About the work

The Jewish Question looks at the various stereotypes and misconceptions about Jews and money over the years. It examines these questions through the prism of Doug Fishbone’s father's experience growing up in the Jewish community of the East End of London, as well as his family’s broader immigration history rooted in fleeing antisemitism in Europe. The film uses humor to debunk many of the more outlandish conspiracies that surround ideas of Jews and money, and the position of Jews in the world in general. The film was commissioned as part of Jews, Money, Myth, a major exhibition exploring the role of money in Jewish life, at the Jewish Museum in London in 2019. It has subsequently screened at the Kassel Festival in Germany and the UK Jewish Film Festival in London. 

Shown in Points of Resistance in Berlin’s historic Zionskirche, The Jewish Question is seen in the context of Berlin’s painful history, and particularly, the remarkable history of this church as a crucial point of resistance against the Nazis, led by renowned theologian and anti-Nazi activist Deitrich Bonhoeffer who worked in the parish for over a decade until his arrest by the Gestapo,

Bio

Doug Fishbone is an American artist living and working in London. His film and performance work is heavily influenced by the rhythms of stand-up comedy – he was described by one critic as a “stand-up conceptual artist” – and examines some of the more problematic aspects of contemporary life in an amusing and disarming way. He is particularly interested in examining questions of relativity and perception, and how audience and context influence interpretation. He earned a BA from Amherst College in the US in 1991, and MA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College, London in 2003. Selected solo exhibitions include Tate Britain, London (2010-11), Rokeby, London (2010-11, and 2009), Gimpel Fils, London (2006) and 30,000 Bananas in Trafalgar Square (2004). Selected group exhibitions include Rude Britannia: British Comic Art, Tate Britain (2010), Busan Biennale, Busan, South Korea (2008); Laughing in a Foreign Language, Hayward Gallery (2008), London; British Art Show 6, Newcastle, Bristol, Nottingham and Manchester (2006). He performs regularly at both international and UK venues, including appearances at London’s ICA and Southbank Centre. 

Fishbone’s 2010 film project Elmina, made in collaboration with Revele Films in Ghana, had its world premiere at Tate Britain in 2010 and was nominated for an African Movie Academy Award in Nigeria in 2011. Elmina was voted no. 35 on Artinfo’s survey of the 100 most iconic artworks of the past 5 years in 2012.  Fishbone’s practice is wide-ranging, using many different popular forms in unexpected ways. He curated Doug Fishbone’s Leisure Land Golf, a bespoke art/crazy golf course featuring some of the UK’s leading artists, at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015, and in the same year, he collaborated with the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London, one of the nation’s most prestigious Old Masters collections, on a solo project involving switching one of the Gallery’s masterpieces with a replica made in China. Other recent projects include a series of guided bus tours in Aberdeen as part of the Look Again Festival in 2016, and a series of riverboat performances on the River Thames called Doug Fishbone’s “Booze Cruise”, originally commissioned as part of the Mayor of London’s Thames Festival in 2013 and 2014. His project Artificial Intelligence (2018) was commissioned by werkleitz within the framework of EMAP / EMARE and Co-funded by the Creative Europe Program of the European Union, and he exhibited a specially commissioned video "The Jewish Question"  in the exhibition "Jews, Money, Myth" at the Jewish Museum, London in 2019.

He has performed at many major venues, including the Hayward Gallery, ICA London, the Southbank Centre, Hauser and Wirth Somerset, and the Royal Academy. Fishbone is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Yinka Shonibare Foundation, an organization which fosters international cultural exchange established by the British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare.