Left:
Shimon Attie:
"Mulackstrasse
37, Former
Kosher Butcher
Shop and
Laundry(1930)"
from "The
Writing on the
Wall," Berlin,
1992.

s

Below:
Marina
Vainshtein:
"Back Tattoos,"
1997.

Bottom:
Joshua Burgin's
Star of David
tattoo and arm
brand, created
by Raelyn
Gallina, 1995:
The decision to
be branded a Jew.

"It has taken me five years to work
with artists who learned about that
time through people they knew, books
they read, films they saw — combina-
tions of information that shaped their
sense of Jewish identity in the present."
Apel, who became acquainted with
artists from generations beyond survivors
through. contacts in the art community,
points out the common bond of using
contemporary technology to recall the
horrors that marked the Nazi regime.
She calls them "secondary witnesses"
because they . represent a history they
did not experience firsthand.

Vera Frenkel, based in Canada,
enriches the subject with a description
of her use of video and the Internet to
express her artistic ideas. "Body
Missing" is the title of both her Web
site, which places artists in a European
bar addressing the nature of memory
and loss, and a video installation,
which probes the issue of artworks
stolen and catalogued by the Nazis yet
missing when the Allies came to
WSU Professor
retrieve them.
Dora Apel:
Jeffrey Wolin, who videotaped sur-
"I've always been vivors telling about their experiences, is
interested in
represented by photographs featuring
the relationship
his hand-inscribed excerpts from sur-
between art and vivors' stories
politics,"
says
Different Approaches
moved directly onto
the
author
of
Shimon Attie, among the best known
his portraits of
'Memory
international artists discussed in
them, often block-
Effects."
Memory Effects, appears early in the
ing out their con-
book, and attention is drawn to his
temporary sur-
installation that brings the memory of Berlin
roundings. Through this
Jews into the midst of German life.
approach, the artist has
"The Writing on the Wall: Projections in
entered the world of his sub-
Berlin's Jewish Quarter (1992-1993)" features
ject.
black and white slides of archival material
In the most extreme
imposed on architectural locations in what had
artistry, Marina Vainshtein is
been East Berlin, rematerializing the world of
shown with the tattooed
East European Jews who had populated the area
Holocaust images that cover
before Hitler came into power.
WITNESSES on page 88

i=0

12/13
2002

83