Jewish Museum, NYC

Through Mar. 27.

One of the most compelling museum exhibitions in town is the one at the Jewish Museum devoted to the life and career of Ehrich Weiss.

You might ask, Erich who? Well, you’re probably more familiar with his stage name: Harry Houdini.

The famed magician was actually the son of Hungarian Jews who settled in Wisconsin in the late 1870s. Neither his father, who was a rabbi, nor his mother spoke English.

Despite his humble immigrant beginnings, Houdini, as he later dubbed himself (after his early idol, the French magician Robert-Houdin) became an international megastar, one of the first of the twentieth century. His celebrated escapes from restraints and obstacles of all kindd clearly had a metaphorical resonance for ordinary citizens themselves struggling under the extraordinarily difficult conditions of the era.

“Houdini: Art and Magic” explores his legacy through a mixture of memorabilia and artifacts, video clips and multi-media artworks inspired by the subject.

The latter are the least interesting aspects of the exhibition, with only a few pieces, such as Ikuo Nakamura’s milk can featuring a hologram of a pair of manacled hands emerging (echoing one of Houdini’s most famous escapes), having much impact. Particularly trivial is a lavish abstract installation, “The Ehrich Weiss Suite,” by artist/filmmaker Matthew Barney, whose “Cremaster 2” film featured Houdini, played by Norman Mailer, no less, as a character. It features, among other things, a glass coffin littered with the droppings of several live pigeons.

But Houdini aficionados will relish the rare opportunity to examine such classic items integral to his act as a milk can from which he made his escapes; the steamer trunk used in the classic “Metamorphosis” illusion; handcuffs, one of his straitjackets, and letters and journal entries.

Sadly, the most striking prop on display, the large box with the glass front used for his famous “Chinese Water Torture Cell” escape, is a recreation. The original was ravaged in a 1995 fire that destroyed the Houdini Magical Hall of Fame in Niagara Falls, Canada.

Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Ave. 212-423-3200. www.thejewishmsuem.org.