Raya Bruckenthal

Contemporary artists use sacred texts as raw materials in their works. They choose to engage with the materiality of the text itself by copying, overlaying, stamping and blurring it. These works emphasize the value of the sacred text itself through its materiality, which tradition treats as sacred beyond its content. The evolution from focusing on the meaning of the text to examining its materiality and structure is one of the prominent elements in contemporary Jewish art. The shift from narrative to form and from semantics to the physicality of texts crystallizes into works that can be understood as traces of an action in which the materiality of the text and the idea of embedded holiness is the content of the work. Once the text has been severed from its textuality, its materiality, previously unremarkable, is discovered. Orayta examines various incarnations of this trend and suggests understanding it as a new kind of Torah study.

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In collaboration with the Jerusalem Biennale