What Kinda Name Is That? (1995-96)

View the What Kinda Name Is That? Bookwork

The bookwork What Kinda Name Is That? includes stories of assimilation, anti-Semitism and post-holocaust, cultural identity and is illustrated with ads from the fifties and sixties, images of immigration and other cultural icons.

This bookwork grew out of a site-specific installation created for the counter-quincentennial in 1992. The installation focused on issues of immigration, cultural assimilation and prejudice by tying together
stories of my husbands cultural identity (assimilated Tsalogi, the Eastern Band of Cherokee and northern European immigrants) with stories from my own family and those of other assimilated Jews. 1492was a date that united our cultural identities in suffering (the inquisition of the Jews in Spain and the beginnings of genocide in the Americas).

The installation was called A Klug Tzu Columbus"- a Yiddish expression meaning A curse on Columbus. This expression was used sarcastically by Jewish immigrants in the early part of the 20th centurywho felt they were not doing as well as they expected in their new country. An example of its usage would be: "a curse on Columbus for finding this godforsaken land where I have had to struggle andsuffer." In the center of the installation was a story -telling hut made out of twigs from the local, non-native eucalyptus trees. In the hut, that reminded people of a Jewish sukkoth and a sweat lodge, theaudience shared personal experiences with racism and anti-Semitism by writing their stories on slips of paper and hanging them on the walls.

Originally I was going to make a bookwork entitled BUT YOU DON'T LOOK AMERICAN that would have included those audience stories. Each story would have been superimposed on advertisementsfrom the fifties to the present. But in 1993 a curator from the Jewish Museum in New York asked me to consider creating a piece for a show focusing on Jewish identity. That was when I decided to makea bookwork specifically looking at secular/cultural jewish identity in relation to assimilation.

In 1995 I created the bookwork, What Kinda Name Is That?, entirely on the computer using scanned images from old magazines (Time and Life) and an old photo of immigrants on a boat. It was my
first artwork using this technology. The software used was Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. The original digital prints were reproduced as laserprints at a copy shop. There are three color versions
of the book. An edition of 500 black and white photocopy bookworks sold out in the first year. The book is now out of print. Two color versions of the bookwork traveled in the exhibition Too Jewish -
Challenging Traditional Identities for two years. One color, laminated copy is currently traveling nationally in another exhibition entitled "Women of the Book" curated by Judith Hoffberg.

This bookwork was a way for me to define a complex space for an outsider culture, the subculture of secular/cultural jews, within the dominant culture; and, at the same time, look ironically at the pressuresto assimilate made by consumer culture. If you have a story about assimilation and/or prejudice that would like to share please post it on the bulletin board.

This book was produced during several months after moving 3000 miles with a newborn son and while in a constant state of sleep deprivation and recovering from a major illness. Yeah, team!

View the What Kinda Name Is That? Bookwork