Art
A different American beauty
In
modern times art and the everyday needs of society have had a tenuous
relationship. Although art is often seen as an individual’s expressions of a
culture at large, it is also seen as ego-centered and frivolous. The latter is
mostly a reaction to works that seemingly do not connect to a visual status
quo. Artworks that are more difficult and that take more time to understand are
often looked at suspiciously. They enter into the purview of our naturalizing
ideology slowly, and quite often are relegated to the “free zone” of the “art
world.”
What
is interesting about the new exhibition at the MemorialArtGallery is that it brings
together artworks that fit into most everyone’s comfort zones with those that
are more challenging, and situates them in a framework that is social and more
broadly cultural. All the works, representational or not, speak about some very
tangible needs, such as the needs of survival and belonging.
My America: Art from the Jewish Museum Collection,
1900-1955 is a traveling exhibition organized by Karen Levitov, an associate curator at
The Jewish Museum in New York City.
Although technically an art museum, the Jewish Museum is more than that. The
museum sees itself as representing Jewish identity and its evolution through
visual art. This exhibit is about a particular Jewish identity that enters the
American scene from Eastern Europe and settles predominately in New York, Manhattan’s Lower East Side in particular.
The
artworks, which include paintings, sculpture, and photographs, are divided into
five sections. They include “Becoming American,” which deals with picturing the
struggles and pleasures of a new life in a modern city, and “Moving Toward
Abstraction.” This section introduces the viewer to artists who have become
disillusioned by more traditional forms of representation and thus move to a
more inward place, exploring the individual as a source of social change. And
it is the theme of the social that is centrally more explicit in the three other
sections of the exhibition.
“Picturing Ourselves” deals with portraits,
but even more with people in “meaningful places,” while “Striving for Social
Justice” addresses the place of art as a tool for social change. The remaining
section, “Reacting to Tragedy,” places the viewer in relation to the almost
unrepresentable atrocities of WWII and the crimes perpetrated against the
Jewish people and humanity by the Nazis. It is in this context, that of the
social, that the use of abstraction allows for the refocusing of the otherwise
“art for art’s sake” in light of culture and society.
The
Abstractionist’s point-of-view is represented by Adolph Gottlieb, Robert
Motherwell (the only non-Jewish artist who was commissioned to do a mural for a
prominent New York City
synagogue), and Ben Zion, among others. This work in the hands of museums like
the Museum of Modern
Art in New York
becomes about aesthetics, form, and the individual. But here it retains its
imbeddedness in the everyday need for survival and belonging.
When
Barnett Newman, who is, surprisingly, not represented in this exhibition, was
asked by the critic Harold Rosenberg to explain what one of his paintings could
possibly mean to the world, Newman responded by saying “that if [Rosenberg] and
others could read [the painting] properly, it would mean the end of all state
capitalism and totalitarianism.” It is a remark that aggressively reminds us
about the role of art in society as
well as about culture and democracy.
It is also a remark that reveals how William Gropper’s painting “Two Senators” (1950)
— an image that entertains all the gestures of abstract expressionism but in
a realist manner — becomes a scathing comment on the corruption in
government. (Actually, in some ways, all the works in the exhibition can be seen as socially critical — not
necessarily criticizing but certainly detail-oriented.)
It is
interesting that of the 46 artists represented, at least 10 of them
thought of themselves as social realist painters. These painters were
explicitly concerned with the injustices within society and made specific
choices in their artistic careers to have their work point to these events. For
example, Phillip Evergood’s “The Hundredth Psalm” (circa 1938)
is a lynching scene of klansmen dancing and fiddling around the corpse of a
hanged black man. It is Evergood’s indictment of religion — specifically, the
hypocrisy of religion — such that, somehow, the invocation of God is really
just an excuse to commit a heinous act.
The work of the Soyer brothers, twins Moses and Raphael, at
times focused on the familial or introspective, as in Raphael’s “Dancing Lesson” (1926) or Moses’ “The
Lover of Books” (1934). However, the thrust of
their work in the 1930s focused on the hard life of the working-class. Another
artist, Peter Blume, whose “Pig’s Feet and Vinegar” (1927) is a beautiful, jewel-like painting, juxtaposes feelings
of social and cultural alienation. Unlike the understandable disenfranchisement
of modern urbanity, here in the quiet quaintness of small-town America (waspy New England?)
there is a strong feeling of outsiderness. Pigs’ feet on a table dominate an
interior space in the immediate left foreground while a woman passing by
outside seems close but, because of her diminished size, looks as if she were
far, far away. It is a classic ploy to create visual tension, and it works. And
then there’s Ben Shahn and Arthur Fellig and Lottie Jacobi and Theresa
Bernstein and…the list is impressive.
This is definitely one of the best shows at the MemorialArtGallery
in a long time. There is something here that touches upon the real for all of
us, Jewish or not. Something to think about and remember; to laugh, albeit
nervously, or to cry; and to ultimately, to live. L’Chaim.
My
America: Art from the Jewish Museum Collection, 1900-1955 | through December 24 | Memorial Art Gallery | 500 University
Avenue | Tuesday-Friday noon-5 p.m. (Thursday until 9 p.m.), Saturday-Sunday 10
a.m.-5 p.m. | Admission is $7; college students and senior citizens, $5;
children 6-18, $2; reduced admission Thursday 5-9 p.m., $2. | 473-7720,
mag.rochester.edu.
This article appears in Nov 8-14, 2006.
