70
v i s u a l l i t e r a c yAdam Mazur
Negative Testimonials. Photographic Representation of Holocaust Memory
D O I :1 0 . 1 8 3 1 8 / t d .2 0 1 5 . e n .2 .6
T
he tw entieth century has seen the decline of art based upon the classical id eals o f b e a u ty an d the corre- spondence betw een form and subject. B eauty becam e an am biguous category con sidered suspicious and kitschy.From the p resen t p erspective it b eco m es ob vious that its devaluation w ith in art w as instigated not only b y the avant-garde m ovem ent, but w as considerably influenced b y such m odern experiences as the tw o w orld w ars and the H olocau st. The avan t-gard e em erged in resistan ce to a culture founded u pon the cult o f beauty, as w e ll as pow er and war. In this respect H itler w as correct in call- in g the (non-beautiful) avan t-garde art “degenerate,” or sim p ly “Jew ish .” A rt after the H olocau st is u n dergoing an id en tity crisis, although it is n ot the H olocaust itse lf th at is at its center. H ow ever, A d o r n o s in flu en tial and b latantly overused rem ark on the im possib ility o f poetry after A u schw itz turned out to be equally fallacious w hen applied to art. Sim ply put, the H olocaust is a problem of the group o f artists w ho decide to take on the subject.
A rt dealing w ith the H olocaust can be b est described b y referrin g to its tw o b asic m od els: th e one em ploy- in g trad itio n al m ean s o f represen tation , and the other shunning tradition to explore n ew possibilities o f talking about Shoah. The first m odel is evidently inadequate for
Adam Mazur (Ph.D.) is an a rt critic, art historian, curator, and th e e d ito r-in -ch ief o f Szumm agazin e. He is also an a ssista n t p rofessor a t the U niversity o f Fine Arts in Poznan. He has curated several exhibitions such as "Red-Eye Effect"
(2008), "M issin g D ocum en ts:
Photograp h s o f Polish Transform ation A fter 19 89" (2012) and "En toptic Screen in g" (2016).
His published books include The Histories o fP h o tog rap h y in Po la n d 1839 2009(2010), N ew P h en o m en a in Polish Ph otography after 2000(2012), and The D epth o f Field: Essays on Polish Photography A fter 1945(2014).
A m o n g m o st recen t exhibitions are M artha Rosler's solo s h o w a t CCA Ujazdowski C astle (2014) and Artur Żm ijew ski's n ew w orks on v ie w a t PGS S o p o t (2015).
the task at hand. Naive realism , dripping w ith abom inable m etaphysics, leads straight to kitsch w hen used to depict the H olocaust. O f course the category o f kitsch is not restricted to the art o f the H olocaust, as it can be encountered in any o f the m ovem ents in m odern art. H olocaust and kitsch have until this day proved to be a fascinating but poorly researched subject. It is w orth m en- tioning that kitsch in H olocaust art is not sim ply reserved to cheap mem entos m anufactured for the sake o f tourists visitin g the exterm ination cam ps.
The second m od el b reaks w ith trad itio n al art and references the avant- garde h eritage. In th is case a search for n e w fo rm s h as coincided w ith the ta k in g up o f a to p ic p re v io u sly u n k n o w n to culture. A rtis ts d ealin g w ith the H olocaust refer to the avan t-garde experience o f ab straction ism (M ark R othko, A n s e lm K iefer, R o m an O pałka, Jo n asz Stern , T ad eu sz K antor, M iro sław Bałka), utilizing the potential o f art that rejects narrativity. On the other hand, H olocau st art m akes use o f visu al testim on ials from the Shoah on an unprecedented scale; predom inantly o f photography (Gerhard Richter, C hristian Boltanski, Borys Mikhailov, Zbigniew Libera). The avant-garde's use o f photography is particularly in teresting due to the em erging tension s that are not only o f form al but also o f ethical nature.
W ładysław Strzem iński (18 9 3 -19 5 2 ), a painter, theorist o f Unism , founder o f M uzeum Sztuki in Łódź, is undoubtedly am ong the m ost in spiring artists w ho com bine in their w ork abstraction and photography. It w as during w ar- tim e, w hich he spent in Łódź in dire circum stances, that he created drawings referring to the experience o f U nism that w ere - in their them es and titles - a reaction to the w ar and the H olocaust. The series Deportations [Deportacje, 1940], created in the course o f the ongoing displacem en t o f both Poles and, mostly, Jew s from Łódź, and the follow ing Faces [Twarze, 1942] and Cheap asMud [Tanie jak błoto, 1944], becam e for Strzem iński the cornerstones o f a profound cycle To M y Friends the Jews [Moimprzyjaciołom Żydom, 1945]. The cycle consists o f ten collages con structed from p h otographs docu m entin g the H olocaust and draw ings that w ere faithful repetitions o f w orks from the preceding w ar series. The cycle draws its pow er from Strzem iński's skillful conjoining o f the avant-garde h eritage o f photom ontage w ith U nist stylistics. The ten sion b e tw een the delicate and abstract suggestive o f shape, b etw een drawing and the d ocu m entary p hotographs, as w e ll as sh ow in g the ghetto's liquidation, the exterm ination cam ps and the portraits o f the Jew s, all trigger a storm o f as- sociations, which, however, resist easy interpretation. Further difficulties arise from the lack o f num bering o f individual w orks w ith in the set. The character o f Strzem iński's w ork is w ell described b y art historian Andrzej Turowski:
The technique of double collage, used b y Strzem iński, that utilizes im ages from the press and the artist's ow n w orks com pels us to view the
72 v i s u a l l i t e r a c y
cycle To My Friends the Jews as an attem pt to express the to tality o f the artist's wartim e experience combined with the tragedy of the Holocaust.
Furtherm ore, this procedure introduces the aspect o f m em ory into the com position's structure, m akin g m em o ry its e lf a m etaph orical axis o f the narrative. The concepts o f trace, em ptiness, reflection and loss, w ell know n to us from Strzem iński's w artim e w orks, now becom e part o f a n ew im age, through w h ich th ey g ain a photographic rep re se n ta
tio n together w ith a m nem onic d im en sion, w h erein the Sh oah m ust be reconsidered.i
The H olocau st h as b ee n ap preh en ded b y S trzem iń sk i from a peculiar stan d poin t o f a frien d - a p erso n accu stom ed to the daily hard ships o f the occupation and d eep ly touched b y the H olocau st, b u t in a w a y rem ain in g beyond the events taking place. This rupture is un derscored in the w orks of Strzem iński b y the use o f tw o techniques - draw ing and photography, where the draw ing depicts the particular perspective o f the (Polish) painter sketch- in g a p o rtrait or lan d scape, and the photograph s d epict the perspective o f a (Germ an) photographer docum enting the ghetto's liquidation.
The poetic titles, w hich are a kind o f auto-com m en tary accom panying the im age, in scribed on the verso side o f the collages are a com pletely separate m atter: With the Ruins o f Demolished Eye Sockets. Paved with Stones like Heads; The Empty Shinbones ofCrematoria; A Sticky Spot ofCrime; Following the Existence o f Feet Which Tread a Path; I Accuse the Crime o f Cain and the Sin of Ham; Veins Strung Taut by Shinbones; Stretched by the Strings o f Legs; Vow and Oath to the Memory o f Hands (Existences which are not with us); and Fathefs Skull.2
The H olocaust w as also an im portant topic in the photography and paint- in g o f the G erm an artist G erhard R ichter (b. 19 32 ). Although for h im the w ar w as m erely a distant childhood m em ory, it influenced his w hole life. R aised and educated in the G erm an D em ocratic Republic, the you ng painter decided to escape to the W est, and after m an y ye ars he received praise as one o f the fo rem ost con tem porary artists. B esides the abstract p ain tings, in the early 19 6 o s, R ichter b eg an creating the Atlas - a rem arkab le w o rk com p osed o f hun dreds o f sheets filled w ith th o u san d s o f press clippings, fa m ily p h o to graphs, draw ings and sketches, m any o f w hich serve as source im ages for his photorealistic paintings that constitute the second branch o f Richter's work.
1 A n d rzej Turow ski, Budow niczowie świata. Z dziejów radykalnego m odernizm u w sztu ce polskiej (Kraków : U n ive rsita s, 2000), 228.
2 [tra n sla to r's note] T h e English title s o f w o rk s fro m th e c y c le To m y Friends the jew s a fter:
W ładysław Strzem iński 1893-1952: On the looth An n iversary o f H is Birth (Łódź: M uzeum Sztuki,
1994), 19 6 -19 7.
T his p erson al ren dition o f G erm any's p o st-w a r history, con sidered in light o f the painter's biography, w ould not be credible if it om itted the H olocaust.
The H olocaust appears at the beginn ing o f the Atlas, on sheets 16 -2 0 , di- rectly follow ing trivial new spaper and album photographs - im ages from e x term in atio n cam ps are presented alongside pornographic im ages. Both the cam p and p ornographic ph otographs have b ee n altered b y Richter, so that th ey seem out o f focus and p artly discolored. A ccording to H elm ut Friedel, a renow ned critic o f the Atlas, the unfocused pictures w ere supposed to ease the process of transposing the im ages onto canvas by obscuring the individual features o f prisoners and m odels.3 D espite th is the effort to blunt the docu
m en tary edge o f the photographs w as futile and the H olocaust im ages have not been painted u n til this day, despite the fact that m ost o f the photographs from the early Atlas, including the pornographic ones, have long ago attained their painted counterparts.
A lthough presenting album photography alongside im ages o f the H olo
caust is not unheard o f in artistic practice, the pornographic w edge driven in b etw een the other tw o groups o f im ages rem ain s troubling for critics even to d ay (Friedel, rath er u n convin cin gly, w rite s ab out the “relatio n sh ip b e tw een violence and society: the everyday tragedy and the violence present in history”).4 Accusing Richter of m erely trying to cause a scandal is nonsensical, as for m any years the Atlas rem ained a personal sketchbook and w as not pub- licly exhibited. Contrasting them es from such divergent orders w ithin a single n arrative th at is the Atlas can be view ed , like in the case o f Strzem iń ski, as an attem pt “to express the totality o f the a rtists experience com bined w ith the trag ed y o f the H olocau st.” A lso in the Atlas the a rtist “in trod u ces the asp ect o f m e m o ry into the co m p o sitio n s structure, m akin g m em o ry itse lf a m etaphorical axis o f the narrative.” Andrzej Turowski's w ords can serve as an interpretative key that can open the m eanings contained w ith in Richter's w ork, in w hich, m irroring Strzem iński's exam ple, “photographic represen ta
tio n sim ultaneously constitutes a m nem onic dim ension, w herein the Shoah m ust be reconsidered.” It is notew orthy that for painters such as Richter and Strzem iński rethinking Shoah does not n ecessitate painting it. O n the con- trary, photography that has been artistically retouched (a technique that has only recently, that is in the 19 8 o s and 19 90 s, becom e accepted as art) allows to introduce the them e o f the H olocaust into art b y a side entrance.
3 H elm u t Friedel, Reading Pictures: Possible A cce ss to Gerhard Richter's A tlas (Exh. c a t., Mar.
31 - M ay 27, 20 0 1; Sa k u ra : K aw am u ra M em orial M u seu m o f A rt, 2001), 25 -32 . C o m p a re : G er
hard Richter, A tlas der Fotos, Co llagen und Skizzen (Exh. c a t., Apr. 8 - Ju n e 21, 19 9 8 ; C ologn e, S t a d tis c h e G alerie im L e n b a c h h a u s Und K un stbau M u n ch en , 1997).
4 Friedel, R eading Pictures, 27.
74 v i s u a l l i t e r a c y
G erhard R ichter's aversion to pain tin g the rep resen tation s o f the H olo
cau st from p hotographs m igh t h ave m an y sou rces. The a rtist approach ed the problem once again in the m id 19 9 0 s, w h en he w a s w ork in g on a com - m issio n for the R e ic h sta g s m ain h all (sh eets from 6 35 to 6 56 ). A ttem p ts to recreate the Sh oah on a m onu m en tal scale w ith in an official and highly sym b o lic sp ace w ith e re d once m ore. U ltim ately, in th e im a g e s in ten d ed for the R eich stag , R ich ter se ttled for an a b stractio n co lo ristic a lly co rre- sp o n d in g to the u n ified G erm an y's n atio n al flag. T his in a b ility to directly (photographically) address the H olocau st can be elucidated b y sh iftin g at- te n tio n to an oth er o f R ic h te r s w o rk s. T h e p h otograp h ic im ag e titled Un- cleR udi [O nkelRudi, 19 6 5 ] is an oil on can vas p o rtra it o f a y o u n g sm ilin g m an dressed in a w artim e W ehrm acht un iform .5 Sim ilar to R ich te rs other p ain tin g s th at refer to keep sake p h otographs tak en b y ord in ary G erm an s (possib ly com m on G erm an soldiers) before and during the w ar, also Uncle Rudi is an exercise in recallin g and reth inking the su ppressed past. The in nocent fam ily m em ento - the faded photograph of kinfolk kept inside a desk d raw er - w h e n re c a st in the co n text o f art b eco m es a sym b o l o f the gu ilt rep ressed in the m em o ry o f m an y G erm an s, both E astern and W estern. In R ic h te r s case, as in Strze m iń sk i's, w e can a sc e rta in an e x te rn a l p o in t o f v ie w o f th e p ain ter, w h o w itn e s s e s the H o lo cau st. N e v e rth e le ss it is not the com passion ate perspective o f a frien d from To My Friends the Jews. In his p ieces R ichter con tem plates the Sh oah from the stan d poin t o f a potential perpetrator. The ve ry sam e photographs from the ghetto and exterm ination cam ps carry ve ry different m eanings for R ichter and Strzem iński.
D ocu m en tary photography o f the H olocau st con stitutes the core o f the Frenchm an C h ristian B o ltan sk is (b.1944) art. H is creative output has little to do w ith pain ting. In h is artw orks he u se s - like Richter, on ly on a larger scale - com m em orative p hotographs, often an on ym ou s group p ortraits, to create on their b asis q uasi-religiou s spatial arrangem ents that share their aura w ith church altars and reliquaries. In addition to altars devoted to anon y
m ous, unrem arkable individuals, m any o f w hich are tributes to Shoah's v ic tim s, Boltanski creates spatial installations directly referring to the Holocaust, such as Reserve, Canada (a cham ber filled w ith w orn clothes, densely linin g the w alls). O n the one hand, B oltanski strives to com m em orate those deceased and m urdered during the H olocaust, but on the other, exposes the fictitious aspect o f Shoah's rem em brance. It is not obvious w hether the photographs are authentic or counterfeit, just like the biography o f the artist w ho purposefully
5 C o m p a re Gerhard Richter: Forty Years o f Painting (Exh. c a t., Feb. - M ay, 20 0 2; N e w York, The M u seu m o f M od ern A rt, 2002); Gerhard Richter Survey (Exh. c a t.; C o lo g n e , ifa -G a le rie S t u tt g a rt, 2001), 2 0 -21.
d eceives the critics and art h istorian s attem pting to study h is life. In effect the altars, reconstructed w ith in gallery and m useum spaces, that m em orial- ize the alleged victim s turn out to be a practical ersatz o f H olocaust memory, w orth as m uch as the audience is w illing to pay. The artist deliberately alludes to the associations betw een sanctity and the church, particularly the Catholic Church w ith its distinctive interior design, at the sam e tim e proclaim ing his person al lack o f faith and openly declaring the fa lsity o f th ose facts th at he h im s e lf provides. W h at is m ore, he com pares the artist to a “false prophet”
w ho solicits m oney in return for his services.6
A ll o f B oltan skis art, as he h im self claim s, concerns the H olocaust.7 M any view ers take the artists w ords at their face value, and interpret his artw ork in the context o f Shoah. Although, w hen it turns out that am ong the sentim ental photographs the portraits o f the perpetrators cannot be discerned form the portraits o f victim s, the m ystical aura slow ly gives w a y to a reflection upon o n e s ow n e xp ectatio n s o f H olocau st art. The privileged con n ection w ith the m urdered victim s turns out to be equally im possible, even ridiculous, as w ould be kn eeling before B oltan skis altars inside a gallery. The naive faith in photography, as w ell as the a rtists sincerity, seem s to be a lapse in judgm ent w h en facing som eone w ho, like B oltanski, m asterfu lly exploits the public's dem and for com m em orating the H olocaust. D iscreetly “m em ory preserved in ph otography” beco m es a collective ritual, n o t in the least d ifferen t form attending church, and the in term in gled photographs, disp laced from their historical context, o f the victim s and perpetrators are reduced to a rem nant of an event that nobody - no m atter w hat the effort - seem s to tru ly rem em ber.
N ot even the artist.
The “m nem onic dim ension, w herein the Shoah m ust be reconsidered” (al
though view ed from tw o different perspectives, o f Strzem iński and Richter) revealed through its photographic represen tations, turns out to be fictional in B o ltan sk is art. The aesthetic fiction o f photographic altars w h ich incites rem em brance can be com prehended in various w ays (also “seriously”), akin to the e sse n tially disparate experien ce th at can be acquired from th is art.
H ow ever, it is certain ly im p ossib le to negate the fu n d am en tal tru th o f the conspicuous severing o f ties w ith both the victim s and the perpetrators o f the H olocaust. The connection w ith the events b elonging to the h istorical order, w hich the genocide of the Jew ish people w as, has ultim ately becom e m ediated
6 T am ar G arb, Rozm ow a z Christianem Boltanskim [Interwiev with Christian Boltanski], p re s s m a te ria ls a c co m p a n y in g th e exh ib ition Christian Boltanski Revenir in th e C en tre fo r C o n te m p o rary A rt U jazd ow sk i C a s tle in W arsaw , S e p t . 15 - N ov. 1 1 , 2 0 01.
7 A fte r E rn st va n A lp h en , „ Z ab aw a w H o lo k au st,” tra n s. K atarzyn a B o jarsk a, Literatura na Św iecie 1- 2 (2004): 2 17-2 4 3.
76 v i s u a l l i t e r a c y
through culture, and therefore by art. The shift that has occurred is even more pointedly illustrated by a project titled I f Iwere a German com pleted in 19 9 4 by U krainian photographer Borys M ikhailov (b.1938). The series, w hich consists o f approxim ately th irty photographs, is described b y the curator o f the artists W arsaw exhibition as follows:
Together with his wife, Vita, and fellow -artists [...] M ikhailov has played and photographed scenes from the time of World War II. In these tableaux set in an idyllic U krainian landscape th ey pose in the nude or dressed in Nazi and Soviet uniform s. The pictures are m ostly erotic, even p e r
verse, and it is not always easy to distinguish the oppressors from their victim s. In burlesque scenes Jew ish w om en seduce and are seduced by German officers. The eroticism allows to question the historical relations, allowing for the roles to be reversed. The actors switch identities playing Germ ans, Jew s and Russians; fate decides who is the victim and who is the oppressor.8
M ikhailov, h im self o f Jew ish descent, shocks b y incorporating the them es represented in R ich ters Atlas into one short cycle. N evertheless, the contrast- in g o f album photography, pornography and the m em ory o f the H olocaust in I f I were a German takes place on a com pletely different level. In R ich ters w ork w e are dealing w ith tran sp osed but ultim ately still docum entary objects, in B o ltan sk is art it is fiction d isgu ised as docum ent; M ikh ailov does n o t even try to conceal the com pletely fictional character o f the prearranged and ph o
tographed scenes. Unveiling the pretentiously pornographic side of the Shoah, he does n o t contradict, b ut expands the previou sly m en tion ed “m nem onic dim en sion, w h e rein the Sh oah m u st be reconsidered .” The arbitrariness o f ro les assign ed b y the ph otograph er to p articu lar m odels, and the openly erotic content subvert the official, m on u m en tal im age o f the Shoah, w hich turns out to be equally hollow w hen confronted w ith M ikh ailovs “hom espun”
H olocaust. The process o f dem ystifying the H olocaust, already noticeable in Boltanski (more in his w ords, than his w orks), becom es even m ore evident in M ikhailov. The Testimony o f the Negative - the title o f Boris M ikh ailovs exhibi
tion in the Centre for C ontem porary A rt Ujazdowski C astle in W arsaw - turns out to be a hollow , ironic slogan: the negative does n o t attest to anything, m aybe besides w hat the artist dem ands. In this sense M ikh ailovs w ork would be better suited b y the title Negative Testimonial.
8 Ewa G o rzą d ek , „T estim o n y o f th e N e g a tiv e ,” in Testim ony o f the N egative, tra n s. Kuba W ecsile (Exh. c a t., Mar. 5 - Apr. 18 , 20 04, W arsaw : C e n tre fo r C o n te m p o ra ry A rt U jazd ow sk i C a s tle in W arsaw , 2004).
A m o n g the artists w h o are p re se n tly en gaged w ith th e issu e o f the H olocau st it is w o rth n am in g Poles Z b ig n ie w Libera (b .19 59 ) and R obert K uśm irow ski (b .19 73). Libera gain ed n otoriety for his w ork Lego. Concentra
tion Camp (1996). H is w ork w a s also sh ow cased at the N e w York exhibition MirroringEvil:NaziImagery/Recent Art, at the Jew ish M useum . The artw ork itself is a set o f building blocks w ith w h ich one can, as the title suggests, build an exterm ination cam p. A sid e from the three seven -b ox sets the artist prepared several photographs depicting various “m om ents” from the cam p's daily life.
Ju xtap o sin g the “in n o cen t” to y blocks for children w ith the Sh oah shocked and aro used the in terest o f both the critics and the gen eral public. Libera's controversial artw ork w as m entioned b y Piotr Piotrow ski in his book on Pol
ish contem porary art, titled Meanings o f Modernism:
Let us im agine an un settling event, w hen a child plays w ith a Lego set prepared th is way. A n y p erso n w ith at le a st a trace of sen sib ility w ill notice the inherent horror. For this reason m any view ers contested the w ork [...]. The artist w as even accused o f designing toys that promote violence and abuse the m em ory o f the victim s o f the N azi terror. The only th in g these accu sation s seem to prove is sim ple ignorance and a lack of understanding for the work that borders on m alice. Such opin- ions invite dissent. Libera unm asks - b y drastic m eans, no doubt - that it is m ass culture, a part o f which w e all are, that m anipulates the atroc- ity b y com m oditizing it.[...] C on sum er culture con fuses our ethical com pass. We buy plastic replicas of guns for our children to play with, w e w atch thrillers, and fin ally som ebody had the bright id ea to build a superm arket right outside KL Auschw itz. Libera is not m erciless, the hum an condition is.9
The a r t is t s critica l attitu de to w a rd s p o p u lar cu lture, e s p e c ia lly to its visual aspect, is evident in the photographic series titled Positives, w h ich w as exhibited in 2004. Libera alters fam ous, iconic photographs o f tragic historic events, so th e y con tain a d ifferen t, p ositive m essage, w h ile still re tain in g the original's form al features. There is a “p o sitive ” versio n o f a w e ll-k n o w n con centration cam p photograph am ong the pictures. It depicts w e ll-n o u r- ished prisoners dressed in p ajam as, w ho sm ile at u s from behind the barbed w ire fence. A sim ple, b ut sacrilegiou s act o f reversin g the em otion al force o f the h orrifyin g cam p photographs poin ts to n e w w ays o f th in kin g about th e H o lo cau st. Lib era's p h otograp h re fe rs to the m o d ern v ie w e r's fe ar o f
9 Piotr P io trow sk i, Z n a czen ia modernizmu. W stronę historii sztu ki polskiej po 1945 roku (Poznań:
R ebis, 19 99), 246.
78 v i s u a l l i t e r a c y
the trau m atic experience o f fully recognizing the traged y o f the H olocaust, d escrib ed b y A m e ric a n w rite r an d art critic S u sa n So n ta g in her e ssa y In Plato’s Cave:
N othing I have seen - in photographs or in real life - ever cut m e as sharply, deeply, instantaneously. Indeed, it seem s plausible to m e to di
vide m y life into two parts, before I saw those photographs (I w as twelve) and after, though it w as several years before I understood fully w hat they w ere about. W hat good w as served b y seein g them ? They w ere only p hotograp h s-of an event I had scarcely heard o f and could do nothing to affect, of suffering I could hardly im agine and could do nothing to re- lieve. When I looked at those photographs, som ething broke. Som e lim it had been reached, and not only that o f horror; I felt irrevocably grieved, w ounded, but a part of m y feelings started to tighten; som ething went dead; som ething is still crying.10
So n tag d escribes com ing into direct contact w ith the nature o f an atro- cious event through photography, w h ich seem s im p ossib le to repeat today.
N ot on ly due to the lo ss o f cre d ib ility (“in n o ce n ce ”) b y the p h otograp h ic
“docum ent,” but also due to the inevitable p assage into the realm o f popular culture and the trivializatio n o f the H olocau st, also in art. The con dition of the co n tem p o rary m u seu m go er v ie w in g th e H o lo cau st is w e ll illu strated b y R o b ert K u śm iro w sk i's w o rk p rep ared for th e catalo g o f the 20 0 4 Fritz B auer Institu t exhibitionii com m em oratin g the Fran kfu rt A u sch w itz trial.
The photograph, printed on page 623 o f the catalog, depicts the artist stand- in g b efore a p riso n b u ild in g and covering h is face, as he trie s to avoid the cam era. A fter a close reading o f the pub lication it turns out that the gesture is n o t ran d o m - it is a re p e titio n o f an evasive gestu re th a t one o f the ac- cused A u schw itz SS -o ffice rs, at first glan ce an un assu m in g decent G erm an, m ade fo rty ye a rs ago. K uśm irow ski, ju st like Libera, turns to archival p h o tograph s, although n o t to the ico n ic im ag es o f the tw e n tie th century. The artist does not “su b stitu te” em otion s con tained w ith in the h istorical trifle - im age. B y reprod ucin g the gesture and com p osition , w h ile d igitally aging the photograph, so that it resem bles the original in the sm allest o f details, th e a rtis t g e ts “m ista k e n ” b y the v ie w e r for the S S -o ffic e r, w h o w a s “ ap - p rehended” b y the photographer. The m isid en tificatio n o f the artist as the
10 S u sa n S o n ta g , "In Plato's C av e,” in On photography (N e w York: Farrar, S tra u s and G iroux, 2001) 20.
11 A u sch w itz-P ro zess4 K s 2/63. Frankfurt am M ain, ed . Irm trud W ojak, (Exh. c a t., Mar. 28 - M ay 23, 20 04, H aus G allu s, F ra n k fu rt am M ain; C o lo g n e : S n o e c k , 2004).
accu sed perpetrator lasts only a b rie f m om ent, ju st like the gesture caught on the photograph. K usm irow ski's w ork does not reveal anything aside from a hollow gesture. A s w e cannot m ake out the face o f the perpetrator, and w e do not see the faces o f the victim s or the artist, it is not su rp risin g that w e also cannot see the H olocaust.
Translation: Rafał Pawluk
