The Holocaust Memorial Center Zekelman Family Campus will host the photo exhibit, “Light Is My Voice: Images, Legends, and Abstractions,” Sept. 21- Dec. 22.
The exhibit’s creator is Detroit native and photographer Todd Weinstein, who will speak at the opening at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 21, at the Holocaust Memorial Center is located at 28123 Orchard Lake Road in Farmington Hills. Weinstein’s work is known for its street photography depicting the ups and downs of life, and abstract images using Jewish lore to explore universal themes of suffering and redemption.
“Light Is My Voice: Images, Legends, and Abstractions” explores three themes. With “Darkness into Light,” Weinstein spent six years photographing the reemergence of Jewish life in modern-day Germany. This project helped Weinstein understand how Holocaust survivors could go on with their lives in a country soaked with Jewish blood. It also gave him a deeper understanding of his own Jewish identity and heritage.
As Weinstein continued to document Jewish life in Western Europe after the Holocaust, he began to ask himself “What could have saved the Jews? What could have saved the world?” Weinstein began to think the 36 Righteous Ones of Jewish legend may hold the key. It is said the presence of these 36 keeps the world from destruction in times of peril. By photographing images of human faces and gestures he saw in stone, metal, glass, shadows, fragments and stains, Weinstein found a way to address the unspeakable horrors of theHolocaust.
In the third section of “Light Is My Voice: Images, Legends, and Abstractions,” Weinstein captures the faces of the Prophets in a group of rocks and a twisted scrap of cloth, for example, or the image of Moses and
the tablets revealed in the patterns of a broken piece of marble.
Weinstein’s four decades of work span a wide range of genres from documentary and street photography to abstract and commercial work. His photographs have been exhibited at The Detroit Institute of Arts, New York’s Howard Greenberg Gallery, Pace/MacGill Gallery and Yeshiva University Museum. Weinstein turned his attention to Jewish themes in the early 1990s when he spent time in Germany documenting the resurgence of Jewish life in the country. That work culminated in the show “Darkness into Light: The Resurgence of Jewish Culture in Germany,” which premiered in Detroit.
“We are looking forward to hosting ‘Light Is My Voice: Images, Legends, and Abstractions’ for the next few months,” said Holocaust Memorial Center Executive Director Stephen M. Goldman. “Like all of the exhibits we display in our museum, Light Is My Voice not only evokes a sense of history in our visitors, but also messages of social responsibility and morality.”
Kay Yafee and Denny Brown, Nancy and Anthony Morris, and Marika Partridge and Larry Ravitz are the major supporters of the exhibit during its stay at the Holocaust Memorial Center. Pamela and Kenneth Bloom, Rozanne and Bernard Friedman, Dorothy and Hershel Sandberg, and Susan Malinowski and Gary Shapiro are providing generous additional support. Visibleworks Design and Walter P. Sauer are contributing in-kind support.
For additional information, visit www.holocaustcenter.org, or call 248-553-2400.
