This year in Jerusalem

Just go. Jerusalem: 1000-1400  Every People Under Heaven  at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is full of surprises and revelations that often are also beautiful objects and works of art. It turns out to be about as immersive and intense a museum experience as is a visit to that city in Israel-- if you leave out the on-the-spot uneasiness.  (Today, in Jerusalem, there is always the feeling that any minute, by chance, you are going to step on the toes of some religious Jew, Christian or Muslim who live and worship there--and that they are not going to take the injury quietly.) To judge by what I hope will be only the first exposure to this exhibition, visitors to it are engaged with the displays to an exceptional degree. To say that they scrutinize the works is an understatement. People don't just stroll through this one. They plant themselves in front of a case and don't move.  No sooner did I enter than I came upon a vitrine with this ornate parchment map written and drawn in England by Matthew Paris circa 1250.

The man standing in front of it wasn't going to budge so I settled to one side. It was as if he were planning a trip--or reviewing one he'd taken. The fact that the boat might have been different or that he probably had not travelled around the Holy Land by camel made not the slightest difference.  But it was in front of the open Chronicle by Moses Maimonides, the great Jewish philosopher, that I found myself part of a growing group of men, women and youths all discussing the text. First of course came the astonishment that this work written in the twelfth century survives. That any medieval document still exists is noteworthy to be sure. But even a brief consideration of the wanderings and tragedies of Jews in the centuries since makes the continued existence of this work on parchment a marvel. And then there very quickly was the question of its contents.  A woman in her forties began reading out loud from the text. Then one of her two sons--late teenagers I would guess--started amending and correcting. In the back stood dad..All the males wore black hats; pop alone had a beard. Mom's brown hair was a wig. They spoke Yiddish but the text of course was in Hebrew or whatever variant of same Maimonides used. The page on the left included a drawing. It was, I learned from their back and forthing was his reconstruction of the destroyed Temple. The older son began explaining that we were seeing it as from the entrance. Then a smartly dressed woman came along, listened in, read the label and asked: Does this mean that this book was actually written by Maimonides? Group discussion was followed by dispute. Pop who had been silent until now said quietly that he didn't believe it. "It would have been a scroll."  I went off to consult with a curator who was giving a talk nearby. She in turn quickly consulted with someone else/ Yes. Yes. Maimonides was not only the author it is in his own hand.  

From Commentary on the Mishnah

At 5:15 were were told to leave; the Met was closing.  I walked out onto Fifth Avenue still enveloped in ancient Jerusalem and its descendant upstairs. A woman in her twenties stopped to ask directions. She had a French accent. She wore a scarf wrapped to hide her hair. "Where is the memorial to the dead?"she asked.

There are a couple of memorials that might fit the description--the Soldiers and Sailors for instance. But why in the world was she looking for that? I asked for more information. She tried one thing and another and finally, "September 11." 

    The World Trade Center," I told her, "is not near hear." I gave her instructions about how to find the subway station and where to get off. She smiled sweetly and thanked me. The show, precisely what it ought not to be called, goes on.

   

World's apart: Two favorites at London's art fairs

Whew. It's just about over.
For the first weeks of October, art fairs auctions, gallery private views, lectures, conferences, films and museum stacked up like planes waiting to land at Heathrow. Everyone wants to capitalize on the international hordes who come to town for Frieze, the contemporary and cutting- edge art fair. There is more going on than anybody can see or do. I didn't bother trying to "keep up." Enough that I kept awake. I did not go to Frieze this year. This is not because last year it was overwhelming but rather that there was just too little, by a lot. I am told that ideas are what art contemporary art is all about (aka Concept). There didn't seem to be any new ones or even delightful or provocative slightly used ones. So I skipped Frieze and began with  PAD  (Pavilion of Art and Design) in its big white tent in Berkeley Square and then checked out Frieze Masters, the most ambitious because home to high quality, wide ranging dealers in everything from antiquities to modern with objects, photographs, paintings, sculpture, jewels.  It two is in a huge white tent this one not far from the zoo in Regent's Park (I will duck comparisons well maybe not. Frieze fits not so much because of what is for sale but the atmosphere..)  PAD was disappointing. There was too little art and too much not- great French furniture and lighting--just the thing for a desperate interior decorator or his/her client but otherwise boring. However: One object was a honey. If price were not object (I didn't ask but I don't have to to know it is stratospheric), it would now be mine.

  Sitting all by itself in a glass case in the center of the Siegelson stand (high jewellery dealers from NY), was a Cartier Mystery Clock.  Its base is made of green marble--the appropriate color as it happens. A circular, sterling- silver frame is, engraved with the Roman numbers 1 to 12. In between a short lines indicating minutes.  This rings a shallow pool of water on which floats a little turtle. There are no visible minute or second hands; there are no visible clock works. The turtle just floats yet somehow it is not entirely idle; it does manage to tell the time.  This Cartier Turtle Mystery Clock  It was made in Paris around 1927. It has beauty and wit to which is added a dollop of childlike wonder. How is the turtle able to tell the time?  Answer: The water keeps it buoyant while the magnetic hour- hand -- out of sight underneath the silver bottom of the pond--directs its swimming movements.



Frieze Masters gets better and better. There was lots to enjoy yet, here too, a single object stood out--for me. It could not have been from a more different time and place in almost every sense.

Along the width of the back wall of the stand of Tokyo's London Gallery was a gold- leaf, six- fold Japanese screen. In front of it--at its midpoint= was a pedestal on which perched a wood guardian figure holding an elegant, undulating bow. At about two feet tall, he was sculpted from a single hunk of cypress wood during the Heian Period--probably sometime in the 11th century. Probably one of a pair of attendants flanking a Shinto Deity, he does not look in the slightest bit marital.  And yet the intense quiet conveyed by his bearing manages leaves no doubt that in an instant he could pull an arrow from his quiver (it makes no difference at all that is is no longer present) and see off anyone meaning to harm his god. During the Heian Period Nara was the capital of Japan; it is when sculpture in that island country reached its height. By the morning of the fair's opening day this guardian had a new home.