On Thursday, March 28, 2024, the Humanities Council welcomed artist and designer Ghiora Aharoni, who presented a public lecture as the Spring 2024 Belknap Visitor.
The lecture, titled “‘What is, it already was, and what will be, it already is’…Time and Text as a Creative Lens,” explored—via his family history and artwork—the fluid, multifaceted lens through which we can contemplate humanity’s interconnectivity. Humanities Council Chair Esther Schor, the John J. F. Sherrerd ’52 University Professor and professor of English, gave opening remarks.
The event was co-sponsored by the Princeton University Art Museum, the Department of Art & Archaeology, the Department of Religion, the Department of Near Eastern Studies, and the Program in Judaic Studies.
Aharoni grew up in a home of diverse cultures and languages. His work recontextualizes artifacts, ritual objects of different faiths, sacred texts as well as traditional objects, such as vintage glass beakers, antique shawls or obsolete Indian taxi meters. By imbuing both text and objects with new meaning, Aharoni’s work invites us to question our basic assumptions about time and language, to rethink established social constructs and to expand our perceptions of how cultures, religions and genders are interwoven.
Aharoni’s artworks have been exhibited internationally in galleries, institutions and museums, and is in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Centre Pompidou, The Morgan Library & Museum, The Vatican Library, The National Gallery of Art, The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, The Anu Museum and The Huntington Library and Museum.
Prior to the lecture, Aharoni installed “GER/The Stranger” in the Bernstein Gallery, Robertson Hall. The sculpture, which explores duality and coexistence, contains engraved glass with Hebrabic/Arabrew © text, an amalgam of Hebrew and Arabic created by Aharoni himself.
