Menachem Wecker

Menachem Wecker stands at the nexus of art and religion. Through his countless articles, reviews and interviews in publications religious and secular, his ongoing art column in The Jewish Press, and his groundbreaking blog Iconia, Menachem doggedly explores the relationship between creative and religious expression. In the course of his work he has crossed paths with Buddhists, Mormons, museum curators, academics, and one particularly amusing exchange with AskMoses.com.

It was during his Yeshiva University days that Menachem Wecker developed the workhorse discipline and night owl schedule that are the hallmarks of a top-rate journalist. He’d work till all through the night, taking on assignments and deadlines that would terrify even the most over achieving college student, returning to his campus apartment for just enough sleep to keep writing. I would know; I was his roommate for junior and senior years of college. During those years, Menachem was brash and controversial (qualities that came through in his writing as well in-person) but always engaging and compelling. Since graduation, the curiosity and compassion that were always present in his writing have moved into the foreground.

-Aaron Roller

AR: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, particularly your background and how you became interested in art?

MW: I grew up in Boston, where I attended day school for 14 years, during which there was minimal exposure to the arts. (There is not much time for painting and learning what Cubism and Fauvism are when you are busy with science, math, English, bible, Jewish history, Hebrew, Jewish law, Zionism, etc.) I started drawing and painting when many people do — as a child. I don’t think my stick figures stood out particularly as prodigy material, but a friend recently showed me some drawings of soldiers and pirates I made in elementary school, and I must say they weren’t terrible. I was encouraged by my grandmother, who is a painter like her father was, and my family is very artistic. Several of my siblings draw and paint, and there was always music playing in our house (except Shabbat and holidays, of course).

Throughout the latter part of elementary school and into high school, I took classes in drawing, painting, graphic design, illustration, paper-making, and book-binding at a bunch of schools in Boston: Brookline Art Center, Brookline High School, Massachusetts College of Art, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, and Art institute of Boston. My mother found the classes for me, and we managed to convince the state education department to fund my courses at MassArt, which really allowed me to branch out (thus the paper making). By the time I graduated high school, I had more than 30 credits, and I was accepted to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, but instead I went to study for a year in Israel, and then went to Yeshiva University in Manhattan, where I earned my B.A. in English.

At YU, I noted the lack of fine arts courses, and so I began writing for the student newspaper, where I became arts editor, then senior arts editor, then senior editor (whatever that meant). Essentially then, I became an art reviewer (parasite?) instead of an art creator, a shift with which I am still not entirely comfortable. At a conference, I sat next to Richard McBee, who, after we found ourselves correcting the same mistakes in the speaker’s talk about Jewish education and the arts, invited me to be a guest writer for his column on Jewish art at The Jewish Press. Since then, we share the weekly column, and I have published somewhere around 150 reviews in the JP to date.

AR: For almost four years you’ve been writing a blog called Iconia that explores art, religion and all the ways they intersect. For someone with such a strong (and almost exclusively) Jewish education, what made you decide to explore the art of other religions?

MW: That’s a really good question. I dealt with this topic in a piece I wrote for World Jewish Digest in October 2008 titled “Art Critic Unto the Nations,” but I am happy to try again here.

I had been interested in other faiths in high school, and used to read a lot of books on philosophy and comparative religion. I’d also been very interested in mythology (first through Edith Wharton, then Joseph Campbell and beyond). I didn’t connect my interest in Jewish art with my interest in other faiths until well after I’d been writing on Jewish art, though. It struck me that although I was fascinated by the ways Jews dealt with their faith in tangible terms through art, I was interested in the larger question of how people of faith brought their beliefs into their art. There were a few reasons I was so taken by this topic. The most important one was probably that although religious artists seemed to be creating work that was so personal (almost every piece was autobiographical, at least by implication), there wasn’t really a public for their works. People of faith often see the arts as a nuisance that must be carefully watched and censored where necessary. Artists, meanwhile, tend to be suspicious of religious people. But there are some people who are so moved by their faith and by the need to make art that they mix the two. This was one of the things that drew me to Mima’amakim initially as well. There was no other venue for poems like “Why I Roll Up My Beard,” “When the Poetess Married the Rabbi,” and one great one detailing a mikvah rendezvous with Carlebach, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and others [editors note: "Naked" by Yona Leroy, from the 2005 Mima'amakim].

AR: When considering religious art, often people think of the museums filled with crucifixions, annunciations and other Church-commissioned imagery. Yet as you point out, what appears in Mima’amakim is often personal and sometimes even conflicted in its consideration of Judaism. Are these two separate types of religious art? And is there something Jewish about this sort of personal artistic religious vision, or have you seen similar personal dynamics at play in the way that artists of other faiths consider religion in their artworks?

MW: What a fantastic question! This one hasn’t occurred to me before, so I will reply with just my gut instinct, and will cross my fingers (er… configure them like a Magen David) and hope I don’t get embarrassed by what I’ve said after further researching this.

My first reaction is that the “crucifixions, annunciations and other Church-commissioned imagery” is very often conflicted and personal. I would caution against over-stating Church commissions. Many of the pieces in museum collections were commissioned by private donors (royalty, bankers, etc.), and often for personal reasons. You will often see portraits of the donors “adoring” their personal or local saints, which might strike some as sacrilegious and presumptuous and others (like me) as a beautiful idea of the individual finding his or her place in a larger religious tradition by making the narrative both contemporary and ancient.

You will also often see works that are conflicted. I am sure many of the artists working on Christian themes were uncomfortable with certain violent or seemingly outdated parts of Christian history and even Biblical narratives, and I think the works should not be seen only as propagandist (though many have elements of propaganda), but as artists and patrons feeling their way through their religious faith and doubts in a visual vocabulary. It is worth noting as well that many of the devotional images (like triptychs, but also like Books of Hours) were meant for private prayer.

I sense, though, that the thrust of your question that might be more interesting to Mima’amakim readers is the latter part. The more I study art of different faiths, the more I agree with Quoheleth that there is little wholly new under the sun. Not only do artists of different faiths “borrow” from each other (often without attribution), as much as many professors of early Christian art would have us believe Christian artists invented a visual vocabulary of Moses without looking back at earlier Jewish traditions, but they often assimilate art of other faiths unconsciously. The representation of rabbits in Haggadahs might be a good example of this (see http://www.forward.com/articles/13112/).

To be clear, I’ve seen “personal artistic religious vision” in art by Muslims, Catholics, Buddhists, Hindus, and Mormons. I haven’t studied all faiths, but I would bet the better part of my unimpressive assets that we would find the same feature across the theological spectrum. It just makes sense that artists, who are often on the periphery anyway, will find ways to relate to their faith both as individuals and as members of the group.

That being said, that does not mean that Jewish art is not unique in this regard. I’m one of the people who actually believes there’s an animal called Jewish art, and that it’s not just art made by Jews or art with Jewish content/purposes (think spice boxes, Rebbe pictures, etc.). My art teacher Tom Barron once told me that a Jewish painting is a painting that has a Jewish mother, and there is something to be said for that approach. So as much as I’d love to tell you that Jews are the only ones to have a truly personal art, I cannot do so in good faith, but I would encourage readers who are interested in this topic to look at the unique aspects of personal Jewish observance for elements that are artistically compatible. I’ve seen gorgeous artistic approaches to the Tallit and Tallit Katan that I haven’t necessarily seen in Mormon Temple Garments. There is surely something unique (though also derivative aspects) in Etrog boxes and in Mezuzahs and in Chanukiahs. This doesn’t make Jewish art the only effort in art of the personal religious experience, but there are certainly unique aspects.

AR: Just for clarity, what do you mean by “a painting that has a Jewish mother”?

MW: Luckily that’s a quote from my friend/teacher Tom Barron, so I don’t need to explain it! It might mean that if a painting’s conception originates in a Jewish source then the painting in turn is Jewish, but I’d personally rather leave it open for interpretation a bit. I am certain that if a painting has a Jewish mother, then it is Jewish itself. But maybe part of the right of passage for the Jewish artist is figuring out what that might mean, if that makes sense?

AR: Cryptic, but legitimate. Moving on, you’ve interviewed a wide range of artists working in different mediums, religious leaders, curators and academics. Who is the most interesting person you’ve encountered during the course of your writing?

MW: That’s a very tough question, and I am quite tempted to evade it. I’ve probably been most star struck by interviewing Oleg Grabar and Stanley Fish, but both were very short interviews. It’s hard to say who is most interesting though. I’ve spoken with a gallery director in Jordan, Mormons in Japan, Catholic clergy in Palestine and a Britain-based Hindu spokesperson. I will say this. I am most fascinated by the people I talk to who are most unlike me. I love learning from people who live in other countries or other parts of the U.S., and who are experts in faiths that I know very little about indeed.

AR: You made a reference to artists often being on the periphery. Why do you think this is? Is there any religion (or possibly a particular philosophy or religious denomination) that is more accepting of artists and the arts? Is there a particularly helpful model that you have encountered that integrates art and religion? (Sorry if that’s a lot of questions at once.)

MW: I think there is often a lot of pressure on artists (some personally imposed, some market imposed) to create works that are new. “New” often means provocative, particularly when faith communities are involved. There are certainly some religions and denominations that seem to be more accepting of the arts than others. You are more likely to hear art praised in a sermon at a Catholic service than you are at the Lakewood yeshiva, but I wouldn’t necessarily take that to mean that one is more accepting of the arts than the other. I have yet to find a denomination or faith that doesn’t have it’s own sort of art, and I prefer to look at diversity within the arts of different faiths rather than an either/or situation. In terms of a model that integrates art and religion, I often hear artists speak of being a vessel through which the divine imagination passes. I don’t think this is essential for creating religious art by any means - plenty of artists create without prophetic intervention - but I think some artists have found that to be a good explanation of some of the mysteries of the creative process.

AR: In reading through Iconia, it often seems like you’re on a mission. Beyond simply chronicling the religion/art intersect, it seems like you’re trying to discover something about the world or about yourself. Is their a larger objective that you’re trying to achieve through your writing and blogging?

MW: You might be on to something here. The mission, if Iconia can be said to have one, is to document the intersect and to (hopefully) inspire dialogue on that intersection. I don’t think it gets talked about enough, and I’m trying my best to change that as much as I can. In terms of discovering something about the world and/or myself, I sort of agree with you. I feel very lucky to have a passion that has been lucrative and fulfilling. Part of this seven-year-long (and counting!) obsession  of mine has been a learning experience about myself and the world. I’m not sure I went into it expecting that to happen, but it’s definitely happened and I am very thankful for that. The other piece, which wasn’t necessarily implied in your question, is that I prescribe study of the art of other faiths to anyone who solicited my advice (and some who don’t). I think it’s one of the best cures for provincial and hostile perspectives on religion, which we see even faith communities leveling at other faiths. So it might be fair to say I went into this just curious, I became a convert of sorts, and now I’m a religious-art evangelist.