Willem Volkersz: Childhood (Lost)

Willem Volkersz has been featured in exhibitions at MAM over the years. MAM is excited to host this new sculpture created by Volkersz in 2010. Childhood (Lost) incorporates brightly colored toys as symbols from popular culture. The sculpture speaks to not just one childhood lost but the memory of many childhoods lost. Volkersz uses the suitcase as a metaphor for travel, transference, and disappearance, commemorating the loss of his childhood classmates and friends during the Nazi occupation of Holland. At first glance one will be attracted by the playful appearance of the toys. Yet the message is clear, as we each come face to face with such irreversible loss or disappearance, we come to realize how such events pervade all subsequent experience.

Volkersz states that "My sculptures are just signposts documenting one man's path through life." Volkersz has created several pieces about people and events he remembers from WWII, yet Childhood (Lost) powerful expression contrasting evil and innocence.

Volkersz is a graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute and a retired Art Professor from Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana. He is a fan and collector of folk and self-taught artists and an advocate for the arts in the state of Montana. MAM is very excited to be hosting this important work by Willem Volkersz.