At the Threshold: Tobi Kahn's Interfaith Spaces

Abstract

At the Threshold: Tobi Kahn's Interfaith Spaces Aaron Rosen Down some dimly lit corridor or other at the far end of most hospitals or airports, one will usually find a designated interfaith chapel or meditation room. Vigorously scrubbed of any traces of iconographic specificity that might declare them Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or otherwise, these rooms are seldom of great visual interest. Within this often unremarkable genre, Tobi Kahn's interfaith spaces stand as rare exceptions both aesthetically and conceptually. While critics have praised Kahn's works, for the most part they have contented themselves with rhapsodizing imprecisely about their numinous or spiritual qualities. Leaving aside these familiar shibboleths, I hope to offer a more rigorous account of Kahn's work, focusing in particular on two spaces in New York City: a meditation space in the HealthCare Chaplaincy in Lower Manhattan, installed in 2001–2002, and a gathering space for the multi‐faith Auburn Theological Seminary, for which the artist installed a major series of paintings in 2015. Kahn's works perforate the assumption that the social and spiritual needs of interreligious gatherings are best met by artistic, sensory, and theological neutrality. Instead, Kahn re‐orients interfaith aesthetics around the concept of liminality, pointing us toward the importance of spaces which are sensitive to difference without settling for the overly safe and static. In this essay, I will undertake a close study of Kahn's artistic process, complemented by interviews with individuals from multiple traditions, who have both commissioned and experienced his works. I will argue that Kahn's spaces reveal an important lesson for both art and theology: interfaith dialogue thrives best at the threshold. This intuition crystallized for Kahn over the course of several decades spent producing works of art and observing their impact, both within his own Jewish community and others. In order to understand how Kahn's vision of interreligious aesthetics evolved, we need to begin by tracing several key stages in the artist's creative development. While he is best known as a painter, from the late 1970s onwards, Kahn also started constructing small wooden edifices, which he referred to as “shrines” (Fig. ). Fittingly for a kohen—a descendant of Judaism's priestly caste—the shrines reflect Kahn's lifelong fascination with the Holy of Holies, entered only once a year by the Temple's High Priest. Inside these reliquary‐like spaces, Kahn nestles amorphous forms that appear to twist upward like sacrificial flames, or arms raised in supplication. Though the shrines’ entrances remain open, missing the parochet which veiled the Holy of Holies, or the ark in modern synagogues, an aura of impenetrability still clings to these objects. “The rituals we witness inside the shrines,” notes Michael Brenson, “seem to belong to a world we can observe and meditate on but not enter.” As Kahn began, quite literally, to carve out a religious vocabulary for himself, the challenge became how to cross this threshold; engaging with sacred space without disenchanting it. Click for larger view View full resolution Tobi Kahn, ASHTA, 1985, Acrylic on wood and bronze with patina, 18.25 × 12.6 × 11 inches. Photograph courtesy of the artist. [Color figure can be viewed at http://wileyonlinelibrary.com] Over the eighties and nineties, Kahn met this challenge with works that became increasingly interactive, often in response to developments in his personal life. As an Orthodox Jew celebrating his marriage and the start of a family, Kahn felt a strong desire to create ceremonial objects which would allow him to mark life events in ways which were faithful to Jewish tradition as well as his own tastes and values. For instance, the regal, high‐backed chairs of NATYH (1987), crafted for his daughter's shalom bat, or naming ceremony, emphasize Kahn's belief in the dignity and distinctness of women's experiences (Fig. ). The artist also created ritual items ranging from adornments and implements for the synagogue, including an aron kodesh and yad (a Torah ark and pointer) to domestic objects such as the mezuzot that hang on the doorposts of his Manhattan apartment. Although initially resistant to exhibiting such works—lest he become, in his words, a “poster boy for Jewish art” —Kahn...