Sep 1, 2020
project concept exploration poster 003
seen from Singapore
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project concept exploration poster 003
Russ & Daughters shipping box, personal collection, August 2020
My wonderful friends made a rough summer a little better recently by surprising me with some bagels, lox and babka from legendary NY deli Russ & Daughters. All this mazing food, and I couldn’t stop staring at the box it came in. On a bright white box the Russ & Daughters’ beautiful R/Fish mark stood out in bright blue ink, with the name letter press-set underneath in Arial Black. Simple and perfect design.
A few years back the brand refreshed their identity to commemorate the opening of their new Orchard Street location, the details of which are fascinatingly covered here by the designer brought on board. There’s a lot to like about the redesign, but I have to admit I’m pretty happy the boxes haven’t gotten the update yet. I can absolutely see why Kelli Anderson made the choices she did, but I’m partial to the awkward imperfections of the original mark.
Logo Comparison. Kelli Anderson. Blog Entry, New York, NY, 2014.
Final Logo. Kelli Anderson. Blog Entry, New York, NY, 2014.
Similarly, I find myself really appreciating Arial Black in this context. Anderson’s hand lettering, inspired by the deco-inspired lettering of New York’s municipal signage, really is beautiful, but it also feels oddly contemporary to me almost because it’s so reverent to these vintage forms- while the Arial Black feels so effortless in its simplicity. I say all this not to knock Anderson’s work at all, more just to highlight my own interest in these little details that mark something of it’s time- and how often these details end up being imperfections or slight misfires that end up working in this really interesting way.
Galvanized Stainless Steel Candelabra. Joe Grand. Steel Pipe Fittings. Courtesy of Grand Idea Studio, San Francisco. Photo from Reinventing Ritual: Contemporary Art and Design for Jewish Life.
I love this simple yet powerful rendition of a Menorah, enough so that I think when we decide to add a new one to the collection this year, I might make my own little tribute. Like other examples, it just reframes how Judaism is presented, giving it this utilitarian, industrial feel that contrasts with the old-world European aesthetic we see so often. I love the quote included in Reinventing Ritual of the artist, Joe Grand:
“The design of the menorah was a spur of the moment decision. I was at Home Depot and wanted to build something fun using non-standard materials. I remember sitting in the aisle surrounded by all sorts of steel piping. An employee asked what I was building and if I needed help. I told him “A menorah for Hanukkah,” and he walked away. Oh well, I figured it out on my own anyway!”
Collected Work from the exhibit Lew the Jew and His Circle: Origins of American Tattoo, Albert "Lew The Jew” Kurzman, Contemporary Jewish Museum, Jul 26, 2018–Jun 9, 2019. San Francisco, CA. Mock-up from Tablet Magazine
Maybe you’ve heard about a rule regarding Jewish cemeteries and tattoos? It’s a myth, one that’s persistence (seriously, this thing comes up all the time) is a real indication that the most hardline version of something can easily become representative of a whole. The myth likely stems from some Jewish cemeteries who may have restrictions on tattoos– based on your level of observance, and your reading of the Torah, tattoos can be a contentious issue– but to block someone from proper burial, especially another Jew would be a pretty problematic act in it’s own right. As far as myths about Jews go, this one seems comparatively harmless, yet when you consider that a big swath of the population unfamiliar with Judaism thinks we would banish someone after their death over something like a tattoo, it hits home how these sort of myths can sour quickly.
Myth aside, this guy is a badass. I know, not the most academic appraisal, but this matters to this project- we don’t often get to see Jewish representations of this particular construction of ruggedness, especially outside the context of war or military, and I especially like the way that it ties into Americana in general.
Instagram Feed for @mistermort. Mordechai Rubinstein. Digital Photography. 2017.
Mister Mort has been photographing menswear (and some women as well) on the streets of NY and occasionly beyond for the last couple decades and has an eye like no other. He manages to find these amazing through lines of American tradition in the most unexpected spaces, such as his recent high profile documentation of Deadhead culture over the last several years. With his own upbringing in the NY Chasid community, Rubinstein also often documents American Jews in a way that celebrates the wide variety of Judaic sartorial expression and tradition while emphasizing each persons unique self expression.
Chai Baseball Hat found at thriftshop, unknown, photo from twitter user @AlecEngerson (blurring and emphasis mine). The other thing that started it all. This thing is an absolute beauty, especially after spending a while looking for something similar online and seeing contemporary offerings- the way this design borrows from traditional ball cap styles, from the wide shape to the matching eyelets and brim to the strong typography- it feels more vintage than it probably even is.
My Baseball Years. Phillip Roth. New York Times. 1973.
One of the greatest essays on baseball and its symbolism by the complicated but often great Phillip Roth
Kibitz Podcast, Episode 25: The False Lens Of History. Dan Crane & Jessica Chaffin. Podcast. 2017. Los Angeles, CA.
The podcast that started it all, sorta. In this episode of The Kibitz, one of the hosts interviews Maya Benton, a museum curator, about a new exhibit of largely unseen photography by Roman Vichniac, a photographer famous for documenting Jewish Life pre-Holocaust for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Curating the show, Benton discovers a wide spectrum of Jewish life depicted, from rural to urban, and from observant to largely secular, despite the fact that Vichniac is most known for sort of “traditional” shtetl images of ultra observant men. The host posits that this was intentional at the time, as his photographs were commissioned for the express purpose of fundraising in the face of anti-semitism- also noting that she found captions Vichniac had included in his book, the Jewish coffee table staple A Vanished World, incongruous with some of Vichniac’s negatives. After the devastation of the Holocaust, these publicized images, which accounted for only a tiny percentage of the subjects Vichniac photographed during this time, became many peoples only visual representation of pre-war Jewish life, creating something of a false, or at least partial history of Judaism and Jewish life that still influences our ideas of the past today.