5730 by Smithson Robert (2 results)

[1] pp.; 52 x 50.8 cm.; black-and-white & color; edition size unknown; unsigned and unnumbered; offset-printed; Full-color offset print published by the Jewish Museum in 1969 featuring an image by Robert Smithson of the year 5730 (the Jewish calendar year corresponding to the 1969 calendar year) written in Hebrew in red clay at Mt. Moriah, a place sacred to Jews, Christians, and Muslims. "When, in 1969, the Jewish Museum in New York commissioned Smithson to make a New Year''s poster, he responded by applying the logic of the non-site to the Holy Land. In Smithson''s design, a photograph shows that date, [5]730, written in Hebrew letters in red earth on a chalky ground. (The 5 is not actually there but is often left implicit in Hebrew dating.) The legend below--5730-RED CLAY FROM HEBRON PLACED AT MT. MORIAH--makes it clear that this is a non-site: Hebron is a city some nineteen miles south of Jerusalem, and Mount Moriah is the Temple Mount, a site sacred to the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths. Both Hebron and the Temple Mount were hotly contested sites in the aftermath of the Six-Day War of 1967. A memorandum of March 13, 1969, from Jewish Museum director Karl Katz to the curatorial staff and the philanthropist Vera List (the poster''s funder), sets out the thinking that went into the work. It records a conversation with Smithson in which "the following idea of his was discussed": A piece of interesting land on the site of Mt. Moriah (the navel of the world--the site where tradition has it God created Man) will be the ground for one set of numbers 5730 and the Hebrew equivalent letters. The numbers and letters will be made of the red earth selected from near Hebron (where tradition has it God found the earth to make Man). These numbers and letters on the ground will be photographed from above and the photo will be reproduced as a poster, reduced as the greeting card and postcard for the new Jewish year. The text will be simple and on the face of the poster. The text by Smithson will elucidate the image. The number 5730 marks the number of revolutions of the earth that have occurred since the purported moment of creation. The Babylonian Talmud states that the world was created from the Foundation Rock of Mount Moriah God took soil from Hebron and used it to create the first human at the origin site of earth itself, i.e., the Foundation Rock. The displacement of earth captured in the poster''s image is thus a recapitulation of the original displacement that occurred during the creation of man, a reframing of religious legend in geologic terms. God''s sculptural act was not only the first work of art but also the first non-site. (The name Adam in Hebrew means "earth," and most etymologies see a connection between the Latin homo, man, and humus, earth.) For Smithson to recapitulate this gesture some 5,730 years later traces the human arc of history but also its insignificance from a geologic perspective." -- Alexander Nagel, "Art Out Of Time: The Relic And Robert Smithson," Artforum, October 2012. 1.2 cm. dog-ear to lower left corner. Light bumping of upper left and right corners. Additional light yellowing of paper from age, otherwise clean and unmarked.

Kein Einband. Condition: Sehr gut. Smithson, Robert. 5730". Original-Offset-Druck. Bildmass 45,7 x 45,7 cm; Blattgrösse 51 x 45,7 cm. Unten links mit gedruckter Legende Mirror Trail' Robert Smithson © 1969 JEWISH MUSEUM PUBLICATION". Unten rechts signiert und nummeriert R. Smithson 242". In der Ecke oben recht leicht falzspurig, schwach gebräunt; verso leicht fl eckig (Druckerschwärze). Insgesamt sehr gut erhalten. Zustand A.