Witness And Legacy

A visual arts exhibit in South Bend, Ind., recalls the
Holocaust and preserves its images.

SUZANNE CHESSLER
Special to the Jewish News

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he Jewish star, the cross and
the swastika are at the center
of Edith Hinman Altman's
installation Reclaiming the
S y mbol/The Art of Memory being shown
through May 13 at the South Bend
Regional Museum of Art in Indiana.
Altman, whose family escaped the
Nazis by coming to Detroit in
1939, is one of 22 American
artists who have provided work
for "Witness & Legacy:
Contemporary Art About the
Holocaust," a traveling exhibit
organized by the Minnesota
Museum of American Art and
The Regis Foundation.
While Altman's work
includes photos, text and many
forms and materials, other
artists have expressed them-
selves through painting, sculpture,
graphic design, needlepoint and videos.
"My installation is about the manipu-
lation of symbols in society — some for
good and some for bad," explains
Altman, 70, who has lived in Chicago
since 1964, after getting artistic training
at Cass Technical High School, Wayne
State University and Marygrove College.
"I'm dealing with the three symbols that
Hitler denigrated.
"My work is about stereotyping and
getting beyond hate. I have included
45 small paintings of swastikas and
history panels [relating to] where the
swastika has been found. It's actually a
regeneration symbol, and Hitler took
it and made it so evil."
Altman, who started out as a painter
and did window designs and murals,
turned to more religious subjects after
traveling to Buchenwald in 1984. She
wanted to honor the memory of her
father, Max Hittman, who was there
for a year before being allowed to
come to America.
Altman has since shown her work at the
German Cultural Center in Chicago and
is planning to take her traveling installa-
tion to the museum at Buchenwald.
Pearl Hirshfield is another installation
artist whose work is being shown in
Indiana. Her piece, Shadow of Auschwitz,
was built to create the feeling of an
oppressive railroad car or other cramped

space and is covered with numbers that
had been tattooed on prisoners.
Using another medium, video artist
Seth Kramer documents his attempt
to count six million grains of rice. The
magnitude of his task is planned to
give another way for expressing the
magnitude of loss.
During its Indiana run, the exhibit
has become the foundation for "In
Unison: The Collaborative Community

Edith Altman: "Reclaiming the
Symbol/The Art of Memory."

Programs of Witness & Legacy," an
examination of the Holocaust through
music, art, literature, film, history, reli-
gious heritage and cultural comparisons
planned by 20 organizations.
"The history of the Holocaust started
with the war on culture conducted by the
Nazis," says William Tourtillotte, chief
curator/program director of the South
Bend museum. "It is only fitting then that
the visual arts become a means to develop
a new visual language of symbols and
metaphors to reveal, rebuild and heal from
this monstrous period of destruction."
Other artists whose works appear in
the exhibit include Gerda Meyer-
Bernstein, Jeffrey Wolin, Samuel Bak,
Judith Goldstein and Larry Rivers. ❑

"Witness & Legacy: Contemporary
Art About the Holocaust" runs
through May 13 at the South Bend
Regional Museum of Art, 120
South St. Joseph Street, South
Bend, Indiana. Museum hours are
11 a.m.-9 p.m. Tuesdays,
Wednesdays and Fridays; 11 a m.-9
p.m. Thursdays; and noon-5 p.m.
Saturdays and Sundays. Public
tours will be conducted 6:30-8
p.m. Thursdays and 1:30-3 p.m.
Sundays. (219) 235-9102.

