Re: Ben Shahn and shtetls????

[robert wiener <wiener...>]

How about his Haggadah?

Bob

-----Original Message-----
From: Ari Davidow <ari (at) IVRITYPE(dot)COM>
To: World music from a Jewish slant <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
Date: Thursday, December 09, 1999 9:36 AM
Subject: Re: Ben Shahn and shtetls????


>>For Jewish and Yiddish musical culture to matter and flourish, the
traditional
>>must be balanced out by the contemporary.  The musical creations of
people
>>living today --whose art is an expression of their actual life, not
some Ben
>>Shahn <shtetl- cum -Lower East -Side> fantasy world of benign, wise
rabbis and
>>kindly, old <bubbes> -- should be given more opportunity to be
heard.
>
>I guess this returns to what several people have said about
>knowing something before doing a meaningful riff. I would be
>most curious to know how or where Ben Shahn became associated
>with the shtetl in any sense, or, for that matter, the Lower
>East side. In thinking over his significant drawings--his labor
>images, the pictures of poverty he created during the Depression,
>his Sacco and Venzetti, and even his later, post-WWII works where
>he became more involved with more universal themes, I cannot
>picture anything he did about either shtetls, small towns in
>particular (not that no images he did could have been set in
>small towns) or the Lower East Side, nor can I recall anything
>written (in the limited canon that I have read), by him or
>about him, that recalls even the Lower East Side as a source
>for him. I have to confess that I cannot even place a Ben Shahn
>image of a rabbi or of Jews engaged in anything discernably
>Jewish (this, not necessarily to his credit), although I do
>recall a powerful image (not necessarily prayerful) of women
>attending church.
>
>Not that Shahn was perfect, but you seem to have associated his
>name with a place and a style not represented or referenced by
>his work. I think that most would have instead placed him with
>that other "shtetl" artist (and friend), Diego Rivera, if so :-).
>
>ari
>
>
>Ari Davidow
>ari (at) ivritype(dot)com
>list owner, jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
>the klezmer shack: http://www.klezmershack.com/
>
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