Artist Statement
About My Holocaust Series
The artwork I have created titled Holocaust Series confronts the viewer with some of the worst instances of torture, suffering, and the industrialization of murder by a modern government for the sole purpose of killing Jews and "undesirables".
Genocide is not new. Genocide has been employed many times throughout history as an instrument for political, ethnic and religious domination. For me as a Jew the acts of the Nazis and their supporters are of particular concern. However: the imagery and the motivation for the Holocaust Series is not entirely about the victimization of the Jews. It is my hope that the tragic moral and political messages in these works will connect with viewers whether or not they are Jews. I harbor no illusions that artworks can change the social or political dynamics of a society. Art does however bare witness to the moral social and political challenges of an era. My goal is to create through aesthetic means an increased intellectual and emotional awareness of the consequences of individual acts that have collectively contributed to genocide.
Creating the artworks of the Holocaust Series involves numerous challenges and decisions with respect to the acquisition and selection of the images I use and how I want to present them. All of the works in the series are based on actual documents or original contemporary photographic images. I look at a great number of journalistic photographs and films and I have taken many photographs of Holocaust sites throughout Europe. Each source image presents a unique "story" and behind each image is a particular point of view. The generally accepted purpose of photojournalism is to inform the reader/viewer about the nature of an incident; what, when, and where. There is an assumption of truthfulness in viewing a news photo even though from its earliest uses photography was subject to the whims of the technician in the darkroom and the agenda of the photo editor. Today of course, due to computer manipulation, the veracity of the visual image is even more challenged. But not withstanding these doubts and questions, there is immediacy and energy conveyed in photo journalism. In spite of our suspicions I think most people still want to believe that journalistic photography presents facts truthfully. Snapshot photos, which I define here as images taken primarily to record how a place looks and objects related to it, serves a different function. I make use of both sources. I use original documents to make connections to specific acts at a specific time and place; and I use my personal photographs to show what I experience as a profound contradiction between a Holocaust sites present benign physical reality and its horrific past.
My personal artistic background is very hand and materials oriented. There is for me something very unique and more emotional about sensing the human touch in creating an artwork and in relating to art as a viewer. It is for this reason that I make use of more traditional art media, drawing and painting in the presentation of artwork while at the same time using current electronic and digital technologies in the research and craft of art making.
Usually the first part of the process of making these artworks involves drawing. The drawing can be a finished work or it may be the basis for a painting or construction. Some of the drawings are very detailed, others may be more abstract. In the very realistic works considerable attention is paid to the correctness of the anatomy and to other details that can be discerned from the original source. This has at times proven to be an unexpected challenge since some of my sources are quite blurred. The more abstract works in the Holocaust Series seek a different type of response from viewers then the realistic works. I believe there are times when what is implied can have a far greater impact than what is stated in detail. It is my view that sometimes too much factual information can isolate the aesthetic experience to considerations of technique or craft. Virtuosity becomes the subject rather than the means for conveying meaning. I find that abstraction may also allow a viewer to access an emotional connection between the artworks factual content and the viewer's beliefs, biases and personal histories.
Post Holocaust generations now confront troubling questions that directly challenge some of our most cherished beliefs. The Holocaust called into question the faith that a belief system based on pre Holocaust western European philosophic values and the Judaic Christian tradition is strong enough to withstand modern tyranny. The Holocaust called into question the effectiveness of religious faith when it conflicts with political force. The Holocaust called in to question the effectiveness of ritual and prayer as a means of dealing with the personal and social challenges of contemporary society. The Holocaust raised fundamental doubts regarding the possibility of any moral and ethically just belief system being able to prevail against the threat of future state sponsored terror.
The artwork that I have created in the Holocaust Series offers evidence that these questions exist. It offers no answers.