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The 613
Artist Archie Rand creates a glorious reimagining of the 613 Jewish commandments using comic strips and pulp fiction jackets to capture each mitzvah. A gift for the eyes, this unique collage of images, ranging from Lox to superheroes, is not your Bubbe’s graphic novel.
"If Leviticus seems an unlikely text for a comic strip, look again. Or rather look at Archie Rand's magnificent series of commandments, The 613. The beauty, terror, and fun are all there in one magic, mesmerizing wall of colored shapes and visual oratory. It's a splendid series."
— John Ashbery
“[R]ichly colored, always stirring works of visual art…[ The 613 ] is something like seeing a cinema-sized version of ancient wisdom transmuted through a comic (and then blown up again).”
—Flavorwire
“A new book by a trailblazing artist... The 613 pairs mitzvahs with appropriated images from Mad Magazine, pulp and 20th-century illustration. Sometimes the connections are obvious, sometimes intriguingly oblique. It is outrageous and inviting, in-your-face and mysterious, making Rand’s case 613 times over.”
—David Van Biema, Religion News Service
Archie Rand's career as an artist spans five decades and myriad themes and genres. Among his pioneering explorations, The 613 is surely one of his most ambitious feats yet. Without any idea where the work would be exhibited, Rand began transforming each and every one of the 613 mitzvahs, or commandments, into its own breathtaking painting, a series that took five years to complete.
Each of the gorgeous and perplexing panels features a vibrant, unexpected image that brings forth the heart of its law and commands our eyes to linger. Rand is startling and original in his rich color choices, bold characters, and extraordinarily expressive approach. The New York Times describes the paintings as "rendered in the style of comics and pulp fiction book jackets, a dash of Mad magazine, a spoonful of Tales of the Crypt , some grotesques, some superheroes, always action, emotion, drama." Whether grotesque or dramatic, each painting provokes a sense of wonder and self-reflection, making The 613 a book to be visited time and time again. Perfect for readers of art, religion, or popular visual culture, The 613 may be the most audacious and distinctive gift book of its kind.
"If Leviticus seems an unlikely text for a comic strip, look again. Or rather look at Archie Rand's magnificent series of commandments, The 613. The beauty, terror, and fun are all there in one magic, mesmerizing wall of colored shapes and visual oratory. It's a splendid series."
— John Ashbery
“[R]ichly colored, always stirring works of visual art…[ The 613 ] is something like seeing a cinema-sized version of ancient wisdom transmuted through a comic (and then blown up again).”
—Flavorwire
“A new book by a trailblazing artist... The 613 pairs mitzvahs with appropriated images from Mad Magazine, pulp and 20th-century illustration. Sometimes the connections are obvious, sometimes intriguingly oblique. It is outrageous and inviting, in-your-face and mysterious, making Rand’s case 613 times over.”
—David Van Biema, Religion News Service
Archie Rand's career as an artist spans five decades and myriad themes and genres. Among his pioneering explorations, The 613 is surely one of his most ambitious feats yet. Without any idea where the work would be exhibited, Rand began transforming each and every one of the 613 mitzvahs, or commandments, into its own breathtaking painting, a series that took five years to complete.
Each of the gorgeous and perplexing panels features a vibrant, unexpected image that brings forth the heart of its law and commands our eyes to linger. Rand is startling and original in his rich color choices, bold characters, and extraordinarily expressive approach. The New York Times describes the paintings as "rendered in the style of comics and pulp fiction book jackets, a dash of Mad magazine, a spoonful of Tales of the Crypt , some grotesques, some superheroes, always action, emotion, drama." Whether grotesque or dramatic, each painting provokes a sense of wonder and self-reflection, making The 613 a book to be visited time and time again. Perfect for readers of art, religion, or popular visual culture, The 613 may be the most audacious and distinctive gift book of its kind.
640 pages, Hardcover
First published November 3, 2015
3 people are currently reading
71 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
December 1, 2023
The 613 mitzvahs are drawn in a surreal gallery that is a cross between comics, black light posters and carnival side show banners - each image forces you to think about the mitzvah in a new way - truly one of the most original books I have read this year. Really like books like this that help me learn more about a different culture.
May 23, 2021
This isn't really a book one 'reads.' It is a collection of images, one for each commandment in the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible). Contrary to common knowledge, there are many more than ten, and even if you take a close look at the ten, you will see that some of them aren't commandments at all. That is one reason I prefer the title Decalogue, from the Greek for 'ten words.' It is a closer translation to the original Hebrew, the 'ten sayings.'
In the Torah, there are 603 more that are actual commandments: do this, don't do that. For each of these commandment, Archer has painted an image. It is almost impossible to put the book down because the images are so evocative and challenging. The commandment and Biblical reference are given in no particular order that I can see; they are almost random, except for the ones that belong in groups.
I did hear an interview where he explained one image, Number 7. The commandment is 'Not to profane [God's] name. The image is of a giraffe, which the artist explained he chose because giraffes are mute. They have no vocal cords and are completely unable to violate this commandment.
Others are more obscure. Why a vivid image of the widowed Empress Victoria, massive in her black dress, to illustrate 'Make no covenant with Canaanites or their gods.'? Some allusion to the British empire at its height?
I don't know. I only know that the book is almost impossible to put down.
In the Torah, there are 603 more that are actual commandments: do this, don't do that. For each of these commandment, Archer has painted an image. It is almost impossible to put the book down because the images are so evocative and challenging. The commandment and Biblical reference are given in no particular order that I can see; they are almost random, except for the ones that belong in groups.
I did hear an interview where he explained one image, Number 7. The commandment is 'Not to profane [God's] name. The image is of a giraffe, which the artist explained he chose because giraffes are mute. They have no vocal cords and are completely unable to violate this commandment.
Others are more obscure. Why a vivid image of the widowed Empress Victoria, massive in her black dress, to illustrate 'Make no covenant with Canaanites or their gods.'? Some allusion to the British empire at its height?
I don't know. I only know that the book is almost impossible to put down.
March 26, 2016
The laws of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy illustrated. Quite extraordinary.
January 26, 2016
Some panels made me laugh. Others made me think. A few sent me to the source for context. Many flat out befuddled me. But there's no doubt this is an ambitious and beautiful project to behold.
April 30, 2020
Extremely intelligent, Jewey, witty introduction! So smart! I learned a lot about the commandments. The paintings often had loose or humorous connections to the commandments.
December 17, 2024
This collects the paintings, all 16” by 20”, which formed a 1700 sq. ft. installation, to illustrate all 613 mitzvot (“commandments,” good deeds enjoined upon Jews to enact). Rand, a child of the 1950s, in garish comic strip hues (some of these evoke not only pulp paperbacks and comics, but for me “Bazooka Joe” slips of strips inside bubble gum) blends boldly his impressionistic splashes from feverish, dreamy, lustful, or nightmare scenarios. His febrile tone captures New York's low-rent, street-sassy, postwar pop-cult, as an elder recollects its impacts on his formative youth, filtered woozily as sleazy mass-market entertainment. A lot of what I see within reminds me of a hangover.
He credits corresponding with R.B. Kitaj; certainly, that blunt style hammers into Rand’s oeuvre, along with non-conformist contemporaries. Plus intellectual mentors such as Lenny Bruce, taking Torah truths to Gentile audiences; Kafka’s envisioning of terrors; and figurative contortions, leerings, distortions, cartoons, caricatures all play walk-on roles. As Rand reasons, the Jewish prohibitions against images can be overruled by the command (one of those enumerated within) to “write a Torah” or for him, to dramatize these injunctions from Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, before us contemporaries. Not all matches of verses and depictions will immediately make sense. And I like that, for this speaks to the mysterious, meta-rational, nature embedded in Rand’s interpretations from lurid imagination. There’s witty wisdom.
This shuffles a quirky and thought-provoking ensemble. An ideal gift for someone who scoffs at these teachings as outmoded, nitpicking, irrelevant, or superstitious. It could generate both discussion in a study group or book club, inspire a bat or bar mitzvah student, slap up a snooty secularist, and nudge a skeptic towards a Tanach.
However, Rand should have, could have, elucidated better his aims. His preface--albeit chock-full of shout-outs to the predictable array of predecessors from the last century who shocked the bourgeoisie--leaves any viewer--in our chastened, media-saturated, censorious yet earnestly eager to shatter any remaining moral constraints to self-indulgence, hedonism, and unfettered greed-- coming away with an attitude of "he's another guy from the Big Apple trying to sound like a Bensonhurst cool cat from the Beat generation" rather than an articulate guide to his intentions.
Not that any artist must reduce to words his inner vision. But this one keeps his snappy, self-aware prose loose and Beat-like, too elusive in key passages to assist those left with grappling with these disorienting glimpses from Rand's subconscious goads.
Additionally, as a stickler on language and translation, why not show from where these passages originate? As Hebrew notoriously eludes easy rendering into demotic English three thousand years from its foundations in the bible, even terse utterances can't depend upon an uncredited mediator.
So, this anthology leaves us with a heap of enduring puzzles. One could use these paintings as meditation. For the “meaning” of Jewish texts, the Talmud teaches, perdures on a literal level, next in the guise of hints, then divulging from one’s conceptions on what’s revealed, finally a hidden, mystical enigma. Kabbalah similarly leaps by multi-branched embodiment of messages. For visual learners, Rand’s creative acts further will goad us to ponder.
He credits corresponding with R.B. Kitaj; certainly, that blunt style hammers into Rand’s oeuvre, along with non-conformist contemporaries. Plus intellectual mentors such as Lenny Bruce, taking Torah truths to Gentile audiences; Kafka’s envisioning of terrors; and figurative contortions, leerings, distortions, cartoons, caricatures all play walk-on roles. As Rand reasons, the Jewish prohibitions against images can be overruled by the command (one of those enumerated within) to “write a Torah” or for him, to dramatize these injunctions from Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, before us contemporaries. Not all matches of verses and depictions will immediately make sense. And I like that, for this speaks to the mysterious, meta-rational, nature embedded in Rand’s interpretations from lurid imagination. There’s witty wisdom.
This shuffles a quirky and thought-provoking ensemble. An ideal gift for someone who scoffs at these teachings as outmoded, nitpicking, irrelevant, or superstitious. It could generate both discussion in a study group or book club, inspire a bat or bar mitzvah student, slap up a snooty secularist, and nudge a skeptic towards a Tanach.
However, Rand should have, could have, elucidated better his aims. His preface--albeit chock-full of shout-outs to the predictable array of predecessors from the last century who shocked the bourgeoisie--leaves any viewer--in our chastened, media-saturated, censorious yet earnestly eager to shatter any remaining moral constraints to self-indulgence, hedonism, and unfettered greed-- coming away with an attitude of "he's another guy from the Big Apple trying to sound like a Bensonhurst cool cat from the Beat generation" rather than an articulate guide to his intentions.
Not that any artist must reduce to words his inner vision. But this one keeps his snappy, self-aware prose loose and Beat-like, too elusive in key passages to assist those left with grappling with these disorienting glimpses from Rand's subconscious goads.
Additionally, as a stickler on language and translation, why not show from where these passages originate? As Hebrew notoriously eludes easy rendering into demotic English three thousand years from its foundations in the bible, even terse utterances can't depend upon an uncredited mediator.
So, this anthology leaves us with a heap of enduring puzzles. One could use these paintings as meditation. For the “meaning” of Jewish texts, the Talmud teaches, perdures on a literal level, next in the guise of hints, then divulging from one’s conceptions on what’s revealed, finally a hidden, mystical enigma. Kabbalah similarly leaps by multi-branched embodiment of messages. For visual learners, Rand’s creative acts further will goad us to ponder.
July 17, 2022
Archie Rand, a New York artist born in 1949, spent five years creating one painting for each of the 613 mitzvot of the Torah. I've heard of paintings for all 10 commandments or all 150 chapters of Psalms, but painting all 613 mitzvot seems unprecedented. I really like the premise.
Unfortunately, I am very disappointed with the execution. The style is grotesque and the connection to the mitzvot is weak. To give just one example out of many, the painting featured on the cover shows three people running down a corridor. On the appropriate page, the caption is "328: Unclean persons must not enter the Temple Mount area." Aside from the terrible translation of the Hebrew word "tamei" as "unclean" (it should be "impure"), the painting doesn't illustrate the mitzvah even if you free-associate running with entering. Here's another example: the mitzvah described as "349: Not to omit salt from grain offerings" is paired with a painting of a man in a boat. Even if the boat reminds you of salt water, that still has nothing to do with the mitzvah.
One more problem with the book is Rand's introduction; he starts with the bold assertion that "Judaism and art don't mix well," and goes on to brag that he had to invent a Jewish iconography since none existed. I think that many Jewish artists would take issue with both statements!
Anyway, I still like the premise. Perhaps another artist will do a better job.
Unfortunately, I am very disappointed with the execution. The style is grotesque and the connection to the mitzvot is weak. To give just one example out of many, the painting featured on the cover shows three people running down a corridor. On the appropriate page, the caption is "328: Unclean persons must not enter the Temple Mount area." Aside from the terrible translation of the Hebrew word "tamei" as "unclean" (it should be "impure"), the painting doesn't illustrate the mitzvah even if you free-associate running with entering. Here's another example: the mitzvah described as "349: Not to omit salt from grain offerings" is paired with a painting of a man in a boat. Even if the boat reminds you of salt water, that still has nothing to do with the mitzvah.
One more problem with the book is Rand's introduction; he starts with the bold assertion that "Judaism and art don't mix well," and goes on to brag that he had to invent a Jewish iconography since none existed. I think that many Jewish artists would take issue with both statements!
Anyway, I still like the premise. Perhaps another artist will do a better job.
May 1, 2016
I have to admit...I just didn't get it.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews