Work in Progress: Considering Utopia
October 3, 2013–January 20, 2013
Complete Wall Text
WORK IN PROGRESS: CONSIDERING UTOPIA
For thousands of years, creative thinkers have imagined the possibility of utopia, an ideally
perfect society. From Plato’s visions of absolute justice in The Republic to the autonomous
rural lifestyle of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden to the equality and self-government
promoted by Emma Goldman, utopia has remained a dream. In the last few decades, a turn
toward social engagement in contemporary art has often resulted in utopian investigations
that involve the participation of others.
The three artists in Work in Progress—Elisheva Biernoff, Oded Hirsch, and Ohad Meromi—
offer meditations on utopia that reflect this recent emphasis on community and
collaboration, as well as alluding to the complex relationship between Judaism and its
utopian aspirations. The artists’ goals, much like those of The Contemporary Jewish
Museum, are to ask questions rather than offer answers. Is utopia possible? What would it
look like? Can art help us imagine it? What is our role in the process?
Two of the artists, Hirsch and Meromi, have personal connections to Israeli farm collectives
called kibbutzim (see the concurrent exhibition To Build and Be Built: Kibbutz History in the
Sala Webb Education Center), and they channel the communal energy and participatory
nature of the kibbutz in their work. Bay Area artist Biernoff’s interactive wall painting
represents an imagined idyll that is realized through shared efforts.
The desire for a better world is an important theme in Jewish texts and prayers, emerging in
part from a long history of Jewish exile and powerlessness. For thousands of years Jews
hoped for the appearance of a messianic age, in which peace and harmony would prevail. In
the last 150 years, emboldened by new freedoms in Europe and their involvement in
Socialism, Zionism (the realization of Israel as a Jewish state), and other nineteenth- and
twentieth-century political movements, many Jews attempted to create more perfect societies
both in the land of Israel and in countries around the world.
Through their unique artistic practices, the artists in Work in Progress engage with this
religious and cultural history, as well as broader utopian movements. They invite participants
onto a stage—sometimes literal and sometimes metaphoric—to perform gestures that
encourage questioning and critical thinking about the meaning of utopia today.
OHAD MEROMI
(born 1967, Kibbutz Mizra, Israel)
Ohad Meromi utilizes a broad spectrum of media to create dynamic, playful environments
and explore social relationships. Architectural elements, set design components, and
geometric figures form a cohesive tableau that strives to express communal energy and
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Work in Progress: Considering Utopia
October 3, 2013–January 20, 2013
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encourage discussion. The central component of Meromi’s 1967 is a stage inspired by the
chadar ochel (dining hall) of the kibbutz, a gathering place for the community.
1967 offers an ambiguous and nuanced interpretation of the concept of utopia informed by
the past and looking toward the future. Sculptural elements referencing Russian
Constructivism connect to the socialist origins of the kibbutz, while the stage serves as a
progressive utopic site that emphasizes audience participation. Forty concrete reliefs line the
perimeter of the stage: each cast slab represents one year, beginning with the artist’s birth
year of 1967. Taken together, the reliefs reflect the artist’s complex understanding of the
changing Israel he was born into and its relationship to utopia through a mixture of memory,
mythology, and the realities of the country's politicized landscape. In the artist’s own words,
“perhaps if we can’t re-create the utopian democratic city tomorrow, we can at least work on
a model for one, which could be a good place to start negotiating our ideals and hopes: a
good place to think about us and about our future?”
Performances and participatory events within the installation are planned throughout the run
of the exhibition. Visit the Shenson Welcome Center or our website at thecjm.org for more
information.
We invite you to walk on the stage, but please be respectful of the art and visitors
around you.
ODED HIRSCH
(born 1976, Kibbutz Afikim, Israel)
Oded Hirsch’s videos and photographs depict people laboring together to complete tasks
with unclear results. The lush countryside of Israel’s Jordan Valley serves as a powerful
backdrop in dialogue-free vignettes that evoke the richness of Old Master landscape
paintings. Hirsch’s videos are carefully scripted and directed, with members of the artist’s
kibbutz enlisted as participants. The idealistic communality of kibbutz life is rendered in
ambiguous terms, as people toil together towards an obscure, perhaps unattainable goal.
In the stylized video Tochka, a team of identically dressed kibbutzniks (residents of the
kibbutz) work with silent deliberation to build an inefficient bridge. Process is more
important than outcome, and collective action prevails over tangible results. The artist
explains that “there is no incentive [for the participants] other than the thrill of being
together.” The title Tochka, which means “point” (as in “point on a map”) in Russian, was
the original name of Hirsch’s kibbutz.
Every family in Kibbutz Afikim has a colored label with a number embroidered into their
clothing for purposes of identification in the communal laundry. The title 50 Blue refers to
this label, signifying the personal nature of this video for the artist. The artist’s brother
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Work in Progress: Considering Utopia
October 3, 2013–January 20, 2013
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pushes his wheelchair-bound father across the verdant Israeli landscape before hoisting him
up, with the help of others, to a watchtower in the Sea of Galilee.
These photographs were taken on set during the filming of Oded Hirsch’s most recent
video, The Tractor. The video offers a contemporary absurdist version of Alexander
Dovzhenko’s 1930 film Earth, in which the first tractor introduced into a Soviet collective
community serves as a utopian symbol of industrialization. In Hirsch’s video, the
kibbutzniks bury a tractor in a grave, only to dig it up again.
ELISHEVA BIERNOFF
(born 1980, Albuquerque, NM]
Elisheva Biernoff paints both intimate details and expansive vistas. Her skilled mastery of
the medium fuses with a conceptual focus on myth and memory in the creation of both tiny
and large-scale paintings. Her work considers the moment where fiction meets reality,
leaving interpretation to the viewer. Both Approaching Utopia, the painting visible through the
Museum window, and The Tools Are in Your Hands were commissioned for this exhibition.
In Approaching Utopia, which resembles a partially completed, oversized version of a paint-bynumber activity, an allegorical figure is surrounded by paintings of flags representing both
historical and contemporary activist movements, such as the World Peace flag, the Earth
Day flag, and the Women’s Suffrage flag. By referencing a literal work in progress, as well as
emphasizing groups that have advocated for social change, Approaching Utopia suggests the
importance of human agency in achieving a utopian world. The artist suggests that “if utopia
is unreachable, determination and concerted exertion can nevertheless nudge humanity a
little closer.”
The Tools Are in Your Hands is an interactive wall painting that allows visitors to build their
own manifestation of utopia. You are encouraged to select magnets designed by the artist
from the containers and place these shapes and agricultural elements on the magnetic
landscape in any configuration you choose. The bucolic scene may evoke the Garden of
Eden, the rolling hills of Israel, or the communal farms of Northern California, but
ultimately, the landscape represents the artist’s imagined vision, rooted in aspiration and
hope.
INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Choose some magnets
2. Find an empty spot on the wall
3. Create your own model of utopia in the landscape
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Work in Progress: Considering Utopia
October 3, 2013–January 20, 2013
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*If you would like to share what you’ve made, take a photograph of your work and post it
on Instagram with the hashtag #thetoolsareinyourhands. Make sure you set your location as
“Contemporary Jewish Museum.”
Elisheva Biernoff
The Tools Are in Your Hands, 2013
Steel, acrylic latex, magnets
Courtesy of the artist and Eli Ridgway
Elisheva Biernoff
Approaching Utopia, 2013
Acrylic latex on canvas
Courtesy of the artist and Eli Ridgway
Oded Hirsch
50 Blue, 2009
Single-channel video with sound, 12:30 min.
Courtesy of Thierry Goldberg Gallery
Oded Hirsch
Tochka, 2011
Single-channel video with sound, 13:20 min.
Courtesy of Thierry Goldberg Gallery
Oded Hirsch
Halfman, 2009
Chromogenic print
Courtesy of Thierry Goldberg Gallery
Oded Hirsch
Wheel Pushers, 2010
Chromogenic print
Courtesy of Thierry Goldberg Gallery
Oded Hirsch
The Tractor, 2013
Chromogenic print
Courtesy of Thierry Goldberg Gallery
Oded Hirsch
Men with Hoes, 2013
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Work in Progress: Considering Utopia
October 3, 2013–January 20, 2013
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Chromogenic print
Courtesy of Thierry Goldberg Gallery
Oded Hirsch
Back to the Village, 2013
Chromogenic print
Courtesy of Thierry Goldberg Gallery
Ohad Meromi
1967, 2013
Mixed media
Courtesy of the artist and Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv
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