Witness and Legacy: Contemporary Art about the Holocaust
Frye Art Museum,
Seattle
Oct 6 , 2001 - Jan 13,
2002
 Gabrielle Rossmer, In Search of Lost Objects: Reverents (1991), cotton, burlap and glue |
Commemorating the 50th anniversary
of the liberation of Auschwitz, Witness and Legacy began
touring nationally several years ago and will have its final
viewing at The Frye Art Museum beginning in October.
Curated by Historian Stephen Feinstein and Minnesota Museum
of American Art curator Paul Spencer, the exhibition
includes 63 works by 23 American artists. Some of the
artists are survivors of the Holocaust, other are second
generation or children of survivors, and some are
empathizers whose art has been influenced by the pain and
suffering of the Holocaust. Edith Altman explores the
swastika as a 2000-year-old symbol dating back to India. Her
installation piece titled Reclaiming the Symbol; The Art of
Memory attempts to take the blackness out of this symbol and
erase Hitler's influence.
The painting by Jerome Witkin, titled, The Beating Station
1933, depicts a scene from the beginning of Nazi terror
where people on the streets would be beaten without
protection by the law.
Art Spiegleman reconstructs stories of the Holocaust with
cartoon animals. The stories were told to him by his
surviving parents. He also addresses the problems that he
has faced as a Jew assimilating into society.
These works bring the subject of the Holocaust into today's
cultural dialogue. The artists provoke the raw emotions that
surround this horrific event, to educate, stir compassion,
and transmit the memories of one of the darkest events in
human history.
© Allyn Cantor