Beyond the Limits of Representation. Artistic Artifacts of Concentration Camp Inmates as Visual Interpretation of the Camp Reality

超越代表性的限制。

• 批准号: 467625506
• 负责人: Professorin Dr. Verena Krieger
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Seminar für Kunstgeschichte und Filmwissenschaft
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 资助国家: 德国
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/467625506?language=en
• 关键词: Beyond; Limits; Representation.; Artistic; Artifacts

Artistic artifacts created by prisoners in the National Socialist concentration and extermination camps focusing on the camp reality endured by the artists do not directly depict this reality, but attribute meaning to it through pictorial means. Therefore, these images do not speak for themselves, but require analysis. This statement is not self-evident, since such works predominantly use a realistic visual language and thus appear inartistic and unambiguous. Hence, historical researchers use them as sources on camp reality, while art historians rarely consider them as relevant research objects. Instead, the reception history of these works is largely characterized by their appreciation as manifestations of resistance and self-assertion, but also by political instrumentalization. A decidedly art-historical and at the same time historically and sociologically informed study of artistic artifacts from concentration camps is a desideratum. Based on the art historical axiom that every depiction, even the realistic one, is always already an interpretation of what is represented, the research project intends to analyze the pictorial works of concentration camp prisoners as visual interpretations of camp reality. With the critical instruments of art history and visual studies, the works will be examined regarding means of depiction and inter-pictorial references, whether these are based on artistic or political intentions or on pre-reflexive references to visual memory. The specific conditions of production in the camps must be considered as well as the challenge to find images for "extreme situations" (Bettelheim 1943), which deprive all culturally transmitted values and models of their basis. It is therefore especially when established compositional structures and iconographies appear in the concentration camp images that the objective becomes less about pointing out continuities rather than to find ruptures, transformations, and ambivalences. The core of the project is a monographic study of pictures created at the Buchenwald concentration camp, which will be analyzed along thematic groups (artist portraits, forced labor, couples and friendship, "Muselmänner", and pictures of the dead), with comparisons to artworks from other camps. An accompanying essay will examine the reasons for the exclusion of works by concentration camp prisoners from the discourses of art and cultural theory "after Auschwitz." A workshop will serve to clarify the status of pictorial interpretations of camp reality in the junction of historical reality, the subjective perspective of experience, and the specificity of pictorial articulation. An international workshop brings together current art historical research on images from concentration camps for the first time since 1989.

国家社会主义集中营和灭绝营中的囚犯创作的艺术品聚焦于艺术家所忍受的集中营现实，并不直接描绘这一现实，而是通过绘画手段赋予其意义。因此，这些图像并不代表它们自己，而是需要分析。这种说法并不是不言自明的，因为这些作品主要使用现实主义的视觉语言，因此显得缺乏艺术性和明确性。因此，历史研究者将其作为研究营地现实的来源，而艺术史学家很少将其作为相关的研究对象。相反，这些作品的接受史在很大程度上是以它们作为抵抗和自我主张的表现而被欣赏，但也被政治工具化。对集中营中的艺术品进行明确的艺术历史学研究，同时也进行历史学和社会学的研究，这是一个迫切需要。基于艺术史的公理，即每一个描述，即使是现实的，总是已经被代表的解释，研究项目打算分析集中营囚犯的绘画作品作为视觉解释的集中营现实。与艺术史和视觉研究的关键工具，作品将被检查有关的描述和图片间的参考手段，无论这些是基于艺术或政治意图，或对视觉记忆的前反身参考。必须考虑到劳改营生产的具体条件，以及寻找“极端情况”（Bettelheim 1943）的图像的挑战，这剥夺了所有文化传播的价值观和模式的基础。因此，尤其是当既定的构图结构和图像出现在集中营图像中时，目标就不再是指出连续性，而是找到断裂、转变和矛盾。该项目的核心是对布痕瓦尔德集中营创作的图片进行专题研究，将沿着主题组（艺术家肖像、强迫劳动、夫妇和友谊、“Muselmänner”和死者照片）进行分析，并与其他集中营的艺术品进行比较。本文还将探讨集中营囚犯的作品被排除在“奥斯威辛之后”的艺术和文化理论话语之外的原因。“一个研讨会将有助于澄清在历史现实、经验的主观视角和图像表达的特殊性的结合中对营地现实的图像解释的地位。一个国际研讨会汇集了自1989年以来第一次对集中营图像的艺术史研究。