Last update - 00:00 09/11/2006
Eulogizing beauty
By Yuval Saar
"Arba'im yetsirot mofet shel yofi vekdusha" ("Beauty and Sanctity, The Israel Museum at 40 - 2005"), curator and editor: Yigal Zalmona, Israel Museum, NIS 140
The "Beauty and Sanctity" exhibition was the Israel Museum's flagship show, launched on the occasion of its 40th anniversary last year. I remember the moment I walked into the exhibit, where the most important works in the museum's collection were displayed. Arranged in the dimly lit main hall were 10 masterpieces, ranging from Itzhak Danizger's sculpture "Nimrod," to a figurine of Venus unearthed in an archaeological dig at Beit Shean. The atmosphere was festive, even moving.
Anselm Kiefer's sculpture "Angel of History: Poppy and Memory," a warplane made of lead, was exhibited in the next hall. Hanging on the wall nearby was Paul Klee's drawing "Angelus Novus" (the inspiration for Walter Benjamin's conceptual theories of history). In the background the sounds of a Memorial Day siren could be heard, as part of Yael Bartana's video installation "Trembling Time."
I remember the sharp transition to the "Vanishing Point: Hidden Beauty in Contemporary Art" exhibit, with its minimalist, abstract works displayed in large white rooms. I also remember how much I enjoyed "Beauty and the Book" in the Youth Wing, where museum goers, adults and children alike, were invited to marvel at the aesthetics of books.
"Beauty and Sanctity" was accompanied by a modest 24-page catalog, the size of an ordinary book, printed in black and gold. It consisted of three pages of text by Yigal Zalmona, the chief curator of the museum and the curator of this exhibit, along with photographs of 15 out of the 70 works mounted as part of the show. Now, a year after it has closed, the museum has published a full catalog that includes not only this exhibit, which remains vivid in my mind, but others that took place in the past year, on landscape as a spiritual experience, on beauty as an ideal, on the cultures of Africa and the Americas, and more. This is a compendium of all the smaller catalogs put out for each exhibit.
Designed by Koby Franco and Gila Kaplan, the new catalog is simple and elegant. The delicate illustration at the head of each chapter, the choice of font, the gold cover - all project a sense of quiet grandeur. The use of gold fits in with the theme of the exhibit.
"Ever since the dawn of human culture, gold has been identified with the sacred," writes Zalmona. "There is something extraordinary about gold: its rarity, its color, its sheen. Gold never rusts or tarnishes. It is therefore viewed as eternal, as a symbol of an abstract essence and a natural conductor of sanctity. Accordingly, gold is most appropriate for the representation of immortal gods untouched by merely human time ..."
Muted reminder
Nili Goren, curator of Hila Lulu Lin's "Mole" exhibit, which opened last year at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, wrote in its catalog: "Visiting the show is above all a sensory experience. It combines elements of texture, touch, taste, smell, sound and shape: It is an encounter with found objects, forking paths, imaginary creatures. At the same time, it demands active participation. Visitors move - physically (a guided walk through a marked space) and mentally (weighing the options, choosing, reaching a decision), while processing information (understanding, interpreting, remembering, grasping implications) and going through a range of emotions (solidarity, melancholy, protest, anger, insult, regret)."
"Beauty and Sanctity" does not reconstruct such experiences. Many of the works on show are not reproduced in the catalog, and there is no indication of how they were displayed in the hall. Neither is there any attempt to draw a connection between the various exhibits. The catalog serves as a muted, even emotionally aloof reminder of the richness of the shows. In the move to catalog format, the visiting experience is flattened and reduced. It becomes a monument.
The design choice reflects the way beauty and sanctity are perceived, and adds another dimension to the remembrance of the exhibit. A catalog that accompanies an exhibit or sums it up ultimately eulogizes the artworks on show. It enhances the memory of the physical visit. Sometimes, it even replaces it. The purpose of the catalog is to imprint a single image (or narrative) of the artistic experience in the mind, analyze it and bury it in a home library of art. Catalogs are the enemy of artistic experience. Many curators use the catalog as a conservation tool, or for stamping their interpretation on the exhibit. The catalog becomes a tombstone for an exhibit that was, and is no more.
But the Israel Museum's slim catalog is not a partner in this act of encapsulation. The catalog is liable to disappoint some people because it pales alongside the real exhibit. And yet there is something decent and honest about the way it does not resurrect the excitement but outlines and delineates it, rather than trying to be a substitute for it.
Perhaps it is no accident that this spare commemorative catalog is about an exhibit entitled "Beauty and Sanctity." The experience of beauty rises above vested interests and intentions. By definition, it is an apolitical experience. But translating visual beauty into words - and especially explicit, summarizing, fettering words - implies an agenda. The words may offer insight, but they will never be beautiful.
In the title of the catalog, sanctity is paired with beauty, or possibly contrasted with it. Sanctity, unlike beauty, is framed in words - at least in Jewish culture. It is a verbal act and, needless to say, has a human agenda. Beauty and sanctity are not concepts that automatically go together. In the context of the Israel Museum, the foremost guardian of artistic taste in Israel, one is forced to choose between them.
The "Beauty and Sanctity" catalog grapples with this issue by the very fact of being incomplete. It establishes the hierarchy between the two concepts. The catalog may be gold in color but it is not everlasting. It does not replace the memory of a real visit to the exhibit with shining monumentalism. In its modesty, it chooses beauty over sanctity. It allows beauty to fade in the memory of those who saw the exhibit, and does not attempt to reconstruct it with the showy spectacle of sanctity.
The paradox of trying to document an art event is resolved here amazingly well. "Beauty and Sanctity" is a disappointing catalog because it cannot compare with the exhibit and does not recreate its splendor. But precisely because it is disappointing, it fulfills its mission, which is to eulogize beauty - not sanctify it. Beauty is left behind like the trail of a comet, to disintegrate over time. There are no icons and masks to make it holy.
Yuval Saar is a designer.