That’s
The Law
Paintings by Richard Kenigsman
I
can’t help myself. Go ahead and walk in and laugh.
Stop yourself because what you are laughing at
is irreverent and outrageous. This can’t be right.
Laugh at a poster with a big brash kid bursting
though a paper circle labeled; “Kid’s Factory.”
And plastered on the image is the injunction;
“p’ru ve r’vu. (Be fruitful and multiply) ” Isn’t
this vulgar?
Or
what about the Groucho-like head chomping on a
cigar that looks like a miniature Torah scroll
beneath the legend; “Just Don’t Do It.” A Marx
Brothers rebbe? A big smile creeps across my face
as the shock of recognition and scandal meet in
my mind. I chuckle and shake my head as I realize
I am being confronted with a rare combination
in Jewish art. Humor, belief and insight rolled
up in a banal poster image that aims to set the
Jewish world on its collective ear.
You
will find over twenty such “posters” in the exhibition,
“That’s The Law” at The Gallery in the lobby of
the Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University
at 55 Fifth Avenue by the Belgium artist Richard
Kenigsman. What the artist has done is to take
the images and motifs of popular advertisements
and Yiddish Theater posters and recreate them
within his own conception of Yiddishkeit and modern
Jewish life. What emerges initially is a kind
of vulgar populist vision of the religious Jewish
world.
You
have entered a world where your most sacred beliefs
and religious notions are being hawked as cheap
advertisements. Don’t get me wrong. They are not
anti-religious, rather his art treats Yiddishkeit
as a commodity in the mundane world that needs
publicity, and examining and rethinking just like
any other commodity in the world of ideas. What
a notion!
Kenigsman’s
work here consists of four basic categories. Sports
images like a Hasid basketball player slam-dunking
a Torah in the basket; a frum baseball player
at bat ready to swing his Torah and fully outfitted
rugby players charging down the field with, yes
again, the Torah. In each of these the Torah is
the prize and the means to win the game. How crass.
Popular
images include the memorable “Jazz Singer” of
Al Jolson. His faceless figure down on one knee
casts an incongruous shadow of a Hasid reminding
us of Jolson’s use of blackface in a double irony.
The faux sheet music cover of “A Boychik Up To
Date” presents us with a direct transliteration
into Yiddish of the title. Alongside is an absurd
image of an old fashioned dandy, complete with
checkered waistcoat and gold watch, capped with
an outlandish yellow Jew’s hat of the Middle Ages.
These posters play with pop images while calling
into question Jewish success and assimilation
in modern culture. In each one we are puzzled,
then humored until we finally get the visual puns
and conceptual double-entendres.
Transformed
commercial images are especially striking with
the “Read Tora Tora” as a pious take off of the
Coke ad that advertises its product as “Tam ha
hayim (Taste of Life).” The classic script of
Coca Cola lettering is subverted into Tora Tora
with a clean shaven yeshiva bachur pointing at
a double bottle of his favorite beverage.
Finally
Kenigsman uses general pop images as a means of
social commentary. “Gevvalt” is lightly scrawled
across the blue sky background as we see a Hasid
clad in streimel and beckersher commanding a chariot
drawn by three golden ferocious lions. Here Hasidus
is shown triumphant as a kind of Ben Hur led by
the lions of Judah symbolic of the Jewish people
themselves. Is that how we see ourselves or perhaps
how we act, asks the artist. The startling “Yid
in the Box” jumps out at us. The image of a pop-up
clown with red beard and peyos, slightly off center
and akilter is unnerving. It is in such bad taste;
the notion that Jews keep popping up, absurd and
yet persistent. Who is this image meant for; us
or the rest of the world?
Kenigsman’s
posters evoke a serious consideration of each
underlying subject, after we have had a good laugh,
because of two devices he uses. Each painting
has the worn and folded feeling of an old poster
that has been saved from the junk heap. This gives
them a kind of historical distance that helps
us suspend disbelief in the strangeness of what
we are seeing. Then there is the overwhelming
feeling of the absurd. The brash and disrespectful
images he uses pushes them over the edge of tasteful
art. And since they are not really commercial
posters or ads, they enter into the realm of the
absurd and therefore we must see and think beyond
the flat poster surface. And that makes us think
twice about what we are encountering.
Kenigsman
says; “There is no message. I just want to invite
people to share my joy.” He is successful because
he uses broad humor, bad taste, pop and commercial
culture as his potent tools to examine and contemplate
our Yiddishkeit and modern Jewish world. Each
notion he makes into a poster is one we hold dear
and think we are so sure about. He makes us laugh
and then gets us to look a little closer. Perhaps
that’s why I can’t help myself. Go take a closer
look.
Richard
McBee
May 14, 2001
That’s
The Law; Paintings by Richard Kenigsman
Organized by Yeshiva University Museum
The Cardozo School of Law Gallery,
Yeshiva
University 55 Fifth Avenue, New York (212) 294
8330
Sunday -Thursday; 9am- 8pm ; Friday; 9 - 4pm
Until June 3, 2001
Published in The Jewish Press
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Jazz
Singer Acrylic painting by Richard Kenigsman
A Boytchik Up To Date Acrylic painting
by Richard Kenigsman
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