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Dror Burstein’s Place in the Universe Award-Winning Israeli Novelist Visits Harvard as Part of the Israeli Law, Literature, and Society Series
By JOANNA SCHACTER When I heard the learn’d astronomer; When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me; When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them; When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture room, How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick; ‘Til rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars. Walt Whitman
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eading the first pages of Dror Burstein’s novel Netanya-- named after the town in Israel where he was born-- call to mind Walt Whitman’s ode to the magic of the universe. “How flimsy our existence is, how many conditions must exist and must continue to exist over the course of millions of years so that a single flower or a single pencil or a single book might exist,” wonders Burstein as he describes what a miracle it is that Jupiter exists as it does, since it is a trap for meteors that would otherwise hit and devastate the earth. Stream of consciousness is a style that Burstein employs throughout his short stories and in his novel, and serves him well to express the stupefaction he feels; the stupefaction that we all feel when we start to think about the marvel that is life on earth, and the existence of the universe. Dror Burstein was born in Tel Aviv and was trained as a lawyer. He gave up this profession to pursue a PhD in Hebrew literature from the Hebrew University and to pursue writing, and he has seen a great deal of success, if one is to measure that in the numerous prizes for literature that he has received. He now teaches at the Hebrew University, as well as at Tel Aviv University, and is currently at the College of the Holy Cross where he is teaching on Genesis in art and literature. The title of Burstein’s talk here was titled On the Impossibility of Writing in Israel Today, and he seemed to lament the lack of change in Israeli literature, and gave the sense that it is something that exists in a vacuum; a sentiment that he echoes in his novel, as he complains that plate tectonics and mammoths have no place in the literature of Israel. “Even when I say sun and moon and star, I mean things that happen to me” is the quote that opens Burstein’s novel, and indeed he is not just meditating on the phenomenon of the universe and the miracle of human existence within it, but also of Israel and Israeli literature’s place, and of his own. Burstein did not seem to reach a solid conclusion on any of these topics in his talk, though perhaps the answer lies farther along in his novel than in the excerpt of Natanya that was read in preparation for his talk. Nevertheless, even in the simplest interpretation of his writing, it is still outstanding how well Burstein articulates the astonishment that we often forget to feel in relation to the universe because of our scientific understanding for it, and the importance he places on meditating on how we fit in to it all. Joanna R. Schacter ’15 (jschacter @college.harvard.edu) is craving sushi. 6 harvardindependent.com
Crime and Hilarity in the Art World By FRANK TAMBERINO
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he 2009 documentary, The Art of the Steal, is an artistic call to arms, like the blast of a bugle at the cold break of day. It is an invigorating record of recent history that unveils a great and atrocious crime the perpetrators of which are still feeding off of their reprehensible actions. The documentary tells the story of Albert C. Barnes, a physician of humble beginnings who, after developing the drug Argyrol to prevent gonorrheal blindness in newborn infants, amasses a small fortune. It follows Barnes as he travels to Paris in 1912, is educated by figures as mammoth in the art world as Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, and subsequently buys masterpieces for discount prices from rich men made desperate by the stock market crash of 1929. Eventually, Barnes finds himself with an armada of 9,000 pieces including 181 Renoirs, 69 Cézannes, 60 Matisses, 44 Picassos, and 14 Modiglianis. This collection of post-Impressionist artwork is arguably the most valuable in history, priced at over $25 billion. Dr. Barnes was a man of immeasurable taste. He saw his collection not as an investment, but as a valuable tool for education and refinement. He used it to establish a school known as the Barnes Foundation in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania. Despite the grandeur and renown of the collection, the mansion that housed these masterpieces and provided a priceless education to a number of students was not a tourist attraction, Barnes made sure of that. On only one or two days a week were members of the public allowed to enter the mansion, and, even then, Barnes turned away many critics, journalists, and artists, including none other than TS Eliot. Barnes had grown up in poverty. He was happy to break intellectual supremacy by allowing only a few humble, working class people to behold the beauty he was housing. The criminal aspect of The Art of the Steal unfolds upon the death of Dr. Barnes. Without spoiling the details, it involves the violation of Barnes’ firmly established beliefs and intentions by a group of businessmen and politicians who aimed to reap financial benefit from his collection. There is no question that these people broke the law and Barnes’ will, pillaging a precious sanctuary of art and education in order to achieve something base and vulgar. The documentary is a must see as an important vehicle for protest. Those who destroyed what Barnes had created were not only never brought to justice, but they are, to this day, profiting off of an outright theft, both literal and artistic. Three years after The Art of the Steal came the documentary Beauty Is Embarrassing, which chronicles the fascinating life and career of Wayne White, one of the most unconventional
and inspiring artists I have ever been exposed to. White was one of the principal designers behind Pee-wee’s Playhouse. If you don’t know about Pee-wee’s Playhosue, there’s really no way I can describe it. Look up “Pee-wee’s Playhouse Intro” on Youtube if you’d like to understand. For those of you who are aware of the surreal children’s TV-show that ran from the late 80s to the 90s, then you already have a sense of Wayne White’s character and artistic style. His work is bizarre, absurd, strikingly intelligent, and almost always hilarious. One of White’s trademark devices is word painting. As White explains in the documentary, he was painting elaborate landscapes with giant block letters plopped down in the middle of the geography saying ridiculous things when he realized that he could just purchase old, cheap landscapes from thrift stores in order to save time. Googling “Wayne White word paintings” will give you a plethora of examples. One of my favorites depicts a dramatic coastal shore with grey waves crashing against brown jagged rocks and a lone seagull navigating the stormy wind. Stretching along the coast, standing in dissonant defiance are gigantic block letters spelling “GOODLOOKINGPEOPLEHAVINGFUNWITHOUTYOU”. Several of the people interviewed in the documentary explain how at other art exhibitions, people walk around solemnly, gazing at paintings out of quiet respect or an attempt to connect with their deeper meanings. At White’s exhibitions, on the other hand, people are bursting out with laughter left and right. One of the best moments in the documentary in my opinion is when Wayne talks about how the critics, professionals, and intellectuals in the art world who are treated as authority figures discuss complex artistic mechanisms and painfully esoteric messages that only the trained and experienced eye can distinguish. He says that he doesn’t understand why people can’t just have more fun. He admits that he has been painting, designing sets, directing music videos, and building sculptures and puppets for decades and all he wants to do is have fun and laugh. White is an important voice not only for his creativity and undeniable originality, but also for his championing of comedy as an enrichment of art. He, much like Albert C. Barnes, would protest that art not only can be, but should be enjoyed by people of all backgrounds and intelligences. In this sense, while The Art of the Steal is much more serious in tone than Beauty Is Embarrassing, both documentaries contain valuable statements about the importance of art in the modern world and the shattering of the conventions that can often disfigure it. Frank Tamberino ’16 (franktamberino@college) has fun with art all the time. 11.07.13 • The Harvard Independent