At first glance, Bak’s 2021 Global seems rather confusing. Covered in a material that is simultaneously reminiscent of the contradictory materials of soft, fluffy clouds and cold, hard stone, a man exhausts and contorts his body to point upward. Towering above him, a collection of the same perplexing material appears to be suspended only with the aid of two pieces of wood. Does this figure point to warn, to signal to onlookers that a second collision is imminent?
An additional three wooden sticks – or perhaps branches of a tree – are positioned to the left of the buried figure. A hand with a rather disheartening aura is perched on top of one of these sticks. Whether or not this hand is reaching out for support or mercy is unclear. Again, Bak utilizes contradictions to reference the Holocaust without directly depicting it. As Louis Aragon said, “Reality is the apparent absence of contradiction. The marvelous is the eruption of the contradiction with the real.” The famed artist also claimed that it was the duty of surrealists to reveal the contradictions of “what is commonly held to be the case” in life. In Global, Bak employs contradictions to explore a world outside of our reality, that being the world of Bak.
Quotes taken from a 1981 New York Times article, The Stuff of Marvels by Salman Rushdie.
Lucy McGing (Guest Writer)
BAK a Day, December 29, 2023
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Who is this this figure crushed by and embedded in a mound of white stone? One arm is raised with their index finger pointing to the “stone clouds” above while the other disarticulated hand set atop a wooden pole has an index finger or pointing object directed at the viewer. Are these fingers directing our attention and if so, for what reason? Regardless of interpretation, it is a powerful tool, almost a demand, for engagement.
Texturally, there is a metamorphosis between clouds and stone but in which direction? Likely the rising branches and tree trunks, Bak’s visual metaphor for human lives or family, are leaving in the clouds or perhaps it is smoke. The figure, if alive, clearly will not survive and may be signaling his own destiny. The detached hand is saying, “Hey, you! Look at what is happening!” Is this a Jew from Lithuania in 1944, Tyre Nichols in Memphis, a pregnant mother in the rubble of a hospital in Ukraine?
Bak has also once again called into question the hope that religious faith will save lives. The four largest poles, two of which are no longer in the ground, and the horizontal “stone cloud” would form a chuppah had things remained intact. The chuppah is a part of Jewish wedding ceremonies and its significance described by one informative website, “Like the sukkah, the chuppah reminds bride and groom that they are protected by G_d alone and that G_d is their only haven and support.”
Is there irony in that finger pointing skyward as the protection this figure needed did not materialize?
Dr. Carl M. Herbert (Guest Writer)
BAK a Day, February 1, 2023
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As the planet is being destroyed by humankind beyond the horrors of the war in the Ukraine we can view this work as another attempt to alert all to the pollution of the world.
Pointing to the transformation of the clouds into stone is just a gesture of alarm.
In other works the smoke of the crematoria in Bak’s works becomes stone.
The stone is transformed into tombstones.
Our pollution is also becoming stone, and these weights will eventually suffocate our planet and all life on it.
UN reports are echoed by Bak’s bearing visual witness to this treacherous direction.
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