A huge golem-like bronze sculpture looms above a crushed supplicant laying on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The prostrate figure, shrouded bourka- like in a black garbage bag, is named Benaam, Urdu for “Without Name.” The monstrous five-headed figure looming above is called “We Come In Peace,” a line from the cult science fiction movie “The Day the Earth Stood Still.”
The sculptor Huma Bhabha leaves it open to the viewer to provide his or her own parable for the set piece. Is it a parable of colonialism? Or of aliens? Or is the evil figure an idol like money, power, fame, or sex that we celebrate only to find that it crushes us by its false promises of peace, happiness, and freedom?
Our mind is propelled to recall that ancient disaster when the people of Israel got tired of waiting for Moses to come back with a word from his God. So, they demanded that their religious leaders make them some gods. In the Book of Exodus, we read, “And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron, and said to him, ‘Up, make us gods which shall go before us; for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we don’t know what has become of him…’” The disastrous result was disunity and a wandering around in the desert for many more years.
The figurine on the roof looks most like the ancient golem, the saviors fashioned from clay and Jewish mystical incantations that would spring alive to rescue the Jews from persecution. The only problem is that the golem eventually went out of control and turned on their makers.
Go up to the roof and view Bhabha’s Image: imagine your own parable of misplaced devotion that ended up making you feel like a worm on the floor. Look around the skyline of the city and in the faces of all the cheerful people and then glance at “No Name” and remember that, “There but for the grace of God…”
Huma Bhabha, “WE COME IN PEACE,” The Roof Garden Commission can be viewed through October 28th.
