Zoya Cherkassky, October 7, 2023. Jewish Museum, Third Floor, Through March 18, 2024. https://thejewishmuseum.org/index.php/exhibitions/scenes-from-the-collection
Zoya Cherkassky reminds me of a minor character that flits in and out of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar; more notable for his exit than his entrance. Cinna—that’s Cinna the Poet—wanders onstage, nursing his broken dream of feasting with Caesar. A mob approaches, and when they learn his name is Cinna, the name of one of Caesar’s assassins, they drag him off to death. When Cinna protests that he’s only Cinna the Poet, one of the mob suggests they tear him to pieces for his lousy poems.
No poet or artist deserves that, no matter how mediocre, and Cherkassky’s got mediocrity to spare. Even the protesters who turned up this past February 12 to confront the artist over the blatant pro-Zionist propaganda served up under pretense of an art exhibition at the Jewish Museum should agree. On the other hand, I’m not sure Cherkassky’s vision merits a solo show in a reputable New York institution, either, and my sense is that most visitors, the Museum staff as well, agree. The one possible exception might be James S. Snyder, who’s been Director since November only, after spending time as director of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Snyder was brought on for his skills raising money from rich donors, the kind of donors you’d find at Harvard or University of Pennsylvania. The Cherkassky show was Snyder’s demonstration project, the one that introduces him to staff and visitors, and I’ll be curious to see how long he lasts. The reality is, that the artist, and the institution, and most likely a majority of visitors have, like Cinna, been dragged into something they regret.
You can tell all this the minute you enter the Museum—and yes, Dear Reader, I did visit this show and, no, it’s not crowded, as you might have been led to expect, with Zionists sobbing, or empathizing, or doing whatever Zionists do when they’re out to display their loyalty and zeal. Nowhere is Cherkassky listed as you’d expect. Her show’s not displayed in the listings behind the front desk: the cashier told me with a growl that the show was on the Third Floor, as part of a group show. When I got there I had to ask again, and the staffer I asked accompanied me to a room at the back, meanwhile signaling that this wasn’t what she’d signed up for.
Does the word “distasteful” fit? The signage at the entrance apologized again:
“The artist has been critical of the current Israeli government’s role in the historical Israeli-Palestinian conflict and, earlier this year, in response to violence committed by Israeli settlers, she drew a Palestinian family with their town of Huwara in flames.”
Whatever. The room was empty. As for the art: Not scintillating and not exactly poor, the type of standardized politically oriented art you get from someone who’s taken the required course in Socially Responsive Art at some academy in Russia. But the neatness of the compositions, their lack of asperity, is galling, it’s the stuff that makes you appreciate Picasso and Ben Shahn: muted colors, big-eyed dolls, formal harmonies of intertwined limbs as feeling as kielbasa: David Alfaro Siqueiros without the love of formal virtuosity, or the capacity.
Because formal cowardice as a rule goes with contextual cowardice. Even Gladhand Snyder knows:
“It’s cultural activism; it’s art activism. It’s not about the complex politics of what’s going on. It’s about artists producing work in response to trauma and tragedy happening in the world.”
This show, in other terms, was meant to be the equivalent of those safely woke shows we’ve seen at every cultural institution over the past two culturally fraught years: the Black is Beautiful show at a Whites only museum, for instance. Here, it’s the Palestinians Don’t Exist show for a Jewish audience, as if a Jewish audience had not been brutally slapped awake.
But as Cinna discovered, all naïve claims to political neutrality collapse in a time like ours. White gestures no doubt; but no longer amidst the solitudes.
WOID XXIII-41
February 17, 2024