Joseph Sassoon Semah: On Friendship / (Collateral Damage) V – Between Graveyard and Museum’s Sphere

At the end of September 2024, the richly illustrated, English-language publication Joseph Sassoon Semah: On Friendship / (Collateral Damage) V – Between Graveyard and Museum’s Sphere will be released.

Featuring artworks and texts by Joseph Sassoon Semah, Linda Bouws, A.S. Bruckstein Çoruh / House of Taswir, Guus van Engelshoven, Arie Hartog, Gideon Ofrat, Jom Semah, Lisette Pelsers, David Sperber, Steve Austen, and Rick Vercauteren.

‘Between Graveyard and Museum’s Sphere’ is released on the occasion of the exhibition ‘On Friendship / (Collateral Damage) V – Between Graveyard and Museum’s Sphere’ (February 4 – June 30, 2024, Museum Het Nieuwe Domein, Sittard), curated by Guus van Engelshoven.

This fifth and final edition of Joseph Sassoon Semah’s ‘Magnum Opus’ marks the culmination of a profound multi-year art manifestation that began in 2015. Together with curator Linda Bouws, Sassoon Semah has embarked on a mission to augment Western art history by filling its ’empty page’ with the rich and diverse iconography of Jewish culture. It has been an amazing journey for the last ten years.

Joseph Sassoon Semah takes us on a wondrous journey of exploration. This journey extends from the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, through the lost public space (Jewish Quarter) of Baghdad, the waiting room of his Saba (grandfather) and the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, to spatial architecture based on the typography of the Talmud Bavli.

The title of the publication ‘Between Graveyard and Museum’s Sphere’ alludes to life in Galut, no motherland or physical cultural heritage to return to (personal graveyard), as well as the Western concept of museum, which already erased the knowledge of the layers of Jewish imagery/meaning that are being used by the Western art production (universal graveyard). Each of Sassoon Semah’s artworks serves as a witness to the profound loss, and at the same time reclaiming the lost world and making Jewish culture, symbols, tradition, and identity visible in a different cultural environment. He demands recognition and acknowledgement of the lost knowledge of Judaism; in this way he is trying to liberate himself from his dis-placement. He offers an alternative reading about the role of the museums and the authority of art history.

About the publication

Metropool International Art Projects
Final editing: Linda Bouws & Joseph Sassoon Semah
Design and layout: KUNSTBURO Geert Schriever
Format: A4, 208 pages, full colour, English

The publication can now be ordered:
Price: € 39.95 plus € 5 shipping costs (within the Netherlands).
To order, transfer payment to: Stichting Metropool Internationale Kunstprojecten, account number NL 42 INGB 0006 9281 68, stating ‘On Friendship / (Collateral Damage) V’, along with your name and address.

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