The archive occupies a privileged position within the cluster of genres by means of which one represents, teaches and commemorates the Holocaust. This cluster consists exclusively of historical genres. The genres that are considered to be the most appropriate to depict the Holocaust events are those that are historical par excellence, those that do not provide a fictional account of history, but that offer history in its most direct, tangible form. Testimonies, autobiographical accounts of the Holocaust and documentaries are the forms supposed to provide the best and the most responsible account of the Holocaust.
Within this group of affiliated genres the position of the archive is emblematic as well as different. It is emblematic because its historical function is out of the question: it consists of leftovers, material traces of the past. But it also differs from the other historical genres, because it does not represent history by means of narrative; it presents it directly, that is unmediated, in the form of its remains. The hierarchy within the cluster of historical genres indicates what the issue is: that genre is considered most appropriate that stays closest to the factual events.
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Notes and References
I have argued this in my book Caught by History: Holocaust Effects in Contemporary Art, Literature, and Theory, Stanford, 1997, Chap. 4: ‘Deadly historians: Christian Boltanski's intervention in Holocaust historiography’
In Czechoslovakia the Nazis brought Jewish religious articles from 153 provincial communities to Prague for the establishment of this ‘Central Museum of the Extinguished Jewish Race’. Included were 5,400 religious objects, 24,500 prayer books and 6,070 artifacts of historical value. After the end of the war these became the core of Jewish Museum of Prague. See I. Gutman (Ed.), Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, New York, 1990, p. 1187
D. Renard, Interview with Christian Boltanski, Boltanski(exhibition catalogue), Paris, 1984, p. 71, quoted in L. Gumpert, Christian Boltanski, Paris, 1994, p. 32
In his site-specific work Missing House(1990) in Berlin, Boltanski has turned himself into the archivist of a vacant lot between other houses in a former Jewish neighbourhood. The Missing Houseconsists of name plates attached to the firewalls of houses adjacent to the empty lot created by the destruction of a house in the Second World War. The plates included the name, dates of residence and professions of the last inhabitants of the missing house. For an excellent reading of this site-specific work, see J. Czaplicka, ‘History, Aesthetics, and Contemporary Commemorative Practice in Berlin’, New German Critique, 65 (1995), 155–187
Ydessa Hendeles is one of the most important collectors of contemporary art and of the history of photography. She has her own museum in which she curates exhibitions out of her own collection: the Ydessa Hendeles Foundation in Toronto. For an analysis of her practice of collecting and curating, see R. Greenberg, ‘Private Collectors, Museums and Display: A Post-Holocaust Perspective’, Jong Holland, 1(16) (2000), 29–41
The main title of this installation, ‘Partners’, refers to the intimate relationship between the owners of teddy bears and their playmate
The Exhibition, which Hendeles curated for the Haus der Kunst in Munich, has the same title as her teddy bear installation: Partners. In case of the exhibition the title has several meanings. It refers to the collaboration between a public Museum and a private collector, between a German institution and a Jewish collector, between Hitler's former museum and the daugh-ter of Holocaust survivors. For an analysis of this exhibition, see E. van Alphen, ‘Die Ausstellung als narratives Kunstwerk/Exhibition as Narrative Work of Art’, in Partners, C. Dercon and T. Weski (Eds.), Cologne: Walther König, 2003, pp. 143–185
Y. Hendeles, ‘Notes on the Exhibition’, in Partners, C. Dercon and T. Weski (Eds.), Cologne: Walther König, 2003, p. 212
Y. Hendeles, ‘Notes on the Exhibition’, pp. 211–212
Y. Hendeles, ‘Notes on the Exhibitions’, p. 211
Y. Hendeles, ‘Notes on the Exhibition’, p. 215
K. Silverman, in Flesh of my Flesh, Chicago, in press
K. Silverman, in Flesh of my Flesh, Chicago, in press
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van Alphen, E. (2009). Visual Archives and the Holocaust: Christian Boltanski, Ydessa Hendeles and Peter Forgacs. In: Van den Braembussche, A., Kimmerle, H., Note, N. (eds) Intercultural Aesthetics. Einstein Meets Margritte: An Interdisciplinary Reflection on Science, Nature, Art, Human Action and Society, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-5780-9_10
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