This is certainly a novel and imaginative way to bring Avot into the lives of artists and their addressees. An example, by Michelle Brint, features above. Can you work out which of the 48 "things" she is depicting?Jerusalem gallery Kol HaOt challenged 48 artists of all stripes to create new artwork while sequestered for 48 hours in their formerly bereft space
Many went into quarantine over the last year thinking they would use the time to finally finish that novel or artistic project they had been putting off for years, but then wound up binge-watching Netflix instead.
At Jerusalem art gallery Kol HaOt, that concept (without the Netflix) was recently pared down into an intensive 48-hour challenge to produce pieces of art while sequestered away in “creative quarantine.”
The two-day seclusion brought 48 different artists over the last three months to the gallery and interactive Jewish educational art center, located in the Hutzot Hayotzer alleyway of artists’ galleries facing the Old City walls.
Each chosen artist had 48 hours locked away in the gallery to create an artwork responding to one of 48 teachings from Pirkei Avot, known as Ethics of the Fathers, a compilation of Jewish teachings from rabbinic Judaism. Artists were only allowed to leave to eat or sleep....
Kol HaOt, which always connects art and Judaism in its exhibits and educational experiences, utilized Pirkei Avot’s 48 pathways to wisdom, a passage in the Mishnah [it's actually a Baraita in the sixth perek that lists 48 "things" through which Torah is acquired] which lists 48 ways of “acquiring” Torah knowledge.
“It’s a very universal list, things like, you have to be loving, you have to make room for friends, don’t do things in the common way, do stuff with awe and sacredness,” said [the curator, Eli] Kaplan-Wildmann. ...
