Tuesday, December 24, 2013

THE MET GETS IT: THE PAST IS HERE TO STAY!


Congratulations go out to NYC's Metropolitan Museum of Art to l(ink) the past and the present in their first exhibition of contemporary arts from China.

Imagine ... 


From the press announcement:
  1. The first major exhibition of Chinese contemporary art ever mounted by the Metropolitan, Ink Art explores how contemporary works from a non-Western culture may be displayed in an encyclopedic art museum. OK. Confession
  2. Presented in the Museum's permanent galleries for Chinese art, Great stuff from folks who know
  3. the exhibition features artworks that may best be understood As if we need some guidance.
  4. as part of the continuum of China's traditional culture. Oooooh! How exotic is this! Orientale
  5. These works may also be appreciated Since it's likely that most Western folks have no idea why they would want to even care.
  6. from the perspective of global art, Why not simply because it comes from a unique and very powerful culture.
  7. but by examining them through the lens of Chinese Red or otherwise?
  8. historical artistic paradigms, layers of meaning and cultural significance that might otherwise go unnoticed Any more than any other works in the museum?
  9. are revealed. How do you say "AB-RA-KA-DAB-RA! in Chinese?
  10. Ultimately, both points of view contribute to a more enriched understanding of these artists' creative processes. Ah, so ... artists made this art ... Were they perhaps Chinese artists?
It has wonderful pieces in it.  Through April 6, 2014
Check out the website .. http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2013/ink-art

Sunday, December 1, 2013

Deep Dreideling

(originally published on www.opensiddur.org ... 
Every Jewish holy day, even Shabbat and the highest ones, we call forth all the 22 Hebrew Letters to join us in celebration. For those of us who study Kabbalah from within the realm of the Alef-Bet, Ḥanukah is unique in that we are given a magical tool with which to activate these signs and wonders.[1]
The top-like dreidel / sevivon (literally, “spinner” in Yiddish and Hebrew, respectively) typically has four sides or sections, each one bearing a specific, single Letter from the collection: Nun, Gimmel, Hei and Shin. (Note: in contemporary Israel, the Shin has been supplanted by Peh, but here we are looking further back. How long? Hard to know, but more than 60 years for sure.)
We are told as children that this “toy” was used by the Maccabees to disguise their clandestine Torah study, despite the distinct prohibition against any Jewish ritual observance by the Greek oppressors. As we know the Maccabees ultimately rose up against all odds and defeated the Greeks, as their successors have done at other times. In fact, some people are taught that each of the four letters stands for four oppressors of the Jewish people: Nun (Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia); Hei (Haman of Persia); Gimel (Gog of Greece); and Shin (Se’ir who was identified with Esav and hence with Rome).
The Nes Gadol, great miracle, Haya Sham that happened there (or Haya Poh, “here” if we are in the Land of Israel) continues to happen for Jews who keep that dreidel spinning! There really are no spectators when it comes to dreidel.
Most people today are caught up in the mundane notion of dreidel as a seemingly benign amusement using the “rules” “put – and – take”, and even tying it to the tradition of giving Ḥanukah “gelt”, or coins (chocolate or otherwise). While children are the beneficiaries of intentionally simplified stories, trying to make adult sense of this one can lead one through a maze of minhagim (traditions) to a dead end, such as extreme "Major League Dredel" competitions — with Vegas-style stakes.

From a kabbalist viewpoint, however, one can think above and beyond the box of Sunday school sound-bites by asking the right questions — Why these four letters? Why put them on a top? We can find clues hidden in the Letters to know why and how the Maccabees were able to rededicate the Temple just by “playing” with a “toy”. May we have such capacity in our own time!
Whether made out of the Grecian clay soil or, most recently, molded Chinese plastic, spinning a dreidel with the left hand, the right understanding, clear kavanah (intention) and the appropriate blessing can be a transformative act; the dreidel becomes a magical tool. A dreidel enables us to take these four otiyot and niflaot, signs and wonders, in hand to create a stream of presence of the miraculous in our midst and reunite the four worlds.
We begin with Nun, signifying a place of internal rest. We retreat to a quiet, inner place where outer distractions cannot penetrate. By returning to “neutral” we make ourselves “empty” and ready to receive the wisdom and strength necessary to face the greater challenges. We are able to reclaim and renew ourselves for the work ahead. (Atzilut)
Gimmel, the third letter of the Alef-Bet, has the numerical number of 3, which is also the total value of the Letters that spell sheffa, the promise of abundance. Once we reach repose, we realize how much greater is our internal capacity to fully receive that abundance from the Great Source above. We have the strength to literally turn our ideas and dreams into reality here and now. (Briah)
The dreidel doesn’t spin itself. Each of us, in turn, must take hold of the dreidel at its axle handle, put its tip on the earth and spin it by adding our life force. With Hei guiding our hand we become that connectivity between above and below at a very specific point in time and space. (Yetzirah)
Everyone’s attention is fixed as the dreidel begins to spin. The growing excitement indicates that sheffa is whirling out from the center toward all who are captivated. The letters are now in full motion and returning to a single, blurry, formless pure essence. The Shin heralds the presence of the Shekhinah, the feminine aspect of God, who will spread her protection (shomer) over us to help dispel the negativity that always hovers nearby anything hopeful. (Assiah)
May I achieve self-realization in the present moment, and
Fully receive the Shekhinah’s abundant protection.
Blessed are You,
Ruler of Time and Space,
Who directs us to spin the dreidel.
Amen.

Thursday, November 21, 2013

The Answer is Blowin' on the Art: Calder @ LACMA






 I have been blowing on art  since X first encountered an Alexander Calder mobile at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Given the height and weight of the installation, it was unlikely that   I  would make any waves, but X wanted to have some way to interact with the art, especially given the hands-off rules of proper museum visitorship. It needed to move if it was to move me. For some reason, blowing on a van Gogh or other heavily textured work remains a reasonable encounter style to this day.

                                         The Calder retrospective “monographic” exhibition opening at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, “Calder and Abstraction: From Avant-Garde to Iconic”, gives one many reasons to blow, wink, wave and do all sorts of other seemingly harmless gestures toward his mobiles and stabiles, but the Frank O. Gehry installation keeps us at a reasonable distance along the periphery of some provocatively curved walls and barriers. The exhibition design, in fact, demonstrates Gehry’s infinite technical capacity to trump (almost) anything he is asked to wrap. L’arc de triumphe!



We think we “know” Calder because his work was the rage when most of the larger western contemporary art institutions were consolidating their collections. He seemed to animate beloved works of his contemporaries, Joan Miro, Marcel Duchamp, and Wassily Kandinsky to name just three. Given the materials, Calder is durable to say the least, and he seems to have an easy to grasp (no touching!!!) stylistic vocabulary: mostly black or white or primary colored discs, including modernist "kidney shaped "petals", dangling from black wires that have an uncanny resemblance to clothes hangers that propagate unchecked in one’s closet. 


Wondering whether his work has “held up over time, is not a useful question when viewing Calder in the 21st Century. It serves more as a benchmark for how the viewer has changed since first encountering his work. We think we see his work everywhere, but in fact, it is his influence that has become ubiquitous.

There are many classic balancing acts in this exhibition supported by the Calder Foundation, on whose website there is a warning not to be fooled by what may look "like” a Calder. Thus, the exhibition’s historical perspective is helpful in examining the maestro's process, one that is decidedly influenced by his education in physics-based engineering. (I am also reminded of Hayao Miyazaki's latest and last film, The Wind Rises,  where science is reflected in the creation of something destined to live in the air that is also beautiful for beauty's sake.) 

The earliest Calder pieces on display present the opposite of what we think of as trompe d’oeil.

Several of the pieces incorporate a “frame”: either a   field in the background or just a perimeter surrounding space. In this town of various cinematic trompes d’scopes and IMAX screens, it is relaxing to watch Calder’s pieces “simply” float in front of a basically flat background. Gehry comments that the museum didn’t have a proper space in which to install the work. This inspired him to create unique curvaceous panels to divide the broad, open rectangular footprint of the Resnick Pavilion, but the arcs seem rather large wide sweeps. Nonetheless, there are shadows on surfaces that do allow the pieces to dance in and with the light.


Each of the 50 pieces in the exhibition has something unique to say. Schools of aimless fish and flocks of maniacal birds define the “empty” sky and water environments that we, land-based animals, can only enter with aid. There is a multi-colored humanoid skeletal piece that tries to leave the earth. A few pieces, such as Yucca (1941), cast shadows that would be fitting in any xeroscape garden in LA’s now history-making arid climate.








Calder has admirers throughout the world, including Japan. Un effet du japonais (1941) does not particularly reflect any more japonais – ness than others. The freestanding work with hints of mobile-ism resembles two "conjoined" giraffes whose necks actually do meet in mid-air!  The piece predates his first exhibition in Japan by more than three decades. According to the Foundation, the Pennsylvania USA native had no previous direct encounter with Japan prior to that.

Photo by author



What attracted my eastern sensibility much more is Escutcheon (1954), a relatively small stabile that might be a Sogetsu ikebana arrangement. It is hung close to the ceiling near two cast bronze table top pieces that resembled natural branches that might have caught the eye on a walk in the woods. One resembles a snake and the other, to me, harkens to Picasso's She Goat.

Calder also worked in natural materials, including wood. Gibraltar (1936, MOMA NYC), constructed out of Lignum vitae, walnut, steel rods and painted wood, is in the genre of his galaxies. (LACMA’s grand exhibition of the work of James Turrell is still on display, enabling one to enjoy more-naked eye celestial observations.) 

The "milky way-like field that rings an island mountain is evocative of an image of Calder in his studio wearing a light visor at a rakish angle. Further, one of the elements, a piece of wood held aloft by a vertical rod, reminds me of a sotdae, Korean wooden spirit post topped by a simply rendered bird that is placed singly or in multiples at the entrance gate to a village to promote good harvest and luck.



















I would never have had these insights when I blew on my first Calder. If his are the only "floaters" I see as I age, then I'll be very contentToday we have the capacity to do 3D printing, but if Calder had put a stylus on each of his discs and turned on the wind, we would have almost holographic creations. 

The answer may be Blowin' in the in the Wind, and Calder may be setting up the questions. It is not impossible to think that Calder's work takes me on a trip within the space inside my mind. I trust that he will continue to inform me about how “far” I’ve come.



For more information about Alexander Calder, I am happy to direct your attention to the wonderful resource Artsy



Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Encounters With Jewish Musical Traditions: Jewish Radio Programs

When I was growing up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, the "Bagels and Lox" and "Kippers 'n' Capers" were two Jewish music radio programs on Sunday mornings available on the fledgling fm channels. (It could have been "am" radio, but I think not.) 

Each offered a smorgasbord of music ranging from recordings of liturgical (Hebrew) and secular songs (Yiddish and Engilsh) of the great cantorial voices such as Yossele RosenblattMoishe OysherJan Peerce to Israel Music Festival winners, the latest pop sensations, such as Alan Sherman, and even a bit of shtick from the likes of "Mollie Goldberg" (aka Gertrude Berg who also had her own radio program, "The Goldbergs"), Belle Barth and Fanny Brice. The usual announcements of local events and a bit of banter between the music filled a half hour easily. Ads were from local restaurants and delis, haberdasheries promoting bar mitzvah wear (Krass Brother Men's Store on South Street was a favorite.), Jewish book and gift shop, etc.


There is nothing to be found online at this writing about this genre of radio. (You try going through the thousands of references to "bagels and lox" online!) It's a real shame.  I will continue to seek out more information in a strategic way, but here's a great sample of the types of music I heard from the Idelsohn Society.