JUNE 23 • 2022 | 45
A
pril is the cruelest
month,” T.S. Eliot
famously wrote.
The line came to me on a
cold, rainy Friday when I
walked the site where Ariel
Schlesinger’s sculpture,
Ways to Say Goodbye, is to be
situated. The achingly slow
Michigan spring presented
a landscape that was muddy
and colorless, which seemed
appropriate to the disaster
Ways to Say Goodbye would
commemorate.
These morose thoughts,
however, soon yielded to
others fueled by the still-
lingering warmth of my
encounter with the artist.
Clad in a bright crimson
coat — far too thin, I thought,
for tromping the site at Meijer
Gardens in Grand Rapids —
Ariel Schlesinger seemed, at
first glance, the typical New
York artist. He had even
just moved to Brooklyn to
live among other artists and
writers, which I told him
seemed like requiring new
college students to live on
campus.
These surface impressions
soon gave way, revealing
a man both engaging and
gentle, interested in talking
about his work, but not in a
way that sucks all the oxygen
out of the room.
I so enjoyed our conver-
sation it seemed worthwhile
to continue it. We started
with a back-and-forth email
exchange, but finally settled
on a Zoom discussion. What
follows draws on the two
exchanges and, I hope, offers
an interesting prelude to the
upcoming dedication of Ways
to Say Goodbye on June 30.
RF: Your work for Meijer
Gardens evokes your trees
at the entrance to the
Frankfurt Jewish Museum.
Why trees? And why trees
without leaves?
AS: Trees are people, and
people are trees. We all live
in a forest and socialize; it’s
part of our nature. It was
only obvious to me that a
natural element like a tree
will be a center that draws
people together and starts a
discussion around our past
and future, together.
The reason not to sculpt
the leaves is a choice both
visual and practical, keeping
the overall elements in the
object as minimal as possible.
RF: What kinds of
discussion do you envision
Ways to Say Goodbye
ARTS&LIFE
SCULPTURE
Artist of Ways to Say Goodbye
shares his creative ideas and
processes for Holocaust memorial.
A Conversation
with Ariel
Schlesinger
ROB FRANCIOSI SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
Sculptures by
Ariel Schlesinger
at the entrance
to the Frankfurt
Jewish Museum
DVIR GALLERY
continued on page 46