The Vanity Fair reporter’s pen raced even as the tape recorder ran. Cheeks red, he recorded key words, creating a framework for structuring the long interview captured on the tape. The final sentence with which Shlomith ended her kibbutz tale he wrote down in full: “After that experience I have never—and let me emphasize the word never—wanted to be normal, to conform to any norms, ever again.”
The letter Shlomith left on the table of the Kibbutz Methuselah dining hall as she left the kibbutz early on the morning of February 13, 1974
Shlomith-Shkhina falls silent (and prepares)
“Why Do We Drool Over Shlomith-Shkhina?” asked the Vanity Fair headline in gargantuan text, and the answer was probably clear to everyone who read the piece. People drooled over Shlomith because she did what everyone wants to do deep down: she turned her life into art. She transformed even the smallest details into part of her enormous, sometimes megalomaniacal persona. Nothing went to waste; everything was utilized. Might this not be everyone’s innermost dream: to live so that even the most insignificant decisions and thoughtless acts effortlessly stream into the great flow of Decisions and Acts? With every fiber of her being, Shlomith was an Artist, 24/7. Not many are capable of that. Shlomith-Shkhina was a necessary valve, an air pressure gauge. If there had been no Shlomith-Shkhina, someone would have had to make her up.
“And what happens next?” asked the reporter, who could see in his mind’s eye how this fascinating sixty-year-anniversary interview should end. And he got what he wanted:
Shlomith-Shkhina raises her gold-rimmed teacup to her rouged lips, takes a final sip of oolong tea, and smiles mysteriously from behind the cup. “There’s a performance I’ve been planning for a long time, and I think it’s time for me to complete it now. It isn’t without risk, and preparing for it won’t happen overnight.” Shlomith-Shkhina’s eyes twinkle mischievously. She shakes her head when I ask if she can describe the project in more detail. “All in good time.”
I can’t avoid the thought that we’re in for something historic, something epic, lyrical, and tragic all rolled up in one package. A package named Shlomith-Shkhina. Contenting myself with the sly smile of the goddess, I shake her hand. She’s in a hurry to get to the Brooklyn Museum for the opening of the Annie Leibovitz photo show.
After the goddess has left the building, I remain sitting on the stark white, leather sofa of the VIP room of the restaurant. All those stories . . . It feels as if I have spent a moment living under her skin, as a woman, as a Jew and an uncompromising artist. It feels as if a piece of me has left with her. And I am left waiting for the performance she will deliver sometime soon, once again revolutionizing the concept of performance, breaking the limits we haven’t even imagined yet. Thank you for existing, Shlomith-Shkhina.
The Converse boy was right. Shlomith’s final performance, which was given in 2007 in the prestigious Jewish Museum, aroused much discussion. However, the arguments were exceedingly simplistic, a far cry from the intellectualism of the 1980s and light years away from deconstructionism—no one was taking paradox and turning it over, shaking it, and tearing it apart to see what was inside. The discussion turned almost entirely on the morality of art. Amateur freelancers wrote about the “boundary conditions” of the presentation, which triggered a full range of feelings in the audience: aggression, shock, pity, fear, anxiety, anger, and even malicious pleasure. They talked about the relationship between art and sickness, about where the line of being compos mentis ran, about whether the “community” should intervene in an artist’s suicidal undertakings and how. The arguments decomposed into their prime factors: what would have given the community in this case a right to intervene, to interrupt the process, to commit the artist to care against her will? Wasn’t America a free country? Couldn’t individuals do whatever they wanted to themselves?
The newspaper sales were excellent, especially the tabloids with their appalling paparazzi photos. Someone had been tipped off about Shlomith’s project, and they secretly followed her as she prepared for her performance. The photo captions were sensational. A rail-thin Shlomith-Shkhina jogging along the Brooklyn Heights Promenade: “She can barely stay upright!” A deathly pale Shlomith-Shkhina in Café Mogador in the East Village: “The eggplant dip won’t go down!” An emaciated Shlomith-Shkhina in a driving wind on her way home on the corner of Fifth and Sixth Avenue: “What’s she carrying in that bag?!” A weepy Shlomith-Shkhina standing shakily on the steps in front of her brownstone home, her pockets turned inside out, her house keys missing: “Shopkeeper reveals, ‘She only bought one single orange!’”
But we don’t have any reason to join in the howling of the headlines. Especially at this point, now that the flimsy froth of topicality has receded back to where it belongs once the artificially maintained vortex has ceased spinning. (Can you still hear the echoes of the jingling of the cash register?) When that sudden spume has settled as sediment you wouldn’t even want to
