Page 298 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text
P. 298

Introduction to the sculpture

        reading  had  instilled  in  him  a  fascination  for  the  sensuality  of  the
        former  type  and  the  scholarship  of  the  latter.  Literary  associations
        seem to be the primary trigger in his mind for carving these works;
        they could almost be categorized as fantasies, in which imagination
        complements  not  memory  but  whimsy.  Two  of  the  fantasy  pieces
        (nos.  15  and  24)  bear  titular  inscriptions  revealing  a  high  level  of
        verbal wit and visual punning—as well as social criticism. The “2020
        letter”  and  some  of  the  letters  to  grandchildren  show  what  AR’s
        imagination could do in a literary context; it is unfortunate that he did
        not get to exercise it more often.
           It is in the human studies that the artist’s unconscious concerns
        are most in evidence; as argued above, it is precisely when specific
        design  or  “content”  is  least  present  in  the  artist’s  mind  that  he
        expresses most clearly his deepest  concerns. AR repeated the same
        “study”  many  times:  the  head  of  a  man  of  mature  years,  bearded,
        serious, with no identifiable costume detail other than an occasional
        yarmulke. These pieces are discussed in more detail in the catalogue;
        suffice it here to say that AR must have been recreating a complex of
        human and cultural characteristics retaining a powerful hold on his
        psyche: the image of patriarchal authority, as manifest in the persons
        of his .father, grandfathers, uncles and (by proxy) teachers.
           That theme runs through AR’s life and works like a vein of iron:
        the  family  and  society  he  grew  up  in,  rebelled  against,  and  was  a
        refugee from, were based on the traditional Judaic paternal model of
        filial respect and obedience—if not trust. His descriptions of Moshe
        Itzel and life under his rule reveal the depth of this phenomenon in
        the  Rothstein  compound.  And  then  America,  particularly  postwar
        Los Angeles, where all forms of authority were in retreat, eroded by
        social  change  and  challenged  by  deprived  classes  of  people:  AR,
        having achieved the age and position of a grandfather, was powerless.
        It  may  well  be  that  this  incongruous  development,  manifest  in  his
        own life history, from the past (oppression of body and mind for the
        young,  power  and  status  for  the  old)  to  the  present  (freedom  and
        irresponsibility for the young, abandonment and isolation for the old,
        set up a ferment in AR’s unconscious expressed most forcefully in
        the mute stone and wood heads of his ancestors.


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