I am back in the US “but everything has changed.”
At Saint Petersburg’s Museum of Fine Arts:
As a volunteer docent, I share and discuss the art found in our encyclopedic museum with our amazing visitors. I guide everyone from Pinellas County sixth grade groups on a mandatory visit to adult visitors who come from around the world. I relish our many conversations and I always learn something from our guests in the process. Yesterday a group from nearby Sarasota had requested a special tour. They were a select group who are either docents in their local museum or have “art history backgrounds.” A savvy and culturally astute audience.
We entered the galleries and we came face to face with a painting that I struggle with every time I see it. It’s called “Leviathan Zodiac,” from the series ‘World Stage, Israel’. Right now it is located in our 17th-18th century European gallery as our museum attempts to “disrupt chronology.” Personally I think it is a feeble attempt to try to make art more relevant. (OK I’m not an art critic but I’m allowed to look at things critically). Anyway, the painting is on a grand scale and even when it’s not placed here it takes an oversized piece of real estate on the museum walls.
It depicts a tall black man wearing contemporary street clothes in a posture of a Roman emperor. Incongruously, the muscular, semi-clad figure that many visitors interpret as a basketball player is shown emerging from a backdrop of a traditional delicate Jewish paper cut. All this is framed with elaborate carvings of Jewish religious symbols, including the hand gesture of the blessing of the “kohanim” - the “priestly blessing” that was performed in the Temple in ancient times, and which traditionally, Jews are forbidden to look upon when it is offered during special prayers.
Detail atop “Leviathan Zodiac”
When I saw it the first time my reaction was WTF!! What is this artist saying!!! What gives him the right to grab our most sacred symbolism to grace his artistic statement?!
I’d be interested to hear your response….
But a fine arts museum requires decorum (at least on the part of a volunteer docent) so I try to talk to visitors about the artist, Kehinde Wiley, who incidentally became famous by painting “The Obama Portrait,” the official portrait of the former president. Usually my visitors don’t have much to say about the painting but I was surprised yesterday when several of the visitors spoke up. First, some were dismissive of our museum’s honored placement of the painting. Then I heard a wave of comments of how every museum “ has to have one of these, these days.” When one guest pointed out the carving of the Ten Commandments on the top of the wood frame I could not be neutral any longer. I took a risk and I spoke up.
First I announced, “I am speaking for myself now, not for the MFA, and I will share my feelings about this piece.”
“Look,” I continued, “I just returned from two weeks in Israel and I cannot pretend that I am okay with this piece.” Several women nodded in agreement.
Then one of my guests mentioned, “it used to be different years ago.” If I’m interpreting her statement correctly, she was highlighting the permissive attitude among Jews and non-Jews, that our heritage was culturally up for grabs, something like a “Jewish joke” or a “Jewish mother” or a “Jewish American Princess” or say, “Jewish guilt.” And all of this more acceptable, even praiseworthy, if appropriated by a up-and-coming minority artist. (The Tablet article I refer to below worshipfully labelled Wiley as a “young artist-provocateur “). After all, this painting and the series were, in 2012, on exhibit at the Jewish Museum in New York, where they garnered favorable reviews! A few months ago I looked up one of these reviews in Tablet Magazine. Today I discovered the article, “Wiley’s People,” is no longer available…I wonder why?!?!?!
Such was our very liberal culture. We Jews went along with these types of things. We encouraged them. We helped depict them and grow them. We promoted the artists who promulgated them. The list of artists, authors, playwrights, filmmakers and others who have insulted, appropriated, and attacked Jews in the guise of “high culture״ is astonishing. Personally I think we contributed to October 7 and its dastardly aftermath by not taking a stand against these insults. Instead we enshrined them in high art. But not now. We can never see things the same way since Oct 7th.
My group of museum visitors was by no means an exclusively Jewish group but afterwards some confided that they are Jewish. We talked about cultural appropriation, of which this work is a prime example. We talked about no longer being reticent about defending Israel. We talked about how the world changed on Oct 7th and that we each now knows it is imperative to break through the misinformation, the lies, and the malicious or not-so-malicious (should we say “good-natured?” There’s a road to hell for you!) stereotypes about Israel and Jewish people.
What was profound and uplifting for me was hearing many people join this not-very-woke discussion without fear.
Well maybe I was waking up from days of jet lag fog. Maybe it is because it is already February and Hamas continues to refuse to release the hostages. Maybe it is the burden of months and months dragging on. Every day is a painful reminder of ongoing trauma. Inflicting ongoing endless trauma is the goal of terrorism. Evil acts can be cruel, malicious, barbaric, but terror is the combination of evil acts and the threat of more. Terror can only be terror if it scares people into silence. And silence is complicity with evil.
Being in Israel has made me bolder. I wear my dog tag that says “ Bring Them Home” proudly whenever I am in public. Yesterday one of our museum guests confided that she always wears a “support the IDF” bracelet up her sleeve. Another confided that her granddaughter, a high school student has been targeted by antisemitic fellow students and that this is terrorizing their family.
The painting still hangs in the MFA, “enshrined among high art,” as it were. But after yesterday I will no longer to be shy to speak the truth of my opinions and experience. By not being silent and speaking up I continue to fight Hamas and all enemies of Israel.
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