paolo coen, art and museums of the shoah: open problems (part 1)
TRANSCRIPT
Art and Architecture of the Shoah. Open Problems
Paolo Coen - Università della Calabriapaolocoen.blogspot.it
Chapter 0 - Prologue
The Rothko ChapelHouston, Texas
Fourteen Black Paintings by Mark Rothko, 1969
Peter Gabriel, Fourteen Black Paintings, from the album US, 1992
Chapter I – The Crisis
The crisis of the modern Man. The philophical and ethical dimension of nihilism and
existentialism
Chapter II – Art of the Shoah: Witnessing and Documenting
Art of the Shoah: witnessing and professionally reinterpreting
Dority Weiser, It’s not in the Ghetto, made in Therezin’concentration Camp, now at the Holocaust Art
Museum of Yad Vashem, Jerusalem
Alexander Bogen
Corrado Cagli
Corrado Cagli, Buchenwald, 1945
Chapter III – Art of the Shoah: reflection and self-inspiration
Jannis Kounellis, Untitled, 1991-1992, Stommeln,
Synagogue
Richard Serra, The Drowned and the Saved, 1991, first installation Stommeln Synagogue, 1992, since 1992 Kolumba
Museum, Cologne
Maurizio Cattelan, Him, 2001
Maurizio Cattelan, Him, 2001, when installed in the Warzaw Ghetto, 2012
Chapter IV – ‘An act of barbarism’?
After 1945: The death of the art?
Theodor von Adorno:“To write a poem after Auschwitz
is an act of barbarism”.
Incapacity, or difficulty for the world of the arts to accept the aesthetic, poetic and art historical dimensions of the Memory of the Shoah.
Consequence: a general state of misconception, minimalization and delegitimization of the Art
of the Shoah.
1998-2005 Denkmal [und Museum] für ermordeten Juden Europas, i.e. Memorial [and Museum] for the Murdered European Jews
Chapter V – After 1989
After 1945:“And the world remained silent” (Elie Wiesel)
After 1989: and the world never stopped talking (and filming, instituzionalizing, researching, etc.)
1993: Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List
A highly institutionalized memory
Chapter VI – Museums, Museums, Museums
The official musealization of the Memory
. Museums of single Jewish communities and/or of the Jewish people
. The ‘sanctuaries’ of the Memory, i.e. Museums housed on/in extermination camps, prisons or concentration camps
. Holocaust Museums, i.e. museums housed away from the places of suffering, usually in new and highly stylized architectures
Beit Hatfustot, Tel Aviv, Israel
. Museums of single Jewish communities and/or of the Jewish people
. The ‘sanctuaries’ of the Memory, i.e. Museums housed on/in extermination camps, prisons or concentration camps
. Holocaust Museums, i.e. museums housed away from the places of suffering, usually in new and highly stylized architectures
The National Museum of Auschwitz
. Museums of single Jewish communities and/or of the Jewish people
. The ‘sanctuaries’ of the Memory, i.e. Museums housed on/in extermination camps, prisons or concentration camps
. Holocaust Museums, i.e. museums housed away from the places of suffering, usually in new and highly stylized architectures
Holocaust Museums after 1989
Israeli prototypes
Beit Lohamei Haghetaot, or Ghetto Fighter’s House, betw. Akko and Naharya (1948)
Yad Vashem, Jerusalem (1953) Yad Mordechai, nearAshkelon (1968)
Holocaust Museums after 1989
United States Holocaust Museum and Memorial, Washington (1993)
Holocaust Museum, New York (1993) Museum of Tolerance, Los Angeles (1993) Holocaust Museum, Houston (1996) The Holocaust Exhibition at the Imperial War
Museum, Londra (2000) Jüdisches Museum, Berlino (2000)
Gli ultimi musei della Shoah
Memorial [and Museum] for murdered European Jews, Berlin (2005)
Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Centre, Skokie, Chicago (2009)
The Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, Los Angeles (2010)
Upcoming Holocaust Museums
Museum of Tolerance, Jerusalem Dallas Holocaust Museum and Tolerance Center,
Dallas Museum of the Shoah, Rome
Chapter VII - Consequences
Institutionalization MassificationDivulgation
Scholarization
OverexposureShoah-business
‘Pop Shoah’‘Pornograhy’Demonization
The tyranny of History, supposedly as the sole antidote to
an overwhelming pop Memory
Chapter VIII - Showdown
What we’ve learned up to now?
• There IS an art connected to the Shoah, which is interconnected to the world of contemporary art
• There IS a new and special class of museums, named Museums of the Shoah, which is interconnected to historical museums
paolocoen.blogspot.it