Jewish Museum 10/29/10-03/27/11: Houdini Art and Magic part 1 - New York NY

On Friday October 29, 2010 The Jewish Museum will present Houdini: Art and Magic, the first major art museum exhibition to examine the life, legend and enduring cultural influence of Harry Houdini. The exhibit will explore the career and lasting impact of the magician, escape artist, vaudeville entertainer, silent movie actor, author and lecturer through 163 objects including 26 recent works of art inspired by Houdini. The exhibit, which will appeal to both children and adults, will remain at The Jewish Museum through March 27, 2011, after which it will travel to Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Madison, Wisconsin.

Houdini was born Ehrich Weiss in cosmopolitan Budapest, Hungary, in 1874, and emigrated with his parents in 1878 to rural Appleton, WI where his father, a rabbi, was hired by the local Reform synagogue. After several years the congregation decided they wanted a native born rabbi whose English was more fluent, and the family moved to New York where as an avid runner, swimmer and boxer Weiss developed the training regimen that would prepare him for the rigorous physical feats he would later perform as an escape artist.

Weiss began his career as a magician after his father's death in 1892, initially performing card tricks. He chose the name Harry Houdini in honor of the French magician Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin; his family affectionately nicknamed him "Ehree" which became Harry. Houdini married Bess Rahner, a Coney Island song and dance performer who became his stage partner. One of their first acts was the "Metamorphosis" where Bess was locked in a trunk and in a matter of three seconds she and Houdini would trade places. In another trick he would apparently swallow several needles and a yard of thread and then pull the tread from his mouth with the needles threaded on it.

But his greatest fame came from his ability to free himself from handcuffs, ropes, or straightjackets sometimes dangling from a suspended rope or immersed in a tank of water. In a press conference during a press preview of the exhibit on Monday guest curatorBrooke Kamin Rapaport pointed out that Houdini was one of fourteen million Europeans who immigrated to the United States in the final four decades of the nineteenth century in search of personal, religious, political and economic freedom and who responded viscerally to his courageous acts of self-liberation. At the same press conference magician David Blaine said that he feels most alive, that his senses are most acute and colors are more vivid, when he places himself in danger as did Houdini before him. To be continued...

The Jewish Museum's Shifting The Gaze: Painting and Feminism exhibit that I discussed in my September 12, 2010 article continues until January 30, 2011. If you haven't seen it take time to do so when you come for the Houdini show.

Museum hours are Saturdays, Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays 11:00 AM to 5:45 PM; Thursdays 11:00 AM to 8:00 PM; and Fridays 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM. Admission is $12 for adults, $10 for senior citizens, $7.50 for students, and free for children under 12 and for Jewish Museum members. Admission is free on Saturdays. The Jewish Museum is located on the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 92nd Street in Manhattan.

Jewish Museum 10/29/10-03/27/11: Houdini Art and Magic part 2 - New York NY | Examiner.com

Joe Coleman, The Man Who Walked Through Walls (Harry Houdini), 1995, acrylic on masonite.

Collection of David and Rhonda Denholtz

My previous article provides an overview of Harry Houdini‘s life and career and its depiction in TheJewish Museum exhibit that opens Friday, October 29, 2010. After pushing his body to its limits in feats of strength and courage Houdini found in early aviation’s combination of coordination, skill, daring and danger an avocation (see the video in the left column). And both his existing celebrity and a willingness to do his own stunts made a film career in the silent era a natural extension of his live performances.

Despite his success Houdini was aware that he would never be as well educated as his father; there was a side of him that envied the life of a scholar, which led him to write about his craft. But in debunking fraudulent mediums who took advantage of the bereaved in phony seances Houdini not only found his topic but also a cause.

Spiritualism was a quasi-religion in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which offered survivors the hope of communicating with dead loved ones. Houdini initially approached Spiritualism with an open mind. After his mother died he attended a seance where the medium claimed that his mother was speaking through her.

“In what language is she speaking?” Houdini asked. The medium continued speaking in English, and when Houdini pointed out that his mother always spoke to him in Yiddish, the medium replied that everyone speaks English on “the other side.” When the medium, supposedly embodying his mother, started making the sign of the cross, something his Jewish mother would never do, Houdini was certain the seance was a scam.

Houdini channeled his outrage into a campaign to expose and debunk Spiritualism and the scammers who took advantage of and offered false hope to mourners. He wrote books on the subject and undertook lecture tours where he demonstrated the methods by which the mediums performed their fraudulent rituals (see posters and photographs in the slideshow).

Celebrities as subjects for artists is not new, as we see in Andy Warhol’s silk screens, and in parodies of them such as Deborah Kass’ Double Red Yentl, Split from My Elvis which I described in my September 12, 2010 article on Shifting The Gaze: Painting and Feminism,another Jewish Museum exhibit.

That Houdini, who was active in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries continues to inspire twenty-first century visual artists such as Matthew Barney, Petah Coyne, Jane Hammond, Vik Muniz, Deborah Oropallo, and Raymond Pettibon (see the slideshow in the left column) speaks to his enduring power of his multi-dimensional prowess and personality.

Houdini: Art and Magic is also the title of the exhibit’s picture book written by guest curator Brooke Kamin Rapaport with contributions by Alan Brinkley, Hasia R Diner, Gabriel de Guzman, and Kenneth Silverman. I examined a copy in the museum’s gift shop, and it is indeed a handsome volume.