Peter Jacob Maltz
Curator: Irena Gordon

 

We In his work "Why Is the Sky Blue?" Peter Jacob Maltz quotes the most common questions in today's internet search, both trivial and essential. He imagines wandering in the museum like wandering the internet. The Google search serves Maltz to indicate the tension between the private and the public, and between the curiosity and superficiality that the platform offers. Personal questions receive public answers shared by all.

To our question "What is the best string quartet?" Google answered with a list of "The 10 Best String Quartets". The first piece on that list was "The Emperor" by Austrian composer Joseph Haydn. Haydn's "Emperor" quartet is the third in a file of six string quartets, Opus 76, composed in 1797 at the request of t he Rosens Joseph Erdödy. This quartet is very famous, especially its second movement, which includes variations on "The Emperor's Hymn" that Haydn composed in honour of Franz II, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

In another part of his work, Peter Jacob Maltz uses art from the ready-made - a paper pulp made from discarded drawings of art students at Thelma-Yellin High School and Bezalel - in an act of preserving artistic energy. Haydn also used the "material substance" of a previous creation - the hymn he composed in honour of the emperor - and developed it in a variation movement. Artistic preservation has added and evolved as Haydn's hymn has become the melody at the heart of the German national anthem.

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Photos: Elad Sarig, Petach-Tikva Museum of Art