History, Memory, Longing, Delight
November 26, 2010 by Fran Bigman
Objects as antidotes to loss in the work of Maira Kalman and Edmund de Waal
Empty boxes, some child-made, some commercial. Sponges from around the world. Postcards from the Hotel Celeste in Tunisia. A suitcase that belonged to a man who fled Danzig in 1939. Whistles. A figurine of a stag scratching his ear with a hind leg. A snake curled on a lotus leaf, in ivory. Three sweet chestnuts. A hare with amber eyes. These are items in the respective collections of Maira Kalman and Edmund de Waal, two very different artists and writers who turn traditional Holocaust memoir-writing on its head by telling the stories of their Jewish families through objects like the ones above.
