ART-PRESENTATION: Marion Baruch-Letting Go Endless Blooming

The conflicts of the 20th Century are reflected in the long life of Marion Baruch: fascism, capitalism, communism, feminism, pacifism, migration, classes, nations, religions, linguistic communities, political ideologies. Marion Baruch concerns herself with internal worlds and external spaces. Consequently her work revolves around the theme of emptiness; she works with gaps, through views and transparency.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Galerie Urs Meile Archive

Marion Baruch was born in 1929 to Hungarian-speaking parents in the Romanian town of Timişoara. As a young woman she began studying art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bucharest, before she emigrated to Israel. She continued her studies at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. Thanks to a grant, she was able to go to Rome and study at the Accademia di Belle Arti. She spent time in Paris before finally returning to Italy, where she has lived to this day, with a few sojourns elsewhere. Her nomadic life is reflected in her multilingualism. In “Letting go endless blooming”, Marion Baruch’s solo exhibition at Galerie Urs Meile in Lucerne, the reference to vegetation is particularly apt, if only due to the colors themselves. One work called “fiori” across an L-shaped wall stretches a field of flowers, an explosion of small, colorful blossoms whose shape is somewhat reminiscent of ovaries. When one recalls that flowers are nothing more than sex organs, then this association is not entirely inappropriate.  The fact that she is hardly able to work in these difficult times is painful to the artist, but still, she manages to find a way to live in the moment, to allow for emptiness and at the same time, to fill it. The selection of works on display once again shows her ability to break down the limitations of her work, to depart from the given framework. Everywhere, the emptiness of the perforated bits of fabric fringes the space, making them part of it. The works of fabric art are like a transparent membrane engaged in an active exchange with their surroundings: they create a space for dialogue. It is typical of Marion Baruch that she always addresses the viewer with her art. In “Traiettorie” Baruch identifies a movement that creates without doing. Rather, the act of creation is a subconscious process, which, as the title of the show emphasizes, is comparable to the blossoming of a flower. Yet, it is precisely this natural process that embodies pure energy and lust for life! Since 2013 Baruch has been working with textile remnants from the fashion industry, giving them new life through her work. To do this, she must do nothing on the one hand, and yet create an entirely new world on the other. Through her setup, art is created out of nothingness. The linguistic form of her works plays an important role in their meaning. Vivid proof of this can be seen in the title of the show, Letting go endless blooming. Here, as in haiku, similar motifs of universal scope are condensed into a compact, linguistic form. “Letting go” has several layers of meaning for Baruch. First of all, when it comes to her work with fabric, gravity is a “co-creator” of sorts. As the primary material for her art, fabric is not something that has been assembled or artificially created; it takes on its form through a kind of relaxation. Second, the artist herself must also “let go” of the notion of the absolute creative spirit. It allows and is allowed—perhaps in the sense of the Gelâzenheit of the mystic Meister Eckhart. Lasciar cadere (Italian for “to let drop”) is also one of the works shown that fits under this rubric, as does the

Info: Galerie Urs Meile, Rosenberghöhe 4, Lucerne, Duration: 25/6-29/8/20, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 11:00-18:00, www.galerieursmeile.com