arts & life
Past Becomes Present
A new art exhibit
at the Holocaust
Memorial Center
casts the Holocaust
in a modern light.
Hans Molzberger created
Maypole 1945 from patinated
steel from a burned-out house,
an excavated German helmet,
guns, German World War II
parts and concrete blocks
from the Salzwedel area.
Mass marches during the Nazi
regime took place on May 1 in
all German cities. "My Maypole
1945 shows how it ended,"
says the artist.
+plus
"Never Let It Rest: Sojourns
in the Shadowlands" runs
through May 3 at the Holocaust
Memorial Center, Farmington
Hills. $5-$8; free for center
members, uniform service
personnel with ID and library/
archive visitors. (248) 553-
2400; holocaustcenter.org .
I
Suzanne Chessler
Contributing Writer
p
sinter Michael Roque
Collins and three-
dimensional artist Hans
Molzberger knew each other's work
long before they became colleagues
and friends.
Collins, who grew up along the
American Gulf Coast, creates post-
Symbolistic images, both powerful
and terrifying, and often related to
the discrimination he has observed
in the heartland.
2006 and traveled to areas associ-
ated with Holocaust atrocities
and subsequent memorials of loss
at Auschwitz, Buchenwald and
Neuengamme.
Both traveled to Michigan to
introduce the exhibit when it
opened Jan. 11 and hope to return
to lead workshops.
"This will be the third time we've
had the paintings together with the
sculptures," says Molzberger, who
had a solo exhibit at the Holocaust
Museum Houston. Collins will
show his own projects and two col-
Michael Roque Collins created the 2009 oil on black-and-white
photograph 20th Century Totems after he and Molzberger visited
Buchenwald.
Molzberger, who grew up in
Germany, develops installations,
often punctuating the absence of
Jews in the small towns surround-
ing his home.
Both teach at Houston Baptist
University, but met each other
through their activities in the
arts community in America and
Europe. Collins' recommendation
brought Molzberger to Texas.
Their common concerns led to a
joint venture, an exhibit capturing
sites and emotions memorializing
the Holocaust and its aftermath.
"Never Let It Rest: Sojourns in
the Shadowlands," consists of some
40 independent and shared pieces.
It will be on view through May 3 at
the Holocaust Memorial Center in
Farmington Hills.
The multimedia display includes
paintings, photography, sculpture,
ceramics, found objects and sound
elements. There is mention of the
small town of Salzwedel in the
Saxony-Anhalt region of Germany,
where there was a concentration
camp.
The two artists, neither Jewish,
began planning their display in
laborations there next fall.
An early work by Collins,
Divisions of the Soil — included
in this exhibit — was motivated by
a visit to areas close to the artist's
home that exposed racist feelings,
expressed through comments and
graffiti. Collins reacted with the
oil-on-linen piece, detailing an
imaginary landscape compromised
by buckling land.
Similarly, Molzberger began his
Holocaust constructions after the
unification of Germany.
"I had read [teenage Holocaust
victim] David Rubinowicz's diary
and decided to bicycle from Berlin
to the village where David and his
family lived," recalls Molzberger,
who himself had an uncle kept as
a political prisoner in a concentra-
tion camp.
"I did research there and made
a project that was shown in the
1990s. When the city of Salzwedel
did an art exhibit about the
concentration camp there, I was
invited to participate:'
Tunnel, one of Molzberger's
larger pieces, is made of a ceramic
and patinated steel frame holding a
Editor's Picks
gravel base and lets exhibit visitors
hear their own footsteps as they
walk through the installation. The
shape of the tunnel roof recalls
the roofs of many railcars used by
Nazis to transport victims.
Walking on Ashes is an exam-
ple of the artists' collaboration. It is
made of canvas, acrylic/oil, photo
collage, steel, bronze and raku with
a sound component.
This installation offers a vista
where each side shows different
subjects; one side has an image of
a rail, and the other shows a paint-
ing over photo collage of shoes left
behind by victims and gives way to
a smoke-filled sky.
Molzberger, a self-taught artist
who leads professional residencies
in Germany, has visited Israel and
talked to survivors. One survivor,
from Houston, became a close
friend and the subject of a project
about the man's life, now traveling
the United States and Germany.
Both artists lecture and con-
duct workshops. And a book of
Collins' work, From Ruins to
Resurrection: Sacred Landscapes
of Michael Roque Collins, will be
available at the center while the
exhibit is on view.
"We think of our art as an active
agent for dealing with violence
in culture says Collins, who has
received more than 50 juried
awards, including one from the
National Endowment for the Arts.
"The art becomes a release for
the horrific acts, a way of profess-
ing that the visual scars are left and
suggesting contemplative medita-
tion:' ❑
Life In Lodz
Planning a visit to Toronto? A
new exhibit features photos by
photojournalist Henryk Ross,
who, with his wife, were among a
small percentage of Lodz Ghetto
survivors. After liberation, he
excavated negatives of photos
he had taken and hidden at great
personal risk.
More than 200 of his
glimpses of life under Nazi
rule in Poland - "Memory
Unearthed: The Lodz Ghetto
Photographs of Henryk Ross"
- will be on view Jan. 31-June
14 at the Art Gallery of
Ontario, Toronto. (877)
225-4246; ago.net . ❑
FANTASTIQUE!
Twenty-year-old Italian
pianist Beatrice Rana
makes her Detroit debut,
and conductor Jun Markl
leads Berlioz' Symphonie
Fantastique with the DSO.
Jan. 22; Jan. 24-25. $15
and up. Max M.
Fisher Music
Center, Detroit.
(313) 576-5111;
dso.org .
CONJURER
Beginning as
an apprentice
Lynne
Konstantin magician at
Arts & Life age 4 to his
grandfather,
Editor
Max Katz,
Ricky Jay is one of the
world's great conjurers. In
PBS' American Masters
- Ricky Jay: Deceptive
Practice, see clips and
interviews with friends
and colleagues from Steve
Martin and David Mamet
to Dinah Shore.10:30 p.m.
Friday, Jan. 23, on Channel
56. DPTV.org .
HILLS ARE ALIVE
With local talent!
Community theater Sky's
the Limit Productions
brings the Sound of Music
(by Richard Rodgers and
Oscar Hammerstein II,
whose grandfather was
Jewish) to the Berman
Center for Performing Arts,
West Bloomfield. Jan. 24-
25; Jan. 29; Jan. 30-Feb.
1. $17. (248) 661-1900;
theberman.org .
HEAVENLY BODIES
Voted "Sexiest
Astrophysicist Alive" by
People magazine, Neil
DeGrasse Tyson makes
science fun for experts and
laypeople (kids, too). Host of
the TV miniseries Cosmos:
A Spacetime Legacy - a
respin of Carl Sagan's
classic series - the director
of the Hayden Planetarium
at NYC's American Museum
of Natural History speaks
Wednesday, Jan. 28, at the
Detroit Opera House. $66
and up. (313) 237-SING;
michiganopera.org . ❑
January 22 • 2015
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