Here two archaeological finds are displayed with an early work by Israeli master Menashe Kadishman. The sculpture entitled Altar is a magnificent example of the way in which Kadishman joined the ancient past to the here-and-now, and mythic significance to everyday life. In the nineteen-fifties he was captivated by a natural phenomenon he had witnessed in Sinai: heavy boulders perched precariously on cliffs, seeming to defy gravity. In the nineteen-sixties he translated this amazing balancing act into the unique minimalist, abstract language he developed at that time. Altar is made from ordinary granite blocks left over from street paving in London, where Kadishman was then studying. The sculpture’s form and name were inspired by ancient artifacts uncovered in Israel in the fifties, some at archaeological digs in which a young Kadishman had participated. Altar was the prototype for this artist’s yellow metal sculpture Suspense, which stands at the entrance to the Israel Museum.
Juxtaposed with Kadishman’s sculpture is an incense altar – three thousand years ago, a standard cultic object – that was excavated at Megiddo. The twentieth-century artist may have had something like this in mind when he sculpted his Altar. The other ancient object displayed here is less common: a stone toilet seat discovered at the city gate of Lachish and thought to be two thousand eight hundred years old. The toilet seat may have been moved from its original location to a small shrine situated at the gate. Doing so would have defiled the shrine, and if the seat was moved in this way, this might be evidence of the religious reform of King Hezekiah described in the Bible, which involved centralizing worship at the Temple in Jerusalem and eliminating any other sites.
The three objects displayed here testify to different ways of using and relating to stone. In one case, it is identified with something sacred; in another, with something impure; and in the third, it is material in the hand of the artist. In other words, it is people who attribute meaning to objects and whatever they are made of.
Juxtaposed with Kadishman’s sculpture is an incense altar – three thousand years ago, a standard cultic object – that was excavated at Megiddo. The twentieth-century artist may have had something like this in mind when he sculpted his Altar. The other ancient object displayed here is less common: a stone toilet seat discovered at the city gate of Lachish and thought to be two thousand eight hundred years old. The toilet seat may have been moved from its original location to a small shrine situated at the gate. Doing so would have defiled the shrine, and if the seat was moved in this way, this might be evidence of the religious reform of King Hezekiah described in the Bible, which involved centralizing worship at the Temple in Jerusalem and eliminating any other sites.
The three objects displayed here testify to different ways of using and relating to stone. In one case, it is identified with something sacred; in another, with something impure; and in the third, it is material in the hand of the artist. In other words, it is people who attribute meaning to objects and whatever they are made of.