Friday, June 11, 2010

Hitler's Mein Kampf Is Grist For Global Art Project

From Notre Combat by Linda Ellia;
one of 600 works on paper;
artist: Antonia Aimini;
8 ¾ x 5 ½ inches;

Paris, France; 2007.

(All Images Courtesy of the Contemporary Jewish Museum.)

"What should we do with such a book? Ban it? Some would still pass it around on the sly. Forget it? It would be an insult to the millions who died because of it. Burn it? It would be resorting to the methods used by the Nazis..." Ominous words from Auschwitz-Birkenau survivor, Simone Veil, about one of history's most evil books, Adolph Hitler's Mein Kampf (My Struggle) .

From Notre Combat by Linda Ellia;
one of six hundred works on paper;
artist: Jean Dobritz;
8 ¾ x 5 ½ inches;
Paris, France; 2007

Veil's words appear in the preface of a 2007 book entitled Notre Combat (Our Struggle). The book is French artist's Linda Ellia's answer to the questions posed by Veil. When Ellia was confronted with a copy of a new French translation of Mein Kampf, she turned it into raw material for a global art project. The results were published in book form, and the original works are now on display at San Francisco's Contemporary Jewish Museum.

Artist Linda Ellia Holding A Page From
The French Translation Of Mein Kampf,

And An Artist's Alteration Of The Same Page.


As Linda Ellia held the copy of Mein Kampf given to her daughter by a friend, she felt as if she were holding the Holocaust-- in all of its unfathomable horror--in her hands. While Ellia passed a sleepless night wondering how to explain the inflammatory book to her child, she had a brainstorm: what if each page of Mein Kampf were transformed into a work of art? How would each artist express the rage, revulsion, shock, sadness, or devastation created by a single, hate-filled page?

From Notre Combat by Linda Ellia;
one of six hundred works on paper;
artist: Philippe Marchand;
8 ¾ x 5 ½ inches;
Paris, France; 2007


Ellia began by altering a page herself: she found a large, red marker, and drew the anguished face of a woman screaming over the text. "I felt such pleasure, that I continued on about 30 pages,” says Ellia. "I covered them with my words, with my drawings, with my paintings. I cut them up. It’s then that I thought about the others. Why not share the experience that I was in the process of living?"

From Notre Combat by Linda Ellia;
one of six hundred works on paper;
artist: Unknown;
8 ¾ x 5 ½ inches;
Paris, France; 2007.


Ellia wound up sharing the experience with over 600 people from 17 countries. Some were professional artists, but many were writers, poets, musicians, film makers, journalists, victims of the Holocaust, students, teachers, or simply people who learned of the project and wanted to participate. From the beginning, Ellia felt that people from all professions and social classes had something to express when faced with extreme injustice. "I stopped perfect strangers,” she says. "I would go into a café, and based solely on intuition, I would approach people that I thought could create an emotional, artistic page."

From Notre Combat by Linda Ellia;
one of six hundred works on paper;
artist: Anais Eberspecher;
8 ¾ x 5 ½ inches;
Paris, France; 2007


Each person involved in the project was given a single page of Mein Kampf to cut, paste, spindle, fold, mutilate, blacken, whiten, color, or otherwise alter and reshape, into a depiction of their reaction to the original text. "The objective was to express on each page the emotion it evokes," says Ellia. "Every page returned to me provoked a profound response. I felt together we could recreate the book and experience a new reading of the pages. It would become Our Struggle." The hundreds of pages photographed for the book Notre Combat, and the original works now on display in San Francisco, cover nearly every artistic style imaginable, and the reactions of the artists run the gamut from sorrow and sympathy, to outrage and anger, to horror and hope, and even to the blackest of black humor.

From Notre Combat by Linda Ellia;
one of six hundred works on paper;
artist: Vilem;
8 ¾ x 5 ½ inches;
Paris, France; 2007.

"This exhibition creates a unique opportunity for dialogue about tolerance in the modern world," says Contemporary Jewish Museum Director, Connie Wolf. "Each of the 600 participants in Linda Ellia’s extraordinary project gives us a contemporary insight into issues of intolerance which are, unfortunately, still very alive today. The works show us the power of creative resistance, and we hope will inspire new ideas about making a difference." Or to once again quote the eloquent preface to Notre Combat by Simone Veil: "This past is too burdensome to be silenced and whether we want it or not, the Holocaust is our common heritage and we must confront it. Linda Ellia’s work is an expression of this confrontation. It summons us to never forget what was."

From Notre Combat by Linda Ellia;
one of six hundred works on paper;
artist: Wallas Gustave;
8 ¾ x 5 ½ inches;
Paris, France; 2007

Our Struggle: Responding to Mein Kampf was organized by the Contemporary Jewish Museum with the support of the Jewish Community Federation Holocaust Memorial Education Fund, the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. It will remain on display until June 15, 2010. More information and images of the pages are available from the project's website.
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1 comment:

  1. Nice post.It should have been translated in different languages.Very informative and thrilling.French translation or in any translation it would be a blast.Translating book shows the rich blend of knowledge and culture in a society.It is important that books written in a foreign language since it helps one to get acquainted with the thoughts, traditions, principles and actions of the people from the region.

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