Download File - Ken Goldman Arts

Lipstick on Torah Scroll
By David Sperber
It is commonly believed that the Jewish world of the past was devoid of aesthetics,
and that visual creation was not an integral part of it, at least until the modern period.
This claim is partially true, but the sweeping generalization distorts the real picture. In
fact, the assumption derives from the antisemitic opinion which was so pervasive in
Europe, namely, that Jews are defective human beings, victims of their living
conditions, and in bondage to their books; hence, they lack the strength to create art.
This was claimed, for instance, by German composer Richard Wagner, in his essay
"Judaism in Music" (published in 1850 under a pseudonym and again in 1869, this
time under the author's full name). This perception was internalized by early Zionist
thinkers and was expressed, for example, by philosopher Martin Buber.
Jewish culture, by its very nature, engages in rituals that form part of Jewish
daily life; consequently, many types of culture-adapted utensils and objects were
created over time. Although these are usually categorized as Judaica craft rather than
fine art, these designs in fact prominently manifest aesthetic principles grounded in
the spirit of a given time and place. In modern times too, as noted by Kalman Bland in
his study The Artless Jew, Jewish thinkers did not deny visual presentation yet neither
did they succumb to modernist constructs of art as a religion unto itself.
Judaica Twist
A clear trend can be discerned in contemporary Jewish creativity: making use of
Judaica motifs and objects by subjecting them to defamiliarization and integrating
them into the general context of contemporary art. A noteworthy stream engaging in
these practices merits the name "Judaica Twist". Since the late 1960's, and even more
so during the 1980's, Judaica objects have assumed a significant place in the work of
Jewish artists in Israel and abroad. Note: Judaica, not necessarily Yiddishkeit. In
contemporary art, these objects often suggest radical, subversive motives intertwined
with important art-theoretical issues.
The "Judaica turn", as the move was termed by art historian Yael Guilat,
includes both the use of Judaica motifs and objects as well as their defamiliarization
within the more general context in which they are inserted. In this context, a poetics of
visual representation is inseparable from politics of cultural and gender identity. This
reading of the works challenges the very notion of high culture by presenting popular
culture as art. Ritual objects are customarily regarded as popular, folkloristic culture,
yet now, instead of imbuing them with sanctity, they are subjected to critical
representation.
The practice of integrating motifs from traditional Judaica into contemporary
artworks creates new objects, which then enter into a dialogue with the traditional
object and displace it from its original ritual function to the domain of art. It is easy to
perceive this practice in today's folklore theory, striving as it does for multivocity and
empowerment of the non-canonical. Thus, alongside enriching canonical discourse by
illuminating aspects of popular culture and relocating them to the center, visibility is
ensured to what, by its very nature, is not defined: that which remains in flux between
different fields and demands redefinition time after time.
The new trend of integrating Judaica objects and motifs into the art world is
inseparably linked to changes that have taken place in the world of Judaica itself. In
fact, from the early 1930's on, the production of Jewish ritual objects was dominated
by a modernist tendency toward clean, simple and functional design. However, in the
1980's, a postmodernist move appeared, characterized, as noted for example by Haya
Friedberg, by creators seeking to impart meaning to the utensil and the impression it
evokes, rather than to its functional design. Judaica objects are thus in flux too; no
longer mere utensils for practical use, they now become objects generating a way of
life and its symbols of identity.
This trend naturally distanced and differentiated its products from the Jewish
aesthetic tradition of the past. Moreover, the move dissipated the pervasive tension
between ritual object and art object. Indeed, many artists now explicitly address the
interface of religio-cultural practices and art, with their work blurring the dividing line
between the disciplines: the accepted distinction between ritual object and artwork
loses its meaning.
In fact, the acknowledged dichotomy of practical object / art object had never
been absolute; contemporary works are often set up as a postmodernist, practical
alternative to the traditional object, or, alternatively, as a new ritual object, suited to
its period and culture.
The "Judaica Twist", then, is less revolution than continuation of existing
practices, for Jewish visual creativity has always engaged in product design – of
ceremonial objects and culture-adapted utensils. Adopting highly-charged icons, and
questioning symbolic and aesthetic taboos and assumptions, can likewise be regarded
as inherent to Jewish visual creativity of the past. In fact, halakhic discussions of
problems raised by an ever-changing reality and its needs have yielded a variety of
halakhic solutions – from the Shabbat clock to the eruv (circumscribing the area in
which carrying is permitted on the Sabbath) to shemitta (fallow year) laws, including
fictive sale of the land to a gentile.
Product design is another area engaging the aesthetics and poetics of selfrenewing halakha. Different artists flirt with testing the boundaries of halakhic
rulings; however, a closer examination of their work will often reveal a keen interest
in halakhic concepts and criteria, as well as profound insights into the nature of
Jewish law.
But we should not confuse this trend with what is happening in Israeli art in
general. "Judaica Twist" is a lively, subversive field with some overlap with the way
Jewish themes are generally treated in Israeli art. Yet, despite some similarities,
canonical Jewish art in Israel generally takes a provocative stance and challenges the
very validity of tradition.
613 Candles
In this same spirit, the three artists whose work is displayed in the Zimmun exhibition
were trained as graphic artists or industrial designers, yet are active on the art scene.
For a long time, graphic design was perceived in Israel as having no bearing
whatsoever on fine art; critics often gave artists a slap on the wrist for borrowing
principles from graphics and applying them to their artwork. The works of Dov
Abramson deconstruct this dichotomy: Abramson works in graphic design and is also
an artist. His visual expression is not merely illustrative; it is also directed towards an
utterance that does not pretend to illustrate, explain or reify a topic. His work seeks,
rather, to maintain an independent discussion about essence and experience.
Abramson's work often tests the boundaries between sacred and mundane, especially
in the multi-layered world of halakha. His engagement with the body of Jewish law
touches upon the very essence of Judaism: the centrality of "the yoke of the
commandments" in any discussion of Jewish culture. This kind of artistic activity
integrates critical study with a profound cultural commitment: Judaism is scrutinized
with tools deriving from general postmodernist theory; hence, this art raises acute
general cultural issues too. Abramson's confrontation of art and halakha poses
questions about daily commitment, its limitations and beauty, and about freedom of
choice in the world of Jewish observance. Dilemmas are raised as to the relevance of
halakha and appropriate personal halakhic observance. Abramson frequently employs
the technique of fragmentation, that is: breaking up the whole into its parts, thereby
emphasizing certain segments and enhancing visibility of those pieces which,
although they make up the whole, usually remain transparent.
In his communicative installation "Mitzvah Candle", courtesy of the Jewish Museum
in New York, Abramson presents a visual alternative to the numerical total of the
Biblical commandments. On a table stand 613 memorial candles, each marked with
one commandment. On each candle is a sticker bearing symbols related to the ritual
associated with that particular commandment. The artistic act has transformed the
medium of the written word that served in medieval times to calculate the sum total of
Biblical injunctions, into a visual medium. Reifying the commandments as tangible
objects, i.e. the candles, awakens a desire to touch, arrange and classify the candlecommandments. This mode of presentation also evokes a sense of fragmentation,
since each individual injunction stands on its own. This conflicts with the very aim of
classical halakhists, who collected the individual commandments into a
comprehensive, binding codex.
"Confession", also by Abramson, is a xylophone with 22 keys, each engraved
with one word from the alphabetical list of sins making up the confessional prayer
recited daily in the synagogue, but is better known as one of the high points in the
liturgy for the Day of Atonement, when it is recited to a special tune. The physical
aspect of confession – symbolized by the custom of lightly tapping one's breast with a
fist while reciting the prayer – is replaced in the piece by tapping the xylophone keys,
thereby creating a new tune of joy and repair.
Abramson's works stem from an essentially pluralistic artistic approach, and
draw upon the notion of the death of the creator and the author. By assuming an
ostensibly neutral perspective, the works open an expanse for challenging a subject,
either positively or negatively, depending on the viewer's judgment. Creator, artwork
and viewer's gaze thus all become planes joined together to make a single entity – the
conceptual work itself and its meaning. This tactic is grounded in the insight that
tension between sacred and mundane, religious and secular, obtains not just between
external entities but is an internal, immanent tension, with power to inspire believers
and non-believers alike.
Well-versed yet subversive
It is interesting to observe how the "Judaica Twist" draws contemporary Jewish art
closer to themes and patterns of thought already familiar to us from modern Jewish
literature, cinema and theater. Scholars have pointed out that modern Jewish creativity
– from "Mendele Mokher Seforim" to Sholem Aleichem, Isaac Bashevis Singer to
Woody Allen and the Coen brothers – is often critical and even subversive, frequently
employing comic elements and self-humor. Use of humor can also be found in Jewish
sources from the more distant past: the Babylonian Talmud tells us that the sage
Rabba would begin his lectures in the academy with "words of levity." Kabbalah
scholar Yehuda Liebes has demonstrated the function of humor and comedy in the
Zohar literature as well; the task of the Levites in the Temple was not limited to the
singing of psalms, according to the Zohar: they were also "the king's jester," that is,
they were charged with amusing God, King of the Universe. Even the Binding of
Isaac, that deathly serious episode in the Jewish constitutive myth, has a grain of
humor in it, in the Zohar's reading, according to Liebes's interpretation: "In the
Binding of Isaac, Abraham had to prove that he possessed a sense of humor. Anyone
with a sense of humor would have understood immediately that all would end well.
The tragic, terrible Binding, when awe and trembling reach a climax […[ therefore
becomes in the Zohar a kind of gag, a prank of decidedly macabre humor […]."
The works of Ken Goldman, an industrial designer who is also an artist, also
manifest this approach. His pieces connect various ends not usually perceived as
constituting a harmonious whole. His lighthearted approach trains an amused gaze on
the subjects treated and, at the same time, maintains a running dialogue with the
multilayered world of Jewish tradition. The critical gaze doesn't hold back: it is
inquisitive, subversive and irreverent. In this way, issues of identity, gender, and ritual
are all subjected to renewed scrutiny.
Goldman's Torah mantle imprinted with kisses of red lipstick alludes to the
custom of kissing the Torah scroll in the synagogue, as it is carried from the pulpit,
past the congregants and back again. The comic aspect of the artistic act is clear, but
beyond that, it also recalls to us that in the traditional synagogue, women's yearning
for the Torah scroll remains permanently unsatisfied, since they are permitted only to
peek at it, from behind the partition. The erotic aspect of imprinting lipstick kisses,
while evoking the familiar metaphor of the love-relationship between the Torah and
the Jewish people, refers also to traditional realia in which ceremonial textiles for the
synagogue (ark cover curtains, Torah scroll mantles, etc.) were made by women, often
from the women's own worn-out garments. Goldman thus introduces the latent
eroticism of ceremonial objects into halakhic discourse. This very issue was already
addressed in a responsum by one of the most prominent Ashkenazi halakhic
authorities in the sixteenth century: "A woman's colored garments inflame men's
imagination and provoke carnal thoughts; therefore, they are not appropriate for use in
ceremonial objects."
Adherence and yearning
Photographs showing what looks like a mummy or golem wrapped all around in white
masking tape, and a photograph of a hand similarly wrapped with the same white
tape, reminiscent of phylactery thongs, are typical of Arik Weiss' illustrative gaze.
The tape is imprinted with the biblical phrase (Deut.10:20) "thou shalt adhere to
Him", as it appears in standard Hebrew printed Bible, that is, marked with diacritics
and the symbols indicating the tune for reading the weekly Biblical portion in the
synagogue. Another work by Weiss pursues the same idea: a Torah case, from the
collection of the Museum of Art, Ein Harod, bound all around with masking tape and
bearing the biblical quote "thou shalt adhere to Him."
The roll of tape – a prosaic article in daily life – has been attached to the
sacred text, binding the Torah scroll and creating a metaphor for adherence and
yearning, which can also lead to shrinking away, withdrawal and even strangulation.
Weiss' works are discussed at length in an article by art scholar Gal Ventura
and archaeologist and art historian Roni Amir, in the online journal
History&Theory: The Protocols , published by Bezalel's department of history and
theory. The two scholars compare Weiss' work first to the making of mummies in
ancient Egypt and, later, to Christian art; they go on to situate his work in relation to
feminist theories and their respective iconographies. They noted the underlying
conceptual differences between the ancient practice of mummification and the one
inspiring Weiss' work: "While the Egyptians sanctified compulsive repetition as
protection against annihilation, many contemporary artists try somewhat dizzyingly to
gain their `fifteen minutes of glory` by unceasing innovation." According to them, the
"life-in-death" theme in Weiss' work, despite his attempt to demonstrate the repair
inherent in Jewish religious adherence, in fact undermines the result of adherence
"which binds the believer to the altar, as a sacrifice, by sheer strength of belief, and
seems to kill off the believer instead of giving life."
Zimmun is exhibited alongside the Museum's permanent Judaica collection. Although
the pieces in Zimmun are essentially conceptual, they nevertheless relate directly to
the Jewish visual world preoccupied for many generations, as mentioned, with
product design in the form of ceremonial objects and culture-adapted utensils. These
works enter into dialogue with the aesthetics and poetics of the halakha and the
thought of contemporary Judaism. Alongside their humor and flirting with the
boundaries of the law, the exhibits often reveal a deeply engaged interest in halakhic
concepts and requirements, as well as insights into the essence of Jewish custom,
practice and law. The trend exemplified in the exhibition is often affiliated with neotraditional discourse, and nearly always with post-secular discourse. The result
succeeds in capturing complex hybrids of religion and secularism, without seeking to
replace one by another. The nexus of the exhibition, then, is a world of imagery
subjecting Judaism to critical scrutiny yet with profound attachment to it: “A love
which does not get out of hand”.
"Zimmun", Museum of Art, Ein Harod, 2010-2011, curator: Dvora Liss
Translated from the Hebrew by Sara Friedman