First published in The Times of Israel, June 7, 2019. The link to the publication is here.
There are endless variations on the Jewish thought with regard to, around and because of Shavuot, the essential celebration for the People of the Book.
There are those who are claiming that “Judaism did not start from Abraham, but from the Mount Sinai”; those who are trying to re-construct in their houses and synagogues the fountain of beauty on Shavuot when Mount Sinai has become covered with roses at the moment, just after the Revelation. Every year, so many men in Israel and numerous synagogues around the world would be staying at the study halls for an entire night, studying with a special twist of celebration, and being uplifted.
Every year, Elie Wiesel would come to visit to Israel at this certain holiday. His rule was to celebrate Shavuot, the unique moment that has actually made us the People of the Book, in all and many senses of it, in Israel, to spend that sleepless night among his friends here.
Shavuot is unique among our holidays because it is the celebration of the moment when an intellectual effort has become a conscious behavioral code of a nation. It’s also unique because the moral matrix with all its practical implications had been given to our nation in an awesome act of High Power, in the episode of an unparalleled miracle. On Shavuot, we are celebrating that Gift of Mercy that has formatted not only Jewish spiritual genome as we know it, but has also laid the most essential bricks as the basis of human civilisation in a broader sense of it.
A lot of celebrate, a lot to think about, a lot to ponder on – that’s why many of our men are spending this special night at the synagogues.
In my series of art works on Jewish Mysticism, I have addressed this special night creating The Shavuot Night Trilogy. It consist of three art panels depicting: The Shavuot Night Window, the one which is opened for those who are earnest in their quest for the Torah and its lessons on this night only; Transition, the period of intense personal search into the Torah and its depths and various aspects, which are getting a person to the qualifiedly different status of his personality; and Memories on this very night during one’s life, the memories which are keeping us connected to our people.
The artistic view on the Jewish Mysticism with regard to Shavuot and that special Shavuot Night looks like this:Inna Rogatchi (C). The Shavuot Night Trilogy. Triptych. Part 1. The Window. Watercolour, crayons a encre on original archival print on cotton paper. 80 x 100 cm. Jewish Mysticism: Artistic Views series. 2018-2019Inna Rogatchi (C). The Shavuot Night Trilogy. Triptych. Part 2. Transition. Crayons a encre on original archival print on cotton paper. 80 x 100 cm. 2018-2019. Jewish Mysticism: Artistic View seriesInna Rogatchi (C). The Shavuot Night Trilogy. Triptych. Part 3. Memories. Silver, pigment of aluminium on original archival print on cotton paper. 80 x 100 cm. 2018-2019. Jewish Mysticism: Artistic View.
In the video present, there are also fine art photography and fine art photography collage works. They are mine. They are referring to the places of the utmost atrocities during the Holocaust, Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania. Later on, the collection was added with the works from Hungary. I have a strong feeling that the less Holocaust survivors we are having around us, the more motivated I am to do more and more art works which would help us to remember. It is as if my eyes are seeing the places and their scars from Shoah more tangibly every next year.Inna Rogatchi (C). This Kind of Forest. Fine Art Photography. Limited Edition. Black Milk & Dark Stars series. 2014.
We have created this video as our artistic dialogue. Working in different techniques and genres on the same theme is mutually supportive. When the genres are as close, as the paths of visual art, paintings and drawing, from one side, and fine art photography and collage from the other, the dimension of paintings provides depth for art photography, while art photography sets the context for paintings.As the result, the volume is synthesised and the effort and the theme gets a deeper prospect.
In our family, we do not need a certain, designated one day in a year to remember the Shoah. We both were brought with our both families’ sleepless crying nights over loved ones whom our families did not manage to save from the Nazis and their so very willing collaborators in Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Austria and France. We remember everyone of the Six Millions every minute of our lives. But on this day, the world is set to bring the conversation about it out. And it is certainly sobering and much needed practice which we support by every mean we can.
For the Name and The Place short art film, musical video-essay, had been created in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of Yad Vashem. Would it be 70, 80 or more years since the Shoah have had place, we always will be looking in its Mirror.
Inna Rogatchi (C). Danube Step. Budapest. Hungary. Fine Art Photography. Limited Edition. Blak Milk & Dark Stars series. 2016.
Our good friend Ina Ginsburg, the muse, dear and special friend and supporter of Andy Warhol, was one of those people who got life thanks to the action of Aristides de Sousa Mendes who was struggling through his nervous breakdown while acting to save lives. Ina, the only woman whom Warhol painted thrice, lived a long and productive life being patron-at-large of arts and music in the USA and bringing out, supporting and promoting her fellow Austrian Arnold Schwarzenegger, as well as Harrison Ford and scores of others, not to speak of Warhol himself who was a pariah in American high society until Ina changed it effectively and single-handedly, starting from a single handshake with the odd outsider and boldly inviting him to her and her husband’s house, an important venue of the American political, financial and cultural establishment. Ina told me all that in detail.Portrait of Ina Ginsburg by Andy Warhol. (C) Estate of Ina Ginsburg.
Ina who was blessed to live until 98 and passed away in the end of 2014, was ever attached to her family and their dramatic story. More, she was essentially attached to her wide family of Jewish people and our ultimate tragedy that had happened during Ina’s lifetime. She always was acutely aware that she and the part of her family had been enormously, incredibly, miraculously lucky, including the gift of life for them provided by Aristides de Sousa Mendes, but so many of our brethren did not receive that chance to live. Ina as I knew her, was the person who always kept something in the back of her head, and that ‘something’ was her pulsating memory of the Holocaust.
She did not tell too much about it, but one knew that the matter is always there. And when she did, you were burned by the pain that did not wade for a bit. How could it.
Ina was famous art collector whose house was an exquisite small museum and who did acquire much more than a person, a private collector could hope for. At the time I was lucky to get familiar with Ina, thanks to our dear friends Leona and Jerrold Schecters, these lovely quiet giants of American Jewry, she was much more like a very knowledgeable art expert and mentor than a keen collector, understandably. And how surprised I was when Ina did show a very keen interest in the one of my art pieces. I would never think that person whose house in the heart of Washington DC had not enough place for many of her exquisite and rare Warhols and many other extraordinary pieces of superb art would be so keen, so specially keen to have something that I did produce for one of my exhibitions.
Back and again, Ina was looking onto the map that I had created for my The Route exhibition telling on the historical journey of the Jewish people throughout time, history and countries. As a marker for the map, I have used just one element, my photograph of the early XX century Eastern European broche of my grandmother Adel Chigrinsky. As a matter of fact, the broche was the only piece of jewellery that my grandma had ever owned. It was interesting to mention it to Ina who was known for her museum-quality vast jewellery collection. Ina loved my grandma’s broche and she loved my map. The great art collector did commission me to do a big-size special piece of this work. “As big as you can, my dear. This map is important for me”, – she said. “ But you barely have space on your walls, Ina. – I was baffled. – We have had discussed it just the other day”. – “Don’t you worry , my dear – Ina replied with he thoughtful smile which always was a bit apart of her yet more thoughtful eyes. – If I would need to take something down to put your map on my wall, I will do it in a minute. I love this map”.Inna Rogatchi (C). The Route. The European Jewry’s Journey. Fine art photography collage & graphic design. Unique. The Route project and collection. 2013.
At the time, I thought that great Ina Ginsburg was responding to the style of my map, and that she felt nostalgic for Europe and the European art. And I was happy that her expert eye saw something interesting in what I do. How naive we are even in an advanced age, I think now. It was Ina Ginsburg’s heart, not eye, that captured something in the map telling about the Journey of Jewish people with a pointer of my grandma’s broche.Inna Rogatchi (C). Memory Sun. Eastern European broche, early XX century. The Rogatchi Judaica collection. Fine Art Photography. Limited Edition. Power of Light. Judaica Symbolism series. 2013.
We all are having our favourite and most favourite holidays in our annual circle of life. I am not sure if preferences are changed during one’s life. I doubt it. To me, these preferences are the marks of one’s character, poignant and tangible ones however subtle it might be.
Nothing beats Hanukkah to me. The magic of it, the revelation of it. The expectation of it, the joy of it. And – the endurance of its light. It comes as such because we are starting to expect that appearance of the first candle a few days ahead. It continues all eight days marked with a accelerating enlightening. And it stays over, quite powerfully, after the actual ending of the Hannukah because the process of celebration had been accumulated not only the physical light itself, but also our aspirations and joy. It is an energy shot amidst the darkest time of an year anywhere in the world.Inna Rogatchi (C). Hannah and Her Sons II. Original art work. 40 x 50 cm. 2018.
More importantly, it is a mental energy shot, and this is a primary importance of Hanukkah for generations. There is no coincidence that the Talmud and other Jewish major sources of wisdom pays absolutely central attention to the concept of Light in our fundamental and general perception of the world.
Studying these sources, we are intrigued to think on the essence of Light – which is the Light of the Light, according to the Talmud. And we are relieved to discover that the essence of Darkness is Light, too. Such perception of the world explains our prevail over the circumstances not even daring, but impossible, as it happened throughout Jewish history, and as it is still happening today. It explains our endurance and our optimism, our strength and our code of survival. No, not survival, life. And Light.
In my art work, the concept of light has a central position. It is a nucleus of what I do. Maybe, that’s why Hannukah is a super-magnet for me . When I started to work as a fine art photographer, my first independent direction of work was the one which is known as Lux Sei Photo Art ®, the direction in the art photography that provides psychological help to anyone who is in need of it due to various reason. The idea worked well, and the collections were applied very usefully at hospices in Finland and United Kingdom, cancer clinics of Spain, Jewish elderly houses and Jewish pensions for orphans in Ukraine, and many other places world-wide. A special collection of these works has been donated by us for the cardiology department of the Rambam hospital in Haifa, to cheer patients there and to calm them down. Our friends at the hospital are saying that it works very well.
Art Ways of Examining Tradition
In the direction of Jewish art, one is blessed to have the Talmudic concept of Light as a starting point. Many of my art collections on various Jewish themes are based on this solid – and shining – ground: my collection on the unknown places connected to the Schneerson family in Ukraine is called Legacy of Light; my other collection on the Judaica symbolism, the one which is on permanent display at the Vilnius Public Jewish Library in Lithuania, the first Jewish library opened in that country since the end of the WWII in the end of 2011 is called Power of Light. My new collection on modern interpretation of the Judaica Symbolism due to the round of the international exhibitions soon, is called Smile of Light.Inna Rogatchi (C). The Art of Light. Original art work. 40 x 50 cm. 2016.
As an artist, I was examining my favourite Jewish holiday, Hanukkah, meticulously, during several years. In that search, I was trying to answer an inner call: what is that magic, special, inviting and enduring light? What is the essence and the dimensions of the magic?
The reflections on Hanukkah in this 30 – piece collection goes in chronological order, from the first candle to the mighty feast of all nine of them, eight plus one. In many works I am using a rare and delicate silver Hannukiah hand-made in Venice in the intricate filigrane style more than a century ago, in the end of XIX century. I like to think that when we are lighting the candles in that special Hannukiah a year after another, the light of it warms up and brings to life the energy of the people who did it by their hands, with their thoughts and inspiration more than century ago in the magic city , the Jewish ghetto of which was full of incredible masters, great talent and very resilient Jewish spirit. The same goes for the festive dreidel, also with filigrane and enamel, made by the masters not only with a skilful hands, but with a Jewish soul. In several works, the light of Hannukah is reflected in rather special small Venetian mirror, also a century old, modest, beautiful, with its own message to convey.
Inna Rogatchi (C). Memory Lights. Fine Art Photography. Limited Edition. 2014.
That mirror and its reflection did help me to express that unlimited sorrow back in July 2014 when the three boys were kidnapped. The work called Memory Lights had been created for our art solidarity campaign with their families that our Foundation did run at the time. This work which I cannot take away from the wall, always reminds me on them and all the other tragedies alike – which are mounting, as we all know. The theme of memory is also set in the other work of the collection, In the Memory of Six Million. What else can we do except to remember the souls of those Six Million? Every single one of them.Inna Rogatchi (C). In Memory of the Six Million. Original art work. 50 x 40 cm. 2016.
The light plays an ultimate voice during our eight days of a Miracle in the end of every Kislev of our lives. In my collection, there are different, beautiful Safed candles – which also bears the warmth and genuinity of our Land and our tradition. During the Hanukkah time, we are bathed in the warmth, light, beauty and memory. This is the treat. And it fills one with gratitude – however dark it is outside.
The film and the collection are dedicated to the memory of both of my grandfathers, Abram Elovitch and Eliahu Bujanover. They both were strong in character, quite-essentially Jewish men. They both were living very difficult lives full of struggle to keep their and their families’ Jewishness, first under the tough realities of the Russian Empire, then under the negating realities of the Soviet Union. The brother of my Eliahu grandfather, Haim Bujanover, who looked like a movie star and who was a talented and aspiring student of math and physics, was beheaded by the Ukrainian Petljura villains when he was returning from a date with his fiancee in Ekaterinoslav in 1918 – because he was a Jew. The family of my Abram grandfather was annihilated by the Ukrainian pro-Nazi enthusiasts in Nikolajev in 1941 – because they were Jews. Both my grandfathers, highly qualified and well-educated engineers, were arrested by the KGB in the 1950s, in the midst of the Stalin’s anti-Semitic hysterical repressions, as if the Holocaust was not enough.Inna Rogatchi (C). Hanukkah Dialogue. Fine Art photography. Limited Edition. 2016.
Not for a second of their long lives my grandfathers faltered on their and their families’ strong and pride Jewishness under none of the stormy winds of the XX century. Quite to the contrary, they both were resolute and trustworthy men, equipped also with great sense of humour, our indispensable armour. They were the guardians of our Jewish world, the Jewish world of our family, the world inside us. And how did they love our holidays! We were celebrating in the way which was possible in that life: with all traditional food and songs, and with memories. The connection was never interrupted.
I wish that my grandfathers were more relaxed in their uneasy lives, that they have had more reasons to be serene, that their holidays were more and fuller, that they could attend the synagogue without being afraid to being seeing there. I wish that they would enjoy more lights of Hanukkah. But I hope that they are seeing these ones, in my works. And they both are smiling, with no worries in their minds any longer.
Excerpts from Inna Rogatchi’s essay, November 2018:
I remember how I was gravely impressed by hearing that public farewell of Leonard. My close friends who were the same impressed as I was on the depth and openness of the crossing the line between the Worlds, were trying to console me concluding:”So, Leonard was ready, indeed”. I knew that, but the departure is not the thing to be consoled about, especially when the leaving one was that man. We were trying to express what we felt at the time, on that rainy day in November 2016.
Two years on, and one year since I slowly re-started to hear Leonard’s records, I just can not do it with his last one. Not with all songs there, nor with the first one which is the last one for me. It is beyond my capacities.
But how special are the ways of our sub-consciousness in getting out of the maze of longing. The next thing I found myself doing after realising that I won’t able to hear the Leonard’s last album ever it was writing a letter to him. Not in words, but in images. It did come on its own, I did not plan it. I created some new work fighting that gloomy autumn reign, and upon seeing some of the work, I have sensed that it is about Leonard.
There was one mighty tree that was as if speaking, it has so much to say, and its narrative and its accents were changing due to the weather, season, mood, and time. I have realised that this is my letter to Leonard.The letter which will be coming to him, up There, during all seasons. With the message or love and remembrance carried on ‘the high silver nerves’, as he had put it in his Window song almost forty years ago.Inna Rogatchi (C). Letter to Leonard. Homage to Leonard Cohen. Original art panel. 60 x 85 cm. 2018. The Rogatchi Art Collection.
I glanced on the calendar – it was 6 Chesvan, the actual date of the Leonard’s yahrzeit.
Instead of the unbearable farewell prayer-song of the man who was a blessing and a gift to us all, I came back to the Cohen’s The Window – and it let me out of this maze of longing, slow but assuredly.
Inna Rogatchi (C). The Shavuot Night Trilogy. Triptych. Part 1. The Window. Watercolour, crayons a encre on original archival print on cotton paper. 80 x 100 cm. Jewish Mysticism: Artistic Views series. 2018-2019
Inna Rogatchi (C). The Shavuot Night Trilogy. Triptych. Part 2. Transition. Crayons a encre on original archival print on cotton paper. 80 x 100 cm. 2018-2019. Jewish Mysticism: Artistic View series
Inna Rogatchi (C). The Shavuot Night Trilogy. Triptych. Part 3. Memories. Silver, pigment of aluminium on original archival print on cotton paper. 80 x 100 cm. 2018-2019. Jewish Mysticism: Artistic View.
Inna Rogatchi (C). This Kind of Forest. Fine Art Photography. Limited Edition. Black Milk & Dark Stars series. 2014.
Portrait of Ina Ginsburg by Andy Warhol. (C) Estate of Ina Ginsburg.
Inna Rogatchi (C). The Route. The European Jewry’s Journey. Fine art photography collage & graphic design. Unique. The Route project and collection. 2013.
Inna Rogatchi (C). Hannah and Her Sons II. Original art work. 40 x 50 cm. 2018.
Inna Rogatchi (C). The Art of Light. Original art work. 40 x 50 cm. 2016.
Inna Rogatchi (C). Memory Lights. Fine Art Photography. Limited Edition. 2014.
Inna Rogatchi (C). In Memory of the Six Million. Original art work. 50 x 40 cm. 2016.
Inna Rogatchi (C). Hanukkah Dialogue. Fine Art photography. Limited Edition. 2016.
