Friday, September 5, 2008

Once Again: Disturbing News From Burlington, Vermont

Recent correspondence with Michael Strauss an artist and scientist who teaches at the University of Vermont, both by email and on his blog has alerted me that once again the deceptively named Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel (VTJP) are sponsoring the exhibition of Bread & Puppet founder and artistic director, Peter Schumann's artistic representations of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While, I have not seen the work that is on display this year, it was Schumann's misrepresentations of this conflict (as well as misrepresentations of conditions in the Warsaw Ghetto) that caused me break off relations with Bread and Puppet Theatre in February of 2007 after having performed in all Boston-area shows since November 2003.

Strauss came to my attention when first began to address Schumann's connections with VTJP's anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic, and Holocaust denying agenda. In a blog entry entitled "The Art of Social Consciousness? I Believe Not", Strauss examined Abdullah Dourkawi’s winning entry in the International Holocaust Cartoon Contest at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, and why an organization that claims to be committed to a "Just Peace" would publish such a cartoon on their website. This has caused Strauss to continue examining anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic cartoons featured on the VTJP website and to address the anti-Semitic rhetoric that has begun to appear in the peace movement.

VTJP, as it happens, is exhibiting Schumann's "The University of Majd" at Flynndog in Burlington as part of a show entitled "Palestine in Resistance: 1948 - 2008." The dates are interesting, as 1948 is the year that the UN Partitioned the British Mandate of Palestine into both a Jewish and an Arab state. Unless the curators mean also to include resistance to Jordan and Egypt, they mean to label any Israeli sovereignty anywhere as an invasive occupation (which as I have pointed out previously, is precisely what VTJP does claim.)

I did not see the "The University of Majd" when it was exhibited in Boston in February of this year for reasons explained in this interview with Greg Cook of The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research, so while I am uncertain of the exact content of the work, I do know that it is specifically aimed at casting Israel in a negative light without discussing the over all context of the conflict.

Thus far, the reportage from Burlington on the situation seems to be harder to come by than last year, and I had only come upon a single article by Sally Pollak in the September 4, 2008 edition of Burlington Free Press entitled, "Art Hop draws more exhibitors than ever":

Schumann’s art will be part of a group show at the Flynndog, a gallery on Flynn Avenue that participates in the Art Hop. His piece is part of an exhibit called “Open Eyes: Open Minds: Open Hearts,” curated by Bren Alvarez.

“This man has a lifetime of producing artwork that really looks at, and creates awareness about, humanitarian issues,” Alvarez said. “What I felt passionate about was being absolutely certain that Peter Schumann is welcome in Burlington.”

Schumann’s piece, on display at the Flynndog through late October, is called “Wall with Checkpoint.”

“Peter’s been interested in walls, walls, walls,” said longtime puppeteer Linda Elbow, who helped with the installation. “The wall around the Warsaw ghetto, the Berlin wall, the Palestine-Israel wall and the wall between Mexico and the U.S.”


Unlike last year, where Schumann spoke for himself, longtime Bread and Puppet member, Linda Elbow, served as his spokeswoman and created the context of Schumann's anti-Israeli propaganda, by once again creating false analogies. The Berlin Wall was built by the East Berlin government to maintain a police state by preventing East Berliners from leaving or from having direct contact with either West German citizens or their economy; the wall around the Warsaw Ghetto was build by Germany in order to deliberately segregate and starve the Jews that had been deported to the ghetto, thus five-hundred-thousand to six-hundred thousand Jews, roughly 20% of Poland's Jewish population was killed over a period of two years. The Israeli built wall and checkpoints that separate Israel from the Palestinian territories have eliminated suicide bombings in Israel and eliminated IDF counter-strikes to those attacks (obviously walls can be circumvented by rockets, which invite further counter-strikes.) However, the result has been a rebuilding of the economy and a decrease in violence on the West Bank, as well as renewed peace talks between Israel and the Fatah (Hamas, the government in Gaza, is quite another story.)

The point is that the Israeli-built wall that has caused Schumann's ire for two years simply cannot be sensibly understood as analogous with the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto, the Berlin wall, or currently imaginary wall on the U.S.-Mexican border. When Israel's attempt to defend its citizens from terrorism is likened to an instrument of genocide, one simply engaged in a 21st century version of the blood-libel. It's not the "hard-core" Holocaust denial advocated by such figures as David Irving or Bradley Smith but a "soft-core" Holocaust denial that seeks to trivialize the significance.

The piece is made from brown papier-mache with black-paint definition and includes hand-printed banners from Schumann’s 17-question series.

Among the questions: “Whose money?” and “Whose pleasure?”
Ibid.


Based on additional documentation on the Flynndog's website, the "17-question series" in question is a series of wood-cuts entitled "17 questions about the War in Iraq: an elementary Iraq war inquiry." The attachment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its resolution to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, while a common ploy amongst anti-Israel propagandists the world over, is nothing more than unsupported lies.

And this is the crux of the problem: It's not that art should not tell the truth; it's that art should not lie.

6 comments:

nancy said...

Ian,

I have visited your site often and have been wondering how you are doing. I read with great interest your post about The Bread and Puppet Theater's piece and Peter Schumann's anti-Israel piece. I remember you writing about this before. I think you should do a creative mime piece to show what you feel - develop the understanding of what a wall is and is not...as Robert Frost so eloquently put "Spring is the mischief in me ...and I ask my neighbor beyond the hill why it is there are walls...to know what one is walling in and walling out..." You have such an intelligent and passionate point of view that I believe needs to get out to a public. What do you think of this idea? Write to me at: nancyr98@msn.com to discuss if you like.

Nancy

Ian Thal said...

Nancy,

Part of the reason I had reacted with such passion when I first realized that Schumann was misrepresenting events of the Holocaust in order to attack Israel, was that I was in the early stages of writing and researching my first full-length text-based play (I last wrote about the development here)-- which just so happened to be on the topic of Holocaust denial. So I understood not just how the audience was being manipulated, but the falsehoods, and the reasons for the manipulation.

Now the thought of a mime piece is intriguing. I've interpreted this experience in text, but can I do so in corporality? What elements of this story can be told with the body and what aspects did I specifically leave out because I was using words, grammar, and argument and not muscle, movement and bone?

nancy said...

Ian,

I look at mime as a painting in movement. You are right...very different than with words. I, myself, have a great passion for the land of Israel and always have. I am Jewish and the conflict tore me apart since childhood. Is Schumann Jewish? Anyway...I really would like to discuss this more with you. I think you could create such a powerful piece...perhaps with mime and music and words as an added soundtrack. Since you write poetry...I think the key is to be able to show that a wall is not always meant to come down. To see the beauty and reason for a wall. If I understood correctly, you felt Schumann was comparing the Wall in Israel to others that were a political force to separate. I have not been to the Wall in Jerusalem, but have a sister who lives in Tsfat where I visited. Breathtakingly beautiful and spiritual. If I remember correctly, the wall is a remnant of the Temple isn't it? It is a place where people pray. Schumann sounds so distorted in his view. Amazing!

Nancy

Ian Thal said...

Hi Nancy,

To answer your questions:

Is Schumann Jewish? No, he is a Silesian German and (according to the New York TImes) "the son of a Lutheran schoolmaster." I discuss this in detail in another article ("When Wikipedia Renders One an Un-Person" regarding to a myth that his family had fled Nazi persecution (untrue, but apparently this myth is an invention not of Schumann but of his defenders.)

To clarify: Schumann was comparing the security wall that separates Israel from the West Bank with the wall around the Warsaw Ghetto-- not the Western Wall of the Temple in Jerusalem. But your allusion to the Temple Wall, is another demonstration that walls are not analogous to one another just because they are walls.

Anyway, the thought of approaching these issues through mime is something I'll have to meditate upon. Thank you so much for suggesting it.

nancy said...

Ian,

Thanks for your information distinguishing the walls in Israel. I will read more about them. Robert Frost's "The Mending Wall" and his poetry, in particular, moves me deeply. Also, thanks for letting me know about Schumann. Life can be complex and people also. Yet, I believe in the basic goodness of humans and and see that as the answer to why the earth and human life still exist in spite of all the atrocities. Best of luck with all your creative work. I know you think and feel deeply about touching others through art and I greatly respect you for that.

Nancy

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