A green hatchet, some red Cedars of Lebanon, some poetry, some cartoons, some photographs, some blog journals printed out on pink sheets of paper.
In the weeks since the war in Lebanon began, a wide variety of artistic and non-artistic types have expressed their feelings about the fighting — and the 92nd Street Y’s Makor Gallery on the Upper West Side has put many of their expressions in 8-by-10-inch wooden frames and hung them in a public display.
“Amendicons” (amendicons.blogspot.com), which opened this week and closes Aug. 30, is a “real time” forum that allows people here, and outside of New York in cyberspace, to respond to the crisis in the Middle East, says Jane Slotin, Makor director. “We needed to have a creative outlet.”
“It’s not an art exhibit, it’s a display,” says Anat Litwin, gallery director. It was conceived on short notice, “it is open to everyone,” and, unlike traditional art exhibits, its collection of text includes portions of online blog journals, she says. She calls the display a “unique” way for Makor “to fill our role as a cultural center.” (For information, call [212] 413-8842; makorartists@92y.org.)
More than 70 framed items were on display in the Makor Gallery by midweek. Makor has 150 frames, and space on the room’s three walls for a total of 450 to 500, she says. The messages of the items range from oblique (a simple declaration that “I am ashamed of my species.”) to the ambiguous (a picture of a child in a yellow Teletubby costume). “It’s anti[war], it’s pro, it’s completely across the board,” Slotin says. Contributors so far include Jewish artists from Tel Aviv and at least one Muslim artist from Beirut, she says. “It allows people to come together,” both creatively on the gallery walls, and in person during viewing hours (Monday-Thursday noon-6 p.m, and Friday noon-4 p.m.).
The gallery will host a “gathering” for contributors, similar to blogging “meet-ups,” on Thursday, Aug. 17, 7-9 p.m. “When the display ends, it will not end,” Slotin says. Plans are under way for the items to form a traveling exhibition in the U.S. and Israel.
