Seeing Shlock: Jewish Humour and Visual Art

A Jewish couple visits the Sistine Chapel. The guide points up and says: ‘It took Michaelangelo five years to paint this ceiling!’ The husband turns to his wife and says:  ‘Wow. He must have had the same landlord as us.’ (Old Jewish Joke)

It is well known that Jewish humour is a not a common cultural fixture in Britain so imagine my surprise, while walking around the fashionable Hayward Gallery, when I heard ‘Two wise men of Chelm went out for a walk…’ relayed in a loud ‘New York’ accent. A string of Jewish jokes was emerging from a plastic yellow joke box adorned with a clown face, attached to the wall, and named Joke Master Jr. On closer inspection I learned that this was, in fact, ‘art’ by the American-born London-based artist Doug Fishbone. Granted, it was an exhibition — and one of the first of its kind — about laughter, humour and visual art. But still, among the cool works of Finnish photographers and fictitious Korean performance troupes, the hot hyper-vowelization, and volume of the Jewish comedy stood out.

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