Trees occupy a very powerful place in Jewish literature and art, serving as a symbol of shelter, regrowth, and earth’s bounty. The title of the exhibit, Do Not Destroy (Bal Tashchit in Hebrew), comes from a commandment in the Torah forbidding the “wanton destruction of trees during wartime,” according to the museum wall text.
Part 1 of the exhibit looks at the role of the tree in contemporary art. More than 50 participating contemporary artists were asked to incorporate reclaimed wood into their work in some way. For example, San Francisco designer Yves Behar created the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Aleph, out of a piece of bay laurel driftwood found on the beach at Bolinas in nearby Marin County.
“Our awareness of nature needs to be first, like the first letter Aleph,” says Behar in a press release.
Part 2 of “Do Not Destroy” is an international survey of trees in contemporary art, and it features 20 works by international artists examining the tree, both conceptually and formally. Curator Dana Solomon says the exhibit is an opportunity to “commune with trees through video, photography, sculpture and painting – to be awed by their scale, their longevity, and their ability to encourage deeper thinking about history, the environment, and our place in it.” The exhibit runs through May 28.
+ Do Not Destroy
+ Contemporary Jewish Museum
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Here at Inhabitat we’re generally quite taken by artwork that makes use of recycled materials, so we were excited to learn that the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco is hosting a new exhibit that focuses on the environment. The three-part exhibit, Do Not Destroy: Trees, Art, and Jewish Thought, explores the role of the tree in Jewish tradition through the lens of contemporary art using a variety of different media, including reclaimed wood.
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‘Reclaimed Time’ by Terry Berlier is one of more than 50 works on display at the Contemporary Jewish Museum that are made from reclaimed wood.
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‘Aspen Roots for Tu B’Shevat’ by Yoshitomo Saito is a bronze cast of the unique root structure of an aspen tree, which allows whole stands of trees to grow from one root system.
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“I collect things from walks and use them for inspiration in what I refer to as translations,” writes artist Deborah Lozier of her work, Hand-Me-Down. “A few years ago during a trip on a small island in the Oslo Fjord, I found these beautiful sticks along the water’s edge. What struck me about them was how much they evoked the beginnings of utensils left dormant and unfinished. I added the grass wrappings on an impulse and brought them home. After reading about the Tu B’Shevat references to…
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For this series of photos, photographer Tal Shochat carefully cleaned every inch of fruit trees and photographed them out of context, in front of a sharply-contrasting black background.
An artificially constructed forest of fruit trees ironically to
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This colorful assemblage is a ceremonial tray with seven bridges to hold fifteen fruits. “The bridges link winter to spring, earth to trees, the latent fertility that precedes the holiday and the burgeoning beauty that follows it,” writes artist Tobi Kahn. “Salvaged remnants from other projects, these materials have been given a new life for their own new year. They are also a bridge from the evident world of tactility to the mystical one of pardes, the kabbalistic orchard that is paradise.”
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Trees occupy a very powerful place in Jewish art, a tradition that is continued in this exhibit. The title of the exhibit, Do Not Destroy (Bal Tashchit in Hebrew), comes from a commandment in the Torah forbidding the “wanton destruction of trees to
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‘Connected’ by Lisa Congdon represents the Tu B’Shevat seder with rows of triangles of reclaimed wood representing the ceremonial progression of wine from white to red. A sturdy tree, representing renewal, grows in the middle.
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