I’ve been lurking at Heat Exchange2 for a while now, and after the latest request for a post, I decided to gather my thoughts on how my work was coming along.
The inspiration for my installation “Housing/Warehousing” evolved over nearly a year’s time. Over the years I have returned to a house theme from time to time, sometimes for personal reasons, but also because home and shelter are universal themes. The sequence of events went something like this: At the Bauhaus Museum in Tel Aviv I saw colorful workingmen’s houses designed by Bruno Taut, who was forced to leave Germany by the early 1930s. On a retreat I talked with woodworker Wendy Maruyama, who was beginning her monumental “Tag Project,” about the Japanese detention camps in the US during the same war. Investigating abandoned buildings I was struck by the similarity in structures used to house prisoners at Auschwitz and Manzanar.
I began constructing peaked-roof dwellings that were folded up from a single sheet of metal, using vitreous enamel to give a permanent, rich surface. Using wire to “stitch” them together at the seam gave a surgical as well as domestic subtext, and was a sign that they had been fabricated by hand. Scaling up beyond jewelry made every one a technical challenge as I went along. Recurring issues concerned using sifted or liquid enamel, often both; getting the right chalky, gouache-like surface; and the optimal relation between metal gauge and final dimensions.
Then an unexpected layer of meaning came into the work. Riding the train from Munich to Dachau last spring, I noticed the landscape was dotted with small, colorful, peaked-roof houses, much like the ones I had been making. The geographical and cultural proximity of these structures tied together the two previously irreconcilable bodies of work. Taut’s houses, while modest in scale, were full of life; barracks used to warehouse people are the opposite.
On yet another level, I had long tried to find a way to address the Holocaust in my work, but jewelry just wasn’t it. The opportunity and, yes, deadline of Heat Exchange2 enabled me to create the space to explore my own narrative.
Very striking work. The houses seem complete and yet open ended, like catching your breath.
It is so interesting the way in which the mind keeps hold of the current thread of work and continues to observe more relationships and pathways opening. The back of the mind keeps tweaking the theme as we go about the ordinary day.
Dear Marjorie,
Lovely to see your work and ideas emerging. It would be great to be able to meet sometime and to have a personal conversation about the ‘house’, identity and place. There is so much to say and share. The ‘house’ has been an integral theme for me for many years. Many of my drawings are based on architectural space and the specifics of floors, stairs and ceilings, broken apart and reassembled.
There is a poem you might like by Ingeborg Bachmann. While she herself was not Jewish, her lover Paul Celan was. So, again, there are links to this very difficult part of German history.
Bohemia Lies by the Sea
If houses here are green, I’ll step inside a house.
If bridges here are sound, I’ll walk on solid ground.
If love’s labour’s lost in every age, I’ll gladly lose it here.
If it’s not me, it’s one who is as good as me.
If a word here borders on me, I’ll let it border.
If Bohemia still lies by the sea, I’ll believe in the sea again.
And believing in the sea, thus I can hope for land.
If it’s me, then it’s anyone, for he’s as worthy as me.
I want nothing more for myself. I want to go under.
Under – that means the sea, there I’ll find Bohemia again.
From my grave, I wake in peace. From deep down I know now, and I’m not lost.
Come here, all you Bohemians, seafarers, dock whores, and ships unanchored. Don’t
you want to be Bohemians, all you Illyrians, Veronese and Venetians. Play the comedies that make us laugh
until we cry. And err a hundred times,
as I erred and never withstood the trials,
though I did withstand them time after time.
As Bohemia withstood them and one fine day
was released to the sea and now lies by water.
I still border on a word and on another land,
I border, like little else, on everything more and more,
a Bohemian, a wandering minstrel, who has nothing, who
is held by nothing, gifted only at seeing, by a doubtful sea,
the land of my choice.
Und hier das Original fuer die lieben Deutschen:
Böhmen liegt am Meer
Sind hierorts Häuser grün, tret ich noch in ein Haus.
Sind hier die Brücken heil, geh ich auf gutem Grund.
Ist Liebesmüh in alle Zeit verloren, verlier ich sie hier gern.
Bin ich’s nicht, ist es einer, der ist so gut wie ich.
Grenz hier ein Wort an mich, so laß ich’s grenzen.
Liegt Böhmen am Meer, glaub ich den Meeren wieder.
Und glaub ich noch ans Meer, so hoffe ich auf Land.
Bin ich’s, so ist’s ein jeder, der ist soviel wie ich.
Ich will nichts mehr für mich. Ich will zugrunde gehn.
Zugrund – das heißt zum Meer, dort find ich Böhmen wieder.
Zugrund gerichtet, wach ich ruhig auf.
Von Grund auf weiß ich jetzt, und ich bin unverloren.
Kommt her, ihr Böhmen alle, Seefahrer, Hafenhuren und Schiffe
unverankert. Wollt ihr nicht böhmisch ein, Illyrer, Veroneser,
und Venezianer alle. Spielt die Komödien, die lachen machen.
Und die zum Weinen sind. Und irrt euch hundertmal,
wie ich mich irrte und Proben nie bestand,
dich hab ich sie bestanden, ein um das andre Mal.
Wie Böhmen sie bestand und eines schönen Tags
ans Meer begandigt wurde und jetzt am Wasser liegt.
Ich grenz noch an ein Wort und an ein andres Land,
ich grenz, wie wenig auch, an alles immer mehr,
ein Böhme, ein Vagant, der nichts hat, den nichts hält,
begabt nur noch, vom Meer, das strittig ist, Land meiner Wahl zu sehen.