Boris Lurie (July 18, 1924 – January 7, 2008) was an American artist and writer. He co-founded the

NO!Art NO!art is a radical avant-garde anti-art movement started in New York in 1959. Its founders sought to deliver a shock to the complacent consumerist society around them. The movement was initiated by Boris Lurie, Sam Goodman and Stanley Fisher who ...

movement which calls for socially and politically involved art that would resist and combat the forces of the market. His controversial work, often related to the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

, has frequently irritated critics and curators. Though he lived as a penniless artist, Lurie amassed $80 million by buying penny stocks and real estate which was used on August 8, 2009, to create the Boris Lurie Art Foundation.

Early life

Lurie was born in

Leningrad Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

into a Jewish family and grew up in Riga. From 1941 to 1945 he was imprisoned in the Riga Ghetto, then the Lenta

Arbeitslager ''Arbeitslager'' () is a German language word which means labor camp. Under Nazism, the German government (and its private-sector, Axis, and collaborator partners) used forced labor extensively, starting in the 1930s but most especially durin ...

, and then three separate

concentration camps Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...

, including

Salaspils Salaspils (; german: Kircholm; sv, Kirkholm) is a town in Latvia, the administrative centre of Salaspils Municipality. The town is situated on the northern bank of the Daugava river, 18 kilometers to the south-east of the city of Riga. His ...

Stutthof Stutthof was a Nazi concentration camp established by Nazi Germany in a secluded, marshy, and wooded area near the village of Stutthof (now Sztutowo) 34 km (21 mi) east of the city of Danzig ( Gdańsk) in the territory of the Germ ...

, and the

Buchenwald Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or sus ...

satellite camp at the

Magdeburg Magdeburg (; nds, label=Low Saxon, Meideborg ) is the capital and second-largest city of the German state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is situated at the Elbe river. Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archdiocese of Magdebu ...

Polte-Werke; his mother, grandmother and sister were murdered by the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

s in the

Rumbula massacre The Rumbula massacre is a collective term for incidents on November 30 and December 8, 1941, in which about 25,000 Jews were murdered in or on the way to Rumbula forest near Riga, Latvia, during the Holocaust. Except for the Babi Yar massacre in ...

. In 1946 he immigrated to New York and began his career as an artist. For a short time he attended the Art Students' League, where he studied with George Grosz and produced figurative work inspired by his wartime memories and of his life in New York, especially the

dance halls Dance hall in its general meaning is a hall for Dance, dancing. From the earliest years of the twentieth century until the early 1960s, the dance hall was the popular forerunner of the discothèque or nightclub. The majority of towns and citi ...

around 14th Street. One of his best-known and most controversial works is " Railroad Collage" (1959), a collage juxtaposing a

pin-up model A pin-up model (known as a pin-up girl for a female and less commonly male pin-up for a male) is a model whose mass-produced pictures see widespread appeal as part of popular culture. Pin-up models were variously glamour models, fashion mod ...

undressing over the top of a wagon piled high with bodies of former prisoners in the newly liberated Buchenwald concentration camp. Over the course of his life, he produced thousands of drawings, etchings, paintings, collages, assemblages, and objects, often with pornographic or

-related imagery, as well as the novel ''House of Anita'' (released in a 2016 edition with texts and commentary by Terence Sellers), a large memoir entitled "In Riga" (published in 2019), and scores of poetry, collected in the volume ''Geschriebigtes - Gedichtigtes: NO!art in Buchenwald'' (2003)

NO!art Movement

In 1960, with Sam Goodman and

Stanley Fisher Sir Stanley Fisher (12 February 1867 – 28 May 1949) was a British colonial judge who was the 24th Chief Justice of Ceylon. Fisher was born in Marylebone into the Knapp-Fisher family, a London legal dynasty. He was the son of George Henry Kna ...

, Lurie took over leadership of the March Gallery (95 East 10th Street, New York, NY) from

Elaine de Kooning Elaine Marie Catherine de Kooning (, née Fried; March 12, 1918 – February 1, 1989) was an Abstract Expressionist and Figurative Expressionist painter in the post-World War II era. She wrote extensively on the art of the period and was an edit ...

. Their art was made out of a sense of disillusionment with the contemporary art scene, especially the emergence of pop. The goal was to have art address disconcerting truths: racism, imperialism, anti-semitism,

nuclear holocaust A nuclear holocaust, also known as a nuclear apocalypse, nuclear Armageddon, or atomic holocaust, is a theoretical scenario where the mass detonation of nuclear weapons causes globally widespread destruction and radioactive fallout. Such a scenar ...

, sexism, the art market, vulgarity, and depravity. Because of the content of Lurie's work, which often features the word "NO," and the 1963 NO Show at the Gallery: Gertrude Stein (24 East 81 Street, New York, NY), the group would become known as the

NO!art NO!art is a radical avant-garde anti-art movement started in New York in 1959. Its founders sought to deliver a shock to the complacent consumerist society around them. The movement was initiated by Boris Lurie, Sam Goodman and Stanley Fisher who ...

movement. The movement favors "totally unabashed self-expression leading to social action" and is opposed to the worldwide capitalist "investment art market", to pop-art that celebrates

consumerism Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. With the Industrial Revolution, but particularly in the 20th century, mass production led to overproduction—the su ...

and to decorative "salon art" such as abstract expressionism. Lurie's art and the NO!Art movement were largely ignored by the establishment, by part for Boris Lurie abominated established artists like

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the Art movement, visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore th ...

, and in 1970 Lurie wrote his critique " MOMA as Manipulator." One of the movement's earliest champions was the Italian art dealer,

Arturo Schwarz Arturo Umberto Samuele Schwarz (2 February 1924 – 23 June 2021) was an Italian scholar, art historian, poet, writer, lecturer, art consultant and curator of international art exhibitions. He lived in Milan, where he amassed a large collection o ...

. Pieces by Lurie are now contained in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.) and the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

(MOMA; NYC). In 2001, the NO!Art movement was subject of a retrospective at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

, the

University of Nebraska A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, ...

and at the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

(NYC). In 2002, Amikam Goldman completed a documentary on Boris Lurie entitled ''No!Art Man'', which was premiered at the Anthology Film Archives with Mr. Lurie present. Lurie's art has found more resonance in Germany than in the United States. Germany saw two large exhibitions of his work in 1995 and 2004. A documentary, ''Shoah and Pin-Ups: The NO!-Artist Boris Lurie'', was shown on German TV in 2007. On January 7, 2008, Lurie died from

kidney failure Kidney failure, also known as end-stage kidney disease, is a medical condition in which the kidneys can no longer adequately filter waste products from the blood, functioning at less than 15% of normal levels. Kidney failure is classified as eit ...

, days after having suffered a stroke. At age 83, he was the last surviving founder of the NO!Art movement. He is buried in Hof Hacarmel cemetery in Haifa, Israel. Since 1999, the NO!Art Movement has been led by

Dietmar Kirves Dietmar Kirves (born 1941 in Fürstenwalde, Germany). Early work Since 1964 he works in the field of mixed media works with film, photos, music, sculptures and environments. In 1970 he created the mediacontact agency in Düsseldorf in collabora ...

in its Berlin headquarters, and Clayton Patterson in its New York headquarters.Official Website
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Sources

'' The Villager'', Volume 74, Number 42. 23 February 2005
The artist as provocateur
''Jewish Quarterly'', Autumn 2005, Number 199. Includes an interview.

'' Der Spiegel'', 8 June 2007.
Obituary

References

External links

Boris Lurie Art Foundation New York

NO!art website

The Art of Boris Lurie. Trailer

Selection of documentary ''No!Art Man''
including archival footage and photographs {{DEFAULTSORT:Lurie, Boris Russian Jews Soviet emigrants to the United States Stutthof concentration camp survivors Artists from New York City Artists from Riga 1924 births 2008 deaths Deaths from kidney failure Riga Ghetto inmates Buchenwald concentration camp survivors

Early life

NO!art Movement

Sources

Further reading

References

External links