Spertus in the News
In 'Imaginary Coordinates,' Spertus maps its independence
Chicago Sun-Times
May 16, 2008 Recommended
By Kevin Nance
The Spertus Museum is getting a fresh start in more ways than one. The museum seems to have been inspired by its sleek new digs -- at the literally and symbolically transparent Spertus Institute for Jewish Studies on Michigan Avenue, notable for its multifaceted glass facade -- to re-energize, if not radicalize, its programming in ways that may not be what many visitors expect from a Jewish institution.
The first salvo in this direction last fall was the eyebrow-raising "The New Authentics: Artists of the Post-Jewish Generation," with its provocative title and even more provocative artworks featuring young Jews engaging their religious and cultural heritage in often surprisingly irreverent fashion.
Now comes "Imaginary Coordinates," a multimedia exhibit that juxtaposes the Spertus collection of antique maps of the Holy Land against contemporary artworks by Israeli- and Palestinian-born women artists riffing on what you might call cartographic themes: national identity, cultural boundaries, place and displacement.
Although the individual works here aren't as artistically accomplished as those in "The New Authentics," the new show, curated by Spertus Museum director Rhoda Rosen, is conceptually even bolder and more transgressive than its predecessor. And for some with passionate views of the ongoing struggle in the Middle East, "Imaginary Coordinates" has the potential to be politically explosive.
Several works in the show implicitly criticize the Israeli government's treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories, with its famous (or infamous) security wall coming in for particular scrutiny. What some might view as artifacts of Israeli triumphalism -- a 1970 Hanukkah lamp studded with bullet casings, a recent official publication extolling the security wall's effectiveness in reducing terrorist attacks -- bounce off homey folk embroidery by Palestinian women.
Then there are several works by female Israeli artists that are no less politically fraught. The most harrowing of these is Sigalit Landau's "Barbed Hula" (2001), a video loop in which the artist, stark naked on a beach in Tel Aviv, shimmies inside a hula hoop made of barbed wire. The barbs on the hoop, like those on the razor wire atop a certain wall, point outward. But the growing welts on the artist's skin are dire enough to make her point about the collateral, self-inflicted wounds that can result from the pursuit of security.
Best of all is Shirley Shor's "Landslide" (2004), a shape-shifting digital animation projected on a sandbox whose terrain represents the Middle East. The projection constantly forms and reforms itself, suggesting the historical elasticity of borders in the region. But it also has political and military metaphors, with geographical entities constantly annexing their neighbors and forming into polarized, warring camps.
In a catalog essay, Rosen notes that Spertus is moving "from the parochial toward the civic," adding that "while the new Spertus' starting point continues to be Jewish experience, the institution does not operate from a partisan point of view. ... At times broadly accepted Jewish assumptions will be examined and cherished, and at others they will be examined and questioned."
"Imaginary Coordinates" clearly falls into the second category.
'IMAGINARY COORDINATES'
RECOMMENDED
Through Sept. 7
Spertus Museum, 610 S. Michigan
Tickets, $5-$7
(312) 322-1700; www.spertus.edu
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