Re: <eyebeam><blast> Adorno...Beauty's Wounds

[Suzanne Treister <suzyrb@camtech.net.au>]

In reply to Clifford Duffy and Simon Biggs re. Paul Celan and the
Holocaust.

I'd just like to make a few comments and share a few things...In the
80s, as a twenty something artist,  I got obsessed with Paul Celan and
rather audaciously rewrote my own version of 'Death Fugue' which thank
god is now lost somewhere. During that period I also occasionally made a
painting about the Holocaust, always indirectly, for example one was
called 'Video game for Primo Levi', another, 'Greetings from the Black
Forest'. I was chastised by several London art students during slide
talks for daring to talk about the Holocaust in this manner and I came
away feeling that their arrogance was greater than mine. I had always
been told people must not forget, so to me to bring it up in any way was
better than ignoring it. Anyway, I couldn't help myself. The mainstream
artworld in England at the time seemed to find such things embarrassing
and unfashionable, at least until Boltanski came along and even then. As
a second generation Holocaust survivor (a group I have only recently
understood myself to belong to, along with 0.5 NESB status, these things
are more real somehow in Australia as compared to my experience of the
UK) I have had a lot of problems with this whole issue, especially as
when it enters my work there is always somehow a humourous
element...until..the other day a friend lent me a tape of a documentary
about second generation Holocaust survivors who were all comedians (and
all referencing it) and finally I had something to identify with and
much of my guilt slipped away in floods of hysterical laughter. I only
hope my grandparents won't be turning in their graves. As a precaution I
am making/imagining the work my grandmother  may have made had she been
able to timetravel before being exterminated and become an artist in the
late 20th century. Quite possibly she is turning all the more. What can
you do?
Another thing that both worries and interests me is the nostalgic
fetishization of the whole thing (and the fact that I am so interested
and also implicated in it), but that's another story, or maybe not,
which I would be interested to hear other people's comments on. I guess
the same has happened with Vietnam and other wars but not quite in the
same way as Auschwitz 'Disneyworld'. Am I wrong? It can't be just those
leather coats and boots can it?
Suzy
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Suzanne Treister
WEB PROJECTS
http://va.com.au/ensemble/tableau/suzy/
Time Travelling with Rosalind Brodsky.1997

http://www.va.com.au/parallel/x1/gallery/suzanne_treister/
Would you recognise a virtual paradise.1995
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