My article on prodigy-painter Freddie Linsky appears in this week’s Forward.
The 2-year-old artist’s mother, Estelle Lovatt, an art critic and part-time teacher, says of her son, “So his work is Jewish because he is. When he starts at Jewish nursery school in January, we will see if his work takes a more religious tone (watch out, Chagall)!”
Ralph Dumain of Reason & Society posts a very impolite response to my article The Atheist and the Crucifix in Relevant Magazine.
Not only does Dumain, whose profile indicates he works in the library or museum world and maintains a website called the Autodidact Project, consistently misspell my name, but he writes, “I received an email from Mr. Wanker out of the blue asking if I wanted to discuss this further. In turn, I asked him: what is there to discuss? Never heard from him again.” This is of course true. I sent interview questions to the folks I contacted who said they’d be glad to take questions. I was swamped, and Dumain’s response did not seem inviting.
Little did I know that he’d later write this about my site:
I found this entire web site sickening, not surprisingly, but I wasn’t about to devote a lot of thought to it. However, certain parallels to this scenario surfaced from time to time and it occurred to me at those times that I will have to return to this theme.
The post is worth reading in full (at very least to expose yourself to arrogant writing that makes plenty of assumptions and mistakes), but I will only quote a few parts here. Dumain writes,
The idea that a person would be interested in specifically religious art in the contemporary world rubs me the wrong way, just the stomach-churning feeling I would get from contemplating the notion of ‘Christian rock’, or Christian music as a pop music form. It’s not that I would not appreciate the religious artistic products of the past, but there is something contrived and dishonest or just plain tacky about this sort of thing in the present.
Dumain can’t be held completely accountable for this nonsense, since it’s such a hackneyed denouncement of religious art at this point, and he is in good company. That being said, I’d pose the question to Dumain: What is it exactly about an artist deciding to include religious themes or content in her or his work that makes it “contrived,” “dishonest” and “tacky”? I posit that there is no difference between opting to include religion and between choosing to make art to begin with. Surely there is something contrived and tacky about choosing to make art. Why not write a book instead or watch TV? Yet, I’ve found it’s generally best to examine the individual works rather than judge the entire medium.
Dumain generously allows for important religious art in the past, but then suggests that a truly creative person (whatever that means)
would not express himself in the same fashion at every point in time and space, but would push the envelope given the tools and information at hand in any given cultural environment. So the question is not who is capable of admiring the artistic products of the past, but what are the needs of the present, and given what we know now, how would we best express ourselves now?”
So according to Dumain, we know in hindsight that certain religious art of the past (say the Sistine Chapel) is still considered today, so it must have been ahead of its time. Yet, somehow Dumain knows the religious art of today is kitschy and so terribly of its time. Sounds like we would have to hold off on passing judgment for a few centuries.
“I could conceivably transmit this message to Mr. Wanker, but there’s nothing in it for me.”
Don’t worry. I found it.
Finkelbaum (Robert Zuckerman) plays his father (as puppet) in front of his wife-puppet Ruchele. Puppets by Ralph Lee. Image courtesy of Jim Baldassare Public Relations.
My review in The Jewish Press of The Puppetmaster of Lodz at ArcLight is online here.
Here’s the lead:
Puppeteers are supposed to be jolly sorts, who associate with Sesame Street, the Muppets and Mister Rogers’s Neighborhood. They have an eternal smile plastered on their faces, as they surround themselves with happy children carrying lollypops and balloons. But the profession also has a darker side. By manipulating helpless puppets, the puppeteer plays God, and risks blurring the boundary between reality and the imagination.
Samuel Finkelbaum, who is a Holocaust survivor in Gilles Segal’s borderline Theater of the Absurd play, “The Puppetmaster of Lodz,” confuses his puppets with real people – primarily his murdered wife. The puppets reflect their master’s growing insanity, and yet they also become important props in his story, which is more terrifying than insane.
My review of Kite Runner, the film, is in this week’s Arab American News, titled “Is ‘Kite Runner’ anti-religious?”
Here’s a selection:
Like the ladder in Jacob’s dream as he flees his own assailant, his brother Esau, which is rooted in the earth but reaches to the heavens, kites are both bounded and free. Even as Amir and Hassan stand in the rubble of Kabul, even as viewers know to anticipate the destruction that would soon hit the once great city, kites soar up to the heavens and dance among the clouds. However tied to the earth they are, they at least provide a vision of hope and transcendence.
From L to R: Zekiria Ebrahimi as “Amir” and Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada as “Hassan” star in Marc Forster’s “The Kite Runner”.
Copyright: Motion Picture Artwork, Photos © 2007 DREAMWORKS LLC and KITE RUNNER HOLDINGS, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Photo by Phil Bray
(Right) “Japanese monks and nuns held a fashion show - with rap music and a catwalk - at a major Tokyo temple Saturday to promote Buddhism.” The “Tokyo Bouz (monk) Collection” of about 40 monks and nuns from eight major Buddhist sects “aimed at winning back believers.” CNN, photo: AP.
Continue reading ‘Asia’s (Unofficial) Tallest Jesus, a Russian Museum of Altar Wines’
Here are some pictures I took at the Baha’i Temple in Chicago a few weeks ago. I was particularly interested in how the Baha’i principle of “the oneness of humankind” (based upon teachings of Baha’u'llah) play out in Baha’i art. Note in the column below how the Jewish star, the cross, the Hindu swastika, and the Muslim crescent all coexist.
The temple (the only one in North America) has nine sides attached to the dome. It was designed by Baha’i architect Jean-Baptiste Louis Bourgeois (1856-1930), not to be confused with Louise Bourgeois.
I wonder how, if at all, the Baha’i faith conceives of idolatry. One might think Judaism and Islam wouldn’t consider the Baha’i idolatrous, since the Baha’i view God as unknowable. Idolatry necessitates a God with a visible, physical form.
Yet, the Baha’i, who find aspects of truth in all religions and recognize a diverse bunch of prophets — including Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster, Christ and Muhammad — must then find truth even in polytheistic religions. Can one remain a monotheist and still find truth in polytheism? It sounds theoretically plausible, but one wonders how that could play out practically.
These are of course simplistic questions that require further study. If this is an area in which you are knowledgeable, please leave comments and/or recommendations of informative texts.
Despite the fact that Kittredge Cherry of Jesus in Love heard from her German publisher, Edition EuQor that “German readers are used to seeing nudity on covers, much more than Americans,” the cover image to her book (above) by Alexander von Agoston is generating controversy.
Cherry admitted, “even I thought the German image was too frankly erotic for a cover at first.” But as the Edition EuQor publisher put it, “Sure, the cover attracts attention. That’s what a cover is for.”
Continue reading ‘Putin Icons, Showcasing Muslim Camel Drivers’
Continue reading ‘Cincinnati Art Museum Cancels Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic Exhibit’
My interview with Rebecca Honig Friedman on evil art is generating quite a discussion on Jewess with one Yisrael Medad, whose blog calls him “a Jew, a Zionist, a Revenant in Yesha and as an inquisitive human being.” Medad and I seem to be going back and forth on whether violent art leads to real-world violence. I will keep tracking the discussion here as long as it lasts…
Continue reading ‘No Country for Old (Jewish) Men, Arranged is a Film “Difficult to Endure”’
Continue reading ‘Graphic Novel Tackles Iraqi Oil, Hitchens on Hanukkah’
My review of Mark Godfrey’s “Abstraction and the Holocaust” appears in this week’s Jewish Press, titled “Is Abstracting The Holocaust The Same as Denying It?”
Here’s a selection:
When Mark Godfrey first stumbled across Peter Eisenman’s Memorial to the Murdered European Jews in Berlin, he did not recognize it. On a walk, he found himself in “a huge space that I have since read is the size of two football pitches,” which was “cordoned off by a wire fence.” The space was “all pretty messy: the grass had not been cut back; there was the odd portacabin here, a small truck there,” yet Godfrey could tell “something was definitely happening: I could see, against the sandy soil, groups of grey concrete rectangular blocks.”
Though he is a lecturer in history and theory of art at University College London, Godfrey can be forgiven for being confused when viewing the site of the Berlin Holocaust monument. It is abstract, after all, resembling the prehistoric structures of Stonehenge, if a mighty wind blew the tops off. But in a time where rogue world leaders are being charged with Holocaust denial, do abstract memorials which confound art scholars help or harm Holocaust memory?
Sister Wendy Beckett stands in front of a favorite, Statuette of the Good Shepherd, from “Picturing the Bible: the Earliest Christian Art” at the Kimbell Art Museum. Photo: Star-Telegram.
Here’s a selection:
Emotion welled up in her in front of a tiny Statuette of St. Paul, her second-favorite work in the show. “Oh, you darling man,” she said softly. “He’s so small and plain with a big nose. But all this is so unimportant. What is filling his heart is so moving.”
I hope the big nose has nothing to do with Paul’s Jewish roots…
My interview with Rebecca Honig Friedman on evil aesthetics and Nazi art is posted on The Jewish Channel’s blog The Docent.
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