© Alejandro Cesarco
Currently not on view
Zeide Isaac,
2009
Alejandro Cesarco, born 1975, Montevideo, Uruguay; active New York, NY
2010-16
In the collaborative video Zeide Isaac, Alejandro Cesarco's zeide (Yiddish for "grandfather"), a Holocaust survivor, performs for the artist's camera, reading from a script prepared by his grandson. This script, rather than detailing his grandfather's personal experience during the 1930s, highlights the gap between event and recollection, reflecting on the vagaries of memory, especially traumatic memories, and the imperfect reconstruction of past events in the present.
Information
Title
Zeide Isaac
Dates
2009
Maker
Medium
16mm film transferred to DigiBeta
Dimensions
duration: 5 minutes, 45 seconds
projected: 114.3 x 152.4 cm (45 x 60 in.)
video case: 17.3 × 11.2 × 3.2 cm (6 13/16 × 4 7/16 × 1 1/4 in.)
dvd case: 12.6 × 14.2 × 5 cm (4 15/16 × 5 9/16 × 1 15/16 in.)
Credit Line
Museum purchase, Fowler McCormick, Class of 1921, Fund
Object Number
2010-16
Description
Zeide Isaac was made in collaboration with Alejandro's grandfather, a Holocaust survivor. We might expect the work to take the form of a conventional documentary, in which the artist's grandfather recounts his experiences in a straightforward fashion, thereby conforming to an evidentiary imperative. Instead, he reads from a script prepared by his grandson, a script that reflects on the vagaries of memory and the imperfect reconstruction of past events in the present. Like the best of Alejandro's work, Zeide Isaac is elegant and austere, but also poignant and melancholy.
Type
Subject
[Murray Guy, New York, New York], sold; to Princetoin University Art Museum, 2009.
