Image: Ben Uri Gallery, London
Gerry Judah’s ‘Menorah 2025’ has entered the Ben Uri Collection on long-term loan. The large-scale sculpture was generously loaned to Ben Uri by the artist.
‘Menorah 2025’ juxtaposes the inevitable result of war—the destruction of buildings and their communities—with the symbolism of a menorah. The menorah represents divine light and wisdom, as well as the creation of the world in seven days and the eternal presence of God.
Judah’s statement describes the work as composed of six skeletal towers flanking a ruptured central column, evoking both ancient resilience and profound vulnerability.
Through his sculpture, installations and three-dimensional paintings, Judah often reflects on history and conflict, the devastations of war and environmental degradation, while exploring themes of displacement, impermanence and cross-cultural connections. In 1998, he was commissioned to create a large-scale model of the selection ramp at Auschwitz-Birkenau for the Imperial War Museum London’s Holocaust Exhibition.
Judah was born into a Jewish family in Calcutta, now Kolkata, India, on 30 July 1951; his grandparents had emigrated from Iraq to India, and he has said that growing up in the established Baghdadi Jewish community while absorbing the cultures of Hinduism, Islam and Buddhism had a profound effect on him. At the age of ten, in 1961, he migrated to England with his family, settling in London.
