Adam Splitting refers at once to Adam, the first man, splitting like a cell rather than being split through a missing rib, and to violence throughout the Middle East, particularly suicide bombers. According to Hertzel,
Adam Splitting was made during the time of my mother’s death and the loss of the multi-generational family home while simultaneously there was an invasion of Iraq. My garden exploded to the backdrop of the war.
Adam Splitting: Unique bronze. 2008, 31”x61”x29”
https://www.jonathanhertzel.com/images/adam-splitting-2
Like the paradox of the stillness in motion, war-torn Iraq was a cradle of civilization, whose vast cultural reserves have been destroyed along with its citizens. The family dynamic split in similar ways; the loss of parent and home forced a reckoning. Adam Splitting has more positive space (metal) than many of the artist’s current pieces but retains a fierce centrifugal motion and power. The figure spins away from a center, losing force and parts as it moves. Adam Splitting embodies pain, displacement, and body parts, out of control and in the process of being lost forever.