What is modern Jewish art? With little consensus as to the nature of modern
art, Jewish art, or even art and Judaism, there seems to be little hope in
trying to define modern Jewish art. But that did not stop the eminent art
critic, Harold Rosenberg, from addressing an audience at the New York Jewish
Museum in 1966 on just this theme:
“Is there a Jewish art?,” Rosenberg began. “First they build a Jewish Museum,
then they ask, Is there a Jewish art? Jews!”
The good, ol‘ Jewish humor belies the radical shift that was unfolding at
precisely the time and place where Rosenberg spoke. Modern Jewish art had
quietly taken shape in America over the prior two decades. But now, in the
mid-1960s, just as Rosenberg would finally pronounce its name, modern Jewish art
would become something else entirely. We will briefly examine this
transformation and arrive at an understanding of modern Jewish art deeply
embedded in the aspirations of American Jewry. The story of modern art in
America turns out to be the story of American Jews.
But we have gotten ahead of ourselves. Let’s return to Rosenberg’s Jewish
Museum talk to gain a sense of what modern Jewish art meant to that great
champion of Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman and the other American Action Painters
(to use Rosenberg’s term; today we call the movement Abstract Expressionism).
The final paragraphs of Rosenberg’s talk proclaim the newfound dominance of
American art and also give voice to an American-Jewish dream dominant at
mid-century:
“Artists like Rothko, Newman, Gottlieb, Nevelson, Guston, Lassaw, Rivers,
Steinberg [all Jews] and many others helped to inaugurate a genuine American art
by creating as individuals.”
What? All these Jewish artists helped inaugurate a genuine American
art? Shouldn’t Rosenberg have said: Jewish art? After all, they’re all
Jews and the topic of his talk is Jewish art. But no. Rosenberg goes further:
“This work, inspired by the will to identity, has constituted a new art by
Jews which, though not a Jewish art, is a profound Jewish expression, at the
same time that it is loaded with meaning for all people of this era.”
If it’s not a Jewish art, what makes it a profound Jewish expression?
“In the chaos of the 20th century, the metaphysical theme of identity
has entered into art, and most strongly since the war. It is from this point
that the activity of Jewish artists has risen to a new level….American Jewish
artists, together with artists of other immigrant backgrounds – Dutchmen,
Armenians, Italians, Greeks – began to assert their individual relation to art
in an independent and personal way.”
Rosenberg seems to be saying that as foreigners, Jewish and immigrant artists
could better create as individuals – and create artworks loaded with meaning for
all people. And by creating as individuals with universal appeal, they
helped inaugurate a genuine American art. For what could be more American than
being ruggedly individual in a way that all Americans can appreciate (or so one
might have it at mid-century)?
The beauty of Rosenberg’s argument is that the authentic American individual,
creating genuine American art, turns out to be none other than the Jew. Without
saying as much, Rosenberg is fulfilling a great American-Jewish dream: not
complete assimilation but total acceptance as universal individuals.
And the proof is in the pudding. Have you ever stood before a large canvas by
Mark Rothko and connected with the work in a way that was deeply individual –
perhaps even unique to yourself – only to find another viewer by your side in
the midst of the same rapture? That Rothko’s last major commission before his
untimely death was for a chapel in Texas only confirms the universal voice of
this profound Jewish expression.
“To be engaged with the aesthetics of self has liberated the Jew as artist by
eliminating his need to ask himself whether a Jewish art exists or can exist.”
Rosenberg’s universal individual is also his model Jew. His insight helped
shape the world of art for an entire generation. But already as he pronounced
this talk, the universal individual was slipping away. In its place rose an
individual deeply tied to his or her roots, individuals whose unique identity
trumped a collective one. In place of the melting pot, we got the salad bowl.
And instead of the universal American, we have a litany of hyphenated identities
(African-, female-, homosexual-, Jewish-…).
Post-modern art was born, in part, when the universal dreams of modernism
came crashing down. Once again, the Jew was at the center of this new conception
of identity, culture and art. How the last forty years since Rosenberg’s Jewish
Museum talk have unfolded (and how the next ones might unfurl) is the subject of
the class “Jewish questions in contemporary art” – which, as is now clear, must
also address what it means to be Jewish today.
Attached image: Mark Rothko, “White Orange and Yellow” (1953)
Modern/Jewish/Art?