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

国家社会主义集中营和灭绝营中的囚犯创作的艺术制品关注的是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，这些图像本身并不能说明问题，但需要分析。这种说法不是不言而喻的，因为这样的作品主要使用现实主义的视觉语言，因此看起来没有艺术性和毫不含糊。因此，历史研究者将它们作为营地现实的资料来源，而艺术史学家很少将它们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以他们作为抵抗和自我主张的表现的欣赏为特征，但也以政治工具化为特征。对集中营中的艺术品进行明确的艺术史研究，同时从历史和社会学的角度进行研究，是一种令人向往的想法。基于艺术史公理，每一种描绘，即使是现实主义的，都是对所表现的东西的一种解读，本研究项目旨在分析集中营囚犯的绘画作品，作为对集中营现实的视觉解读。使用艺术史和视觉研究的重要工具，将检查作品的描述手段和图画间的引用，无论这些是基于艺术或政治意图，还是基于对视觉记忆的前反射引用。必须考虑难民营的具体生产条件以及为“极端情况”寻找图像的挑战(Bettelheim 1943)，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肖像出现在集中营图像中时，目标变得更多的不是指出连续性，而是寻找破裂、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，将按主题分组进行分析(艺术家肖像、强迫劳动、夫妻与友谊、《Muselmänner》和死者图片)，并与其他集中营的艺术品进行比较。随附的一篇文章将探讨为什么在奥斯威辛集中营之后，集中营囚犯的作品被排除在艺术和文化理论的论述之外。将举办一次讲习班，以澄清在历史现实、经验的主观视角和图像表达的特殊性交汇处对营区现实的图像解释的地位。国际研讨会汇集了当前对集中营图像的艺术史研究，这是自1989年以来的第一次。

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.