Holocaust
Kitsch?

After the hype, some find
exhibit of Shoah-related
art disappointing.

PETER EPHROSS
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

t a recent media preview for the controver-
sial exhibit of Holocaust-themed art at
New York's Jewish Museum, a viewer sur-
veyed an installation that juxtaposes photos
taken of Hitler with those of French avant-garde
artist Marcel Duchamp.
"That's deep," the man grunted sarcastically as he
walked away.
That may prove a common reaction to the
"Mirroring Evil: Nazi Imagery/Recent Art" exhibit,
which opened March 17 and will run through June 30.
The exhibit features examples of a new movement in
international art — conceptual works featuring Nazism
and the Holocaust as metaphors for issues in contem-
porary society.
"Obsessed with a history that they seem impelled to
overcome, they ask us to examine what these images of
Nazism might mean to us today," the director of the
museum, Joan Rosenbaum, wrote in the exhibit's cata-
log.
Some of the pieces work quite well, among them a
photo collection of hundreds of actors playing Nazi
officers that shows how ubiquitous these images are in
popular culture.
Also effective is a short video clip in which Israeli

FRAM KAPLAN .

ega

artist Boaz Arad has edited syllables from Hider's
speeches to make the Nazi leader say, "Shalom
Yerushalayim, ani mitnatzel," Hebrew for, "Hello
Jerusalem, I apologize." The emotional impact of
seeing and hearing the fiihrer say these words —
which are both inadequate and impossible — is
devastating.
All too often, however, the pieces in the exhibit
are superficial. What are viewers to think of Tom
Sachs' work Ggas Giftset, which features colorful
poison gas canisters with Tiffany, Chanel and Prada
logos?
Sachs didn't help himself with an interview in the
New York Times Magazine, when he appeared either
unable or unwilling to address the possibility that
some might be offended by his work — or what
connection his Jewishness might have to his art.
"I'm using the iconography of the Holocaust to
bring attention to fashion. Fashion, like fascism, is
about loss of identity," Sachs told the Times.
Even before viewing the work, some found it not
only superficial, but downright offensive.
Since news of the exhibit broke several months ago,
some groups have insisted that the exhibit is insulting
to the memory of Holocaust victims and to Holocaust
survivors.
Specifically criticized have been Alan Schechner's Its
the Real Thing: Self-Portrait at Buchenwald — a self-
portrait of the artist holding a Diet Coke superimposed
over a photo of Buchenwald. inmates — and Zbigniew
Liberis Lego Concentration Camp Set.
Approximately 75 people — Holocaust survivors,
yeshiva students and other community members —
demonstrated when the exhibit officially opened.
Protesters shouted, "Shame on you" and "Dorit go
in." A protest organizer said the exhibit "trivializes the
Holocaust and demeans the suffering of its victims."
In reaction to the criticism, museum directors added
cautions saying that some people might be offended
before a room with several particularly provocative
pieces, as well as an additional exit that allows exhibit-
goers to leave before viewing the most-controversial
works.
For some survivor groups, however, the changes
weren't enough.

ession Exhibit artist de fends work.

Special to the Jewish NeWs

avannah, Ga. r artist Alan . Schechner is
5 minutes of fame swept up
pending
Inf firestorm. His Holocaust-themed art-
work has become a lighting rod for criticism being
.hurled at the controversial exhibit now open at the
J ewish Museum in New York City.
Schechner's computer-generated Its the Real
Thing: Self-Portrait at Buchenwald, which shows the
artist holding a shiny can of Diet Coke superim-
posed over a Margaret Bourke-\Thite photo of
Buchenwald inmates, has been singled out like no
other work.
The rnusetun is restricting access to it because it
"has elicited particular concern." It is presented with

3/29
2002

82

"The items in question are the moral equivalent of
anthrax," said Menachem Rosensaft, a member of the
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. "So long as they
are displayed anywhere in the building, the Jewish
Museum will be contaminated and should be off-limits
to the entire community."
The battle has been great fodder for the international
media. There were nearly as many reporters as there
were demonstrators at the opening-day protest.
The organized Jewish community has been rela-
tively silent on the matter, perhaps reluctant to criti-
cize one of its own institutions or 'perhaps torn
between its support for free speech and its sensitivity
to survivors' feelings.
"Holocaust survivors, and in some cases their chil-
dren, cannot be intellectual about these matters," said
Eva Fogelman, a psychologist who specializes in histori-
cal traumas. "It evokes for them anxiety, paranoia, it
brings back nightmares, it brings back sleeplessness."
For its part, museum officials say they hope the
exhibit will do what art does at its best — create dia-
logues. That certainly has been the intention, as a bevy
of public lectures, discussions and films are planned,
and the exhibit itself is highly contextualind.
At the entrance to the exhibit, a series of questions
about the relationship between art and evil are provid-

an advisory message and is visible only to those who
actively choose to see it.
In an interview with the Jewish News, Schechner,
one of four Jewish artists among 13 featured,
explained'what he tries to do with his art and why.
When I lived in Israel," said the London-born
artist who lost more than half of his family in the
Holocaust, "I became very aware of how the
Holocaust was being used and manipulated for
agendas other than rnemorialization of victims."
Schechner, 40, currently an art instructor at
Savannah College of Art and Design who had
always held the Holocaust holy; became offended by
this misuse. He decided to make this trend explicit
by blatantly manipulating Holocaust images.
According to him, Its The Real Thing is his "clum-
sy attempt to say that we, as a new generation of

Jews, have to put ourselves back in that place and
say what it is we've learned."
Scheduler is not interested in art as a "sublime
aesthetic experience," and knows that his
Holocaust-themed work brings out extremes in
people. "They either love it or hate it," he said
His computer-based projects are basically created
to support his political agenda, which :includes first
ensuring that the. Jewish people are safe from any-
thing like the Holocaust ever happening again, and
then moving that one step fonvard. The issue now
should be the safety of all people to 1 iNl e free of dis-
crimination and genocide, and we haven't managed
to do that -yet"
Although being a center for controversy does not
perturb Schechner, he feels that many of the
demonstrators have only seen his work out of con-

