The Web of Tradition

FNB Vita Catalogue, 2001. By Clive Kellner

"A boundary is not that at which something stops but, as the Greeks recognized, the boundary is that from which something begins its presencing." Martin Heidegger

Within the last four years Lieberman has concentrated on two main areas or bodies of work. The one being ‘postal art’, the other, hand-stitched, HS8 quality non-phosphorised perforated stamp paper that is interwoven into square colour fields. The visual simplicity of Lieberman’s post conceptualism contrasts highly with the poeticisation of her references where the artis evokes emotional and social dimensions.

In the development of Judaism, a group of mystic Jews attempted to giver their God a mystical, symbolic interpretation which they called Kabbalah, or inherited tradition. The Kabbalists developed a symbolic method of reading scripture. They created a process whereby the hidden God was made manifest to humanity. Simply explained, through time, mankind’s observation of God has revealed two distinct God character qualities. The one being a more accessible God (YHWH) and the other being a more impersonal, unknowable and hidden God with no documented name, described as En Sof (without end) by an anonymous thirteenth-century author.

En Sof manifested to Jewish mystics under ten different aspects of seifroth (numerations). The seifroth are both the names that God has given to himself and the names whereby he created the world. Together these ten names formed his great ‘name’ which is not known to mankind.
Hidden in the text is a code, a numerical matrix that attempts to reveal aspects of God.

Seifroth is also associated with the tree of life which is the number 32. There are 32 stamps running over and across Lieberman’s works, ‘Blood Relatives’, ‘Amazon.com’ and ?. 32 is the numeric equivalent of the word for ‘heart’ which in Hebrew is ‘lev’. For the artist, ‘lev’ represents knowledge, in that true knowledge is revealed through kindness.

The use of numerical systems and patterns of gematria (the numeric component of the Jewish Kabbalah) in Kim Lieberman’s works forms the ‘prima materia’ or foundational thought that underpins the work. In gematria, Hebrew alphabetical letters translate into numerical values. For example, the Hebrew word for ‘life’ is ‘chai’, which has the numeric value of 18. Each stamp has 36 lines of thread, i.e. 18 + 18 represents two lives (36). The perforated blank sheets of revenue size postage stamps, hand-stitched with 100% silk thread are imbued with mystic meanings. ‘Blood Relatives’ (1999) or in the Jewish calendar the years 5759 – 5760, where 5759 adds up to number 26, is made with red silk thread number 26. The date of Kim’s birth is also the same number and the numeric value of hashem YHVH equals 26.

This numeric pattern in the work was realized whilst walking along W26th Street in New York. Coincidence? Syncretism suggests connectivity through all canons, originating at one source. Numbers collide, meaning is digitized, preserved. A rational grid, an emotional grid, hyperlink, a grid of relation, information flow. The grid sometimes structures the composition as a fleeting skeletal framework to which Lieberman hangs feelings and concepts. The grid is a product of the perforated edges of stamp paper, connected semantically both literally and figuratively from frame to edge and back again. Where is the edge? At the frame, the frame of representation?

The postal works of Kim Lieberman symbolically contaminate the circuits of flow and ebb of information ways, postal systems, global communications. In transit, the envelopes travel incognito, poste restante, to be returned to sender. The literal mapping of the earth as a time-space continuum construct is revealed in ‘Home’ (1997-). Physical nearness and distance is displaced, locale is informed by context which in turn controls time. Home is a barometer for the world’s moods, calculating civil wars, disruption and flows of communication, political changes, strikes in civil or military services. Each envelope is a narrative, coded, stamped, officiated in time.

Lieberman’s foray into ‘postal art’ and stitched works from ‘Blood Relatives’ are a testimony to the exquisite climate of control and aesthetic that Kim Lieberman has orchestrated over the past four years. Hers is an empirical approach to art, leaving no