Page 372 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

Fantastic and allegorical figures

doom lying behind a sexy smile may have been a factor in his
decision to carve this piece.

24 “Co-existence or no-existence” *
Wood
23.5” x 11.5”
Inscription: CO-EX. NO-EX. (on base)

AR carved this masterpiece from a block made of laminated
six-by-sixes. It was one of the few pieces to gain any public
recognition during his lifetime: the Los Angeles County
Museum displayed it in a juried exhibition of local artists in
1961 (mislabeling it “Mr. Cox and Mr. Nox,” a complete
misapprehension), an event which must have pleased him
greatly. The scene is an allegorical tableau of the Cold War,
reduced to its essence: Uncle Sam and Uncle Ivan confront
each other, the terrestrial sphere between them, each holding
bombs over the other’s territory. The stiffness of “folk”
carving in this case is particularly apt, describing perfectly the
political paralysis at the finish line of the nuclear arms race.

The adversaries are mirror images, differentiated only by
costume details and facial hair. The American wears top hat
and tails with a high collar; his brow is wrinkled and his beard
pointed. The Russian is in a belted tunic, with boots and a
worker’s cap; his beard is broad, reflecting AR’s memories of
the czarist empire. Further examination and reflection reveal
some subtle imbalances in the symmetry of the characters.
Uncle Sam is, after all, the figure of a Yankee capitalist, and the
Russian portrayed here is not a bloated bureaucrat but a
proletarian, a man of the people. Further, the placement of the
inscription (which is in two parts—one cameo, the other
intaglio, to accentuate the opposition of meaning) inevitably
must express a bias: no-existence, the result of dropping the
bombs, is under the American representative; co-existence, the
condition of survival, is below the Russian. AR’s cleverness in
combining verbal and visual wit produced a work with great

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