Word: bak
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...most recognized photograph from the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943, a little boy stands in the rubble, both hands raised in a blind surrender. His back shelters him from the view of a man with a gun, his shoulders suspecting his doomed fate. Bak was about the same age as this child pictured, and chose to honor in his paintings this image of all children sacrificed in the Holocaust. The little boy, the symbol of the universal purity of the heart, is the main subject of over 12 pieces in the exhibit, each time pictured in the same pose. The desensitization...
There is a midrash (a legend) that explains, "the further you are from Sinai [the moment of revelation], the more you are diminished." Bak varies the notion of family lineage in From Generation to Generation through a series. An elder from the village of Vilna, gazes upon versions of himself, his body decreasing in size, each time preserving his old age. The ancestors bless their descendents but stare toward the earth, without joy or life. It is as if these men have always been old, but one cannot tell which man is the oldest. Each generation, now with the knowledge...
...haunting painting The Introduction to the Game, two older men hold a pawn before the eyes of a blindfolded, timid man. The mouths of the elders begin to explain the beginning and rules of the game. Some sets of Bak's work show pawns escaping from a toy horse, an allusion to a Trojan horse, only to win the game. The notion of a battle won by the supposed weaker player is an idea that radiates from these rare, passionate pieces of Bak's paintings. In Symposium, sagacious men discuss where to replant their tree which floats above, its roots...
...tree that is the most constantsubject in Bak's work. A prayer passages describesits importance: "It [the Torah] is a tree of Lifefor those who grasp it." Figures struggle to savethe trees; to save history and an uprooted people.Trees are carted through the landscapes, suspendedby string from an unknown origin, braced,nourished by rubber tubes and held by human arms.The trees find a way to grow again in each of thepaintings, even if by only one leaf, welcoming thebirds. This is the manifestation of Bak's vision;the song of hope of a new life...
...human body turning into stone, wood or acutout, as well as broken fences, severed treesand faulty instruments all symbolize destruction.Yet Bak counters each with the representation ofresurrection and reconstruction through plantedroots: wise elders, stars, doves and triumphantpawns. He speaks to us about what the heart canwithstand, learn and still survive, "I speak aboutdestruction and reconstruction--the amazing humanspirit...