Multi-layered messages

Watch out pop divas: The Kabbalah is not just a trend for Madonna and Britney Spears anymore.

With Borges and the Kabbalah: Seeking Access, the newest exhibition in The Art Gallery, students can experience the Kabbalah as they see fit with visual help by Argentinean artist Mirta Kupferminc, based on a book written by university professor Saúl Sosnowski.

"This exhibition, the whole concept is that there is always more that you can see in the first level," Kupferminc said. "From then, it transforms to something else, and you can perceive that something more is happening."

Sosnowski, who is also the director of the university's Office of International Programs, wrote Borges and Kabbalah: Paths to the World as a compilation of his research regarding Argentinean author Jorge Luis Borges and Borges' connection to the teachings of Kabbalah.

After the two met in Kupferminc's studio in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2002, Sosnowski shared his book with her.

Kupferminc said she felt a strong connection to the book as a Jewish Argentine and began working closely with Sosnowski to produce a number of prints inspired by Sosnowski's book and works by Borges.

According to Kupferminc, the Kabbalah's spiritual teachings stress looking beyond the superficial and deeper into the meaning, much like her work - from the superficial glance to a closer examination to a deeper, more personal interpretation.

"I am convinced that there are many things we have in front of our eyes, but we don't see them unless we are prepared," Kupferminc said. "And the preparation to be able to see, to approach, a deeper level in the world and everything we do - it depends on us.

"Kabbalistic masters say that all the secrets of life and creation are in the Torah," she added. "But it depends on your own effort to discover and to have access to knowledge. This exhibition is how to have access to knowledge."

Although the exhibition is based upon a mystical aspect of Judaism, Sosnowski said students could easily understand and appreciate the exhibition's message without having a Jewish background.

"In art and in literature, you take away what you put in," he said. "So, every person will take away what they bring with them. They do not need to know about mystical tradition in order to appreciate it. There is a lot of heart that is going to move them in different ways."

Art Gallery assistant director Jennie Fleming said she understood some students might be turned off by the basis of the exhibition, but that there was more to the exhibition than just its religious foundation.

"[Kupferminc and Sosnowski] are responding to the poetics of [Borges'] words," she said. "If you look across religions, there are some central ideas that people can understand and also appreciate."

Kupferminc described the exhibition as a large book, mimicking the idea that visitors have been shrunken and sucked into Sosnowski's book.

In doing so, a number of multimedia pieces, etchings and digital prints are set up alongside blown-up excerpts of Sosnowski's book. In the middle of the display, text and digital images are arranged in the shape of a life-size aleph, a Hebrew character. Also on display are excerpts of an artist's edition of Borges and the Kabbalah, an original hand-printed edition of the book, complete with Kupferminc's etchings and Sosnowski's updated text.

Much of Kupferminc's work has a hidden meaning or image, which represents, metaphorically, the message behind Kabbalah text. She said each visitor to the exhibition would likely leave with a different interpretation of the work, depending on his or her own background and investment in the artwork.

"It's very important for students and every person in the world, and for me, to learn more and more and to be conscious that we are responsible of the things we get in life," she said. "Many things are given, but also for many things, we must draw our own roads in the world."

Reflecting on the conversations between herself, Sosnowski and Kupferminc, Fleming said their attempts to explain the exhibition's concepts were similar.

"So, I guess we all sort of said the same thing, just in slightly different ways," she said. "Sort of like the point of this exhibition."

Borges and the Kabbalah: Seeking Access is open now through Dec. 20 in The Art Gallery located in the Art-Sociology Building. The exhibition is free and open to the public. The gallery is open Monday to Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Wednesdays to 6 p.m.

dnhan@umd.edu