Column

Part lyrical essay, part pulp fiction, Noam Toran’s new column is a serial narrative annotated by images and GIFs, that speaks of the problematic imprinting of Western mythologies and imaginaries onto the desert landscape. Drawing from the cultural, ecological, and imperial conditions of the American Southwest where he was born, Toran intersects personal and family experiences with longer and larger histories, hopping across time periods and genres, from 16th century Spanish expeditions to the paranoid atmospheres of the 1970s, and from science fiction to horror-comedy.

The Travels of Reb Mendelovitch is an experimental comix strip in the form of a scroll, describing the imaginary adventures of reb Mendelovitch in a chaotic, politically unstable world. The protagonist is based on Schneur Zalman of Hebron, an orthodox artist and a HABAD rabbinical envoy who had traveled around the world, and the author’s great-great-grandfather.

In the final (!) installment Mendelovitch’s children accuse him of heresy, and he returns home to write the scrolls.

The Travels of Reb Mendelovitch is an experimental comix strip in the form of a scroll, describing the imaginary adventures of reb Mendelovitch in a chaotic, politically unstable world. The protagonist is based on Schneur Zalman, of Hebron, an orthodox artist, a HABAD rabbinical envoy who had traveled around the world, and was the author’s great-great-grandfather.

In the tenth installment, Mendelovitch arrives in London and meets the Queen.

The Travels of Reb Mendelovitch is an experimental comix strip in the form of a scroll, describing the imaginary adventures of reb Mendelovitch in a chaotic, politically unstable world. The protagonist is based on Schneur Zalman, of Hebron, an orthodox artist, a HABAD rabbinical envoy who had traveled around the world, and the author’s great-great-grandfather.
In the eighth installment (the Sack and the Wreckage), Mendelovitch arrives at the conquered city Herbon,* to see it ransacked by the Queen’s armies.

The first installment of a new column on studio visits by Michal B. Ron, who lives in Berlin. As the coronavirus pandemic spreads, the column also develops and acquires new forms. At the center of each encounter is a discussion of works by different artists and their thoughts about the current conditions of art and life.

In the third chapter of her column, Goni Riskin takes advantage of the easing of the restrictions to make a series of portraits, with styling and makeup. As a precaution, she works on a rooftop, in natural light and open air. She uses a no-contact thermometer to take the temperature of her sitters, the makeup artist, and herself. She keeps the styling down to clothes from the sitters' closets, with outside loans of items when absolutely necessary.

In her new column, Goni Riskin looks at how she might continue to photograph under the coronavirus restrictions. In the first installment she creates a series of portraits while trying to observe the rules, which are often not entirely clear: stay within a 100-meters range from home, and then it's 500 meters; maintain a distance of two meters from other people; avoid entertaining at home people who do not live there.

The 13th video of this column is the final chapter in the series, which Hamody Gannam started more than 3 years ago. During these years, he has been spotting different nuances in the lives that unfolded in the village of Iqrith, as expelled residents and their family members and friends continued to maintain different forms of dwelling and community life in this allegedly vacant village.

The colors jostled on the clothes line, and she was glad she had taken down the black.

Salma would never tell me about her connection to water. I don't recall ever asking her if she could swim.

Since the winter of 2012 Hamody Gannam has been visiting the village of Iqrith once a month, sometime staying for a few days, capturing the place and the people living there on video and still photography.