What a wonderful description of the task and opportunity of art: the creation of images and the establishment of connections.
The art of Samuel Bak is indeed the sharing of what I call “visual testimony,” and an invitation to enter into conversation about the meaning of Life and our continuing responsibilities to one another.
Our present exhibition:
Sanctified Symbol: Pears in the Art of Samuel Bak
(click here for the e-catalogue)
is a superb opportunity to engage with the profound questions that come with the challenges to repair our world.
For Bak, the Pear is a vehicle into the many embedded aspects of our human behavior. How do we either respect or destroy others? How do we allow for evil to be perpetrated against our neighbors because they are different?
The Pear is a generative form. Pears give birth to Pears. Pears protect other Pears or are transformed into monuments. Pears become instruments of torture or floating memorials to extinguished lives. With more than 800 images of Pears in the Bak Catalogue Raisonné (click here), they seem an endless source of visual ideas and questions.
Please indulge in a repast of Pear-a-dise, or the search for Pear-fection. |