Ysra (2001), Acrylic on canvas over wood (50 X 40 X 2 3/4) by Tobi Kahn
Collection of the artist

In attempting to learn Torah we realize that talmudic methodology examines issues from many different perspectives. We are taught to simultaneously hold a multitude of different ideas in our minds at the same time. We realize that simultaneity of concepts, from major to minor and perhaps back again, is one important way we learn Torah and of life itself. The tension of differences seen in the same text or image becomes a pathway to greater knowledge. This is the context in which to see the paintings of Tobi Kahn.

Tobi Kahn's thirty-four abstract paintings on exhibition at Yeshiva University Museum (there are 36, twice chai, in the catalogue, but there wasn't enough room on the walls for the other two) are dedicated to the conceptual aspects of the first chapter of Genesis. They all have equally abstract titles, frequently without vowels and seemingly derived from some lost Middle Eastern language. As Kahn's work refuses to make a clear distinction between religion, science and philosophy, it invites us to speculate on the meanings and connections that arise out of images persistently on the edge of two different worlds.

The very nature of abstract art demands that an image must be primarily understood as a thing unto itself, not as a reference to something else. Once we allow each image to exist simply on its own it is freed to stimulate our imagination. The conversation between the painting and the viewer begins as the images act as metaphors for a wide range of realities. Microscopic worlds are imagined simultaneously alongside dizzying aerial views of vast landscapes. Tobi Kahn's paintings are a self-conscious attempt to visualize the talmudic methodology of simultaneity applied to the ideas of creation found in Genesis.

Yyn (2001), Acrylic on canvas over wood (40 X 50 X 2 3/4) by Tobi Kahn
Collection of the artist

Yyn (2001) leads us through an elegant meditation on the separation of land from the waters through a slow "birthing" of islands as if seen from above. Simultaneously this image evokes cells being cast off from the lining of an organ, forced to make their way in the body interior. The paint is built up layer after layer, finding just the right tone and contour to create fixed and bounded shapes that will stimulate the viewer's imagination in what Kahn hopes will be a creative understanding. In fact once Kahn completes the paintings, it is the viewer who must "finish" them with their own individual reactions and interpretations. Once the creativity of the artist is done, it is up to the interaction with the viewer to keep the paintings visually alive. That is the appeal and danger of abstract painting.

Tobi Kahn's work has a physical presence that is central to its aesthetic meaning. Each painting is at least two inches thick and the painted image continues around the side edges giving the paintings the added quality of sculpture. Much like sculpture the viewer moves around the painting, viewing the side as it is transformed into another facet of the thick impasto front surface. The forms he creates are always amorphous, organic and animated even as the edge of each form is fixed and bound. These boundaries, frequently delineated by a darkening of the form or an outline, are essential to the tension Kahn insists on in his works.

Dr. Mark Tykocinski, a scientist writing in the catalogue, notes, "A boundary is much more than a neutral interface where object meets background. Boundaries are sites of creation." This notion of borders is central to Kahn's work as it focuses on the boundaries between sculpture and painting, amorphous and fixed forms and finally the very small and the very large. In Genesis creation itself comes into being by the divisions that create boundaries between the upper and the lower waters, land and water, the greater and the lesser luminaries, man and beast, male and female and finally, the permitted and the forbidden.

Almah II (1993), Acrylic on canvas over wood (58 X 72 X 2 1/2) by Tobi Kahn
Private collection

Once we are in Kahn's frame of reference Almah II (1993) begins to reverberate with multiple meanings. The upper form evokes a mother's arms outstretched towards her children even as we become aware that this image is an exact depiction of how a cell splits and multiplies. Life on the cellular level multiplies by dividing, creating boundaries that establish relationships and form ever expanding universes. Kahn sees the multiplicity of life as a central truth we need to recognize. Each person has legitimacy and importance and, just as the Midrash speaks of the twelve tribes, each with their own pathway when God parted the Sea at the Yam Suf, so too each of us has a path to follow that is specifically right for us. This allegorical way of thinking embedded in abstract images is pivotal to understanding Kahn's methodology and the fundamental images of Genesis that he creates.

Yrth (2001), Acrylic on canvas over wood (60 X 48 X 2 3/4) by Tobi Kahn
Collection of the artist.

Tobi Kahn believes that Art has a redemptive quality. But what is the nature of that quality? Yrth (2001) depicts the stark contrast between a circular segmented cellular form and a calm deep purple ground mass. The borders of the round shape veer off the painting's edge to a quiet resolution on each of the thick sides while the ground below continues on and on. The painting assumes an equilibrium between an entity that is coming into being, already divided into two cells and the eternity of the earth below. These radically different notions of change and stability co-exist in Kahn's painting. He has given us a glimpse of how our world can be redeemed. Can we find a richly productive connection between such different concepts in our lives; between very different people, even very different Jews? Once we are able to conceive of such relationships as embodied in this painting, we may be taking the first meaningful step towards the ultimate redemption of the world. Context and boundaries are everything.

Richard McBee
January 7, 2003

Tobi Kahn: Microcosmos
Yeshiva University Museum - Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street, New York, N.Y.; (212) 294 8330
Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday 11am-5pm; Thursday 11am - 8pm $6 adults, $4 children
Until January 26, 2003

Pubished in The Jewish Press