Meeting Maurizio at A Hug From the Art World gallery. Photograph via the gallery’s Instagram story.
Walking out of the door, leaving A Hug From the Art World gallery, I was confronted by Maurizio Cattelan, who was standing on the stoop, before the staircase. He looked at me squarely and stopped me in my tracks by asking, “What is the meaning of this garment?”
I had on my tzitzit. It’s like an undershirt with spiritually significant macrame.
“These tassels,” I said, as Maurizio took one of them in his hand, experiencing the texture of the wool, “Well–”
“You wear them when you say a prayer,” he said while covering his eyes.
“Yes, it’s goes: Shema Yisrael etc.”
He wanted to know more about my garment, so I opened up the bottom of my button down shirt, and showed the unusual cut of the undershirt-tzitzit garment.
He nodded his head. “And you wrap leather bands on your arm too.”
“Only during the weekdays. Not on the Sabbath. They’re separate ideas: the tassels and the leather wrapping.”
“They’re separate, okay.”
His face was aged, but chiseled; his nose prominent; his hair gray, but with a forceful style; he was masculine and magnetic. I thought out loud, he might be Jewish.
“No, I’m Italian,” he said.
So it was a Cesarean nose, not a schnoz.
21 Questions With a Jewish Artist, Hosted by Maurizio Cattelan
A small crowd was gathered on this stoop, as Maurizio and I interfaced; like oil and water, like chalk on a wipe board, or a ball point pen on a slick car hood.
“This is true?” asked Maurizio. “That the religious jews only have sexual relations through a hole in the sheet?”
I laughed. “Here’s the story. It’s not true. This garment – the tzitzit – the religious jews in Israel would put up to dry outdoors, hanging like so,” and I indicated with my hands a long garment draping down with a hole in the middle. “So, the secular Israelis, they made a joke – this was many decades ago, but it stuck – that they had relations through the hole, as if it was a bedsheet of sorts.”
Maurizio’s furrowed, heavily lined forehead indicated that he didn’t believe me.
I said, “Okay.” Like a guitar player and a drummer when they synchronize that final beat at the end of a song at a club performance. [1]
I left the denial of my explanation hanging. Like a divorce court hearing where the two sides have plainly different realities. Like when you’re speaking on the phone with someone and you feel like you have to talk loud because they can’t hear you, but really they’re just not actually listening to you.
A Hug From the Art World: Lumberjacks, Harlots and Judaic Morality
“What is the purpose of this garment?” asked Maurizio, “What does it mean in the religious context?”
“Well, we pick up the tassels and symbolically bring in the ‘four corners of the earth.’ However, truly, in the literature, we see that the garment is connected to protection against promiscuity.”
There appeared another man to Maurizio’s left; like a lumberjack of yesteryear, sans the burly flannel. He had curly blonde hair and a casual gaze (Artist: Oliver Clegg). And he looked at me with a smile of amused curiosity.
“For instance,” I said, “There’s a story in the oral tradition of the jews about a student who went to go see a harlot.” [2]
I looked around the circle that stood, and someone kind midwestern looking man (Oliver) seemed to simultaneously tense up, and eagerly listen.
I felt ambivalent to speak stories from jewish texts in this setting; yet, I knew that it would make a blow to expectations about "religion", which aren't necessarily true in the case of Judaic thought, but are rather preconceived notions based on christian dominance; and also, in that moment, I had a keen sense of how "different" we are -- Oliver and myself.
I felt somewhat awkward about telling this story in such a setting; I knew it would upset their preconceptions about what "being religious" and “Jewish” is, based on christian dominance. In that moment, I had a keen sense of how "different" we are -- Oliver and myself. But the kind, midwestern man was eagerly listening.
“The student saved up all his money to go see the most gorgeous harlot in the world, who was in Rome. When he got to her, they both climbed a heap of seven mattresses, as they stripped down, and just as he reached her, this tassel garment, well it fell off and hit him in the face!”
Old jokes still can get new laughs. I continued:
Myself (on right), pictured with Ari, my friend who, I live with at a jewish learning center in Crown Heights. Ari recently completed his conversion to Orthodox Judaism
“The student proclaimed by the God that protects him that he could not sleep with her. And long story short, she ended up coming to Israel, to his place of learning, and converting. The story concludes with a remark: that which was once sought after in an unpermitted way, will eventually be given in a permitted way.”
Smiles were all around. The crowd seemingly enjoyed my performance. Bravo. Well maybe that last remark was a little too moralizing and dimmed the lighting.
Maurizio thanked me “for answering my questions about your culture.”
“Of course.”
Maneuvering towards the stairs to finally leave, I was stopped again, this time by a female artist who had joined the audience during my story. This woman with large eyes and dreadlocks, an ambient gaze, said to me, “Wait, don't leave. You’re interesting. I want to talk to you.”
She ended up telling me – and the bystanders – that her artistic process is to start her mornings with a bump of cocaine and vegetable juice fast. This frank and eccentric person will remain anonymous here.
“That’s one way to get inspired,” I said.
She replied, “What inspires you to paint?”
“I also like to juice fast, but I start my days with a few hours of learning and prayers.”
Footnote
[1] We had an entire sidebar conversation about Maurizio's claim that religious jewish women had their hair shaved off. I explained that certain groups – a very small number – do this because of historical reasons! I looked at (who I later call the lumberjack) and explained: when Europeans would come to the jewish ghetto to rape women, the women would rip off their wig, reveal a bald head and make a horrible face. The custom stuck. Generally, religious jewish women do not shave their heads – they have hair! – but they wear a head covering of some kind. Someone else chimed in: “they wear a wig!” He looked me up and down. Bc i wear cool clothes; not as cool as him. Maybe as cool as him] what type of Religion are you? And Maurizio said to me: “Well, maybe you don’t know because of the type of religion you are, but they do.”
[2] See online sources for the “Tzitzit and the Harlot Story”:
https://etzion.org.il/en/talmud/studies-gemara/midrash-and-aggada/sippur-hazona-vehatzitzit-2
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/shelah-the-prostitute-and-the-tzitzit/
https://www.academia.edu/36311243/Prostitutes_Rabbis_and_Repentance_docx?email_work_card=title