Boris Lurie: Nothing To Do But To Try

22.10.2021 - 29.04.2022

Boris Lurie: Nothing To Do But To Try

Boris Lurie: Nothing To Do But To Try is a first-of-its-kind exhibition on the 20th-century artist and Holocaust survivor Boris Lurie. Centered around his earliest work, the so-called War Series, as well as never-before-exhibited objects and ephemera from Lurie’s personal archive, the exhibition presents a portrait of an artist reckoning with devastating trauma, haunting memories, and an elusive, lifelong quest for freedom. In drawing together artistic practice and historical chronicle, Boris Lurie: Nothing To Do But To Try is fertile new territory for the Museum of Jewish Heritage, offering a survivor’s searing visual testimony within a significant art historical context.

I try my first oil painting on a plywood board. The paints are difficult to manage and very messy. I think I am doing very badly, but then I try again: maybe I am not doing so badly. …But since no one taught me anything about art, there is nothing to do but to try.” – Boris Lurie

“Nothing to do but to try” are words from Lurie’s own memoir, exemplifying the eternal quests of his life and his art: to survive as the ultimate act of creation, and to create as the ultimate act of survival.