Thursday, December 01, 2005
Dr Mark Podwal gives Rabbi Irving Block Memorial Lecture
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
The Third Rabbi Irving J. Block Memorial Lecture at Brotherhood Synagogue on November 18 was different. Instead of scholars expressing their love of Judaism through the Book, law and lore, we heard and saw an artist who makes his Jewish statement with line and color, using metaphor, symbolism, irony, and cruelty, if appropriate.
Mark Podwal, MD, is a Clinical Associate Professor of Dermatology at NYU’s Medical School, and, concurrently, an artist on the op-ed page of New York Times, by choice limiting himself to drawings on topics on which he is passionate. He calls it interested, but passion is what he projects. His is not the crude literal punch line art of the editorial artists of the Post and the News, in the manner of Thomas Nast who portrayed Boss Tweed with bags of money, nor is it the chiseled art of Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury, a more contemporary dialogue-based style. Here we are dealing with a nuanced and symbolic portrayal, metaphors rather than words. I would liken him to the masters, Honore Daumier of the Second Empire, and Goya with his nightmarish allusions, painters beyond mere caricature creation. Podwal is just that, a painter who expresses his beliefs, and he is in a hurry about it, as his presentation of the slides reflects. The subject was “Jerusalem Sky; Stars, Crosses, and Crescents,” a topic dear to the late Rabbi Block, who believed in that same precise concatenation of brotherhood of beliefs, and was buried in Jerusalem, on the Mount of Olives, his gravesite in sight of all faiths. But before we got to the above point, we rushed through Dr. Podwal’s entire history of Jewish experience. Rushed is the word, and my jumbled notes reflect it, so bear with me.
His start was with the NY Times was in 1972, with a picture of the Eiffel Tower dreaming of oil gushers. This was to illustrate the French treachery of not prosecuting the murderers of Israeli athletes in the Munich Olympics. Somehow my notes now led into a discussion of his drawing of a Jerusalem artichoke with a mosque growing out of it that was accepted by the Grand Mufti but rejected by a Jewish curator because this vegetable is more like a sunflower, and it had to be exhibited as “untitled.” This was an illustration for a book titled Dracula Cookbook, by a Rumanian actress or princess or sorceress, or maybe it was for Sweet Year, a book that has an olive branch decorated with dreidels instead of leaves. The interleaving is understandable because Podwal has written 10 books and illustrated 18, and in his presentation they all surface in an indeterminate order, a dreamlike sequence, totally enchanting.
Order is restored, when we come to Prague, the city of Podwal’s other passion, and a 1280 synagogue on Maisel Street, morphing into another of 1609, famed because of its Rabbi Loewy, who had to do with the Golem. The synagogue has outside metal spike-like steps driven in its wall, leading the death-defying climber to an upper story, with a hard door, behind which lie unspeakable secrets, or horrors. The author was permitted to see them, but he cannot speak. This is the MittelEuropa world of magic realism, with expectations of Vlad the Impaler or Frankenstein appearing. But we drop the Golem, and go on, to Yassir Arafat as an A-Bomb, with sunglasses. The Times did or did not accept it, the mind reels, but I love the imagery. Subsequent research revealed that the myth has Rabbi Jehudah Loew ben Bezalel (1525-1609) create the homunculus Golem, a man of mud, a kind of Adam concept, but we must move on, Dr. Podwall does not stand still. .
The artist met Elie Wiesel because the renowned author liked an illustration for one of his op-eds, and they went on to do a Haggadah, the Passover prayer book that many artists have made their ultimate challenge. The Haggadah was successful (we saw a Passover Fall moon that was overwhelming), and they continued together, to explore King Solomon’s magic.
When we eventually came to Podwal’s Jerusalem, it was a revelation. The sharp line artist had dissolved into a colorist, living in a pastel dream world. Blue-green aquarelle clouds serenely float over orange domes and cubes, the fantasy land of Mignon’s song transforming into dreams of temples growing out of flowers. In another view the skies turn into mosaic, and the stones into fortresses. The blue, purple and white of Mohammed’s horses charges the magic atmosphere. But the book ends with hope, with three towers, topped by the cross, half-moon and a star of David, standing side by side. If words like overwhelming or enchanting recur here, it is for a reason. Dr. Podwal is a magician, and the grateful audience felt it.
Herbert Block’s tender story of a visit to his father’s gravesite (a film series has been dedicated to Rabbi Block’s memory) and Rabbi Daniel Alder’s introduction and commentary contributed a base under the dream world spun by the artist’s imagery.
The Third Rabbi Irving J. Block Memorial Lecture at Brotherhood Synagogue on November 18 was different. Instead of scholars expressing their love of Judaism through the Book, law and lore, we heard and saw an artist who makes his Jewish statement with line and color, using metaphor, symbolism, irony, and cruelty, if appropriate.
Mark Podwal, MD, is a Clinical Associate Professor of Dermatology at NYU’s Medical School, and, concurrently, an artist on the op-ed page of New York Times, by choice limiting himself to drawings on topics on which he is passionate. He calls it interested, but passion is what he projects. His is not the crude literal punch line art of the editorial artists of the Post and the News, in the manner of Thomas Nast who portrayed Boss Tweed with bags of money, nor is it the chiseled art of Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury, a more contemporary dialogue-based style. Here we are dealing with a nuanced and symbolic portrayal, metaphors rather than words. I would liken him to the masters, Honore Daumier of the Second Empire, and Goya with his nightmarish allusions, painters beyond mere caricature creation. Podwal is just that, a painter who expresses his beliefs, and he is in a hurry about it, as his presentation of the slides reflects. The subject was “Jerusalem Sky; Stars, Crosses, and Crescents,” a topic dear to the late Rabbi Block, who believed in that same precise concatenation of brotherhood of beliefs, and was buried in Jerusalem, on the Mount of Olives, his gravesite in sight of all faiths. But before we got to the above point, we rushed through Dr. Podwal’s entire history of Jewish experience. Rushed is the word, and my jumbled notes reflect it, so bear with me.
His start was with the NY Times was in 1972, with a picture of the Eiffel Tower dreaming of oil gushers. This was to illustrate the French treachery of not prosecuting the murderers of Israeli athletes in the Munich Olympics. Somehow my notes now led into a discussion of his drawing of a Jerusalem artichoke with a mosque growing out of it that was accepted by the Grand Mufti but rejected by a Jewish curator because this vegetable is more like a sunflower, and it had to be exhibited as “untitled.” This was an illustration for a book titled Dracula Cookbook, by a Rumanian actress or princess or sorceress, or maybe it was for Sweet Year, a book that has an olive branch decorated with dreidels instead of leaves. The interleaving is understandable because Podwal has written 10 books and illustrated 18, and in his presentation they all surface in an indeterminate order, a dreamlike sequence, totally enchanting.
Order is restored, when we come to Prague, the city of Podwal’s other passion, and a 1280 synagogue on Maisel Street, morphing into another of 1609, famed because of its Rabbi Loewy, who had to do with the Golem. The synagogue has outside metal spike-like steps driven in its wall, leading the death-defying climber to an upper story, with a hard door, behind which lie unspeakable secrets, or horrors. The author was permitted to see them, but he cannot speak. This is the MittelEuropa world of magic realism, with expectations of Vlad the Impaler or Frankenstein appearing. But we drop the Golem, and go on, to Yassir Arafat as an A-Bomb, with sunglasses. The Times did or did not accept it, the mind reels, but I love the imagery. Subsequent research revealed that the myth has Rabbi Jehudah Loew ben Bezalel (1525-1609) create the homunculus Golem, a man of mud, a kind of Adam concept, but we must move on, Dr. Podwall does not stand still. .
The artist met Elie Wiesel because the renowned author liked an illustration for one of his op-eds, and they went on to do a Haggadah, the Passover prayer book that many artists have made their ultimate challenge. The Haggadah was successful (we saw a Passover Fall moon that was overwhelming), and they continued together, to explore King Solomon’s magic.
When we eventually came to Podwal’s Jerusalem, it was a revelation. The sharp line artist had dissolved into a colorist, living in a pastel dream world. Blue-green aquarelle clouds serenely float over orange domes and cubes, the fantasy land of Mignon’s song transforming into dreams of temples growing out of flowers. In another view the skies turn into mosaic, and the stones into fortresses. The blue, purple and white of Mohammed’s horses charges the magic atmosphere. But the book ends with hope, with three towers, topped by the cross, half-moon and a star of David, standing side by side. If words like overwhelming or enchanting recur here, it is for a reason. Dr. Podwal is a magician, and the grateful audience felt it.
Herbert Block’s tender story of a visit to his father’s gravesite (a film series has been dedicated to Rabbi Block’s memory) and Rabbi Daniel Alder’s introduction and commentary contributed a base under the dream world spun by the artist’s imagery.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 4:25 PM 
