R.B. Kitaj’s Diasporist Manifestoes

R.B. Kitaj, Marrano (The Secret Jew), 1976
© R.B. Kitaj Estate. Collection of Michael Moritz & Harriet Heyman

"Will I become the Herzl (or Achad Haam) of a new Jewish art???" wrote Kitaj shortly before his death. Like many other Jewish artists and intellectuals since the turn of the century, Kitaj explored the question of a Jewish art. But in his two Diasporist manifestoes published in 1988/89 and 2007, he was the first author to proclaim a new "-ism," Diasporism, and to choose the form of the manifesto. The talk and tour explore the emergence of Kitaj’s Diasporic idea and compare it with other concepts of the Jewish in the visual arts.