Press coverage

The Guardian, 22 May 1999

The Guardian, 22 May 1999:
"Lichtenstein realised that if she wanted to find Rodinsky the man rather than Rodinsky the myth, she would have to look beyond the four walls into the streets outside. Beyond them too, into the suburbs marked out in Rodinsky's tattered copy of the A-Z, and beyond them to eastern Europe itself.

"[...] Her search took her from the streets of Whitechapel to a burnt-out mental home in Surrey, to another in Claybury in Essex, to a rabbi in Israel, to Warsaw and Auschwitz and eventually to a pauper's grave in a Waltham Abbey cemetery. Her quest is detailed in Rodinsky's Room, and also in a guide book commissioned by Artangel called Rodinsky's Whitechapel, which takes the reader on a walk round the area in which the fast-disappearing Jewish landmarks become entwined with Lichtenstein's search for Rodinsky, a history of her own immigrant grandparents and the histories of those who never made it to Whitechapel, lost for ever in the Nazi death camps."
(Lyn Gardner - read full article)

Time Out, 1 June 1999:
"More than 20 years pass. The building, a disused synagogue in Princelet Street, Whitechapel, becomes Grade II listed; a society is set up to turn it into a museum of immigration and Rachel Lichtenstein becomes artist-in-residence. 'I know it sounds corny,' says Lichtenstein, 'but as soon as I walked into the building, I had a strong sense that I was meant to be there.' She has spent years tracing the recluse and sorting through the remnants of his life. Was he alive or dead? With nothing else to go on, at the records office she begins with her birth date and, within minutes, spots his name. David Rodinsky died in April 1969, a few days before she was born, and the story she unravels is full of uncanny parallels." (Sarah Kent)

Evening Standard, 4 June 1999:
"All over London, there exist neglected places and hermetic spaces: island territories cut off from the main swing of urban life the way the hidden chambers of the psyche are cut off from consciousness.

Rodinsky's Room is one such place. Sealed off from light and life for nearly 20 years, this tiny attic in a Huguenot weaver's loft above the old Princelet Street synagogue in Whitechapel was rediscovered in the late Eighties. Everything belonging to David Rodinsky was still there - damp, rank and thickly coated in dust." (Marina Benjamin)

Frieze, Issue 48, September - October 1999:
"In contemporary British culture, the East End is a Kingdom of Narnia, which can be reached simply by catching the tube to Liverpool Street and walking to Brick Lane. From Peter Ackroyd’s seemingly illimitable readings of Hawksmoor churches and Jewish myths to what one critic called the ‘dark space’ inside the concrete shell of Rachel Whiteread’s House (1993), the East End is a mystery waiting for interpretation.

"[...] Sinclair is both guru and satirist of the new mysticism that surrounds the East End, and the exploration of the David Rodinsky cult that he recently orchestrated for Artangel was a consummation of his black art." (Jonathan Jones - read full article)

The Guardian, 18 March 2000:
"A decrepit Jew lives in a single room in Spitalfields, above a synagogue. One day he leaves his room. He never comes back. The room stays locked for over a decade; when it is opened in 1980, it vibrates with absence. Notebooks and diaries indicate that their keeper knew over a dozen languages, most of them dead. Cabbalistic diagrams taunt the uninitiated. A copy of the A-Z is marked with routes. Of walks taken, or of walks that are yet to be taken? Everything, apart from the thick layer of dust that has settled over the years, is as it was, only waiting for interpretation, for explanation." (Nicholas Lezard - read full article)

The New York Times, 13 August 2000
"what makes ''Rodinsky's Room'' so enthralling is that it works at several other levels. It is also the story of a personal, cultural and religious voyage that leads a half-Jewish Englishwoman to embrace Orthodox Judaism in Israel, to visit death camps in Poland and to delve into the tattered remnants of Jewish immigrant life in London. Adding another dimension, the book is written with Iain Sinclair, an English novelist and essayist who not only observes Lichtenstein in her obsessive search for Rodinsky but also provides valuable context through his rich knowledge of hidden London. Their collaboration -- they write alternate chapters -- works exceptionally well."
(Alan Riding - read full article)