Leonard Cohen - A Crack in Everything

We went to see “Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything,” the new exhibit at The Jewish Museum. This amazing exhibit was inaugurated in November of 2017 at the Musée d’art Contemporain de Montréal (MAC) in late 2017, a year after Mr. Cohen’s passing. Over 315,000 visitors attended the exhibit, making it one of the most viewed in the Museum’s history.

There were so many fascinating pieces of the exhibit but the one we enjoyed most was a “Passing Through,” a lengthy, 360-degree video work drawing from fifty years of onstage moments throughout Mr. Cohen’s career. I remember the title song as part of the repertoire of songs we sang in the Jewish youth group in which I was quite active in high school. However, until today I had no idea that it had been written in 1948 by Richard (Dick) Cleveland Blakeslee (September 15, 1921 – April 7, 2000), a professor of English literature, and recorded by Leonard Cohen back in the early 1970s.

I saw Adam in the Garden with an apple in his hand.

I said “now you’re out, what are you gonna do?”

“Plant some crops and pray for rain,

Maybe raise a little Cain.

I’m an orphan now and I’m only passin’ through.”

Passin’ through, passin’ through,

Sometimes happy, sometimes blue,

Glad that I ran into you.

Tell the people that you saw me passin’ through.

There was another video installation, “The Offerings,” that looped clips of interviews in which Mr. Cohen talked about themes in his work.   

The exhibit will be on display at The Jewish Museum through September 8 of this year before moving to Copenhagen, Denmark and then on to the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco from September 17, 2020 through January 3, 2021. If you are going to be in New York over the next few months, try not to miss this one!

Love,

Rebecca