El Lissitzky’s Red Wedge as the Hebrew letter Yud

The analysis undertaken in this paper sets out with El Lissitzky’s 1919 revolutionary poster entitled Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge. This artwork, composed of simple geometric figures, in which an acute-angled red triangle splits the form of a white circle, was used by Soviet propaganda to affirm the so-called ‘October events’. However, a thorough analysis of the poster, i.e. its sources, inspirations, borrowings and contexts, supports the hypothesis that the principal motif (the wedge) also constitutes a graphic equivalent of a letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the letter yud, represented as a small comma or, significantly, an acute-angled triangle. Such a premise yields further consequences with regard to meanings, encompassing aspects related to the Jewish iconic tradition that involve mysticism, magic, and the kabbalah.The analysis undertaken in this paper sets out with El Lissitzky’s 1919 revolutionary poster entitled Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge. This artwork, composed of simple geometric figures, in which an acute-angled red triangle splits the form of a white circle, was used by Soviet propaganda to affirm the so-called ‘October events’. However, a thorough analysis of the poster, i.e. its sources, inspirations, borrowings and contexts, supports the hypothesis that the principal motif (the wedge) also constitutes a graphic equivalent of a letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the letter yud, represented as a small comma or, significantly, an acute-angled triangle. Such a premise yields further consequences with regard to meanings, encompassing aspects related to the Jewish iconic tradition that involve mysticism, magic, and the kabbalah

Theodor Herzl: From Ahasverus to Baal Teshuva

Theodor Zeev Benjamin Herzl (1860-1904) was the creator of Zionist ideology, which, for the purposes of preparing the Jewish nation to mass emigration to the Promised Land and establishing a state there, made full use of available imagery and visual culture.  Zionist iconosphere was therefore created, where Herzl’s iconography occupies a key position. The figure became the foremost Zionist icon, while his codified depiction was to be an embodiment of Zionist and express its ideas. One of such embodiments was Herzl’s portrait by Leopold Pilichowski, made in 1908 on commission from the delegates of the seventh congress. The composition evokes a range of pictorial guidelines, while juxtaposition of the portrait with other works (by A. Nossig, S. Hirszenberg, G. Dore and B. Schatz) enables one to discern an iconographic sequence which draws on the idea of Ahasverus (the Wandering Jew). For Zionism, Ahasverus is an archetype of the so-called negative image of ghetto Jews (ghetto types), which from then on constituted a hindrance on the way to national mobilisation and thus a target of Zionist criticism. He was an element embodying exile, wandering, discrimination, persecution, internal degeneration, social pathology and mental deviation, existential inertia and physiognomic grotesque.In contrast, Herzl’s portrait was to be a manifesto repudiation of these negative encumbrances (visual ones included) and a guideline for new Zionist ideals, which responded with  Baal Teshuva – the Jew returning to the Promised Land. 

Muzeum Libeskina w Berlinie jako wieża, która runęła

In the article the author will attempt to interpret the architectural structure of the Jewish Museum in Berlin, designed in 1989 by Daniel Libeskind. The context of deliberations presented here will rely on a broadly understood idea of tower, an entity identical with the Judaic as well as Christian vision of the Heavenly Jerusalem. However, the key to the metaphor is the assumption that the structure symbolizes a toppled tower, which in its turn is a meaningful analogy to the concepts derived from the issues of the Holocaust.In the article the author will attempt to interpret the architectural structure of the Jewish Museum in Berlin, designed in 1989 by Daniel Libeskind. The context of deliberations presented here will rely on a broadly understood idea of tower, an entity identical with the Judaic as well as Christian vision of the Heavenly Jerusalem. However, the key to the metaphor is the assumption that the structure symbolizes a toppled tower, which in its turn is a meaningful analogy to the concepts derived from the issues of the Holocaust

„Czerwonym klinem bij Białych”. Żydowskie inspiracje El Lissitzky’ego

The article focuses on the analysis of the 1919 poster entitled “Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge”. The intention of the text is to demonstrate the artist’s inspirations with Jewish mysticism, messianism and Kabbalah, exploited for the needs of the Soviet, revolutionary interpretation of building a new worl

Unheimlich: Struktury Pustki w berlińskim muzeum Libeskinda

The Museum of 2000 years of German-Jewish History in Berlin, designed in 1989 by Daniela Libeskind, an architect of Polish origins, was to make a powerful reference to the Holocaust as well. Using an underground passage, the architect connected the existing Baroque edifice of the Kollegienhaus in Kreuzberg’s Lindenstrasse, with the building created to his design (the so-called Abteilung). The external form of the buildings is a steel, flat-topped structure, composed of cubical blocks, irregular and marked by incisive edges. Inside, this zig-zagging building was intersected by a straight structure, 4.5 m wide, 27 m high and 150 long, which runs interruptedly along the main axis. The resulting empty spaces, extending from the ground floor to the roof, are tightly isolated from the remaining sections of the edifice. The analysis conducted by the author targets the comparison of that structure of the Void with the Freudian notion of the Unheimlich (uncanny). The comparison was made in a conversation with Libeskind by the originator of the theory of deconstruction, Jacques Derrida. Unheimlich is a psychological notion, which in this case denotes “secret”, “hidden” Jewishness, which instead of remaining an “internally closed” aspect is manifested as a characteristic, “negative” reflection. The term, entangled in the context of architectural theory as well as in the notion of anti-monument, represents a starting point in considering the contemporary condition of German culture, where that Void /unheimlich is a constant, “burdensome” echo of the Holocaust

Stulecie Bauhausu: recenzja wystawy berlińskiej

Stulecie Bauhausu: recenzja wystawy berlińskiej  Stulecie Bauhausu: recenzja wystawy berlińskiej &nbsp

Zionist Restitution of the Ugly Jew’s Image: The Case of Theodor Herzl

Theodore Herzl (1860–1904), as the son of a respected banker, fully indulged himself in the privileges of the bourgeois life. He was a dandy or a snob, who held  great  disdain  for  those  Jews  whom  he  believed  to  be  old-fashioned  and looking “different”. His view reflects a wider socio-cultural phenomenon among Jews, called Selbsthass, which is characterized by open criticism of the Jewish culture by Jews who consider Jewish ethnic features to be “ugly and stigmatic”. Like many other Jews at that time, Herzl strived to completely adopt a lifestyle, custom, manner, and appearance that would make his Jewishness invisible.However, during his stay in Paris he realised that emancipation could serve only as camouflage rather than a change in the perception of Jews in Europe. As a result, he revised his attitude towards the issue of ethnic visualisation which, from that time on, would constitute one of the focal points of Zionism’s attention.This process of a visual restitution, which started at the turn of the nineteenth century, concerned many aspects of Jewish culture. Jewishness was no longer a matter of religion, but a question of racial representation, physiognomic differences, and pertinent aesthetic values, with the evolution of Herzl’s image being an accurate reflection of the process