It always seems like I post about fabulous exhibits right before they're about to close. But this one, "Gilded Lions and Jeweled Horses: The Synagogue to the Carousel" at the American Folk Art Museum in Manhattan is not to be missed. It closes March 23. The premise of the show is deceptively simple: Eastern European Jewish woodcarvers, who cut their teeth designing Torah arks for their hometown synagogues, immigrated to the United States and essentially built Coney Island, one carousel horse at a time. Master woodcarvers like immigrants Marcus Charles Illions and Charles Carmel managed huge carousel-making studios in Brooklyn and the Lower East Side, turning out many of the animals that defined an era in American leisure. They provided a specialized, ornately-wrought product at a time when Coney Island was evolving into "the entertainment capital of the world." And they also worked in America at a time, the early 20th century, when high art and pop culture began to interact in weird and dynamic new ways. As the curator of "Gilded Lions," Murray Zimiles, writes in his notes, "The work of Jewish immigrant woodcarvers exemplified the ways in which both the sacred and the worldly found room for each other in New World society."
The exhibit weaves its fascinating story from the top floor down to the first. Don't try, like I did, to buck the suggestion and go first floor up; the natural progression of the exhibit doesn't make nearly as much sense. If you follow the path, you'll have an opportunity to examine the Torah ark lions up close first. Then you'll see, on the next floor down, how directly carousel animal design borrows from these sacred and mythical representations. Look closely: the tails are positioned exactly! The nostrils flare in the same way! The eyes, often red or gilt in the Torah arks, take on similarly bright jewel forms in Coney Island merry-go-round ponies! I can just imagine student excitement over these observations: the same artists carved both, so obviously there are similarities. More than anything, the exhibit is about cultural diffusion and assimilation, about how proud cultural traditions from everywhere have influenced what we understand as "American life." "Gilded Lions," like all American immigrant history, is a patchwork, crazy quilt story that both retains and assimilates its cultural products.
Even if you can't get there until after "Gilded Lions" closes, the American Folk Art Museum, sometimes unfortunately referred to as "that museum next to MoMA," is a valuable resource any time of the year. The permanent collection challenges students' and teachers' definitions of Art and art-making. It makes us all think more critically about the impacts of skilled artists, from all over the world, on the landmarks of American culture, from our houses of worship to our pleasure palaces.
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