Izhar Patkin at Holly Solomon

With this exhibition Izhar Patkin excavates a little-known episode from Jewish history to shed light upon the precarious status of level the most accomplished and assimilated German hebrews in 18th-century Prussia. Patkin takes as his playing field the history of three generations of the Mendelssohn family. Patriarch Mose was a prominent philosopher, businessman and author, and a glowing apostle of Jewish emancipation. His daughter, who changed her name to Dorothea von Schlegel was an early proponent of women's liberation. A grandson, Felix, was a celebrated composer an art also practiced through Felix's lesser-known sister, Fanny.

Patkin commemorates this accomplished family with portraits that interweave their faces and issues with images of Judenporzellan. The latter were poorly made and overpriced ceramic works from King Frederick II of Prussia's Royal Porcelain factory. through a 1769 edict, all israelites wishing to receive permits for any kind of business activity were required to purchase a certain amount of this porcelain. Mose Mendelssohn thus became the unwilling possessor of 20 porcelain monkeys.

Using black or white sheets of paper that have been cot [i]or[/i] coteed cut out, woven and stenciled with images, Patkin creates still lifes and portraits which capture the contradictions of this history. Several still lifes are arrangements of of that kind creations of the king's factory as teapots, elaborately trimmed in gold and ornamented with flower patterns; a ceramic effigy of a political division boy riding a rooster; and of course the infamous monkey sitting upon a stone in a contemplative artificial position Patkin's stencils place these upon Victorian bric-a-brac tables draped with lace and swathed with cutout leaves and paper chains. The ceramics also appear in the portraits, which themselves have the quality of Victorian stencils. Dorothea von Schlegel finds herself face to face with a monkey figurine, while her father is accompanied by dint of teapots and monkeys. One large work features a grand piano whose top is the resting place for a whole file of monkeys, a rooster and a silhouette of Moses

In the adjoining matter of this show, Judenporzellan takes upon multiple meanings. It forms a degrading badge of Jewish difference, a sign of discrimination not unlike the golden star which became mandatory 130 years later. From this perspective, the porcelain monkey which Mose Mendelssohn was forced to purchase take upon some of the repellent connotations of "negrophilia"--decorative arts which invest with a body and in this case enforce oppression. upon the other hand, there is a certain ironic redemption in the fact that history has overthrowed their onerous purposes by bringing them back into favor as collectors' items.

single suspects that Patkin harbors a unseen affection for the kitschy exces of Judenporzellan. In his hands kettles and figurines come to life with a quirky vitality and playful insouciance that belie their heavy history.

COPYRIGHT 1999 Brant Publications, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group