Language:
English
Year of publication:
2003
Titel der Quelle:
Yale Journal of Criticism
Angaben zur Quelle:
16,1 (2003) 113-146
Keywords:
Kiefer, Anselm,
;
Beuys, Joseph
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), and art
Abstract:
Examines the Holocaust art of two German neo-avant-garde artists, Beuys and Kiefer, and how their works have fostered memory and understanding of the Holocaust in Germany. Beuys' "Auschwitz Demonstration" (1968) evokes the shocking brutality of the Holocaust without instrumentalizing the victims through direct photographic representation; however, it is historically misleading, and its symbolism is ambivalent if not revisionist. With all that, Beuys' Auschwitz vitrine promotes reflection on German identity in relation to the Holocaust. Kiefer's works were created in the 1980s, when the problem of true representation of the Holocaust, rather than the imperative to remember it, came to the fore. By evoking hermeneutic undecidability and reflexivity in conjunction with a highly material and methaphoric painterly surface, Kiefer's works suggest that Holocaust memory will remain even after the participants are no longer able to bear witness.
URL:
Click here for fulltext (may be restricted to subscribers)
URL:
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries
Permalink