POIGNANT?!?
“Horrific,” “Profoundly Disturbing,” “Jolting”…but surely not “Poignant.”
That mild adjective was used by the Metropolitan Museum’s communications office in its headline (below) for the press release announcing the display (to Jan. 18) of Gerhard Richter‘s four paintings from his “landmark ‘Birkenau’ series” of 2014, in which black-and-white photographic images of inmates who had been killed by the Nazis in the Auschwitz-Birkenau gas chamber were colorfully overlaid and obliterated, using Richter’s signature “squeegee” technique:
“Poignant” is a word that I’ve never before seen (and hope never to see again) in connection with the Holocaust. These paintings soft-pedal and aestheticize photos that were taken of gas chamber victims while their remains were being burned and disposed of. That stark visual evidence of what might otherwise have been disbelieved and denied was surreptitiously captured on camera by the Sonderkommandos—concentration camp prisoners who were forced to “burn the hundreds of thousands of people that were gassed—some of whom they recognized as family members, friends, or acquaintances,” in the words of what, to me, was a definitive museum exploration of the Holocaust—Auschwitz: Not Long Ago. Not Far Away (to May 2, 2021) at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York.
Perhaps written by (or at least approved by) Modern and Contemporary Department chair Sheena Wagstaff and/or director Max Hollein (both of whom contributed quotes to the press release), the Met’s offensive verbiage couldn’t have come at a more inappropriate time: The press release hit my inbox on Monday—four days before the Jewish High Holidays (which begin tomorrow, Friday, at sundown).
It’s hard to imagine that such a blooper would have been perpetrated under the auspices of former director Philippe de Montebello, whose father had fought in the French Resistance during World War II.
ARTnews, Sept. 1978
The “Birkenau” paintings had been part of Gerhard Richter: Painting After All, the survey that opened at the Met Breuer on Mar. 4 but closed a mere eight days later, due to the Covid Crisis. (I never got to see it: I was in California during that time, for the birth of my granddaughter.)
More concerning to me than the lamely worded press release is the lack of a “parental guidance” warning at the entrance to the “Birkenau” show, which includes not only the four paintings but also the source photographs. I would not have wanted to wander in there with my bright, very inquisitive 7-year-old New York grandson, who might have asked pointed questions about what he was seeing. He’s a journalist-in-the-making, with an intense interest in history. (Thanks, Lin-Manuel!). But he’s too young to be unnecessarily confronted with such upsetting images.
When I asked the Met press office if a parental warning was posted at the entrance to the show, I was sent the introductory wall text, which noted that “the paintings are based on four photographs secretly taken in the death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau by a member of the Sonderkommando, a group of mainly Jewish prisoners forced to dispose of victims of the gas chamber.” But nothing was said about the explicitness of the displayed photos of corpses being burned.
NY Times art critic Jason Farago expressed his own “serious reservations” about those photos, in his otherwise favorable review of the larger Richter show, when it opened at the Met Breuer:
The paintings would seem to deny us any Holocaust voyeurism….The source photos, though, tacitly encourage a repulsive search in each painting for the obliterated violence beneath.
I’m not sure if/when I’ll get to see the “Birkenau” paintings (or any other museum shows, for that matter): As a member of a “vulnerable” group (seniors), I’m still leery of possible indoor exposure to the dread virus. I can only hope that the next time the Birkenau series surfaces, it won’t be at an auction house or an art dealer’s gallery.
According to Catherine Hickley, writing in The Art Newspaper: “The artist said in 2016 that he would never allow the Birkenau series to be sold at auction.” That said, the Met’s label lists the paintings’ ownership as “private collection,” causing me to ask the museum’s spokesperson whether there was a chance that the private owner might sell them after the show, with the value enhanced by the Met’s imprimatur.
The answer: “That decision is at the discretion of the owner, once the works return to their care.” I think this is a case where “discretion” would dictate retention or a non-commercial donation.
And in other Richter news: His controversial “October 18, 1977,” which I recently noted was missing from the Met’s show, will soon show up (see p. 3) at the Museum of Modern Art, which owns it. This series of 15 portraits of members of the terrorist Baader-Meinhof gang had occasioned some off-key comments by curator Robert Storr at the press preview for MoMA’s 2002 Richter retrospective.
As reported by Eric Gibson of the Wall Street Journal (and witnessed by me), Storr had surprisingly expressed a sympathetic understanding of terrorists’ motives, at a time when the 9/11 attacks were fresh in everyone’s mind. (He left MoMA soon afterwards.)
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