Habitus

by Justine Poustchi · 02/21/12

On our minds this week:

Literature in the City 

A performance of “The Merchant of Venice” in Hebrew, as a part of London’s Cultural Olympiad, ignites controversy and leads to an exploration of its performance by the Habima Theater of Israel throughout history.

Lulling us further back in time and space, Berlin contributor Susan Bernofsky’s translations of Robert Walser’s vignettes animate the rush of the city while capturing the joy of Aschinger, a restaurant, and even the electric tram.

Narrating Memory

BOMBLOG’s Page Break series turns its attention to New York contributor Irina Reyn’s “Blood”, a short story that examines the role of the past in fostering Jewish-Armenian identity. Photographer Ana Yam explores the tension between memory and forgetting in a new collection of photographs entitled “Habitat” on display in Tel Aviv until the 23rd. Challenging conventional modes of observation, her work occupies the space between her Russian and Israeli identity, creating images that demand closer attention. Probe deeper into the scientific, legal, and fictional intricacies of memory with this fascinating look at our understanding of the way we remember.

Artists Rediscovered

The death of Nobel laureate Wislawa Syzmborska provokes an exploration of a “Brilliant Age of Polish Poetry”, drawing our attention to the works of Czeslaw Milosz, and Zbigniew Herbert. Adam Kirsch’s look at “Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters” illuminates the complexities of a cosmopolitan whose life “fit into three suitcases” as he grappled with his place in the world and his Jewish identity.

Claude Cahun, a forgotten surrealist artist and writer, has been garnering attention recently in conjunction with a traveling exhibition of her work. The retrospective, entitled “Entre Nous: The Art of Claude Cahun,” is opening in Chicago on the 25th and will feature over 80 photographs from her oeuvre. Cahun was known for her multiple identities – French, Jewish, writer, photographer – that as Lauren Elkin wrote “she put on and took off at will, like costumes for her portraits.”