IMA 10 109-120 Goldman Ida.Indd

BATSHEVA GOLDMAN-IDA

SERENDIPITY: ALCHEMY OF WORDS: ABRAHAM ABULAFIA, DADA, LETTRISM TEL AVIV MUSEUM OF ART (16 JUNE–19 NOVEMBER 2016)

Abstract the graphic elements leads the way to exploration and “Museum Musings” relates to the exhibition Alchemy of Words: later to synthesis. Abraham Abulafia, Dada Lettrism (Tel Aviv Museum of Art, In the case of the exhibition Alchemy of Words: 16 June–19 November 2016), discussing the connections made, Abraham Abulafia, Dada, Lettrism, which I curated at discoveries, and considerations on what lay behind the unique the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, it was the graphic quality of constellation of the show. Abulafia’s written permutations (figs. 1a and 1b) that con- vinced me to present them in the context of Dada and The Aramaic phrase “simana milta hi” (“a [visual] signi- Lettrist artists. Only later did it become apparent that fier is real”) carries crucial implications for the study there was a real connection between Abulafia and mod- of art.1 For me, it means to begin, as Abbaye suggests, ern artists (fig. 2). The poet Yvan Goll, associated with by seeing: “le’mehazei”—“to behold.”2 The curator must Dada from its beginnings, and the leader of Lettrism, first confront the material. The visual perception of Isidore Isou, became aware of Abulafia and his mystic

Fig. 1a. Abraham Abulafia (1240–ca. 1292), “72-Letter Name,” Hayyei ha-Olam ha-Ba (Life of the World to Come), 1280, late fourteenth–fifteenth century, Italy, ink on parchment. Manuscript copy: 18.7 × 13.7 cm. The Braginsky Collection, Zurich, folio 7v–8r. (Photo  Ardon Barhama).

1 Translation for “simana milta hi” is my own. beans, leeks, beets and dates on Rosh Hashanah.” (Babylonian Talmud, Horayot 12a). This is the origin of the custom of holding אמר אביי: ״השתא דאמרת ,סימנא מילתא היא, ]לעולם[ יהא רגיל 2 .a Seder Rosh Hashana with symbolic foods למיחזי בריש שתא קרא ורוביא כרתי וסילקא ותמרי.״ Abbaye said, “Now that you have said that ‘a sign is a [correct] matter,’ truly a man should accustom himself to looking at squash,

Fig. 1b. Rendering of Abraham Abulafia, illustration from Abraham Abulafia, Or Ha’Sehel (Light of the Intellect), ca. 1285, 15th century Italy, illustration on paper. Manuscript copy: Rome, The Vatican Library, Vat. Ebr. 597, fol. 133r.  Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticanna (2016).

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Fig. 2. Abraham Pincas (1945–2015), Untitled [Abraham Abulafia, Or ha’Sekhel (“Light of the Intellect”)], ca. 1980, Israel, gall-nut ink, water-based pigments, and varnish on parchment, 41.5×32 cm. Courtesy of Shoshana and Moshe Idel, Jerusalem. © Estate of the Artist. (Photo © Tel Aviv Museum of Art by Elad Sarig). permutations in the early 1940s, very possibly through nected to the exhibition title. In this case, I chose the publication of Gershom Scholem’s Major Trends in “Alchemy of Words” as a common denominator. The Jewish Mysticism, in which the fourth chapter is devoted Symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud was the first to coin to “Abraham Abulafia and the Doctrine of Prophecy.”3 the term “l’Alchimie du verbe.”4 Hugo Ball referred to One challenge in regard to any new exhibition is him when he prefaced his iconic Dada performance to determine the concept, which is often then con- of Karawane at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich in 1916

3 Gershom C. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (Jeru- 4 Arthur Rimbaud, “Second Delirium: The Alchemy of the Word,” salem: Schocken Publishing House, 1941), 119–152. Sixth Season: A Season in Hell, in Complete Works, trans. Paul Schmidt (New York: Harper Perennial, 2000), 232–237.

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Fig. 3. Gabriel Pomerand (1925–1972), Saint Ghetto des Prêts / Saint Ghetto of the Loans, grimoire (book of spells), 1950, 47 metagraphic plates in gibberish and French equivalent. With a preface by Jacques Baratier (Paris: POL). The Letaillieur Collection, Paris. (Photo: Courtesy of the Letaillieur Collection and Gallery 1900–2000, Paris). by saying: “We must return to the innermost alchemy certain permutations with body organs, affecting them of the word.”5 directly. Umberto Eco reiterated the concept in his For Rimbaud, language could be made “virtually novel Foucault’s Pendulum (1988): consubstantial with Consciousness.”6 This also relates to the concept “simana milta hi,” or, in its German For months, like devout rabbis, we uttered differ- equivalent, “Ding an sich” (“the thing in itself”). The ent combinations of the letters of the Book. GCC, phrase was used by Immanuel Kant to distinguish CGC, GCG, CGG. What our lips said, our cells between the noumenon—the “thing per se”—and the learned. What did my cells do? They invented a phenomenon—its perception. However, for Goll, as different Plan, and now they are proceeding on well as the Lettrist artists, “poetry must emanate the their own, creating a history, a unique, private his- thing in itself, the ‘Ding an sich.’ ”7 These artists chose tory.… And they have learned to do this now with to override rationality and present random words and my body. They invert, transpose, alternate, trans- letters as well as hyper- or metagraphics (fig. 3) to con- form themselves into cells unheard of, new cells vey an immediate experience; in Isou’s terminology, a without meaning, or with meaning contrary to the sense of immanence.8 Abulafia went so far as to equate right meaning.…. It’s the temurah. [permutation].9

5 Notation of June 23–24, 1916, Hugo Ball, Flight Out of Time: A 9 Alongside the use of Gematriah (assigning numbers to the Dada Diary, ed. John Elderfield, trans. Ann Raimes (Oakland, CA: Hebrew letters) and Notarikon (forming new words by the first or University of California Press, 1996), 70–71. last letters of a word), Temura or permutation forms an anagram 6 Alan Bacher Williamson, Introspection and Contemporary Po- by rearranging the order of the letters in a word. These methods etry (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 4. were used by Abulafia in his writings to find new meanings for 7 Yvan Goll, “Le Réisme” (Reism), in Quatre études, ed. Jules biblical phrases and names of the Divine. Abraham Abulafia, Romains (Paris: Pierre Seghers, 1956), 206. “To the domain of the Hayyei ha’Olam ha’Ba (Life of the World to Come), written in 1280 transcendent belongs also the Ding an sich, i.e., a ‘thing’ which (Jerusalem: Amnon Gross, 2009), 19–20 (in Hebrew); Umberto exists independently of the form of experience.” Erik Stenius, Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: A Critical Exposition of Its Main Lines of 2007), 550. See exhibition catalogue, Batsheva Goldman-Ida, Thought (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1960), xi. editor, Alchemy of Words: Abraham Abulafia, Dada, Lettrism, 8 Sami Sjöberg, “Mysticism of Immanence: Lettrism, Sprachkritik, Hebrew-English edition (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 2016), and the Immediate Message,” Partial Answers: Journal of Literature 157–158. and the History of Ideas 11.1 (January, 2013): 63

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Figs 4–9. Installation Photos. Alchemy of Words: Abraham Abulafia, Dada, Lettrism, June 16–November 19, 2016, Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Sculpture Gallery, Main Building, Tel Aviv Museum of Art. (Photos  Tel Aviv Museum of Art by Elad Sarig).

Part of the challenge of the exhibition was to find Kabbalistic drawing of the letter aleph, the first letter Abulafian ideas in modern and contemporary literature in the Hebrew alphabet (fig. 10).10 and art to supplement the Dada and Lettrist works The assemblage Le Vaisselle du poète (The Poet’s and provide a contemporary context for the medieval Dishes, 1970) by Christian Tobas (fig. 11) was shown mystic endeavor. The result may be seen in the instal- near a quote from Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav’s “Story lation photographs (figs. 4–9).The quotations were not of the Bread,” recounted in 1800–1802, wherein Rabbi didactic. For example, the story “The Aleph” (1945) by Jorge Luis Borges, which focuses on the multifold 10 Jorge Luis Borges, El Aleph (“The Aleph,” 1945), trans. Norman meanings of the letter aleph, was placed alongside a Thomas di Giovanni in collaboration with Borges, accessed July 4, manuscript of a student of Abulafia that featured a 2017, http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/borgesaleph.pdf.

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Fig. 10. Natan ben Sa’adia Harar, Sha’rei Tzedek, Messina, Sicily, ca. 1285, fifteenth century, Italy. Manuscript copy: ink on parchment, 20 × 14.9 cm. From the collections of the National Library of Israel, Jerusalem, Ms. Heb. 8˚148, folio 35r. (Photo: Courtesy the National Library of Israel, Jerusalem).

Nahman comes down to breakfast only to find that the loaf of bread has become a pile of letters, all jum bled up.11 An excerpt from The Manuscript Found in Saragossa, written by the Polish Count Jan Potocki between 1805 and 1814, which reads “In Hebrew every letter is a number,” was placed alongside The Tape Measures (1923–1925) by Francis Picabia (fig. 12) and La Rose mathématique (Mathematical Rose, 1963) by Ladislav Novák (fig. 13).12 Lamellae from the fourth to the seventh century that were utilized as amulets, with a mystical use of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet (fig. 14), were placed not far from the Lettrist work of Gil J. Wolman (fig. 15), a visually compelling com- parison. The early amulets were displayed alongside two video works by contemporary Israeli sound artist Victoria Hanna, entitled Aleph-Bet – Hoshana (2015) and Twenty-Two Letters (2015).13 Works by Michael

Fig. 11. Christian Tobas (b. 1944), Le Vaisselle du poète (The Poet’s Dishes), 1970, assemblage. 47.8 × 39.6 cm. Collection Tel Aviv Museum of Art, gift of Vera and Arturo Schwartz, Milan. (Photo 11 Zvi Mark, “The Story of the Bread,” The Revealed and Hidden  Tel Aviv Museum of Art by Elad Sarig). Writings of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav: His Worlds of Revelation and Rectification, trans. Yaakov David Shulman (Berlin, Boston, and Jerusalem: Walter de Gruyter and Magnes Press, 2015), 35–37. 12 Jan Potocki, “The Ninth Day: The Cabbalist’s Story,” The Manuscript Found in Saragossa, trans. Ian Maclean (London: Penguin, 1995), 102.

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Fig. 13. Ladislav Novák (1925–1999), La Rose mathématique (Mathematical Rose), 1963, printed torn paper on cardboard (froissage). 20 × 12.5 cm. Collection of Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Fig. 12. Francis Picabia (1879–1953), The Tape Measures, 1923–1925, gift of Vera and Arturo Schwartz, Milan.  Ladislav Novák / OOA-S oil and collage on canvas. 56 × 39 cm. The Vera and Arturo (2016). (Photo  Tel Aviv Museum of Art by Elad Sarig). Schwartz Collection of Dada and Surrealist Art, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem.  ADAGP, Paris, 2016. (Photo  The Israel Museum by Avshalom Avital). reproducing Abulafia’s books. That ban was in effect for more than 700 years and it is only recently that they Sgan-Cohen that reference alchemy (fig. 16) or the were printed for the first time.14 However, the Human- twenty-two Hebrew letters (fig. 17) were placed next to ists Pico della Mirandola and Johann Reuchlin used a manuscript of Abulafia’s Hayyei ha-Olam ha-Bah (see Latin translations of Abulafia’s work, and that of his stu- fig. 1), which deals with permutations of the Hebrew dent, Joseph Gikatilla, for their own books on Christian letters in the seventy-two-letter Divine Name, based Kabbalah, which reached the Lettrists indirectly in the on three verses in the Book of Exodus that detail the early twentieth century. Thus, a handwritten note that Crossing of the Red Sea (Exod. 14: 19–21). was found among the archives of the Lettrist Gabriel Manuscripts of Abulafia’s works were used rather Pomerand was a reminder to himself to pick up a book than printed versions owing to a herem (an excom- from the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris (fig. 18). The munication) by the Rashba (Rabbi Shlomo ben Aide-mémoire included a reference number to a book Aderet)—the leading rabbinical authority and chief on Christian Kabbalah that discusses the permutations rabbi of Spain in the thirteenth century—who forbade of the seventy-two-letter Divine Name.15

13 Victoria Hanna, Aleph-Bet – Hoshana, 2015, video, 3:51 min., ac- 14 Abraham Abulafia, Collected Works, ed. Amnon Gross (Tel cessed July 4, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl1epz3tSSA; Aviv: Amnon Gross, Aharon Barzani & Son, 2000–2002) [Hebrew]; Hanna, Twenty-Two Letters, 2015, video, 3:22 min., accessed July 4, see www.abuelafia.blogspot.co.il 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcnxRi0s_DM. 15 Lazare Lenain, La Science cabalistique ou l’Art de connaître les bons Génies (Amiens, 1823). Bibliothèque nationale 8˚=R22944 (now 80-6675).

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Fig. 14. Amulet (lamella) with the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, fourth–seventh century CE,. Eretz-Israel. Silver, gilt. 7.2 × 4 cm. Collection of the Wolfe Family, Jerusalem. (Photo  Tel Aviv Museum of Art by Elad Sarig).

The timing of the exhibition coincided with a global discourse on Dada and mysticism. The topic was discussed at the November Salon Suisse session that closed the Venice Biennale in 2015 and was featured in a series of exhibitions at the Getty Institute in Los Angeles in 2016 and 2017.16 Following the close of the exhibition, the journalist Ziva Sternhell published a Fig. 15. Gil J Wolman (1929–1995), [Écriture] / [Writing], 1961, critical review in Hebrew, which tied Dada and the polish, engraved with a nail, on canvas. 100 × 50 cm. The Letaillieur Collection, Paris.  ADAGP, Paris, 2016. (Photo: Courtesy the early Bauhaus School to mystic thought.17 Letaillieur Collection and Gallery 1900–2000, Paris).

16 For more on November Salon Suisse session see, “Specula- For more on the Getty exhibitions see, The Art of Alchemy (Octo- tion” / “Speculatio mystica” (November 19–21, 2015), S.O.S. Dada – ber 11, 2016– February 12, 2017); followed by Concrete Poetry: Words The World Is A Mess, Collateral Event of the 56th International and Sounds in Graphic Space (March 28–July 30, 2017). Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia, sponsored by the Zürich 17 Ziva Sternhell, “Modern Redemption,” Musaf, Haaretz, Dada100 2016 celebration committee and organized by its direc- 2 December 2016, 60–62 [Hebrew]. tor Juri Steiner, and Stefan Zweifel, accessed July 4 2017, http:// www.dada100zuerich2016.ch/en/the-last-s-o-s-from-salon-suisse/

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Fig. 18. Gabriel Pomerand (1925–1972), Aide mémoire, after 1946, Fig. 16. Michael Sgan-Cohen (1944–1999), Untitled, 1980, acrylic, pen on paper. The Letaillieur Collection, Paris. (Photo: Courtesy string, and tacks on canvas and aluminum. 61 × 51 cm.  Estate the Letaillieur Collection and Gallery 1900–2000, Paris). of the Artist. (Photo  Tel Aviv Museum of Art, by Elad Sarig).

Fig. 17. Michael Sgan-Cohen (1944–1999), Recto Verso, 1998–1999, watercolor and ball-point pen on paper. 35 × 50cm.  Estate of the Artist. (Photo  Tel Aviv Museum of Art by Elad Sarig).

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Fig. 19. Victor Brauner (1903–1966), “Raziel,” illustration for poem V in Yvan Goll’s Le Char triomphal de l’Antimoine (The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony), 1949, Paris, etching and aquatint. image: 15.5 × 10.5; page 26 × 17.5 cm. Collection of Tel Aviv Museum of Art, gift of Charles and Evelyn Kramer, New York, through the American Friends of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.  ADAGP, Paris, 2016. (Photo  Tel Aviv Museum of Art by Elad Sarig).

It was while searching for works in the museum down to recall a crown. Her breasts, marked with magi- collection that I found an etching (fig. 19) by Victor cal “angel writing,” feed a bird and snake. On the left is Brauner (1903–1966), an important artist associated a sun disc, composed of twenty-two dots, the number with Dada and later Surrealism, which illustrated a of Hebrew letters. On the right, the spiked crescent poem dedicated to Abraham Abulafia entitled Raziel, of a moon echoes the form of “angel writing.” This one of Abulafia’s pseudonyms.18 Intrigued, I found that female figure is a common alchemical symbol for the the etching illustrated a poem in Goll’s book Le Char Anima Mundi, known as Melusine or the Siren of the Triomphal de l’Antimoine (The Triumphal Chariot of Philosophers, shown as a mermaid with a stream of Antimony, 1947), the title based on a book on alchemy blood and a stream of milk issuing from her breasts. It published in 1604 and attributed to Basil Valentine. It is also found on Tarot cards, an area in which Brauner turned out that Goll, a multilingual poet, composed had expertise, and is now well known to us, as it figures more than thirty poems dedicated to Abulafia, includ- on the Starbucks logo.20 Intrigued, I began to look ing works in English (see Appendix).19 into the life and work of Yvan Goll and soon found a Brauner’s illustration of the poem Raziel features a young Finnish scholar by the name of Sami Sjöberg, female figure composed of an open hand with facial who was studying the connections between Goll and features, where the index and ring fingers are turned Isou and Abulafia.21 He was able to corroborate my first

18 Raziel, meaning “Secret of God” in Hebrew, is the numerical 20 Robert M. Place, The Fool’s Journey: The History, Art and equivalent of “Abraham,” both equaling 248 in Gematria. Symbolism of the Tarot (Saugerties, New York: Talarius Publica- 19 A second poem by Goll is entitled “Le Chant de Raziel,” Masques tions, 2010), 103. de cendre (Paris: Hémisphères, 1949). There is also another poem 21 Sami Sjöberg, The Vanguard Messiah: Lettrism between Jew- with the same title: “Raziel,” Les Cercles magiques, 56/57; and an ish Mysticism and the Avant-Garde (Berlin and Boston: Walter de unedited poem, about Abulafia, in “Ars Poetica,” 1945. See “Poèmes Gruyter, 2015). Yvan Goll,” accessed July 4, 2017, www.yvanclairegoll.canalblog.com.

Downloaded from Brill.com10/09/2021 06:18:29AM via free access Serendipity 119 hunch that Abulafia, Dada, and Lettrism were related Word: cloth of the infinite (owning to their common graphic quality). Thus, this Mantle of azure around the thought small etching introduced me to the world of alchemy, Beyond rapture beyond death to Abulafia, and to current scholarship in exactly the field I was looking for. III. It was a case of serendipity. Through seven thousand midnights Writing the Book of Signs Appendix Unaltered Raziel sat Raziel Building the singing city

(to Kurt Seligmann) Casting alphabets and magic keys To find the 70 names of God I. Grace of the Word immaculate Under colonnades of Shins By implacable sacrifice Under golden roofs of Daleths

Though the tithe is inhuman Implacable sacrifice And redeems no safe laughter For he bled more than those children Iphigenia Quetzalcoatl The Word as primal as snow And conclusive as a raindrop IV. At last he heard the name Raziel with his albatross heart By rivers sung by lions roared Rose to the realm of solitude He found it in the depths of sapphires Having displaced the Eastern Mountain In the blood-count of weary rubies And late discovered the river Sambation He leaned back toward midnight In the fear of waterfalls In the geometry of butterflies II. Insane king of the abstract At the udder of old glaciers In the desert of reality In the ram’s horn by the tumbling temple

Through the alchemy of sounds From earth arose the flaming Name Recreating the creation From floral whorls from spectral horns On the high hour of death With roots of words with roots of trees Wringing wisdom from the earth Yvan Goll, “Raziel,” Fruit from Saturn (Brooklyn, NY: Hemipheres Editions, 1946), 33–38. Viaduct of sister arches From silence to prophecy

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