Seven Days, a Burlington, Vermont based alternative weekly, has run the most comprehensive story to date on the controversy surrounding the exhibition of Peter Schumann's Independence Paintings that I have been following on this blog.
Read Ken Picard's article, "Over the Wall: Censorship or anti-semitism [sic]? Inside the furor over an Art Hop exhibit" for more.
I have some issues with the article, but I am saving most of them for a letter to the editor, however, I cannot refrain from immediately taking issue with Picard's description of Schumann as someone whose family fled Nazi Germany when he was ten years old. In a 2006 interview he stated that he had been a refugee because the Allied powers had decided to give all of Silesia, which had been part of the Nazi state, to Poland. His family fled from Soviets and Poles further into Germany. His refugee status was an unintended consequence of aggression that his nation initiated, but never in the interview was there an acknowledgement of the Jewish Silesians who were exterminated or the Polish Silesians who had spent the war years in slave labor camps, only the German Silesians who were humiliated by the collapse of the Third Reich were worth mentioning. We must never blame an adult for the crimes committed by the government of their childhood, but when the history is being misrepresented, questions are in order.
Is Schumann changing his story, or did Picard just get the story wrong?
Nota Bene: My response to Ken Picard's article appears here.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Seven Days on the Burlington Controversy
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Ian, thanks so much for your continued writing about this issue. It's harder to get a full story from the Burlington Press.
I didn't see the exhibit but I am familiar with many of the participants in the debate.
I don't think that the exhibit should have been shut down, I agree with Rabbi Chasen about that. But I do think that the South End Arts And Business Association (SEABA) of which I am a member, owes the public an account of their opinions and should be willing, if not eager, to discuss their decision making and their responses.
I think it is the duty of a curator to discuss the work they present to their community in an articulate and well thought out manner. The fact that SEABA only is willing to say that they do not censor work is simply not enough, and shows bad judgment and bad faith.
Thanks again.
Liza,
It's been somewhat difficult to follow the story from a couple of hundred miles away, as while I know Bread and Puppet from having performed with the troupe off and on for years, and the particular work, and the issues evoked, it is hard for me to discern how this fits in with local politics.
I, for one, also don't believe censorship is called for (I have a hard time thinking of a situation where censorship is the best option) however, I do think that Art Hop organizers do need to consider over the next few months about the political and ethical ramifications of presenting works that are so divisive.
The best way to fight bad speech is with good, thoughtful, speech.
My criticism, again, is not that the art is controversial, but that is presents a false analogy that feeds into antisemitism.
Controversy is needed every now and then, but antisemitism, like other forms of hateful bigotry, is poses a danger to civil society.
The erroneous story that the Schumann family had been refugees from Nazi Germany was repeated on Wikipedia.
Post a Comment