Though it began nearly a century ago, the Holocaust and the stories of its survivors perhaps ring louder and more importantly than ever during this period in America. Observing that, Farmington Hills’ Zekelman Holocaust Center is now displaying a major exhibition of works by one of the most artistically prolific survivors, Boris Lurie.
The exhibit, “Nothing to Do But to Try,” opened in July and runs through December, and was curated by Sara Softness, director of curatorial affairs at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. The first-of-its-kind show explores some of Lurie’s earliest works, offering a compelling look at how his art grappled with devastating trauma, haunting memories and the struggle for liberation. Through powerful and provocative imagery, Lurie’s work challenges viewers to confront the human cost of hatred, genocide, and loss, while illuminating the resilience of the creative spirit.
Stephanie Stebich, executive director of the Boris Lurie Art Foundation, called his “a uniquely American story, a story of resilience and renewed purpose through art.”
“For Boris,” she said, “the works in this exhibition are really a meditation on remembrance. This is an exhibition that examines, through art and archives, an extraordinary life. Boris Lurie (was) born in Leningrad in 1924, and would die in New York City at age 83 in 2008. He’s best known for two bodies of work: this wartime series on display … and another series. He would be the founder of the NO!Art Movement, an avant-garde art movement, sort of wedged between abstract expressionism and pop art.”
Stebich confided that the foundation is working on a major future exhibition of works from that chapter of Lurie’s life, as well.
Lurie grew up in Riga, the capital of Latvia, raised by Russian-born parents in an upper-middle-class family. Despite encountering much antisemitism in Riga, Lurie fondly recalled his childhood. His father worked as a businessman and his mother as a dentist until Boris was 16, when the Nazis came to occupy Riga. This was 1941; the family was gathered up and imprisoned in a ghetto for several months, and by year’s end, his mother, grandmother, sister Jenna and childhood sweetheart Luba were murdered alongside 25,000 Latvian Jews in one of the Nazi mobile killing units’ largest mass executions.
As strong men, Lurie and his father were sent to labor camps and then to a concentration camp. Miraculously, they were never separated. In 1946, after liberation, they would arrive in New York City thanks to the efforts of an older sister who’d ridden out the war in Italy before relocating to the United States. At 22, newly arrived in America, Lurie – who had no artistic education – began painting the memories that haunted him.
“This, as the curator Sara Softness says, is very much a visual testimony,” said Stebich. “It is about deeply personal experiences.”
Zekelman Holocaust Center CEO Rabbi Eli Mayerfeld called Lurie’s works “powerfully expressive.”
“They have much to teach us about the preservation of memory, the enduring nature of trauma, and the resilience of survival,” Mayerfeld said. “The pieces contained in the exhibit invite both reflection and a commitment to remembrance and calling out injustice.”
Stebich credited Lurie’s longtime friend and art dealer Gertrude Stein – “No, not the Paris Gertrude Stein, but the New York Getrude Stein!” – for making the whole affair possible.
Stein, still sharp and active at age 98, was the first dealer to recognize the NO!Art group, and showed Lurie’s work for many years as his business partner until his death in 2008.
“I want to … acknowledge the tremendous debt we all owe to Gertrude Stein,” Stebich said. “I want to recognize her contribution to the Foundation and how she has worked tirelessly for 18 years to curate the collection and bring numerous exhibitions around the world to elevate the story and life of Boris Lurie and others in his artistic circle. She has really created one of the top artist-endowed foundations in the country, and today, she leads the foundation (board) with great wisdom and grace and wit.”
Stein shared with the Free Press her passion for “mentioning the unknown.”
“(Boris) was sort of left out of history,” she said. “We’re very busy now. We have a lot of shows all over the world, and people love it, but he’s still an unknown person; he doesn’t show with the famous people. The catalogue is very good. Stephanie is taking over; she’s very, very good, and she’s learning still about a lot, because there’s so much to know.”
Holocaust Center marketing manager Marissa Campo shared the exhibition with a young history lover who now wants to carry forth the legacy of telling similar stories.
“We had this 14-year-old girl from Clare, Michigan, reach out,” said Campo. “She had just finished reading (Art Spiegelman’s) ‘Maus’, and she was so interested in the Holocaust, and she wanted to learn more. Nobody around her knew about the Holocaust, so her grandma encouraged her to reach out to us. She sent this long, beautiful email about how she came here on a tour and learned so much, and she wanted to continue learning. We have a pen pal relationship now, and she came to visit with her grandma. They walked through the exhibit. I schedule a whole day for her to learn, a bunch of sessions with our education team.
“She wants to look into a career in the museum field. She said, ‘I feel like it’s weird to say that I’m excited and I had fun.’ I said, ‘You can totally say that,’ and she said, ‘I had such a fun time here.’ Our CEO likes to say that having fun is what we do; we don’t want to be sad all the time. We want to be able to have these moments of light – which we have throughout the exhibit as well – the moments of light in the darkness. It was such a sweet moment to have her in, and it’s the most rewarding thing I’ve been able to do here.”
To learn more, visit holocaustcenter.org.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Holocaust Museum displays stunning exhibition of remembrance works by survivor
Reporting by Duante Beddingfield, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
