Caught by History Holocaust Effects in Contemporary Art, Literature, and Theory

Library Journal

Van Alphen, director of communication and education at the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, takes three artistsCharlotte Salomon, Christian Boltanski, and Armandoand uses their works to describe the nature of artistic production after Auschwitz. He sees tragedies of narrative technique and historic imagination as cultural artifacts in dealing with human catastrophe and representation, mimesis, and reenactment as three significant methods of describing the indescribable. Salomon is carefully described as an artist of resistance, while French artist Boltanski is presented as an exemplar of archival art. The Dutch writer Armando uses the war as a metaphoric statement, as an index to reality. The last chapter is van Alphen's experience, both uncanny and sublime, of living in the house of a Holocaust victim. A difficult subject, well reasoned and thought out; recommended for academic libraries.Gene Shaw, NYPL