“Dorothy Saxe Invitational” at Contemporary Jewish Museum, S. F.; “Hungry Ghosts” at International Hotel Manilatown Center gallery, S. F.; Calendar
Going outside the box to make things right
The Hebrew word tzedakah has no satisfactory equivalent in English, but “it’s often translated as ‘ righteousness,’ ” says Claire Frost, curatorial assistant at the Contemporary Jewish Museum. Frost has had much occasion to contemplate
tzedakah lately; she is the curator of the CJM’s 10th Dorothy Saxe Invitational, which this year asked 38 West Coast artists to create their versions of the tzedakah box, a small container for contributions to the needy. Tzedakah boxes are traditionally found in Jewish homes and synagogues.
The results, on view through May 17, range from lighthearted to sobering, but Frost was struck by how many of these reimagined boxes go deep in meditating on tzedakah “as a way of ‘ righting,’ or bringing equality into the community. It’s not charity, not a self- sacrifice. It’s an obligation to consider justice in the ways we support one another.”
Some of the creations are both whimsical and philosophically weighty. Yvonne Escalante’s box, titled “Your Turn,” looks like a gumball machine, with a slot for accepting credit card payments on the front. The machine decides how much will be charged, and little plastic balls containing “prizes” are dispensed from the back, putting a new twist on the tzedakah box’s function of sparing the needy embarrassment and obligation by keeping the gift anonymous and “mediating between giver and receiver.”
In addition, the machine is “a continuation of the idea of autonomous value systems,” Frost says, because the “prizes” are all mundane objects, like paper clips or kernels of corn. “It’s up to the receiver to create or determine their value.”
Three of the boxes use shredded money (“We learned you can actually buy torn money from the U. S. Mint,” Frost says), notably Nancy Selvin’s “Tzedek,” which takes the shape of a glass house and has no slots for either accepting or dispensing donations. Beth Grossman’s “Providence” “makes a statement about wealth structures” by presenting an enormous funnel towards an oversized slot on the bottom of a pyramid so that “the people most in need will receive the most.”
Stephen Kaltenbach’s row of three separate steel boxes, titled “Eternal,” confronts the viewer with three stark inscriptions: “Last Word,” “Last Thought” and “Last Act.” Amy Franceschini’s “Flatbread Society Seed Archive,” made of rye seeds and ink on paper, references a powerful historical event: the way Russian citizens guarded scientist Nikolai Vavilov’s seed bank during the siege of Leningrad because they recognized the importance of horticultural genetic diversity. “They were putting this gift to future generations before their own lives,” Frost says.
She was struck by the number of artists who conceived nonmonetary ways of giving to the shared good, such as Leah Rosenberg, whose “Everyday, a Color” offers 365 strips of colored paper for the user to write intentions on and deposit.
“It was exciting to think about the ways good deeds can be carried out without money,” Frost says. “Is that still
tzedakah?”
The boxes will be sold by silent auction at a benefit reception for the museum on May 12. Winning bids typically range from $ 350 to $ 5,000.