NY Jewish Culture Examiner: What is affordable art, and how should it be exhibited?

[davidfcooper]

NY Jewish Culture Examiner: What is affordable art, and how should it be exhibited?

My review of two art exhibits compares and contrasts them finding fault with one and much to praise in the other.

Comments

[jonchiz67.livejournal.com]

Interesting comparison/contrast of the two exhibits. I guess different people have different defintions of the word "affordable." It's vague enough to mean just about anything, isn't it?

I have to ask you something. You wrote, "In my opinion visual art is most Jewish when it is abstract, and the medium becomes the subject matter." That's a very interesting comment, but what did you mean by that? Could you please elaborate? What is the connection between abstraction and Judaism?

Thanks.

[davidfcooper.livejournal.com]

You wrote, "In my opinion visual art is most Jewish when it is abstract, and the medium becomes the subject matter." That's a very interesting comment, but what did you mean by that? Could you please elaborate? What is the connection between abstraction and Judaism?

First there is the prohibition against graven images which can be interpreted as a prohibition against representational art. Second we are supposed to emulate God, and the four letter Hebrew name of God is a form of the verb to be. This implies not a goal and its virtue but a process and its integrity. Painting is its most essential when it is concerned not with subject matter but with pigment and composition. I think it's no coincidence that half of the most prominent abstract expressionists were Jews.