The horrifying scenes of destruction from the wildfires in Los Angeles are overwhelming and apocalyptic. Our hearts go out to all the many thousands who have lost homes, places of business, places of worship, and places of creativity and community.
We have posted in the past about how two contemporary artists, the American Murray Zimiles and Polish Monika Krajewska, have used their art to address the deliberate fiery destruction in the Holocaust, specifically of the centuries old wooden synagogues in eastern Europe.
We re-propose them here as a way of demonstrating the power of art in the face of destruction and tragedy.
Monika Krajewska: “Burning”
Krajewska is a paper cut artist, and in 2020 we posted a remarkable online exhibition of her work drawn from her extraordinary cycle of paper cuts called “Burning.”
“Burning,” she wrote, was her requiem for the synagogues and ceremonial objects destroyed together with the communities that created and cherished them.”
Krajewska, who lives in Warsaw, is an accomplished photographer who was a pioneer in researching and documenting Jewish cemeteries and other built heritage in Poland. In her work she employs the symbolism and iconography found on gravestones and in synagogues in her contemporary interpretation of the traditional Jewish papercut form.
Murray Zimiles, “Book of Fire”
Murray Zimiles is an American painter, printmaker, curator, and author.
His series — Book of Fire — dates from 1988-1990. It is a series of powerful scenes, mainly black and white lithographs and woodcuts, evoking the fiery destruction of the wooden synagogues. He incorporates poems, testimony and other texts, set against the flaming scenes.
As he wrote at the time, “These paintings, drawings, prints, and artists’ books are graphic statements meant to engage and propel the viewer into a whirlwind of fire and devastation.”
Click to see all images in The Book of Fire
See below an introduction to Zimiles and his work, pegged to an exhibition of his Holocaust and Book of Fire series at the Florida Holocaust Museum in 2017.
1 comment on “Encore post: Fire (and Art)”
On the topic 9sort of), here is something I wrote back in 2013:
http://samgrubersjewishartmonuments.blogspot.com/2013/11/shuls-on-fire-synagogue-flames-real-and.html