual and material blessings from the people of Israel to the people of China and others throughout the world plagued by the coronavirus.

I look forward to creating a second artwork to herald the end of the global epidemic that will restore normal relations between sister cities Wuhan in China and Ashdod in Israel.

WUHAN market before/after COVID-19

ASHDOD park before/after COVID-19

The mayor of Wuhan cancelled his planned fourth trip to Ashdod as his city emerged as the epicenter of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

The mayor of Ashdod Dr. Yehiel Lasry signed a sister city agreement with Wuhan in 2011 and was there on an official visit last year. In addition to being mayor and former member of Knesset, Dr. Lasry is a medical doctor who was a specialist in viral diseases at Kaplan Hospital in Israel and served as surgeon-general of Israel’s navy. 

My personal connections between Israel and China extend from Yehiel Lasry, my son-in-law, to my granddaughter Talia Alexenberg who works for a Chinese company teaching English to children in China. However in the age of computers and the Internet, she teaches them from the safety of her home in Tel Aviv.

The outbreak of the novel coronavirus in Wuhan prompted me to take a break from launching my Rembrandt-inspired cyberangels from the Israel Museum in Jerusalem to thirty museums on five continents that have my artworks in their collections. These virtual flights, a tribute to Rembrandt on the 350^th anniversary of his death, can be seen at Global Tribute to Rembrandt.

I hope to add the art museums of Wuhan and Ashdod to the thirty others with cyberangels of peace announcing to all the nations of the world that the COVID-19 epidemic has ended.  

Cyberangels send spiritual and material blessings from Israel to China

For all the cyberangel images that flew to museums across the globe, I drafted cyberangels spiraling up from a satellite of the Land of Israel on the cover of my latest book Through a Bible Lens that offers biblical insights for the age of new media.

Virtual cyberangel flights make the Bible come alive as they ascend from Israel and go down throughout the world as in Jacob’s dream. “He had a vision in a dream. A ladder was standing on the ground, its top reaching up towards heaven as divine angels were going up and down on it.” (Genesis 28:12)  

Cyberangels are shown emerging from a crevice in the Kotel (Western Wall) in Jerusalem and flying into the hospital in Wuhan where the first coronavirus patients are being treated. It follows a tradition of placing notes with personal prayers in the spaces between the huge rocks showing the words “The Nation of Israel Prays for China” in Hebrew and Chinese.

The upper image shows hospital workers in Wuhan in protective gear like the hundreds sent from Israel. Thousands of masks and medical supplies were airlifted on the last El Al Israel Airlines flight to China and are being distributed by the rabbis and their wives running Chabad Centers in China.

Prayers coupled with scientific/technological innovation

Spiritual and material actions in Judaism are intimately connected.  For example, the biblical word for “angel,” a spiritual messenger, is malakh with its feminine form malakha meaning “work,” like in the construction of the Tabernacle in the desert. 

Prayers at the Kotel were held at the initiative of the chief rabbi of Tsfat (Safed) who quoted from Psalm 145:9, “God is good to all, and his mercy is upon His works.” He added that we are called to pray for the people of China who are in great distress and the sick people in every nation as is said in the Jewish tradition, “Dear is all people who are created in the image of God.”

As a nation of world leaders in scientific and technological innovation, Israel is rapidly acting to contain this emerging pandemic. An Israeli firm has developed a new diagnostics kit for rapid detection of the COVID-19 coronavirus while others are rushing to develop a vaccine.  An immunotherapy company specializing in drug development for organ dysfunction is ready to assist health authorities combating deadly complications caused by the coronavirus.

China responded to the heartfelt prayers, material aid, and Israel’s development of innovative medical solutions, by saying, “The Chinese Embassy in Israel would like to extend its sincere appreciation of the sympathy, support, and solidarity expressed by the Jewish people. We will never forget it.”

From The Times of Israel, 5 March 2020

Rembrandt-inspired Cyberangels Fly into His Amsterdam Studio

Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam honors the great master on the 350^th year of his death by presenting the “Inspired by Rembrandt” exhibition described in the text below from the museum’s website:

Inspired by Rembrandt
100 Years of Collecting by The Rembrandt House Museum
The Rembrandt House is not just Rembrandt’s former home and workshop; for more than a century it has been a museum with its own collection. The collection consists primarily of works on paper. Rembrandt’s etchings are of course well represented, but the museum also has prints by his predecessors and contemporaries as well as by modern and contemporary artists who were inspired by Rembrandt.

This Global Tribute to Rembrandt blog is my new media contribution to “Inspired by Rembrandt.” It documents virtual flights of cyberangels ascending from the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and coming down into 30 museums on five continents that have my Rembrandt-inspired artworks in their collections. 

My “Digitized Homage to Rembrandt: Day Angels” lithograph was acquired by the Rembrandt House Museum for its collection on the 320^th anniversary of Rembrandt’s death. In image above, I am dressed in period garb in Rembrandt’s studio receiving a computer-generated cyberangel from a fax machine on his etching press. The cyberangel on a circumglobal flight is coming from New York to Amsterdam on its way to Jerusalem, Tokyo, Los Angeles, and back to New York.  See the whole story in my Jerusalem Report article (26 January 2020) at ARTISTSTORY.  

The cyberangel images represent the angels in Jacob’s dream in the Biblical verse, “He had a vision in a dream. A ladder was standing on the ground, its top reaching up towards heaven as Divine angels were going up and down on it.” (Genesis 28:12) Angels in Jacob’s dream go up from the Land of Israel and go down throughout the world.

The background for Global Tribute to Rembrandt is offered in my book Through a Bible Lens that presents biblical insights for the age of new media. On its cover below, its shows cyberangels spiraling up from a satellite image of the Land of Israel on a smartphone screen. See praise for the book from Christian and Jewish spiritual leaders and experts on digital culture at Israel365.