Genocide memorial museums

The idea of memorial museums is based on a fundamental aspect of human culture: the ritual o visitation. This is linked to the process of memorialization as mourning and acknowledging the tragic fate of others, trying to understand it. In order to fully experience this we must visit places where the things we mourn are present or took place, because only through this are we able to activate the process of memory. We visit cemeteries as a sign of respect for the dead, commemoration and foremost a way of upholding memory of them.

Alvin Curran, “Crystal Psalms”

 

“On October 20, 1988, a large part of western Europe heard a unique radio concert — CRYSTAL PSALMS — a concerto for musicians in six nations, simultaneously performed, mixed and broadcast live in stereo to listeners from Palermo to Helsinki. 

This special event, composed and coordinated by myself, while part of a worldwide series commemorating the 50th anniversary of the infamous Kristallnacht (Crystal Night), was, through its unusual concept, one which demanded and demonstrated an exceptional quality of international artistic and technological collaboration — the bringing together groups of musicians and technicians (some 300 in all, in six major European cities) who neither saw nor heard one another, yet performed as one unified ensemble to realize this complex score.” 

 

text from artist web page: http://www.alvincurran.com/ 

CrystalPsalmshiMP3excerpt.mp3

Crystal%20Psalms%20part%202.mp3

See Also:

Composer’s notes on the piece:

http://www.alvincurran.com/writings/CrystalPsalmsnotes.html

http://www.newalbion.com/NA_CDS/NA067/NA067.htm

George Segal

References:

Leo Bersani, “George Segal: the Holocaust, 1984” (Art Forum, Feb, 1999): http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_6_37/ai_54050181

Joan Rosenbaum, “George Segal and the Jewish Experience”, in: Americam Art, vol. 15, no. 1 (2001)

Melissa Gould

Still Life: Anne Frank Memorial Pencils (1988)

Floor Plan (1991)

“Notes From Underground,” by  Alvin Curran.  You can hear an excerpt here: http://www.alvincurran.com/NotesFromUndergroundhiMP3excerpt.mp3

From Adler to Zybler (1992)

“FROM ADLER TO ZYLBER (literally, “from eagle to silver”), “an alphabetic cosmology of the dead,” is an invented lexicon of obituary pictograms based on German-Jewish names taken from an Auschwitz transport list.

The original document inspiring this project is the 1000-name transport list of Convoy #42 (6 November 1942; France to Auschwitz), which I accidentally found in Memorial to the Jews Deported from France 1942-1944 by Serge Klarsfeld. My grandfather was among 1,000 Jews from all over Europe on this particular train, many of whom had sought refuge in what had been unoccupied France.

FROM ADLER TO ZYLBER is a symbolic continuation of Convoy #42’s journey.

From this transport list I originally selected 100 German-Jewish names with meanings referring to elements in the natural world. Each name is represented by a visual interpretation in the form of a pictogram–pairing the name, written in Gothic script, with a number and a different associative image. The images were taken from pre-War sources of European popular culture–lexicons, school- and text-books, fairy-tales, children’s books and other printed ephemera, then collaged together and sometimes slightly altered by drawing. This mixture of elements is contained by a black border (reminiscent of a death notice) and a thin outer edge of white. Each pictogram, photocopied onto white paper, measures 36″ by 36″ square. I now present this project as a 36-pictogram installation scaled down from the original 100 (36 is a multiple of 18; in the Hebrew alphabet the number 18 is equivalent to the word chai, meaning life).

The title FROM ADLER TO ZYLBER refers not only to the first and last names chosen from the transport list of Convoy #42 but also describes the system by which the pictograms are arranged within a given space. They mimic the order of nature–Adler (eagle) is hung high above, Zylber (silver) nearest the ground, and so on.

FROM ADLER TO ZYLBER is an ongoing project having many variants. The open-ended FROM ADLER TO ZYLBER cycle is a clue-filled rebus seeking to tell a story without words “illustrating” the tragic fate of the European Jews. I consider the pictograms as gravestones for people who had no funerals.”

Schadenfreude: an Installation (1995)

“SCHADENFREUDE 

explored anti-Semitism by way of a “Nazi wallpaper showroom.” (Schadenfreude is a German word meaning the delight one gets from someone else’s misfortune.) Using illustrations taken from one 1935 German Brockhaus dictionary I created six wallpaper patterns through combining and slightly altering the illustrations by drawing on them. While the designs may seem innocuous at first glance, their more tragic and ironic implications (as seen from the historical perspective of more than 60 years) are revealed with longer viewing. The motifs were first enlarged as photocopies, and then produced as silkscreened wallpaper which I ultimately arranged into a 1600-square-foot three-room installation at the Imperial War Museum, London, (1995).” >/p>

All text and images from artists web page. Online at:

http://www.megophone.com/projects.html

 

Rachel Whiteread, Holocaust Memorial in Vienna

Online at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2000/oct/26/kateconnolly

Jochen Gerz, “Monument against Fascism”

The Municipal Council of Hamburg-Harburg reached the decision in 1983, after several years of discussion, to erect aMonument against Fascism. Following a public hearing the commission was awarded to Jochen Gerz and Esther Shalev–Gerz. 
The artwork invited the city’s residents and visitors to engrave their names and sign against fascism on the monument, a 12-metre tall lead coated square column. As soon as the accessible part of the monument was covered with signatures, it was lowered into the ground. Between the inauguration on October 10, 1986, and its disappearance on November 10, 1993, theMonument against Fascism was lowered into the ground eight times. 
Today, a text in seven languages recounts the history of the Monument against Fascism: the 70,000 signatures, the sinking of the column and its disappearance. This text reads: 

We invite the citizens of Harburg, and visitors to the town, to add their names here next to ours. In doing so we commit ourselves to remain vigilant. As more and more names cover this 12-metre tall lead column, it will gradually be lowered into the ground. One day it will have disappeared completely, and the site of the Harburg Monument against Fascism will be empty. In the end it is only we ourselves who can stand up against injustice. 

 

 

Object: Column of galvanized steel with a lead coating, 1200 x 100 x 100 cm, weight ca. 7 t., underground shaft with viewing window, depth 14 m, concrete footing, 2 steel styluses for signing the surface, text panel. Site: Hamburg-Harburg, Harburger Ring at the corner of Hölertwiete/Sand, Harburg-Rathaus S-line train station. 

Online at:

http://www.gerz.fr/html/main.html?res_ident=5a9df42460494a34beea361e835953d8&art_ident=76fdb6702e151086198058d4e4b0b8fc

Jay Winter, “Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History”

 

Nicolai Ouroussof, “A Forest of Pillars, Recalling the Unimaginable”

Online at: http://www.holocaustforum.gov.se/conference/official_documents/abstracts/young.htm

Matthew Dodd, “Remembrance Days”

Online at: http://www.newstatesman.com/200207290029