ANTISEMITISM AT ART HOP
Art Hop
Exhibition Takes
on Palestinian/Israeli
Conflict
--Wades into Anti-Semitism
& Holocaust Denial
This year at Art Hop, SEABA wades into the Palestinian/Israeli conflict with the presentation of a series of events produced by Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel.
In the same building as the Juried Show, the defacto hub of Art Hop, the group will present "Independence Paintings" by Peter Schumann. The exhibition will be accompanied by a talk by the artist, another talk by Joe Kovel entitled "Overcoming Zionism," and a screening of the award-winning film Occupation 101.
A venerable Vermont artist, Schumann's political legacy is the promotion of peace. Born in Silesia in 1934, he was a sculptor and dancer in Germany until he moved to the United States in 1961 and founded the Bread and Puppet Theater. From the theater's base in Glover, Vermont, Schumann has received international acclaim for his staunchly anti-war, anti-violence, pro-peace work.
Schumann's artistic legacy is art for the people. Bread and Puppet makes low- or no-cost art. Performances are often accompanied by free bread and garlic, underscoring the group's democratic principles of feeding both the body and the mind. Schumann is also a painter who often uses house paint, cardboard, and other common materials to illustrate that anyone can make art. His 1984 Cheap Art Manifesto brings the Italian Arte Povera movement into late 20th century America.
Peter Schumann is one of the most significant and accomplished artists to come out of Vermont. The presentation of his work at Art Hop should be a feather in SEABA's cap. Art Hop often partners with other organizations to bring artistic talent and fresh views to the annual event. According to festival organizer Mark Waskow, Art Hop remains open to anyone who wants to present visual art.
Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel (VTJP) is not a visual arts organization. They work "to support the survival of the Palestinian people and to end the illegal, immoral, and brutal Israeli occupation through education, advocacy, and action." They are affiliated with Burlington's Peace and Justice Center. They are a political group using visual art to make a statement. In 2005, the group brought “ Made in Palestine” to the T.W. Wood Art Gallery. Their website contains articles about contemporary art in Palestine, links to Palestinian artists, and a collection of political cartoons in the region.
The content on VTJP’s website provides examples of anti-Semitism and the dissemination of Holocaust Denial literature. In the "Cartoon" section of VTJP’s website, for example, is Abdullah Dourkawi's winning entry in the International Holocaust Cartoon Competition at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. The cartoon shows a crane sporting a Star of David building a wall around a mosque. The panels of the wall form a photograph of the rail yards at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. The cartoon is presented without commentary or contextualization. The anti-Semitic nature of the cartoon goes unquestioned.
In fact, the contest was sponsored by the Iranian government in response to the Danish Jyllands-Posten newspaper’s series of cartoons about the Muslim prophet Muhammad. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been an international leader of the Holocaust Denial movement and in December 2006 sponsored an international conference on the subject.
The equation of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and Nazi Germany is an example of what historian Deborah Lipstadt calls “soft-core” Holocaust Denial where individuals and groups do not deny the Holocaust outright but rather trivialize and undermine historical fact. This is often done in the spirit of anti-Semitism, in such a way that uses Jewish History as a weapon to hurt, malign, or insult the Jewish people.
Peter Schumann's “Independence Paintings” appear to conitnuation of VTJP's anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic, and Holocaust Denial. The paintings debuted at the Julian Scott Memorial Gallery at Johnson State College in January 2007 and continued on from there to the Boston Center for the Arts Cyclorama where they were on view for four days in February as an accompaniment to a Bread and Puppet performance.
The paintings reportedly show scenes from the Warsaw Ghetto juxtaposed with narrative of the West Bank.
In a letter to the editor of the Boston Phoenix, Frank Levin of Malden, Massachusetts wrote, "Schumann’s installation was a collage of photos of the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto, with text underneath referring to the wall in Israel, “jackboots,” “people being pulled from their homes,” “the oppressor and occupier,” etc., leading to no other conclusion but that he was equating the policies of the Israeli government with those of the Nazis. Later, at the symposium, a woman in my group asked Schumann what the basis of his comparison was; she was met with a chorus of “Zionist Nazi,” denunciations of the Israeli government, and insulting, dead-end rounds of clapping. Schumann then incredulously stated he did not mean to equate Israeli and Nazi policy, when it would be an insult to any viewer’s intelligence to conceive that the impression would be anything but" (Letters to the Editor, Boston Phoenix, March 2, 2007). The woman who asked the question was Susie Davidson, a Boston writer whose recent book, I Refused to Die, chronicled the stories of Boston-area Holocaust Survivors and the soldiers who liberated them.
The equation of Israelis with Nazis and the plight of the Palestinians with the Holocaust is a commonly used tactic of both the anti-Zionist and Holocaust denial movements. Its purpose is to portray Israel’s defence of its sovereignty and right to exist as a desire among the Jewish people to see the extermination of the Palestinian people and to justify acts of violence such as suicide-bombing and killing or kidnapping civilians.
Witnesses of the Boston event all report Schumann stated he did not intend to deny the Holocaust. Rather, he was contrasting the visual information of nine days he spent in the West Bank in the town of Beit Sahour conducting a puppet workshop and John Hersey's book, The Wall, an account of the Warsaw Ghetto. VTJP dismisses accusations they are anti-Israeli and states they are “ firmly opposed to all acts of violence against civilians.”
Group member Bob Greene, described VTJP as “a local peace group made up of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and unchurched people.” He adds, “We have no illusions about whether or not there was a Holocaust: one of our older and most beloved members went through it personally, and a number of others are of European Jewish background.”
In History on Trial, a memoir of being sued for libel by Holocaust Denier David Irving, Lipstadt writes of similar comparisons and their effect. “A different kind of historical distortion was evident in Europe during the build up to the Iraq war. The grotesque equation of President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with Hitler—irrespective of how much one opposes their policies—constitutes a gross whitewash of Nazi crimes…. While these metaphysical attacks on Jews may not cause physical harm, they leave Jews terribly dispirited and prompt them to question their place in a supposedly enlightened Europe.”
How did SEABA and the Art Hop get so deep into this conflict? Mark Waskow is adamant that Art Hop only provides a forum for artistic expression and practices a staunch policy against censorship. While initially agreeing to a more thoughtful presentation of the work, one that contextualizes the work and gives the viewer the tools to question and understand the paintings, Art Hop organizers reneged and decided to allow the presentation to move forward without addressing the anti-Semitism in the work. No explanation was given for the accompanying political program of discussions and film.
SEABA is mum on the content of the paintings, describing them only as “latex house paint on corrugated cardboard” in the 2007 Art Hop Program guide. Original offers by the group to allow access to the paintings prior to September 7th was rescinded.
As a 1975 performance piece done, artist Chris Burden set a clock on a wall and lay down on the floor under a piece of glass and did not move. Viewers came and went. The artist soiled himself. Forty-five hours and ten minutes after he lay down, a museum employee put a glass of water within his reach. The artist smashed the clock with a hammer and left. Peter Schjeldahl, writing in The New Yorker said about the piece, “Doomed unmasked the absurdity of the conventions by which, through assuming the role of viewers, we are both blocked and immunized from ethical responsibility.”
At Art Hop this year, viewers will see a group of paintings by a venerable Vermont artist; presented by a group with a history of anti-Semitism and Holocaust Denial; work that reportedly equates Jews with Nazis; and is passively endorsed by the South End Arts and Business Association.
How will the community of Burlington respond? We'll find out when the show opens at 5PM on September 7th.
by RIC KASINI KADOUR