Double Doors

2016
Site-specific installation
UV ink-jet printed films applied over eight windows and eight glass doors
The Jewish Theological Seminary, New York

About this work

The Jewish Theological Seminary solicited a proposal from Wolf for their yearlong exhibition, Traversing Tradition: Transformation in and of Contemporary Jewish Life.

Wolf’s Double Doors emerged as a reaction and reflection upon the institutions impending renovation of its world-renowned Judaica library. After spending time in the library and considering its surrounding environment, Wolf lined the doors and windows of the institution’s glass entryway with adhesive films of translucent imagery symbolically referencing the library’s soon to be missing book stacks.

The images, portraying fragments of the original library as they were captured in film negatives, were installed opposite a silhouette of a tree alluding to the Tree of Life, a meaningful symbol in Jewish culture and also the emblem of The Jewish Theological Seminary. The work transformed the façade of the institution into a threshold between nature and culture and offered passersby the opportunity to contemplate the inheritance of tradition and the free will that accompanies the acquisition of knowledge.

Experienced most intimately in the vestibule between two sets of glass doors, this site- specific

installation created a stained-glass effect. As natural light transitioned to artificial, and day passed into night, Double Doors established a participatory space of meditation amid the everyday activities of public life while illuminating key tenants of the institution’s mission.