The Holocaust Museum Houston is currently hosting "Boris Lurie: Nothing To Do But To Try," an exhibition focusing on the early works of the Holocaust survivor and NO!art movement founder. Organized by the Museum of Jewish Heritage, the show highlights Lurie’s "War Series," featuring paintings, drawings, and never-before-seen ephemera created as a means of processing the trauma of his imprisonment in camps like Buchenwald. The works, ranging from the immediate post-war period to decades later, serve as a visceral record of memory and loss, including tributes to his family members murdered in the Rumbula Forest massacre.
This exhibition is significant for its focus on Lurie’s formative artistic output rather than his better-known, confrontational anti-establishment work of the 1960s. By showcasing his lack of formal training and his reliance on art as a tool for psychological survival, the show argues for a scholarly re-evaluation of Lurie's place in art history. It positions his practice not just as a reaction to the pop art movement, but as a profound intersection of Jewish experience, sociocultural action, and the enduring nature of historical trauma.