Sid Chafetz
Artist Exhibit
Sid Chafetz is fascinated by the biographies and actions of the perpetrators of the Holocaust and genocide. In "Absence/Presence," images of Nazi perpetrators were hung from floor to ceiling on a single wall, as if part of "most wanted criminals" found in post offices.
The individual works are made as lithographs and collages, with a broadside type description of the personality, beliefs and crimes. Some of the perpetrators are obvious to the viewer. Other are less so known. Many were lawyers, doctors and professors. Often, the words of Christ are invoked alongside the name of Hitler.
After September 11, 2001 attacks on the USA, the issue of understanding the mentality of perpetrators has become more important, especially if there is an effort to create early warning systems to prevent such attacks and more lethal enterprises, such as genocide.
General View of Perpetrators Wall
Perpetrators
A series of 42 original portraits. Lithographs. All may not be hung.
 Perpetrators: Wilhelm Keitel. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 35" x 25". 1991. |
 Perpetrators: Robert Ley. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 35" x 24". 1991 |
 Perpetrators: Arthur Rudolph. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 35" x 25". 1991 |
 Perpetrators: Heinrich Himmler. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 27" x 24". 1991. |
 Perpetrators: Martin Bormann. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 35" x 25". 1991 |
 Perpetrators: Fritz Saukel. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 24" x 28". 1991 |
 Perpetrators: Artur Seyss-Inquart. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 27" x 24". 1991. |
 Perpetrators: Alfred Rosenberg. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 35" x 25". |
 Perpetrators: Albert Speer. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 35" x 24". 1991. |
 Perpetrators: Johannes Stark. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 35" x 24". 1991. |
 Perpetrators: Julius Streicher. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 35" x 25". 1991. |
 Perpetrators: Otto Ambros. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 25" x 22.5". 1991. |
 Perpetrators: Walter Funk. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 28" x 24". 1991. |
 Perpetrators: Rudolph Hess. Original Portrait, Litograph, 35" x 25". 1991. |
 Perpetrators: Heinrich Buetefish. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 25" x 22.5". 1991. |
 Perpetrators: Joachim Von Ribbentrop. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 35" x 25". 1991. |
 Perpetrators: Karl Doenitz. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 35" x 25". 1991. |
 Perpetrators: Frank Hans. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 52" x 24". 1991. |
 Perpetrators: Muller Ludwig. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 35" x 25". 1991 |
 Perpetrators: Wilhelm Frick. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 27" x 24". 1991. |
 Perpetrators: Hans Globke. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 27" x 25". 1991. |
 Perpetrators: Paul Joseph Goebbels. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 26" x 23". 1991 |
 Perpetrators: Hermann Goering. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 38" x 30". 1990 |
 Perpetrators: Alfred Jodl. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 27" x 24". 1991. |
 Perpetrators: Constantin Von Neurath. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 39" x 30". 1991 |
 Perpetrators: Ernst Kaltenbrunner. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 35" x 25". 1991. |
 Perpetrators: Alois Brunner. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 35" x 25". 1991. |
 Perpetrators: Reinhardt Heydrich. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 24" x 22". 1991. |
 Perpetrators: The Goebbels with Three Children and Hitler Goering. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 28" x 22.5". 1991. |
 Perpetrators: Ordinary People. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 47" x 35.5". 1991. |
 Perpetrators: Baldur Von Schirach. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 52" x 24" 1991. |
 Perpetrators: Goebbels Family. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 27" x 28". 1991. |
 Perpetrators: Parade Watchers. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 52" x 24". 1991. |
 Perpetrators: Goebbels Family. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 27" x 28". 1991. |
 Perpetrators: Supporters.(Color woodcut) Original Portrait, Lithograph, 32" x 47".1991. |
 Camp I.D.s. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 25" x 25.5". 1991 |
 Camp Plan. Original Portrait, Lithograph, 47" x 35.5". 1990 |
"Perpetrators," a series of 42 original portrait prints framed in metal or wood with plexiglass is available for rental.
Loan Information on this Exhibition can be obtained from:
Florida Holocaust Museum
55 Fifth Street South
St Petersburg, Florida
www.flholocaustmuseum.org
TEL: 727-820-0100
c/o Mr. Stephen Goldman
Two sets of this series are also part of the permanent collection of the Tennessee Holocaust Commission in Nashville, TN. Contact Ruth Tanner at the Commission.
Running feet: 165 but can be installed one above another.
Security: Low
Audio Component: Two audio stations with recorded words in translation from original Nazi documents.
Catalog: an illustrated 36 page catalog with an introduction by Allon Schoener and an artist's statement is available on consignment for $5 per catalogue.
Rental Fee: $300 for normal run of six weeks. Does not include transportation and insurance.
Crates: Exhibition is packed in 7 crates weighing 1000 pounds. A second set which was designed for a European tour is packaged more simply and is economical to ship in three wooden boxes weighing a total of 295 pounts.
Lecture/Workshop/Symposium. The artist is available for illustrated talks and workshops.
Contact with the Artist
For contact with the artist, email or telephone Florida Holocaust Museum or Tennessee Holocaust Commission.
Artist's Statement
For years I have struggled with the question of how I, as an artist, could deal visually with the atrocities of the Third Reich in a meaningful way. It was frustrating because I believe nothing could equal the truths of documentary still and motion picture photography that revealed the horror of the camps and victims. Today, older people seem either inured against those ghastly images or are disinterested. Whole generations are uninformed. We even have a band of revisionist academics who are claiming that the Holocaust never happened. Worse yet, and sadly, totalitarian governments, anti-Semitism, racism and genocide are still ugly realities.
In 1990, after I had done extensive research on the Nazi era, Perpetrators began to take shape. Rather than depicting victims, I decided to portray the people who made Hitler possible. I began to focus mainly on a representative group of men who helped Hitler to power and implemented his policies. These "perpetrators" came from every facet of life: law, education, the military, industry, finance, medicine, religion, science, journalism, art. They were mainly men of position and education. By using period photographs, together with biographical text as integral to the drawn portraits, I satisfied the twin poles of my aesthetic and didactic interests: work that achieves a formal coherence and at the same time educational impact.
Perpetrators has two functions. The first is as an art exhibition; the second as a catalyst for public programs on that terrible period in world history. It is my hope to provoke the audience to think critically about the present by remembering a past when a single tyrant was joined by a cadre of men in perpetrating evil across the world.
- Sid Chafetz
Availability
There are two framed sets of "Perpetrators" available for exhibition from The Tennessee Holocaust Commission and one from The Florida Holocaust Museum. The works are easy to install and economical to ship in wooden boxes weighing a total of 295 pounds. Two formats for hanging are suggested. One is a typical museum gallery exhibit, with each work separate and distinct on the wall in its own space. The other is by crowding on one wall to create a "post office" impact of "most wanted criminals." The texts of the broadsides speak for themselves.
For booking contact
The Tennesssee Holocaust Commission
Ruth Tanner
2417 West End Avenue
37240
615-343-2563
ruth.k.tanner@vanderbilt.edu
or
Loan Information on this Exhibition can be obtained from:
Florida Holocaust Museum
55 Fifth Street South
St Petersburg, Florida
website
TEL: 727-820-0100
c/o Mr. Stephen Goldman
Two sets of this series are also part of the permanent collection of the Tennessee Holocaust Commission in Nashville, TN. Contact Ruth Tanner at the Commission.