Kadish
Yehouda Chaki, 2008, Oil on canvas, 80" x 156"
The Kaddish is a hymn sung during Jewish services to magnify and glorify God’s name. Here, in this layered and ironic painting, Chaki freights the Kaddish with sinister undertones. The cacophony of faces – anguished, proud, smug, confused, self-assured – and the prevalence of war and violent imagery speak to the often twisted and complicated ways in which we claim praise of God. Thus, this painting may be considered a postmodern Mourner’s Kaddish.