Description
In this series of paintings and drawings, Lady Just Is appears in varying conditions, poses, and garbs juxtaposed with familiar biblical and secular symbols of covenant in states of ruination: faded and cobbled rainbows, disintegrating Mosaic tablets of law, unblinking and stony eyes, sagging and unkempt blindfolds, defunct and imbalanced scales. Presiding over a landscape of devastation, these images are a graphic reminder of the precariousness of justice, and how justice loses its agency when it turns a blind eye to, or even becomes actively complicit in, the worst injustices. But they are also a hopeful contravention against the emotional and
physical wreckage, a reminder that the restoration of the world, tikkun olam, is possible through the gathering and reassembly of the shards. Lady Just Is, shown to us through the hand of the artist, seeks to engage
the viewer in a new moral law that stands squarely amid, not above or removed from, the destruction.
Author: Gary a. Phillips
Publisher: Pucker Art Publications
Published: 04/16/2018
Pages: 136
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 2.12lbs
Size: 11.58h x 8.64w x 0.68d
ISBN13: 9781879985339
ISBN10: 1879985330
BISAC Categories:
- Art | General
- History | Modern | 20th Century | Holocaust
- Social Science | Jewish Studies
About the Author
Samuel Bak has had numerous exhibitions in major museums, galleries, and universities throughout Europe, Israel, and the United States. Since 1993, he has resided with his wife, Josée, in the Boston area. Bak has been the subject of numerous articles, scholarly works, and books, including Between Worlds. He was
the recipient of the 2002 German Herkomer Cultural Prize.
Gary A. Phillips is the Edgar H. Evans Professor of Religion and Dean of the College Emeritus at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana. He has published numerous edited and coedited volumes, including Icon of Loss: The Haunting Child of Samuel Bak with Danna Nolan Fewell.