As a book, it stands on its own rather than merely evoking a larger wall display, reaching a much wider audience in the...
A monumental art project is transformed into wildly ambitious graphic literature.
In his introduction, artist Rand (Art/Brooklyn Coll., CUNY) invokes Lenny Bruce, Franz Kafka, and Robert Mapplethorpe as inspirations in his creative impulse to turn the 613 Jewish commandments from the Torah into a series of paintings that some might find transgressive, transcendent, or both. “Its effectiveness is factored by the degree of the viewers’ engagement or skepticism,” writes Rand. “Its sacred implications are formatted in a way that makes them seem impudent. Although comic, they are not ironic. Kafka said his art was his prayer.” Thus he takes the commandments seriously enough to make them the subject of art and takes his art seriously enough to infuse it with a spirit of playful subversion. Many of his full-color panels invoke pulp novels, comic-book heroes, and magazines of satire. It took five years for the Brooklyn-based artist to finish the project (in 2006), a series of 16-by-20-inch paintings that required “1,700 square feet of wall space.” Such a display must have been overwhelming for the viewer, a riot of images and color. Here, the work is more like the comic-book panels that also inspired it, inviting readers to savor each law, perhaps puzzling over the connection (or disconnect) between the words and the image. It opens with the startling image of an astronaut free-floating against a backdrop of stars, illustrating the commandment “To know there is a God.” The continuity of panels on purity of sacrifices or prohibiting sexual relations have a narrative pull on the page that they would not have on the wall, while images of cowboys and boxers, molls and floozies and hustlers, some verging on cartoon and others edging toward surrealism, create a visual universe in which time is out of joint, where edicts from the distant past receive interpretation from a more recent past or an imagined future.
As a book, it stands on its own rather than merely evoking a larger wall display, reaching a much wider audience in the process.Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-399-17376-9
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Blue Rider Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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