CAJE Consults for MOCA Exhibit
Posted on 12/03/2021 @ 07:00 AM
Artwork by Maryan
Many people don’t even realize that CAJE is often consulted when a museum or other arts organization has an exhibit or show that has Jewish content.
In March of this year, CAJE was honored to be invited to participate in the planning around the first exhaustive retrospective of Polish-born artist Maryan, which is now on exhibit at MOCA, North Miami, through March 20, 2022.
It is extraordinary and very much worth seeing!
A survivor of the Holocaust, Maryan's artwork reflects the psychological torment of wartime trauma while presenting a deeply humanist message— that we are all united in our struggles and in our will to survive with dignity.
Click images to view larger.
Born in a city southeast of Cracow, Poland in 1927, Pinchas Schindel as he was known then grew up in a traditional, working-class Jewish family. Rounded up by the Nazis, he was sent to various forced labor camps and finally Auschwitz-Birkenau, from where he was liberated. He was the sole survivor of his family.
My Name is Maryan examines all periods of the postwar avant-garde artist’s work. After he barely survived the Shoah, Maryan’s 30-year career spanned from Israel to Paris, where he studied at the Beaux Arts and made a name for himself in the 1950s. Maryan then settled in New York in the early 1960s where he eventually became a US citizen and lived at the Chelsea Hotel until his untimely death at the age of 50 in 1977.
My Name is Maryan includes paintings, prints, notebooks, ephemera, photographs, and archival materials. Maryan’s paintings blended figuration with various forms of abstraction. His subject matter gravitated to grotesque, boisterous figures that combined human features with monstrous hybrid forms.
At the center of the exhibition is Maryan's rarely-screened film Ecce Homo, which highlights the intersections between art and social justice. Maryan paired his first-person testimonial of his experiences in Nazi prison camps with images of the struggle for civil rights in the 60’s and the anti-war movement in the 70’s.
His work is powerful, disturbing and captivating all at the same time. After visiting the exhibit, you will understand the Shoah and its effects in ways that you have never thought about them before.
Wishing you a Happy Hanukkah
and a Happy Art Basel!
