Circus
of the Mind
Paul Graubard’s Circus Paintings
Imagination
and creativity are hidden in that mysterious
corner of our personalities, the Jewish neshama.
Each and every one of us can uncover that
creativity. Once found it can be nurtured
and will blossom. Where it takes us is probably
as much up to the Ribbono shel Olam as to
us. It is clear that it can happen at any
time in our lives. One can see this process
in the paintings of Paul Graubard.
Paul
Graubard lived on the Lower East Side for
almost twenty years teaching special education
and psychology at Yeshiva University, Cardozo
School of Law and the Ferkauf Graduate School
of Psychology. He was surrounded by Jews.
Then he moved to Lenox, in Western Massachusetts
in the heart of the Berkshires and began a
private practice in clinical psychology. In
a small town, surrounded by natural beauty,
he plumbed the landscapes of minds, Jew and
non-Jew alike. For almost twenty-five years
he was immersed in gemilas hasadim. Then,
on a whim, while traveling in London, he took
a drawing class and was intrigued. He started
to make paintings four years ago.
For
some unknown reason a circus, in fact a Hasidic
Circus has emerged. Out of nowhere, from the
depths of a Jewish imagination, an intriguing
and amazing world has sprung to life and come
to town.
First
we see the Klezmorim, a motley band of five
musicians leading the way into the big top
of the Hasidic Circus. Their spindly legs
march in unison with the angled outlines of
their arms creating a visual notation of the
music. A flute, a horn, a clarinet become
apparent as they shimmy and sway marching
right to left, Jewish style. One wonders,
does the experience Graubard had as an amateur
klezmer musician up in the Berkshires influence
these works? He used to play the guitar and
sing with a klezmer group and yet Graubard
looks nothing like these strange fellows.
It seems imagination has taken over.
Next
we encounter yet another denizen of his world,
the Circus Giant. This lanky fellow is garbed
in a traditional clown outfit divided into
black and white legs and arms. And yet it
is still so very Jewish that his tzitzis alternate
black and white too. He presents himself with
a bold “Here I am at your service!” ready
to perform amazing skills of strength and
daring with his peyos flying this way and
that. Suddenly you notice that this figure
is a cutout pasted on a painted landscape.
Tzitsis and peyos of household string are
glued on too. What then is this pasted on
Yid doing here? Is the artist echoing the
foreign, pasted on quality of some Jewish
existence?
Now
we have entered the Big Top, mamash. In a
series of five or six different paintings
Graubard explores the complexity of a madly
imagined set of circus performances. We see
a set of five Hasids Dancing in a row, clad
in black turtlenecks, striped jogging pants
and white athletic socks. One arm back on
the hip, the other angled forward in a kind
of Egyptian zigzag, they strut across a multicolored
stage in the most amazing formation. Again
the peyos, tzitzis and black beards and yarmulkes
fix the Hasidic identification, but everything
else contradicts all known knowledge. We have
never seen any line dance like this except
in a bizarre vaudeville dream.
The
Circus Parade is replete with multicolored
zebras, blue dotted giraffes, a complete marching
band, carts featuring acrobats and talented
animal performers, all on a green ground under
the levitating big top. Music is the subject
of Conducting where seven musicians are led
by a conductor perched atop a fixed trapeze.
The fantastic colored birds of the sky hover
listening to soulful tunes as the conductor
directs his band with one hand connected to
heaven itself. There is a painting of three
cutout Contortionists on a special russet
colored platform twisted in odd shapes, watched
by a lackluster audience in a green field.
Finally there are the zebras being exercised.
Around the ring they go, multicolored and
strange, kept in place by the Hasidic ringmaster
with his long whip in hand.
Once
firmly inside the circus environment the Biker
makes his appearance. This is a series of
paintings and drawings that repeat over and
over again a haunting motif. A schematic Hasid
all in black on a diagrammatic bicycle is
racing somewhere. He is always carrying a
package on the back of the bike surmounted
by a bird. A green bird or a yellow bird,
big or small, the bird is there. The Biker
is the image of the man in a hurry, bent over
in his effort to get somewhere fast. The bird
is along for the ride, an ever-present folk
symbol of the spiritual in our midst. Is the
Hasid at the beck and call of the little bird,
racing around and around a circus track for
the entertainment of the audience? Does this
Hasid become our spiritual performer?
The
Ringmaster steps up to the center and announces;
“Ladies and Gentlemen, Children of all ages;
We have a spectacular bargain for you today!
Today and today only we are offering the famous
fantastic Two for One.” In this series of
paintings Graubard has created a special environment
of two paintings within one. The base painting
is actually a shadow box a few inches deep
painted black. On the inside surface is an
image that is covered by an oval canvas that
is hung over it. Thus the viewer gets two
images. First we see in Yellow Tallis Two
for One the oval canvas of six dancing Hasids.
They wave their hands joyfully in the air
like a bunch of religious cheerleaders. The
shadows they cast reveal the fact that these
cutout figures are suspended on tiny springs
that allow them to move in an easy and gentle
way whenever the canvas is moved. The slash
of black in the middle visually connects us
with the painting of the klezmer musician
lurking beneath. This bunch is truly marching
to a different drummer as we discover the
musician all clad in white with a real piece
of a tallis atarah and tzitzis attached beneath
the oval. His black face and red lips give
him the demonic demeanor of a soulful jazzman.
Finally,
Graubard thinks we should have a serious diversion.
Zebra Prayers takes us to a new level of circus
high jinx. One Hasid on the right is feeding
this odd shaped zebra some food (could it
be pizza?) while his two compatriots stand
davening in a striped tallis. In the background
one can make out another zebra leaping over
hill and dale. Aside from the obviously fantastic
nature of the image, what strikes me is the
visual pun between the zebra stripes and the
stripes on the tallis we all wear. We don
the tallis gadol when we draw close to God
and attempt to speak with Him. Is this the
natural state of the lowly zebra? Or do we
just look alike, this zebra and us Jews, in
that we both stand out in nature. God made
us both the way we are.
The
ways of the imagination are many, mysterious
and varied. One thing that seems certain,
though, is that Graubard, in his late sixties,
has unleashed a formidable imagination upon
the Jewish world. While he considers himself
an untaught folk artist, his work is not unsophisticated.
The careful considerations of color, shape
and form in conjunction with a distilled collection
of images give his work considerable power
and appeal. He has told me that his attraction
to images of Hasidim is based on his desire
to sing and dance everyday. That in and of
itself is an act of courageous imagination
and when he has applied it to the world of
visual expression, it has developed into a
much more complicated and nuanced view of
the world in his very unique Circus of the
Mind.
Richard
McBee
January 22, 2002
Paintings
and Drawings of Paul Graubard On view at www.paulgraubard.com
Published
in The Jewish Press
