Celebrating thirty years of the National Holocaust Museum, a recent exhibition by award-winning artist Caren Garfen explores Holocaust misinformation and anti-Jewish racism.
This is a beautiful exhibition, reflecting on the past of the holocaust, but also the present.
Each piece is simple storytelling tied to rich ideas with delicate craftsmanship. There is a profound melancholy to it all - not because it recalls some general loss of something from the past, but due to the renting of intimate ties of family - of long, long established tradition manifested in a sitting room; in a beautiful teacup; in cloth; in script and scripture; in toys; in the typewriter; in the book; in the walls; in the suitcases; in the opticians lens. The stitched detail is the mark Caren Garfen uses to signify individual presence, individual thoughts, the person and the people of the story.
The main message is right in front of you – asking you to reflect on the parallels between the past and today’s acts of human debasement through applying group identity, the questioning of equal status, the use of tropes, caricature and distortion
What makes Garfen so successful in her current work is her mastery of form and content. Craft itself is her mark that forces the story of individual presence.
The form is the rendering of human life in its banal and its glorious detail. Many exhibitions today can be oblique, apparently challenging the audience to think. But in this exhibition, the main message is right in front of you – asking you to reflect on the parallels between the past and today’s acts of human debasement through applying group identity, the questioning of equal status, the use of tropes, caricature and distortion – all part of the gradual process of dehumanisation. Nevertheless, it is in the beauty and in the depth of the pieces where the success of the exhibition lies.
This comment from my friend is a great summary: “The delicacy, intricacy and the craftsmanship of the exhibition, and her insistence of tenderness, is a counter to the horror of the holocaust itself. It forces you to see it under her terms – that is, humane and tender.”
The National Holocaust Museum is located just outside of Newark and open Sunday - Friday. Fabricated? is on until mid-December, with several permanent exhibitions to visit also.
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