Papers
Mabatim - Journal of Visual Culture, Volume 3, pp. 175-203, 2024
This article explores the open book as a pivotal motif in the art of Michael Sgan-Cohen, contendi... more This article explores the open book as a pivotal motif in the art of Michael Sgan-Cohen, contending that it serves as a visual interpretation of Biblical and Kabbalistic themes, resembling a Midrashic commentary. The recurrent presence of the book motif in Sgan-Cohen's oeuvre, previously unexamined in this light, expresses notions concerning the cosmic and ontological nature of the Torah, the relationship between divine and human creativity, and the elusive essence of divinity. Understanding the meaning of the book motif requires an interdisciplinary approach, considering both the artworks and the conceptual and physical space where they originated. Sgan-Cohen's private home library, replete with Jewish esoteric texts and related scholarly studies, serves as a crucial backdrop. By delving into the artist's library, this study aims to shed light on the interplay between Sgan-Cohen's visual creations and Jewish Kabbalistic traditions. The discussion underscores the unique fusion of Kabbalistic interpretations of Genesis, post-conceptual art, and theories of language and deconstruction within Sgan-Cohen's oeuvre. The analysis spans from well-known to obscure aspects, focusing on Sgan-Cohen's strategies to depict visibility, concealment, and the ironic representation of secrets under erasure. Drawing inspiration from seminal Jewish texts, namely Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Creation) and the Zohar (Book of Splendor), these representations coalesce into a unique cultural stance and a reflective celebration of Ars Poetica.
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Arts, Nov 26, 2019
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מבטים, 2022
מבטים: כתב עת לתרבות חזותית
מבטים הוא שנתון אקדמי שפיט בשפה העברית הרואה אור מטעם המחלקה לאמנויו... more מבטים: כתב עת לתרבות חזותית
מבטים הוא שנתון אקדמי שפיט בשפה העברית הרואה אור מטעם המחלקה לאמנויות באוניברסיטת בן -גוריון בנגב. כתב העת המתפרסם בפורמט מקוון (Open-Access) נועד לספק במה לפרסום מאמרים מקוריים בתחומי האמנות והתרבות החזותית, מכל תקופה, נושא, או מדיה. בנוסף כולל כתב העת מדור ביקורת תערוכות ומדור ביקורת ספרי עיון. ISSN: 2710-480X https://in.bgu.ac.il/humsos/art/Pages/mabatim.aspx
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Arts 2022 - Special Issue: "Renegotiating Identity; Reenacting History – 21st Century Art in Israel", 2022
Dear Colleagues,
The impact of the past on present identities, a dominant subject in 21st-century... more Dear Colleagues,
The impact of the past on present identities, a dominant subject in 21st-century global art, has become an especially prominent feature of the art created in Israel. It is articulated in a plethora of artworks that renegotiate identity through new artistic strategies of reassessment, reenactment, and even reimagination of the past. While offering alternatives to hegemonic historicizations, these representations mark a shift from the critique of power relations to interventions in the processes through which history is remembered and narrated. As Jane Blocker suggests, instead of viewing art as the subject of inquiry on the part of art historians, contemporary art should be addressed and analyzed as a form of writing or rewriting history, even as history itself (2016).
Since its very inception, art created in Israel has exhibited a consistent preoccupation with issues of identity and self-determination. Beyond being a multicultural and multiethnic young immigrant state, Israel is further characterized by a significant social binary, fluctuating between Jewish and non-Jewish, Diaspora and Homeland, and Religious and Secular. The turbulent history of the country, saturated with wars and the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, renders the inquiry of the past within Israeli culture a fertile ground for the investigation of hybrid, complex, intersectional, and stratified local identities.
This special issue of Arts will focus on the renegotiation of histories and identities in contemporary art in Israel. Taking Blocker’s idea as our point of departure, we invite contributions that will explore art in the local arena as a form of writing [or rewriting] history in an attempt to reveal its unique manifestations and characteristics. Of special interest is the mediation of the subject through performative media – performance and video art, dance, and new media – which evoke an enhanced awareness of context and temporality through (live or documented) presence.
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מבטים: כתב עת לתרבות חזותית, 2021
מבטים הוא כתב עת אקדמי שפיט בשפה העברית הרואה אור מטעם המחלקה לאמנויות באוניברסיטת בן -גוריון בנג... more מבטים הוא כתב עת אקדמי שפיט בשפה העברית הרואה אור מטעם המחלקה לאמנויות באוניברסיטת בן -גוריון בנגב. כתב העת המתפרסם בפורמט מקוון (Open-Access) נועד לספק במה לפרסום מאמרים מקוריים בתחומי האמנות והתרבות החזותית, מכל תקופה, נושא, או מדיה. בנוסף כולל כתב העת מדור ביקורת תערוכות ומדור ביקורת ספרי עיון.
ISSN: 2710-480X
https://in.bgu.ac.il/humsos/art/Pages/mabatim.aspx
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Arts 8, no. 4: 157. , 2019
This research pinpoints a local pattern of migratory aesthetics recurrently employed by four Isra... more This research pinpoints a local pattern of migratory aesthetics recurrently employed by four Israeli artists in the early years of the 21st century. I argue that works by artists Philip Rantzer, Gary Goldstein, Haim Maor, and David Wakstein showcase a hybrid migratory self-definition that is embedded in the artistic language itself. By harnessing a collagistic language of juxtaposition and fragmentation, they frame Israeli identity as uncanny, reflecting a cultural mindset of being neither "here" nor "there". I contend that this pattern is used by a particular generation of artists, born in the early 1950s, and reflects a reaction, in hindsight, to the Zionist ethos of collective local identity. Employing old photographs from their family albums that they transform into framed detached figures, these artists draw upon childhood memories of immigration. Their art marks an identity clash between two homelands, which is the result of intertwined aesthetic and socio-cultural characteristics. The first is evident in the prevalent use of collage in local art-in itself a language of oppositions. The second is the negation of the diaspora in the Israeli socio-cultural mentality, which constructs identity through binary thinking. To date, no other study has acknowledged this aesthetic pattern nor the common ground these artists share in their works.
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History and Theory, Bezalel // Issue No. 27 - The Uncanny, Mar 1, 2013
A split identity, both private and collective, comprising Israeli nationality on the one hand and... more A split identity, both private and collective, comprising Israeli nationality on the one hand and Jewish identity on the other, is an essential theme of Michael Sgan-Cohen’s art. It is manifested in his works mainly through representations of Israel as a place, being a central signifier of local identity, which blur the boundary between its physical and metaphysical aspects. As will be argued, these representations contain clear and deliberate notions of the Uncanny (das Unheimliche). The metaphorical meaning of ‘home’ as the familiar place paradoxically evokes in his works such contradicting feelings as displacement, disorientation and estrangement. The discussion will focus on three works from the early 1980s that in various ways give the impression of uncanniness – such as cross-breed images, double representations of the self, disorientation and estrangement – all of which are important components of the term as defined by Ernst Jentsch in his essay “On the Psychology of the Uncanny,” and to some extent also in Freud’s essay "The Uncanny." A central thesis of the discussion is that in these works Sgan-Cohen aims to articulate a basic uncanny element underlying Jewish theological thought in regard to the (Israeli) place, derived from lingo-centricity and intensified by life in exile, thus accentuating the notion of place as an ideal that undermines Its reality.
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"God’s presence in Michael Sgan-Cohen’s work (1944-1999) is unprecedented within Israeli art in b... more "God’s presence in Michael Sgan-Cohen’s work (1944-1999) is unprecedented within Israeli art in both scope and depth. The prominence of the representation of God is manifested through his various names. He also appears in the artist’s works as an anthropomorphic and metonymic image and through symbolic motifs, consolidated throughout his artistic career.
In my thesis I argue that God and his affinity to man are pivotal ideas in Michael Sgan-Cohen’s art and thought. The subject is manifested in his works through the application of a modernistic and individual language to a philological and symbolic reliance on Jewish religious texts. This reliance is meant to encourage the viewer towards a direct reading and interpretation of the textual sources. They function as additional layers of meaning in his work.
For Sgan-Cohen, God is a wide term comprising of spiritualism, thought and creative powers. He is an abstract and metaphysical force which exists within the human perception and which is conceptualized through the entwining of philosophical and religious aspects.
An important assumption underlying this thesis is that a main dualistic principle - both formalistic and thematic - prevails in Michael Sgan-Cohen’s art, mainly in the works addressing the subject of God. Dialectic dualism is evident in the recurring juxtaposition of compositional and formalistic elements in his works (especially text versus image), expressing a fundamental tension between God and man, spiritual and corporeal.
"
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Books
Emma Gashinsky ed., Israel: Land and Identity- Artworks from the Levin Collection, Jerusalem, exh... more Emma Gashinsky ed., Israel: Land and Identity- Artworks from the Levin Collection, Jerusalem, exh. cat. (Beachwood OH: Roe Green Gallery, Jewish Federation of Cleveland, 2015).
"Israel: Land and Identity," held at the Roe Green Gallery (November 2015 - July 2016), was the first opportunity to view selections from the Ofer Levin Collection outside Israel. This Exhibition and Catalogue was the outcome of a fruitful collaboration between the Cleveland Israel Arts Connection of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland and the Levin Collection of Israeli Art in Jerusalem.
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Conference Presentations
EAIS 5th Annual Conference on Israel Studies, September 2016: Rethinking Israel, SOAS University of London
In a large body of works created during the last five years of his life, American-born Israeli Ar... more In a large body of works created during the last five years of his life, American-born Israeli Artist Henry Shelesnyak (1938-1980) interweaved into his collages extracts of negative criticism published about his art in the local press. Albeit his consistently active career, as well as his high esteem among his fellow artists, Shelesnyak was only partially accepted into what is considered as the Israeli canon of art.
In my paper I would like to focus on the unique inter-connection between Shelesnyak’s art and its reception via his defiant use of the wider field of art and criticism, as a recurring theme ironically inserted within the domains of the artistic object itself. This act exceeds, as will be argued, beyond personal confrontation and beyond the self-referential, towards an ars-poeticly charged take, on the way in which socio-economic agenda’s coerce individual creativity.
Furthermore, this paper serves as a case-study of reception and of defining local aesthetics in Israeli art, which during the 1970’s was still an emerging new culture, preoccupied with its own self-determination. Standing on the cross-roads between Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Minimalism and Conceptualism, Shelesnyak’s art was perceived by local art critics as ‘too American’ for the local taste and as clearly estranged from local cultural tendencies, at the threshold of the postmodern shift towards a much more stratified definition of art and taste.
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CONFERENCES, WORKSHOPS, COLLOQUIA
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PhD Dissertation
Henry Shelesnyak – Between American and Israeli Art, 2018
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Uploads
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מבטים הוא שנתון אקדמי שפיט בשפה העברית הרואה אור מטעם המחלקה לאמנויות באוניברסיטת בן -גוריון בנגב. כתב העת המתפרסם בפורמט מקוון (Open-Access) נועד לספק במה לפרסום מאמרים מקוריים בתחומי האמנות והתרבות החזותית, מכל תקופה, נושא, או מדיה. בנוסף כולל כתב העת מדור ביקורת תערוכות ומדור ביקורת ספרי עיון. ISSN: 2710-480X https://in.bgu.ac.il/humsos/art/Pages/mabatim.aspx
The impact of the past on present identities, a dominant subject in 21st-century global art, has become an especially prominent feature of the art created in Israel. It is articulated in a plethora of artworks that renegotiate identity through new artistic strategies of reassessment, reenactment, and even reimagination of the past. While offering alternatives to hegemonic historicizations, these representations mark a shift from the critique of power relations to interventions in the processes through which history is remembered and narrated. As Jane Blocker suggests, instead of viewing art as the subject of inquiry on the part of art historians, contemporary art should be addressed and analyzed as a form of writing or rewriting history, even as history itself (2016).
Since its very inception, art created in Israel has exhibited a consistent preoccupation with issues of identity and self-determination. Beyond being a multicultural and multiethnic young immigrant state, Israel is further characterized by a significant social binary, fluctuating between Jewish and non-Jewish, Diaspora and Homeland, and Religious and Secular. The turbulent history of the country, saturated with wars and the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, renders the inquiry of the past within Israeli culture a fertile ground for the investigation of hybrid, complex, intersectional, and stratified local identities.
This special issue of Arts will focus on the renegotiation of histories and identities in contemporary art in Israel. Taking Blocker’s idea as our point of departure, we invite contributions that will explore art in the local arena as a form of writing [or rewriting] history in an attempt to reveal its unique manifestations and characteristics. Of special interest is the mediation of the subject through performative media – performance and video art, dance, and new media – which evoke an enhanced awareness of context and temporality through (live or documented) presence.
ISSN: 2710-480X
https://in.bgu.ac.il/humsos/art/Pages/mabatim.aspx
In my thesis I argue that God and his affinity to man are pivotal ideas in Michael Sgan-Cohen’s art and thought. The subject is manifested in his works through the application of a modernistic and individual language to a philological and symbolic reliance on Jewish religious texts. This reliance is meant to encourage the viewer towards a direct reading and interpretation of the textual sources. They function as additional layers of meaning in his work.
For Sgan-Cohen, God is a wide term comprising of spiritualism, thought and creative powers. He is an abstract and metaphysical force which exists within the human perception and which is conceptualized through the entwining of philosophical and religious aspects.
An important assumption underlying this thesis is that a main dualistic principle - both formalistic and thematic - prevails in Michael Sgan-Cohen’s art, mainly in the works addressing the subject of God. Dialectic dualism is evident in the recurring juxtaposition of compositional and formalistic elements in his works (especially text versus image), expressing a fundamental tension between God and man, spiritual and corporeal.
"
Books
"Israel: Land and Identity," held at the Roe Green Gallery (November 2015 - July 2016), was the first opportunity to view selections from the Ofer Levin Collection outside Israel. This Exhibition and Catalogue was the outcome of a fruitful collaboration between the Cleveland Israel Arts Connection of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland and the Levin Collection of Israeli Art in Jerusalem.
Conference Presentations
In my paper I would like to focus on the unique inter-connection between Shelesnyak’s art and its reception via his defiant use of the wider field of art and criticism, as a recurring theme ironically inserted within the domains of the artistic object itself. This act exceeds, as will be argued, beyond personal confrontation and beyond the self-referential, towards an ars-poeticly charged take, on the way in which socio-economic agenda’s coerce individual creativity.
Furthermore, this paper serves as a case-study of reception and of defining local aesthetics in Israeli art, which during the 1970’s was still an emerging new culture, preoccupied with its own self-determination. Standing on the cross-roads between Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Minimalism and Conceptualism, Shelesnyak’s art was perceived by local art critics as ‘too American’ for the local taste and as clearly estranged from local cultural tendencies, at the threshold of the postmodern shift towards a much more stratified definition of art and taste.
CONFERENCES, WORKSHOPS, COLLOQUIA
PhD Dissertation
מבטים הוא שנתון אקדמי שפיט בשפה העברית הרואה אור מטעם המחלקה לאמנויות באוניברסיטת בן -גוריון בנגב. כתב העת המתפרסם בפורמט מקוון (Open-Access) נועד לספק במה לפרסום מאמרים מקוריים בתחומי האמנות והתרבות החזותית, מכל תקופה, נושא, או מדיה. בנוסף כולל כתב העת מדור ביקורת תערוכות ומדור ביקורת ספרי עיון. ISSN: 2710-480X https://in.bgu.ac.il/humsos/art/Pages/mabatim.aspx
The impact of the past on present identities, a dominant subject in 21st-century global art, has become an especially prominent feature of the art created in Israel. It is articulated in a plethora of artworks that renegotiate identity through new artistic strategies of reassessment, reenactment, and even reimagination of the past. While offering alternatives to hegemonic historicizations, these representations mark a shift from the critique of power relations to interventions in the processes through which history is remembered and narrated. As Jane Blocker suggests, instead of viewing art as the subject of inquiry on the part of art historians, contemporary art should be addressed and analyzed as a form of writing or rewriting history, even as history itself (2016).
Since its very inception, art created in Israel has exhibited a consistent preoccupation with issues of identity and self-determination. Beyond being a multicultural and multiethnic young immigrant state, Israel is further characterized by a significant social binary, fluctuating between Jewish and non-Jewish, Diaspora and Homeland, and Religious and Secular. The turbulent history of the country, saturated with wars and the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, renders the inquiry of the past within Israeli culture a fertile ground for the investigation of hybrid, complex, intersectional, and stratified local identities.
This special issue of Arts will focus on the renegotiation of histories and identities in contemporary art in Israel. Taking Blocker’s idea as our point of departure, we invite contributions that will explore art in the local arena as a form of writing [or rewriting] history in an attempt to reveal its unique manifestations and characteristics. Of special interest is the mediation of the subject through performative media – performance and video art, dance, and new media – which evoke an enhanced awareness of context and temporality through (live or documented) presence.
ISSN: 2710-480X
https://in.bgu.ac.il/humsos/art/Pages/mabatim.aspx
In my thesis I argue that God and his affinity to man are pivotal ideas in Michael Sgan-Cohen’s art and thought. The subject is manifested in his works through the application of a modernistic and individual language to a philological and symbolic reliance on Jewish religious texts. This reliance is meant to encourage the viewer towards a direct reading and interpretation of the textual sources. They function as additional layers of meaning in his work.
For Sgan-Cohen, God is a wide term comprising of spiritualism, thought and creative powers. He is an abstract and metaphysical force which exists within the human perception and which is conceptualized through the entwining of philosophical and religious aspects.
An important assumption underlying this thesis is that a main dualistic principle - both formalistic and thematic - prevails in Michael Sgan-Cohen’s art, mainly in the works addressing the subject of God. Dialectic dualism is evident in the recurring juxtaposition of compositional and formalistic elements in his works (especially text versus image), expressing a fundamental tension between God and man, spiritual and corporeal.
"
"Israel: Land and Identity," held at the Roe Green Gallery (November 2015 - July 2016), was the first opportunity to view selections from the Ofer Levin Collection outside Israel. This Exhibition and Catalogue was the outcome of a fruitful collaboration between the Cleveland Israel Arts Connection of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland and the Levin Collection of Israeli Art in Jerusalem.
In my paper I would like to focus on the unique inter-connection between Shelesnyak’s art and its reception via his defiant use of the wider field of art and criticism, as a recurring theme ironically inserted within the domains of the artistic object itself. This act exceeds, as will be argued, beyond personal confrontation and beyond the self-referential, towards an ars-poeticly charged take, on the way in which socio-economic agenda’s coerce individual creativity.
Furthermore, this paper serves as a case-study of reception and of defining local aesthetics in Israeli art, which during the 1970’s was still an emerging new culture, preoccupied with its own self-determination. Standing on the cross-roads between Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Minimalism and Conceptualism, Shelesnyak’s art was perceived by local art critics as ‘too American’ for the local taste and as clearly estranged from local cultural tendencies, at the threshold of the postmodern shift towards a much more stratified definition of art and taste.