ZOYA CHERKASSKY | Lost Time

This time of isolation has sparked a new form of creativity for artists—allowing them to study in depth and create immediately. Artist Zoya Cherkassky utilized quarantine to articulate her reflection on the preWorld War II Jewish life. After watching a video of one held at a Jewish cemetery at the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, she recognized the resemblance between the current state of the world and historical practices. Taking note of the forever changed world, she took her paintbrush to canvas, creating 19 experiential paintings at her home in Tel Aviv. She incorporated aspects of the current crisis, pulling inspiration from the past, including “Black Chuppah” (plague weddings), the anti-Semitic pogroms of Russian shtetls and the confinement Anne Frank endured. She studied the historical practices of Eastern Europe in the 19th century, learning that the Jew arranged marriages between disadvantaged members at cemeteries in hopes of averting the Cholera disease.

Accompanying the beginning of Passover, ‘Lost Time’ showcases the personal exchanges and responses between noted curator and writer Alison M. Gingeras, who writes responses to the works on view, and Cherkassky.

Fort Gansevoort will present the online exhibition ‘Lost Time,’ on April 8, sharing the collection of Cherkassky’s portraits, domestic scenes and rituals that are both serene and grim.

Not to be mistaken, this exhibition is not to signify correlation of traumatic events. It is to recognize the similarities of the common anxiety and fear that comes with an epidemic. It is to inspire hope and perseverance during a time of uncertainty and to admire the collectiveness that surfaces.

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This exhibition is the second in Fort Gansevoort's ongoing online series, SEEING THROUGH YOU.