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Yad Installations

King St. Stephen Museum, Székesfehérvár, Hungary
May 28 - September 25, 2011

 

Samorin Synagogue, Slovakia, 2009 - 2010 

 

 

 

Sixteen carved hands, each connected to a folding structure similar to a carpenter's ruler, with wooden inlaid marks. 
Materials: oak, birch, cedar, walnut, pine, mahogany, 
and poplar woods.
The carved hands are sized from 1" to life-size, and the "rulers" are between 3' - 12' long.

Sixteen carved hands float lazily in the air, each on the end of a wooden structure much like a foldable measuring rule. They reference the Yad, the piece of Judaica that is used to follow text while reading the Torah. In Jewish tradition, the Torah is holy, so much so, that it should not be touched by man or woman. While reading, therefore, a person holds a Yad to make it easier to keep one’s place.

Böröcz played with rulers as a child, called zal stok; he imagined many shapes from this type of folding ruler, such as houses, stars, and people. The rulers were always yellow and now reference the Star of David. The zigzag forms here look more like lightening bolts or lines on a graph. The markings on the wood are not of any measurement but only suggest a meter, and are inlayed into the forms.

The 16 Yads in the Samorin Synagogue (8 left and 8 right hands) are carved from 6 different woods; their different tones are suggestive of different skin colors, and they are of various sizes, from miniature to life size.

Hanging in the air as they do they are much like mobiles that point towards each other and unknown destinations.

"The vertical seems to suggest that we may approach the Seen by way of the Talmudic Books. Except that Andras Borocz’s Torah pointers—objects that come between the hand and the Book—strive to aid us in reading not the Torah but ourselves. They point At Us, at our communities and societies that ARE US. Their maker is clearly aware of the Mosaic command "Ask not about earlier times", and seeks not things that came before the creation of the world."
— Laszlo Szigeti's review of the "Yad" show published in Magyar Szo, Slovakia at October 9, 2010. 

 

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