holocaust + art

The Artist, Collective Memory, and Crisis of the Natural and Unnatural Kind

January 27, 2010

A Lecture to Jagalonian University Cultural Studies Program, Class in Visuality

Dr. Lori KentFulbright Fellow, Academy of Fine Arts

Leadbelly (1930s) “Ox Drivin’ Blues” from the album “King of the 12-String Guitar”

From an artist’s point of view….

Where does art come from?

Where does art come from?

memory? Imagination? experience?

Representation? Passion?re-presentation ?

???

Where does art come from?

memory? Imagination? experience?

Representation? Passion?re-presentation ?

???

Johannes Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance, c. 1664

Where does art come from?

memory? Imagination? experience?

Representation? Passion?re-presentation ?

???

Edgar Degas, Ballet Rehearsal on Stage, c. 1874,

Where does art come from?

memory? Imagination? experience?

Representation? Passion?re-presentation ?

???

Matthew Barney, Film Still from the Cremaster Series, c. 1992

Hieronymus Bosch , The Last Judgment, c. 1482

“All that you can imagine, you already know” - Sir Stephen Spender

Where does art come from?

memory? Imagination? experience?

Representation? Passion?re-presentation ?

???

Francisco de Goya’s Disasters of War Series The National Museum, Krakow 1807-14 Peninsula WarCreated in 1812-14 Published in 1863

Goya With Reason or Without

Goya What Courage

Goya They Do Not Want To

Goya And There is No Remedy

Goya What More Can Be Done

Goya Bury Them and Be Silent

HURRICANE KATRINA August 29, 2005

Riverboat on MIssissippi

French Quarter “Shotgun” house

Mardi Gras beads

Café DuMonde at late night

Lucky Dogs on Bourbon Street

Riverfront at Night

80% of the City flooded

Malcolm McClay

Malcolm McClay

0 %

Malcolm McClay Lino Cut Print

Untitled(2007)Archival Digital Print

Untitled(2007)Archival Digital PrintMalcolm McClay

Untitled(2007)Archival Digital PrintMalcolm McClay

Untitled(2007)Archival Digital PrintMalcolm McClay

Untitled(2007)Archival Digital PrintMalcolm McClay

Untitled(2007)Archival Digital PrintMalcolm McClay

Generic ArtSolutions

Floodlines Debra Howell

Floodlines Krista Jurisch

Floodlines Jan Gilbert

http://artinaction-nola.blogspot.com/

Floodwall by Jana Napoli

http://www.floodwall.org

http://www.floodwall.org

What will come out of Haiti?

Children’s Art after the 2005 Indonesian Tsunami

This painting was drawn by a child from a town close to the epicenter, where 8,200 people drowned in 20 minutes

They also show the effect on property – and how some people survived the huge wave.

Sri Lanka was a holiday paradise for holidaymakers before the tsunami..

Source http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/4075970.stm

The Holocaust

The Holocaust

Camp ArtSurvivor Memory-Based Art

Nazi Propaganda Art“Degenerate” Art

. Painting of Königsgraben from the ceiling of the penal company barrack at Birkenau.

Mayer KirshenblattGalacia Museum in Krakow

http://www.thejewishmuseum.org

Town Panorama (1994) Opatow Poland or “Apt” in Yiddish

Mother Giving Birth to My Brother Vadye (1994)

The Kitchen (1994)

The Pisher (1994)

Jadwiga Washing Laundry (1992)

Mother Blessing the Sabbath Candles (1995)

The Gramaphone (1999)

Synagogue (1994)

Town Panorama (1994)

Market Day (1992)

Market Day (1992)

The Kleptomaniac Slipping a Fish Down Her Bosom (1995)

New Bermedresh: Playing Soccer (1992)

Moyre Shimhe’s Khayder (1991)

The Boy in the White Pajamas (1992)

“We shall discover and encourage the artists who are able to impress upon the State of the German people the cultural stamp of the Germanic race . . . in their origin and in the picture which they present they are the expressions of the soul and the ideals of the community."

(Hitler, Party Day speech, 1935)

Nazi Approved Art

Arno Brecker Preparedness

Adolph Wissel (1939) Family from Kahlenberg

Ernst Leiberman (1939) By the Water

Marc Chagall (1915) The Kiss

Ghetto and Camp Art

BackgroundPrior to World War II, Siwek studied at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts and worked for the Kraków Railway Headquarters.

Arrest and Deportation to AuschwitzHe was arrested for resistance on January 14, 1940 and sent to Montelupic prison.  October 8, 1940, Siwek was deported to Auschwitz, where he was assigned prisoner number 5826.

Art Produced at AuschwitzHe was initially assigned to hard labor in the stone quarries and became emaciated and ill.  Siwek was then sent to the prisoner infirmary, where fellow artist and prisoner Leon Turalski helped secure him an easier labor assignment with the painters labor detail.  May 1941 through September 1943, Siwek produced calligraphy, �portraits, landscape paintings, and hunting scenes for the SS. In addition to portraits of the SS families, he did portraits, in secret, of over 2000 prisoners.

WŁADYSŁAW SIWEK

WŁADYSŁAW SIWEK Interrogation in Cell Block 11

WŁADYSŁAW SIWEK A Group of New Arrivals

http://remember.org/then-and-now/tn04.html

WŁADYSŁAW SIWEK Summary Court Marshall

WŁADYSŁAW SIWEK Selection at Apel [Roll Call]

WŁADYSŁAW SIWEK Arrival of Soviet POWs

Janina Tollik A Street in the Women’s Camp

Jerzy Potrzebowski Entrance to the Krankenbau (Hospital)

Jerzy Potrzebowski

Mieczyslaw Koscielniak, from the series: "A Day in the Life of a Woman Prisoner"

“NIGHT…. A brick has come loose from the low wall separating out cell from the next where other larvae sleep, moan, and dream under the blankets that cover them – these are shrouds covering them for they are dead., today, tomorrow what does it matter,… We feel that we teeter on the edge of a dark pit, a bottomless void – it is the hole of the night where we struggle furiously, struggle against another nightmare, that of our real death.”*

Zofia Rosensztrauch The Last Execution

Mieczysław Kościelniak

Unknown Artist (1944) Portrait of Albert Frecke

You don’t have to be an artist to draw.

Create a small scene fromyour life, at any age, that is memorable.

Use imagery only, no text.