The Jewish tradition of leaving a stone or pebble at the grave site of a loved one is ancient, a visible way of remembering the departed by means of a humble natural object. Vince Leo began taking photographs of these “visitation stones” after several people close to him died in quick succession, and he found himself enacting the ritual of grief over and over. Placing a stone is a simple but powerful gesture that connects the living to the dead. Remembered as a Blessing contains 30 of Leo’s black and white photographs, which honor these stones as the complex objects they are: simultaneously hard, durable, pieces of matter and embodiments of ineffable spiritual relationships, often among many generations. As Daniel Mendelsohn reflects in his essay, “clusters of larger and smaller stones placed atop the tombstone itself themselves suggest family groups: parents with their children, young siblings clustered around their older brothers or sisters. Little families of stone, irresistibly calling to mind the families that now lay beneath them.” Each of Vince Leo’s photographs fuses light, focus, viewpoint, reflection, and magnification into a moment in which the ordinary and the symbolic coexist.
Books
Remembered as a Blessing: Visitation Stones in Jewish Cemeteries
By Vince Leo
Essays by Daniel Mendelsohn and Rabbi Morris J. Allen
$65.00
Clothbound
13.5 x 11 inches
80 pages
30 black and white illustrations
ISBN: 9781735762982
Additional information
| Weight | 3 lbs |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 11 × 13.5 × .75 in |
About the Authors
Vince Leo was born in Columbus, Ohio, and attended The Ohio State University, where he received his BA in English and MA in Photographic Studies. His writing has been published in magazines such as Artforum, frieze, Parkett, Artpaper, and The Little Brown Mushroom blog. His artist books are in a wide variety of collections including: Museum of Modern Art, New York, Art Institute of Chicago, Walker Art Center, Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Library of Congress. Leo has exhibited his photographic work internationally, most recently at Kerry Schuss Gallery, New York. A recipient of grants from the McKnight Foundation, the Bush Foundation, and the Minnesota State Arts Board, he is currently Professor Emeritus at Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
Daniel Mendelsohn was born in New York in 1960 and educated at the University of Virginia and at Princeton. His books include the internationally-bestselling Holocaust family memoir The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, which won the National Jewish Book Award and many other honors; An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic; a translation of the Greek poet Constantine Cavafy; and three collections of essays and reviews. A frequent contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books, where he is Editor-at-Large, he teaches literature at Bard College and lives in the Hudson Valley of New York.
Rabbi Morris J. Allen was born in Denver, Colorado and was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary. He served as the first Rabbi of Beth Jacob Congregation, Mendota Heights, MN, from 1986 until 2019. Under his pastoral guidance, Beth Jacob grew to become a nationally recognized congregational community, receiving nine Solomon Schechter Awards from the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism for its innovative programming. Honored by The Forward as one of America’s 50 most significant Jewish leaders, Rabbi Allen was invited to attend the Israeli Presidential Conference on Israel’s 60th Anniversary. Upon retirement from the pulpit, Rabbi Allen became the first rabbi to serve on the staff of the U. S. House of Representatives as the Senior Community Liaison for Representative Angie Craig (D-MN02). A passionate voice for pluralistic Jewish life and a strong supporter of ensuring the health and welfare of the Jewish people in all its manifestations, Rabbi Allen is currently working on a book concerning the role that eulogies play in overcoming grief during mourning.