Archie Rand’s 613 and the Cartoon Egg

June 6th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker

A couple of weeks ago, reader Leora wrote in response to my post on Archie Rand’s new series of 613 canvases:

A cartoon egg with arms and legs is perched upon a stool and shouting into a woman’s ear to depict the Jewish commandment “Observe the laws of menstrual impurity.” (I took this off Vos Iz Neias) I want someone to explain this one to me.

I think I need a commentary to understand this art.

The article Leora cites can be found here. I am not sure I am going to provide an entirely satisfactory response to Leora’s question, but I think it is a very important one.

I found that some of the folks at the showing of Rand’s 613 really enjoyed comparing the works with the corresponding commandments (Rand provided packets with the commandments listed by number, and each painting had its number in Hebrew and in Arabic numerals).

I, however, found myself less interested in what each specific piece signified than in the entire project as a whole. In a world with a ton of free time, it would be fascinating to hear Rand explain every decision he made and where every motif came from. That being said, art is rarely that simple, and many artists create work with a healthy mixture of conscious and unconscious decisions. Rand, then, might not even be able to explain each aesthetic move even if he wanted to.

So, a cartoon egg shouting in a woman’s ear does not bother even the literalist in me, but I can understand why Leora’s question is important.

What I would say is that Rand’s painting might give the egg a say in religious doctrine, where that decision is typically played out the opposite way in the real world. There is no reason to assume the piece is commenting on abortion, but nonetheless this egg seems to be in the dominant position–dictating terms rather than proving the passive victim of the woman’s decisions. This is surely a different perspective on Jewish views of the body (particularly the female body) and on menstruation. What, if anything, Rand’s piece wonders, will we hear in our ears if our bodies are given a voice? The egg is certainly a cartoon egg, and thus playful to a degree, but oftentimes cartoons (like Shakespeare’s fools) can speak the truth the loudest.

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