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The multimedia installation with sound entitled Ramparts Café (1995-6) by the Brooklyn-based twin brothers, Doug and Mike Starn, will be on view at The Jewish Museum from September 9, 2001 through February 10, 2002. A personal reaction to the city of Jerusalem, the artists say that the work is “archaeology over archaeology of written accounts of the fighting over and occupations of Jerusalem.”

Jerusalem’s 3,000 year history collides with everyday life as represented by a three-part Plexiglas café table to which visitors are invited to pull up a chair. Meant to evoke a Jerusalem café, the transparent table is haphazardly set with plates, glasses, eating utensils and ashtrays. The city’s infrastructure and its unseen soul are evoked through photographic transparencies of open and tattered historical documents from Jerusalem’s three major faiths – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – embedded in the transparent tabletop. Transparencies of the Dead Sea Scroll War Rule, Ezekiel 37-38 from a 12th century Crusader Bible, and the counterpart from a 16th century Koran are lit from below with golden light. Also included is other documentation of Jerusalem’s history from the time of Josephus to the assassination of Rabin. An audiotape of prayer songs and chants from each religion permeates the exhibition space. Through text and sound, the visitor is invited to contemplate the multiple claims of ownership, the declarations of war and hate, the spirituality, peace treaties, histories, hopes and aspirations – both ancient and contemporary – of the city of Jerusalem.

Doug and Mike Starn attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Since the mid-1980s their work has been exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the world. The Starns were first noticed by New York critics in 1985. Achieving a strong measure of visibility in a short time period, in 1987 the Starns participated in the Whitney Biennial as well as their first solo museum exhibition tour. A monograph on their work was published by Abrams in 1990, coinciding with a larger touring museum retrospective. Initially known for photo-collage work, in recent years the Starn brothers have been incorporating texts and entire book forms into their collages. Their most recent works explore the nature of the sun through photography.

This installation has been organized by Joanna Lindenbaum, Fine Arts Curatorial Assistant at The Jewish Museum.

Doug and Mike Starn: Ramparts Café has been made possible through endowment support provided by the Fine Arts Fund, established at The Jewish Museum by the National Endowment for the Arts and the generosity of Andrea and Charles Bronfman, Melva Bucksbaum, Barbara Horowitz, Betty and John Levin, Lynn and Glen Tobias, Bunny and Jim Weinberg, and the Estates of Ruth Roaman Epstein, Francis A. Jennings, Charles J. Simon, and Leonard Wagner.