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Bread Not Stone
Artist’s Statement In this exhibition, I am showing for the first time part of a new project that consist of textual portraits of women. They come from a variety of sources, such as the Bible, the New York Times, contemporary and classical literature. I am selecting verbs and adjectives which describe the world of these women. In this process, I deny them their biography, strip them of their names, in order to examine the narratives they are known for. It is my way of looking at gender and how the idea of woman is constructed through language. The viewer, by “lacking” her name is thrown into the position of desiring her story. By expelling her name I am taking away the object of exchange. This work explores the performativity of words: how woman is constructed as mother, sister, saint, harlot, through endless repetition and evocation. I trace, in a chronological form, every woman mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures. The opposite wall is filled with contemporary figures from the New York Times. These portraits are accompanied by painted white objects, displayed on plain wooden boxes. Some of these boxes hide their objects, others display them. This underlines the duality of female representation, as icon as well as the invisible, unnarratable subject. A small floor installation, “Three Measures of Choice Flour” consists of flour shaped into three “cakes,” referring to women’s creative contribution as nourishers and caretakers over the centuries. The name of this exhibition was inspired by the title of an
article written by Elisabeth Schuessler Fiorenza in A Reader
in Feminist Knowledge, edited by Smeja Gunew, London &
New York: Routledge, 1992. Barbara Rose Haum
Barbara Rose Haum has a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City, an MA from the International Center of Photography/Center for Graphic Communications at New York University, as well as a Doctor of Arts degree in Studio Arts from NYU. However, her academic qualifications are not as important as is her vision as an artist. Haum was born and raised in Germany, and her mother was one of the “hidden children” of the Holocaust. Haum’s personal and artistic journey has included a rediscovery of her Jewishness, an ongoing commentary on “otherness,” and a devotion to looking deeply at old stories and images to discover their hidden meanings. The untitled work-in-progress may be challenging to those who expect art to be mainly visual, rather than cerebral. While the repetitive rhythm of rectangular pieces of paper pinned to the wall, or set into identical wooden frames, is austere and almost hypnotic, the work does not reveal its true meaning until the stories are read and absorbed. Each story is printed on semi-transparent vellum, both revealing and hiding the previous story, which is repeated as an underlay, as if to underscore the connection between the biblical record and today’s news. The small boxes which both hide and reveal their contents of everyday objects, serve as a visual counterpoint which, with the varying lengths of the text, begin to suggest a musical score. The titles of the other works in the exhibition, Three Measures of Choice Flour, Seven Days, and Entrance to the Tent, are taken from phrases in the biblical text, which may be identified by the footnote numbers. The floor piece, Three Measures of Choice Flour, refers not only to a moment in the story of Sarah, but to the hospitality, generosity, and nurturing roles that continue to be important in women’s lives. In Seven Days, and Entrance to the Tent, Haum uses antique silverware and somewhat obscured photographs to suggest both welcome and reserve. I invite you to take time with this exhibition, to allow
yourself to sink into its extended meditation on the roles and
lives of women, and to consider how all of our lives are both
hidden and revealed in the stories that we tell about ourselves
and about one another. Seven Days Entrance to the Tent Untitled (a work in progress with textual portraits of
63 women from the Hebrew Scriptures and 10 contemporary women,
plus footnotes)
installation view of Untitled (detail,
contemporary women) Installation view of Three Measures of
Choice Flour
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The artists who created the works of art shown here own the
copyrights to them. send comments or questions about the gallery to
the curator at: |
Installation view 
