Samuel Bak

Othyoth

   
Othyoth
  • 1992
  • Oil on linen
  • 51 18 × 38 58 inches(130 × 98 cm)

  • Signed and dated lower right: BAK 92

  • Othyoth depicts the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments as floating in space and shattered into pieces, yet unmistakably bound as if by magnetic attraction.
    “I’m not interested so much in the man that God created, but in the God that man created,” says Bak. “I’m interested in the moral structure to human consciousness, and the tablets of the Ten Commandments represent this symbol. These laws are very important to keep the human person in a state of dignity, and in a state of protection, protected from their animal impulses. Now this moral consciousness has constantly been destroyed, reborn and destroyed. This sort of thing was represented again in the time of the Holocaust, and it still goes on, because wars go on, slaughter goes on, crimes go on.”
    Samuel Bak, Interview in Stuff Magazine, 1995

  • Themes:  Symbol/Letter

Exhibitions

Myth, Midrash and Mysticism . The Paintings of Samuel Bak 1996 Boca Raton, FL

Myth, Midrash and Mysticism . The Paintings of Samuel Bak 1995 Denver, CO

Myth, Midrash & Mysticism . The Paintings of Samuel Bak 1995 Chicago, IL

Samuel Bak - A Retrospective Journey 1994 West Bloomfield, MI

BAK Landscapes of Jewish Experience 1993 Boston, MA

Literature

Representing the Irreparable: Samuel Bak, Dana Nolan Fewell, Michael Fishbane, Lawrence L. Langer, Dan Mathewson, Alicia Ostriker, Gary A. Phillips, S. Brent 2008 Boston, MA, p. 23, ill.

Between Worlds . Paintings and Drawings of SAMUEL BAK from 1946 to 2001 Alicia Craig Faxon, Lawrence L. Langer, Bernhard H. Pucker, Irene Tayler, Saul Touster, Samuel Bak 2002 Boston, MA, p. 197, ill.

Samuel Bak . The Landscape of Jewish Experience Ori Z. Soltes 1997 Houston, TX / Washin, p. 12, ill.

SAMUEL BAK Myth, Midrash and Mysticism Michael Fishbane 1995 Boston, MA, p. 13, ill.

The Eleventh Miracle . The Paintings of Samuel Bak 1994 Washington. DC, p. 134, ill.

BAK Landscapes of Jewish Experience Bernhard H. Pucker 1993 Boston, MA, front cover ill.

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