>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. ^M00:00:03 ^M00:00:22 >> Gail Shirazi: Hello. I'm Gail Shirazi of the Israel-Judaica Section here at the Library of Congress. Welcome to today's program. "Babel Through the Latin American Jewish Eyes," sponsored by the Hebrew Language [inaudible] and cosponsored by the Hispanic Division here at the Library of Congress in cooperation with the Argentine Embassy. If you haven't already been to the LC website, it's a treasure trove of information. Both the Hebraic section and the Hispanic division have wonderful websites describing their collections and activities. You can check it out at www.loc.gov. Two announcements before we begin. Please turn off your cell phones and I have to announce that we're being webcast. So during the Q&A, it will be, the audience will be scanned. So if you don't want to be in the webcast, you might want to maybe step out. Okay, I would like to thank Maritza Gueler and the Argentine Embassy and to welcome Maritza and Mr. Louis Levitt, the cultural attache at the Embassy of Argentina who is sitting right here, Mr. Levitt and Maritza. And I want to thank the Hispanic Division, [inaudible] office, Kalina Tabarovsky [phonetic] of the IJ section and special thanks to our trio of presenters. It gives me great personal and professional pleasure to introduce our panel today. Mirta Kupferminc, Mirta is an internationally [applause] known multidisciplinary artist who thinks the frontiers in art are an innovation to be transgressed. Interesting. Graciela Tova Shvartzman, a psychoanalyst and professor of Jewish history, and my dear friend, Dr. Saul Sosnowski, scholar, university professor and author, specializing in Spanish, Latin American and Judaic studies. All three from Argentina. They will speak about text and art brought together in extraordinary ways, crossing languages, art, Judaism, and psychoanalysis. There'll be a Q&A following the presentation. Thank you. ^M00:02:55 [ Applause ] ^M00:02:59 >> Saul Sosnowski: Good afternoon. And it's always wonderful to be with Gail because she does the work for you. I was supposed to introduce Mirta and Tova. She did and very briefly but very accurately because both of them are each of them in their own way transgressors. They're always looking for the hidden side of things, one through art, the other one through psychoanalysis. And somehow what we are going to be hearing today is precisely that kind of intersection between three components, between Judaism, between art, and psychoanalysis, one through a practicing artist, the other one through a practicing artist who is also a psychoanalyst. So we're going to be hearing and seeing very, very different things. And I don't want to take time out from their presentations. So we will start with Mirta and after that we will go with Tova and after that it will be up to you. I may interrupt every so often, which is something I sometimes do or may not. Let's see how it goes. Mirta. >> Mirta Kupferminc: Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Thanks to all of you. Thank you to the Hebrew Language table and the Hispanic division here at Library of Congress in cooperation with Argentinean Embassy. Thank you for inviting us to be able to share this talk, our thoughts, our work with you. This theme about and questions about babel is based on my personal experience of being born as daughter of immigrants. My parents, my father from Poland, my mother from Hungary, both Auschwitz survivors, arrived in Argentina. ^M00:05:05 And the language that I heard at home was different from the external language spoken at school, with friends, and this provoked in me a kind of otherness in my daily life. So babel [inaudible] in languages is a kind of natural temple for me because babel is where languages and in Genesis where languages were born differences in languages were born for people not to be able to understand. And that is why I have a very big body of work. I realized organizing this talk that I am working with babel already for 25 years perhaps. So I would like to continue my speaking, sharing some images and about my art itself. So thank you. This is a very, very big etching, printing. I will mix a little bit with techniques. So this is a very, very huge one. I will tell in meters, sorry, so you will translate to inches. This is almost two meters high. It's very, very big. So you know to make this an etching is a very hard work composed by many plates, metal plates. And all people are different kind of people because we are talking of differences are walking around this kind of fire babel. And the text and language and textures are something that always worries me and this work that is called [inaudible] belongs to a new body of work that is called the Body of the Word that everything is handmade. I work on the rubber, cutting the rubber and these are digital photographs that I make with a real matter that I made on hand. So everything that goes out from the mouth and in this case also this image of a woman that everything what she says turns to reality. You know, I was always worried to join my multiple identities as a woman, as an Argentinean, as a Jew and that is why I developed really many works, I think that mainly trying to join this multiple these aspects. I also made with Saul Sosnowski. Perhaps some of you know about this work, about Borges and Kabbalah that also joins this Argentinean identity together with this Jewish knowledge. And in this case also I work a lot with Tova. We are launching a project, already launched three years ago but we are working in something that is called LABA-BA, LABA Buenos Aires that is a group of artists. We make an open call. We choose ten artists of multiple disciplines to study together about a selected theme. This time, this year it was the other and the theme we study is the same theme that LABA New York study. So now we are coming from the first trip that Argentinean fellows made to New York to present the work together with the New York fellows. So it was a very big experience. And really what we are trying to do is to expand something that we think is very, very valuable to offer this to our Argentinean audience, to our country because we are convinced -- I will speak about myself. Sorry. I am convinced that this is something very rich -- Jewish culture is something very rich that we have to offer to all Argentinean community that perhaps you know that is shaped by many, many, many different cultures. ^M00:10:13 So this is my main goal when I choose these works. "Misunderstanding" is the title of this work. It's the same rubber cut with text with words and you know very well that usually what we say or sometimes what we say or what we think we said is not exactly what the other person heard or understood. Another babel is called this one, this work, everything is done by real text letters. This one is called "The Origin of Xenophobia" because somehow these differences between languages are a demonstration or a beginning to all xenophobia or difference that we perceive. It's a big challenge, yes, to immigrate in a country but also the ones that are already there to receive, to be able to receive people that are coming from other place. So these migrations that nowadays are so active in the world, this puts all of us in a very special intimate condition also. Other version of the same thoughts. And another one. You see the Hebrew letters on the back. These are overloaded over a post layers of very, very big hand-cut foam. ^M00:12:13 ^M00:12:17 This is really very white, not only in the photo. So it's the texture. And another one, etching, this is metal etching. And this is the one that Gail chose for the flier. You see there the good and the bad because of course every, these many, many, many languages have their own aspects, good aspects also not only bad, of course, the differences are not bad. I think that the big challenge is to enjoy the differences. So here, you have about the image. If I talk about the image, the good and the bad and the way of working, this is a very spontaneous gesture of the work, then everything in the middle. And now very briefly I want to invite you as a very first presentation to show what I will present in October in Jerusalem for the Jerusalem Biennale. The title of the work is "Traduttore-Traditore" because every translation is somehow a betrayal, betrayal, thank you. Sorry for my English. That's why I make images for you to understand a little bit at least. But as I am speaking about this, it's okay about the difference between languages. So this work will be settled in the Jerusalem Biennale. It's a very big building all made of hand-cut, you see, this is all text saying, telling the tale of babel in 70 different languages with characters of 70 different languages. ^M00:14:21 ^M00:14:29 This is a draft, of course. This was not built yet. When you put your head inside that hole -- This is not the draft. This was built. When you put your head inside, if you look down that way, you can see this feeling of endless, like an infinite. Of course, it is a game playing with mirrors. So this is the draft of the presentation. ^M00:15:05 From inside, [inaudible] hearing. You know it was a greeting that the astronauts left on the moon with Apollo 11 that it is not in 70 but in 55 languages, they greeted. They said hello. The 70 languages are chosen because it is said that the relationship is with the, yes, one of the, yes, but no, Shem, the son of Noah, his sons, each one was the ancestor of a nation. That's why 70 languages are chosen. But the greetings are only in 55. But these are real recording that exists that this was left on the moon. So this is an example of how all the 70 chosen languages will be displayed on the surrounding walls of the tower. You see here Aramaic. ^M00:16:21 ^M00:16:30 These are only some examples. So if you come now to Jerusalem first October, see you in Jerusalem. Thank you so much. Thank you. ^M00:16:41 [ Applause ] ^F00:16:45 ^M00:16:57 >> Saul Sosnowski: Thank you, Mirta. If it's okay with you, we'll wait for comments, questions, et cetera until we hear from Tova who will be talking about the intersection of Judaism, art, and psychoanalysis. And then we will have more time to perhaps engage both of them in a dialogue or a trialogue depending how you feel we can proceed with the questions and the comments. Tova, yours. ^M00:17:27 ^M00:17:31 >> Tova Shvartzman: Okay. Sorry about my accent, speaking about languages. I have no images. I have letters here. So I will read it. I want to join Mirta and Saul in thanking the organizer for the opportunity to meet with you today. I would like to share with you some thoughts about intersection of Judaism, art, in this case both visual literature and psychoanalysis. Judaism is a culture that places a particular [inaudible] on the text. Literature also centers on the text. And psychoanalysis also focuses on another text, in this case on the [inaudible] words. This means that all three meet at the text. I view today's as a culture based on foundational text beginning with the "Bible." Those foundational text like in other cultures are unique answers to the major questions that humanity ask themselves and these questions may be summarized in the answers that are the myths. Myths provide these answers. Their structure, the myth's structures, like Levi-Strauss discovered, is always the same. It doesn't matter which culture they come from. Psychoanalysis is a practice. Within this practice, it's not a matter of interpreting an existing text nor to seek out its author but to discover the structure of a narrative. Lacan stated that the artist's perception anticipate future events. Just think of Kafka who for some other man's solitude as well as the [inaudible]. Visual artists and writers often take the myths to write in them how these answers are still affecting our days. I want to share with you one of these answers, the myths of babel, as written by Borges and through psychoanalysis. We don't have a patient, just the text. ^M00:20:23 As you may know, Buenos Aires is known for having the highest number of psychoanalysts in the world. I don't know if we can be proud of it. Borges didn't like psychoanalysis, you know. He used to say that this is sort of narrative, not a science. Well I agree with him and so did Lacan. It's a sort of narrative. But this narrative that affects people if only they assume responsibility of their own words. A few years ago I had the great privilege, thanks to Gail, where is Gail, hey, to [inaudible] in this building, no, in the main building, of seeing one of the letters from the Freud archives here in the Library of Congress where Karl Abraham told Freud, Talmudic thought cannot have suddenly left us. What is that Talmudic mode of thought to which Abraham refers? It is interpretation. It is the freedom to hear in each word not only communication but fundamentally an instrument to exercise freedom. It is the answer to fundamental reason which only consider one language. Every man is different and it is that difference where the [inaudible] humanities exist. We always encounter constant misunderstanding and perhaps we speak the same language but interpretation comes always from misunderstanding. [inaudible] means the tower of Babel relates this theme as do [inaudible] with a narrative that in turn present the problem and its cause. And almost always the cause is man's fault, [inaudible] responsibility for what is not right in this world. However, we will try to read the myths differently as did Borges in his fictional text and as psychoanalysis does. Genesis means of the Tower of Babel has an even greater appeal today in the era of communications where there are more and more ways and means to communicate and there is more and more loneliness and misunderstanding. Men, humans, were punished by the God of the gods with the confusion of tongues for having been arrogant and wanting to build a tower to reach heaven. They spoke a universal language up to that point. Then, different language appeared. Borges has taken, he used several times this term for his stories, two of them, "The Library of Babel" and "The Lottery of Babel" are inspired by the biblical [inaudible] to talk about what writing books, letters, and human knowledge means. Their stories are amazing metaphors that state that the universe is symbolic, maybe the myth is right. There was a lost language. That forgotten language was a perfect fusion of sounds and meaning that all the people, all humanity goes through. This language -- If that language continued to exist, it would not have given rise to interpretation, misunderstanding, poetry, art, conversation. We have a common skill: language. We all talk. Each of our words has more than one meaning. We are all beings that are different from the bees. The bees, they also communicate but their [inaudible] has signals that mean only one thing, hardly a bee will write a poet or sing a song and bees are much less complicated than we are. There is no work or reward or queen destitution in beehives. There are no problems, couple problems between the bees, among the bees [inaudible] discussion with teenage larvae. No bee thinks with nostalgia on his parents or in a lost love and not one of them has yet been found weeping when the moon reflects itself in the sea. On the other side, words are like parasites. Words are a cancer that afflicts the human being. Words are also the only medicine for many disease. Mother tongue is the beginning of our language. Mother tongue is our singular tongue, unique for everyone. You cannot study this tongue. It appears in the mother with her child. The mother tongue is a strong link between mother and child without words but with letters and sounds, a-ha, a-ho, uum. The Tower of Babel is right. There was a lost language. It's our mother tongue. It was a time of full understanding between human beings. This is gone and never will come back. After this language. So this means he's right, the ho, the ha, the uum, are they from the child? Do they come from the mother? They are sounds and the mother repeating and molding the child's sounds consolidates that [inaudible] that someday will be poetry, [inaudible], song. They make essentially phonetic properties of the word, the polyphony of the word, a song for example, experience of the mother tongue happens for all human beings. Punctuation seems to be another step after this experience. Commemorating a day of his childhood in which his father read kids "The Nightingale," Borges says he understood nothing but writes in poetic art. He says, I had considered language as a way of saying things, complaining or to say that one was happy or sad. I knew that language could also be a music and a passion and so poetry was revealed to me. ^M00:28:19 ^M00:28:25 Borges in "The Library of Babel," the character that Borges wrote about him, looks for an impossible book, a book capable of saying everything, of quoting everything. In the story, the whole book is searching for a catalog that contains all the catalogues and that would contain itself, that book that would contain itself if it were the [inaudible] book is what made Bertrand Russell the mathematician, and he thought that is an impossible point and what [inaudible] will demonstrate with the number [inaudible] the impossibility of its existence. There are no identical books in the vast library of books, says Borges. I have seen from the page of Russell, he said that, the doctrine of sets which has as figures the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. In that delicate labyrinth, I was not able to penetrate. That is why if we know how to read the plot that is our life, we can read something as a book. ^M00:30:07 Babel is nothing but an infinite game of chance, said Borges. If babel is the universe, a lottery, a library, let's play with our own letters to tell another story, not to blame ourselves because of the misunderstanding. The language like in harmony is a myth and because of that, we have many languages and it's not a punishment but is a gift. I will finish with a quote from Lacan. This is a quote. "We believe that we say what we want but this is what others have wanted, more specifically our family that speaks to us. We are spoken and because of this, we make of any chance expression something that directs us. There is indeed a plot. We call it our destiny. Many Jews, not all the Jews, but many Jews believe they found the total book. Borges is not so sure. And psychoanalysis is convinced that each person could read his own text, could touch and change a letter or two without thinking that it's a sacred text and then this universe could be a different one. Thank you. ^M00:31:40 [ Applause ] ^F00:31:45 ^M00:31:52 >> Saul Sosnowski: Tova just asked me if she was understood, if it was clear. Absolutely clear. Whether we agree, that's another story but this is the chance we have right now. It was interesting to hear that noise from the background. And those must be the workers building the tower or taking it down. Who knows. But anyway, we do have a few minutes for questions, for comments, for trying to explore some of the points both Mirta and Tova have raised and we'll see -- There are several hands coming up. I was given instructions to repeat the questions. So please make them very brief. My memory is not as strong as the ones we just heard. Okay, let's start from there. >> I have a question for Mirta. When you were starting to create the [inaudible] exhibition in October, how did you plan that out? Did you storyboard your idea and figure out how it's going to look, the exhibition itself? >> Saul Sosnowski: Okay, the question -- No, no, no, [inaudible]. The question is how did Mirta conceive of the work that she's going to be presenting at the Biennale in Jerusalem, whether there was a storyboard, in general how did she plan that work. >> Mirta Kupferminc: Actually just perhaps the three of us can stand now. Okay. We will walk. Thank you for your question. Well, you know it's interesting but I would answer if I'm sincere that I never begin and I never finish a work. Works are -- A project is not suddenly born by inspiration or so, no. Everything comes from not only the previous work but my own life. So these are my thoughts. Sometimes I feel that I'm always making the same with different shapes. Look, only with the Tower of Babel if I must choose, I have many more, but I must choose. So everything is the same and everything is myself. So [inaudible] I would say that I choose a title based on what I want to mean and I join my little parts trying to express that. >> Saul Sosnowski: Okay, don't go away. You were right. Stand. Next question. Please. >> This is for Mirta. [inaudible] the most important language is the mother's language, mother's tongue, and Mirta, you mentioned that you were [inaudible] Polish. >> Saul Sosnowski: And Hungarian. >> [inaudible]. Could you tell us a little bit [inaudible]. >> Saul Sosnowski: Hungarians don't know [inaudible]. >> Mirta Kupferminc: No, Hungarians don't know but Polish, yes. >> Saul Sosnowski: Polish, yes. Okay, but I will let her handle that one. ^M00:35:04 >> Mirta Kupferminc: Thank you. Look, I think that my mother tongue is this, is what I am, everything, because it's true. I heard many, many languages and many kinds of mother tongues. If I understand well what Tova tries to express is that this mother language is something that is not a -- It's a unique language between that mother and that child, that of course I had with no other language of countries. But I think that here in what I share with all of you is my real mother tongue, is my being, my being Argentinean, Jewish, Hungarian, Polish woman, brown eyes and I think that being a mother, a wife, a friend and now speaking with you, you are also now all part of what I am. So I think that what I make is my mother tongue. ^M00:36:14 [ Foreign Language Spoken ] ^M00:36:23 >> I want to ask a question because I am an artist too. I'm intrigued with your concept of making the journey of words from the mouth into visualization and I wonder when you cut the rubber, how do you get the rubber, how do you cut it out? What size is the piece and so forth because you have this wonderful flow and I tried to figure out how you did it. >> Mirta Kupferminc: Your name? >> My name is Phyllis [inaudible]. >> Mirta Kupferminc: Phyllis. Thank you, Phyllis. Phyllis is asking me how do I cut these big rubbers into such a huge size and how's the proceeding that I use. Very well, I buy the flat material. I draw -- I am a very expert at this time to write a, yes, in reverse, backward in mirror, yes, like in the mirror way. So I write everything from the back because I don't want it to be seen in the front, all the lines, so I write everything. It's a drawing, somehow and afterwards with a regular cutter, a knife, a very little one, I cut. Very patient. I have an assistant in my studio and we are working for years already for three years to make this what I will present now. So it's everything hand cut and afterwards I join the flat plates. Let's say they are soft but they are plates and that's how. >> Thank you. >> Mirta Kupferminc: Thanks to you. >> Tova Shvartzman: [Inaudible] is a word that came from Hebrew, [inaudible]. It's not language. It's tongue. Tongue and language are different things. [foreign word] is mother tongue. Mother language is another thing. My mother, when she used to speak with me is mother language, Spanish for example, but mother tongue is what I have in my body, without words. So what Mirta says is true, the mother tongue we cannot spell it. You cannot translate it. You are that. After that, you speak. We speak. >> I've got a question for both of you. The question is do you think that we should be, I don't know how to say, scared that we are losing a lot of [inaudible] languages of our [inaudible], Spanish, Deutsch, whatever language is in this globalization, when today for example I don't know maybe because [inaudible] they have a common language [inaudible] because it doesn't matter if you speak, if you Deutsch, if you speak espanol or you speak English, right, they are all texting when they communicate. Do you understand what I'm saying? They are words but they are coming into a language of an entire generation that became like universal and as the words are becoming universal, so is the country. Right? So now the [inaudible] are replacing [inaudible] now everybody's [inaudible]. So it's happening in the language as it happened in the culture [inaudible]. Do you fear that we are losing that? ^M00:40:46 >> Saul Sosnowski: In other words, the question is, if I understand you correctly and if not you will readjust, the question is whether globalization is in fact a threat to all the languages that both of them were mentioning as mother tongue, mother language and asking that regardless of where children are or teenagers are, they're all texting. I will add before letting them answer, they're texting in a different language still. It's a means. It is not the conveyer in itself. But let them answer the question, please. ^M00:41:27 >> Tova Shvartzman: So what I am scared of is that the mother will be a robot, not that the mother will speak the same language, English, for the people. If the mother is a robot, the mother tongue doesn't exist. You understand me? >> Mirta Kupferminc: I have my own opinion about this. I see as an observer what is happening and I have a lot less age but you less age than you, perhaps two years, but I think that we cannot change what already exist, that the world is changing. So I think we are all the time inventing, let's say, new ways of communication. And if I like it or not, nobody cares so much. I think that everything already changed and we will continue changing and of course we lose. But in my opinion, this is completely personal, we cannot do nothing. Yes, personally, we can do with our life and our work, treasure what we want but we will find people who care and we will find people who does not. This is my opinion. >> Saul Sosnowski: Well, one of the dangers is we are losing a language and I talk in this language every day. That is not coming back. So the fear is very, very legitimate. Yes, please. >> George Steiner in his wonderful book "After Babel" talks about translation and he says that in this process of translation we sometimes get a glimmer of the ancient original universal language. I wonder if you might respond to that. >> Saul Sosnowski: The question is more than a question it's a comment about George Steiner's "After Babel" that he says that in a translation we get a glimmer of what an ancient language may have been in the process of translating. And the question is whether either or both of them would like to comment on George Steiner's statement. ^M00:44:00 ^M00:44:04 [ Foreign Language Spoken ] ^M00:44:17 You are seeing it right now happening. >> Tova Shvartzman: Okay. Okay. I think translation is always betrayal but it's good. It's very good because it's interpretation. I think he's right, he's right. But he's [inaudible] in the West. He's in the West. He's not an Oriental thought. Oriental thoughts, I think, I don't know, but what we can read and understand from Oriental thought the letters, the ideograms are something very different from our logic. So I don't know if George Steiner [inaudible] will be right because Western thought is to interpret always, always, always. Chinese thought in the ideogram is to [inaudible] the picture and the letter together. We separate that. There's Mirta and I. You understand what I say? >> Yeah but when you translate [inaudible]. >> Tova Shvartzman: Haiku is very, very hard to translate. Haiku, you cannot, you cannot. We are talking -- Yes, interpreting, yes but not translate. It's a very big betrayal to the Haiku. Because of that, we cannot speak so easy with East, Oriental, Eastern people. We cannot because that's another universe, another mother tongue. >> Mirta Kupferminc: I have something to add. I have something to add to Tova's comment. I love poetry and if my English, with the English I have, I am able, I can read a book and enjoy the book. If I read poetry -- A book in English, sorry. If I read poetry in English, although I understand the words, I don't feel the poem. I don't enjoy it. I understand the words. I understand but I don't feel. It's not my language. With Haiku, of course, it's impossible. But I think that this happens sometimes although you know very, very well another language but I think it's very hard to feel a second language. ^M00:47:36 [ Inaudible Comment ] ^M00:47:46 >> Saul Sosnowski: Another question? ^M00:47:50 [ Inaudible Question ] ^M00:47:53 The question is whether Tova has her paper in Spanish. The answer is not yet but stay tuned. Sorry, but I saw the writing on the wall and it's coming, it's coming. Gail. Why don't you, since you are the [inaudible]? >> Gail Shirazi: That's okay. What is the connection between Borges and Judaism? He's involved in the Kabbalah. He wrote on babel. What is -- What's his interest? >> Tova Shvartzman: The expert is here. >> Saul Sosnowski: Yeah, she's right there. The question that Gail asked is what is the connection between Borges and Judaism. Tova, it's all yours. Go ahead. >> Tova Shvartzman: He's the expert. ^M00:48:40 ^M00:48:45 >> Saul Sosnowski: This was a trap. Anyway, I'm just supposed to moderate. >> Mirta Kupferminc: We will moderate you now. >> Saul Sosnowski: Good luck. Good luck. Good luck. Very, very briefly. Borges did write quite a bit of text. He wrote both short stories and poems that link the many traditions that he's interested in to various cultures, to various other traditions. One of those is Judaism. I go in very, very long way not to say the most obvious, namely let's not trap Borges into just one box. Borges was interested in Judaism. He was interested in Kabbalah but he was interested in Buddhism. He was interested in all kinds of other things. He has a very famous text that is called "The Vindication of Kabbalah" but that is one of several texts that have the word "vindication" in the title. Basically what he tried to do is to understand why did the Kabbalists engage in that kind of esoteric knowledge, is that kind of esoteric study. ^M00:50:14 Basically what he tries to do is say, not he tries, he did say very intelligently the following. If in fact you believe that the Torah, the first five books of the "Bible" are the utterance of a God and the God is all knowing, all powerful, et cetera, et cetera, you cannot assume that that is just casual text, namely every text, every letter has a meaning and, therefore, it is your job to interpret. Again, I would go into that statement that Tova made before, namely you're engaging in interpretation and the Kabbalists are doing that for whatever purpose they had but that is what they were doing. ^M00:51:02 So what Borges is doing by saying a vindication of Kabbalah, he's justifying the Kabbalists' approach to language. Now that is an opening, but I'm the moderator, so that's enough. The two of them will talk. >> Tova Shvartzman: And another answer to that we have always a discussion, the three of us, about Borges, the Kabbalah, the "Bible" if they are art or not. They're sacred text to some people but perhaps they are literature also like Borges. So we have the beauty of two of them, the Kabbalah and Borges. The beauty, they are expressions there that you cannot only someone that is inspired can wrote like Borges or like the Kabbalists one. Perhaps they are literature, not only sacred text, or not a sacred text. >> Mirta Kupferminc: Sorry. Dealing with so many women is the problem. If I -- As an artist, I am always giving my own point of view. I would say it depends to whom. It's not the problem what it is. It is different things for different people. For some it may be something sacred and written by God. And for others, literature. And that's why the biggest world, the world is very big and we can understand what we want and interpret what we want of the same situation. Very political. >> Saul Sosnowski: Correct. So politically correct in a town like this, it's unheard of. Please. >> I think the more you think about language, the more complicated it gets because there's body language and artistic visual language and there kinesthetic language and we're always [inaudible] interpreting and Borges said [inaudible] the original should be at least as good as the translation. I love that because it puts [inaudible] how do we understand people, you know, where did words come in because I [inaudible] I mean you, I don't know so well. >> Saul Sosnowski: It's not worth it. >> So that's my question. In other words, language is so complicated and the more you know about it, the less you know. How does that affect [inaudible]? And the other thing I just want to say, these are more complicated than [inaudible] when it comes to language. It's just a different [inaudible]. ^M00:54:18 >> Tova Shvartzman: They are complicated but they are -- >> Saul Sosnowski: If you remember way back when we started this session, I asked you to make the questions very short because I have to repeat the questions. So -- >> Language is complicated. How do you deal with it? >> Saul Sosnowski: Love it! Language is complicated. How do you deal with it? Now that makes a lot of sense. Now please, you're both on. >> Mirta Kupferminc: To whom the question? >> Saul Sosnowski: To both of you. >> Mirta Kupferminc: To both. >> Saul Sosnowski: Have fun. >> Mirta Kupferminc: Okay. With my works, I will begin from an anecdote. Many years ago I had to lecture, actually you invited me to Milwaukee to teach with a [inaudible] students and I went with my son. My son was 15 years old then at that time and he asked me, "Mom, you have to speak in English. Aren't you afraid you will not be able to express what you want?" And I answered, "Look, I am not teaching English grammar. I am speaking about what I am and I know who I am. And if I need a word, I will ask someone please to help me to say it. No, no, I am not afraid." ^M00:55:44 And answering, I think that we say what we want to say or we want to express. We cannot control what the other person will understand or read or perceive of the work or reading the book or we cannot control that. So personally, I'm not worried about that. >> Saul Sosnowski: And that is how [inaudible] was born. >> Mirta Kupferminc: Exactly. >> Saul Sosnowski: Tova. >> Tova Shvartzman: Perhaps, I don't know if I could answer your question, but you know Babel, many people said that is in Hebrew [inaudible] Babel -- >> Saul Sosnowski: To mix up. >> Tova Shvartzman: Mix up. But the word "babel" is babel el is door to God. It's not [inaudible] mix up. It's babel el. Like babel what, like babel el, there are two words in Babylonian language. So the meaning and the [inaudible] of babel run through at times and now we said babel is to mix up. But if you go to the root, it's not like that. Which I choose. Which I choose. Yeah. So if language is so complicated, we must I think we must do the, a the [inaudible] to understand us, there is a misunderstanding all the time and it's good. It's good. If not, we are, we will not talk each other. We will be silent. Thank you. >> Saul Sosnowski: To say something like this in Washington, DC, about misunderstandings and to be quiet and not text and not tweet and things like that, that's a very welcome gate to God. Thank you all so very, very much for joining us [applause]. Thank you, Gail. Thank you to embassy. >> Mirta Kupferminc: Thank you, Gail for everything. Thank you, Gail. ^M00:58:32 ^M00:58:36 >> Gail Shirazi: I want to thank our presenters and I just want to comment on Mirta's work. The more we look at it, when I did the flier I kept looking at it. Every time I looked at that picture, I saw something else. I think Mirta's work, you have to really keep looking at it and looking into it. And I'm sure there's so much more I'm missing. And thank you for having so much of you in the work and so much in your work. Thank you all for coming [applause] and I want to thank you. >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov.