Blue Milk and Other Short Stories / 2023
Gabrielle Egnater’s work builds from American Askenazi and Jewish history. Influenced by her upbringing in a reformed Jewish community in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, Egnater explores how “jewishness” has assimilated into “americanness”. She then utilizes this background and exploration to build a critical discussion around the contemporary culture and religion of Judaism.
In Blue Milk and Other Short Stories, Egnater engages in a type of world building or alternate history. Blue Milk is an invented product in an invented world; influenced by the mythology of Techelet or “biblical blue”, the moral fable of the golden calf, the 1971 adaptation of Fiddler on the Roof, and the artists own fraught relationship with healthcare. The exhibition explores Blue Milk through costumes, tools, and containers captured through photography, fibers, metal fabrication, and metal casting.
Medical Suit / 2023 / suit, cast aluminum cow mask, gloves
The Jewish people are often depicted as disease carrying animals or something not quite human. The depictions range from pigs, vermin, witches, and cannibals. This trope has been taken on by anti-semitic propaganda and has evolved into a slightly self-deprecating Jewish humor. The cow mask continues this tradition of zoomorphic Jews with a little less self deprecation. It questions unholiness rather than inhumanness.
Ghillie Suit / 2023 / modified snow ghillie suit, western fringe, jewish ritual fringe
The suit pairs western fringe with the knotted Jewish ritual fringe known as tzitzit. This pairing stems from the immigration story of Nudie Cohn the tailor. Cohn, born Nuta Kotlyarenko, was an Eastern European Jew who fled Tsarist Russia. Cohn was able to reinvent himself in 1940’s Hollywood, CA. In this Golden Age of Hollywood, Cohn opened “Nudie’s of Hollywood” and defined the over-the-top western aesthetic seen in his iconic designs for stars such as Elvis Presley and Elton John.
Milk Delivery Suit / 2023 / suit, milk bottles
The suit was created as a solution for Tevye, the main character and the town’s dairyman of the 1971 movie adaptation of Fiddler on the Roof. As his life slowly unravels throughout the film, Tevye’s horse goes lame and he decides to pull his dairy delivery cart to continue his business. Egnater was struck by Tevye's choice to physically take the place of a horse and his choice to pull a cart that only held two milk cans. She approached the problem with a solution, one that mimicked a human-centered design approach.
Molten Calf / 2022 / bronze molten calf, titanium dioxide patina
In the Torah, there is a moral fable about when the Jewish people wandered the desert and Moses left them to climb Mount Sinai to retrieve the ten commandments. In that time, the people lost faith in G-d and decided to create a new icon, a golden calf. Though the calf is known as the “golden” calf, many interpretations of the story state that the people melted down their jewelry to create the idol. As most jewelry is not created from solid gold, a mixed metal such as bronze is a more accurate representation of the fable.
Blue Milk and Other Short Stories / 2023
Milk Cans and Helmet / 2023 / cast aluminum milk cans, 3D printed milk can lids, 3D printed bells, modified helmet
In the milk can lids and top of the helmet, Egnater is influenced by the forms of Torah Crowns. When not in use, Torah Scrolls are often dressed in different types of adornments such as a mantle cloth, a shield, and/or crowns. A Torah Crown is usually placed on both of the Torah scroll handles. It acts in the same way a crown would for a king or queen, something to represent power and separation from the common.
Tools / 2023 / cast aluminum hands, cast aluminum torah crown, wood
The pair of tools are meant to be used in the mixing and gathering of Blue Milk. Similar to the length of a staff, they each mimic the forms of a Torah crown and a yad. A “yad”, the Hebrew word for hand, is a small shaft fixed to a miniature representation of a pointing hand. The yad is traditionally used as a place marker while reading a Torah scroll and to prevent touching the scroll.