Ner Ot

"Candles have a ceremonial history in Judaism where their lighting accompanies holy days and is a ritualistic remembrance of loved ones who have passed. Additionally, the Ner Tamid, or Eternal Light, perpetually burns in the synagogue to represent the constant presence of God. The significance of the candle falters and the divine light dims, however, in the shadows cast by murderous world wars and numerous genocidal campaigns. This leads us to ask: what ritual of memorialization can possibly befit those who died in this way? How do we address the destructive nature of flames, manifested in the Greek etymology of the word Holocaust, in which holos means "whole" and kaustos denotes "burn," and by which everything is reduced to ash? In his essay, Lawrence L. Langer guides us through the ritual of remembering the Holocaust through Samuel Bak's paintings. Langer's words explicate the historical, religious, and cultural narratives that inform the artwork. As Langer turns our sight into insight, he unpacks the dense visual imagery of each work, verbalizes the inquiries both overt and covert, and provides the context that scaffolds our attempts to find answers. Inhabitants of a surrealistic space, Bak's candles are abused, damaged, melting, lifeless, and bathed in the somber afterglow of profound sorrow. The cylindrical candles morph into tree trunks, logs, chimneys, columns, missiles and other projectiles, exposing the frequent disorder at the heart of the supposed orderly progression of history. Amidst the anguish of his paintings, Bak allows for the notion that life can rise anew. If his visual universe is not saturated with emblems of hope, it certainly does not fall victim to despair. There is an instinctive need to restore to the candle the memory of its sanctified role"--