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Art and Auschwitz: A Dialogue on a Last Expression

When
Monday, March 11, 2024
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM
Location
Hybrid, BCC H-402 and Zoom

Registration

Berkshire Museum Members – $10.00
Non-members/general public – $15.00
OLLI at BCC members – $10.00
Student/ Staff/ Faculty of BCC, MCLA, Simon's Rock, and Williams
WIC/ EBT/ ConnectorCare Card Holders

Registration is closed

The OLLI Distinguished Speakers Series presents

Art and Auschwitz: A Dialogue on a Last Expression

With David Mickenberg

Monday, March 11, 2024
at 2 p.m. ET

Hybrid: In-person at Berkshire Community College and also via Zoom

It is difficult to imagine that amidst the horrors of the holocaust, surrounded by death and destruction, loneliness and loss, art survived and was called upon by both perpetrator and victim. It is hard to understand how victims, whose identity was denied and whose dignity was removed, could attempt to combat these circumstances through the act of putting pencil to paper, reciting Shakespeare from memory, or writing and illustrating annotated diaries.

Amid the desolation of the camps, some found a way through art to express love, tenderness, emotion, humor, sexuality, aesthetic concerns, political ideology, or religious fervor. Through drawing and poetry, painting and performance victims expressed empathy for the past, hope for the future, and engaged in resistance. Such creative action might never be received by its intended audience or had no intended audience other than its author. More hauntingly, art might also be bartered for the necessities of survival. This presentation will look at the array of roles that the arts played in the camps, Auschwitz in particular.

David Mickenberg has served as the Director of both the Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, and the Director of the Davis Museum at Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts. He was also President and CEO of both the Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke, Virginia, and the President and CEO of the Allentown Art Museum in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He was a faculty member at the Getty Leadership Institute in Los Angeles, California, Co-Chair of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in the Arts at Northwestern University and adjunct faculty in art history and museum studies at Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pennsylvania. He currently is President of the Lehigh Valley Arts and Cultural Alliance in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He is the co-editor of The Last Expression: Art and Auschwitz and co-curator of the exhibition of the same title. He is one of several authors of the book, Printmaking in American, 1960-1990 and author of Songs of Glory: Medieval Art 12th through 15th Centuries.

PHOTO CREDITS

Dina Gottlebova Babbitt (1923-2009)
Watercolor on paper
Portraits of Romani, 1944

Mieczyslaw Koscielniak (1912-1993)
Ink on Cardboard
Roll Call at Auschwitz, 1944

Horst Rosenthal (1915-1942)
Watercolor on paper
Mickey Mouse au Camp de Gurs, 1942

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Ticket information:

Admission is $10 for OLLI at BCC and Berkshire Museum members, and $15 for the general public.

Admission is free for students, staff and faculty from Berkshire Community College, MCLA, Simon's Rock, and Williams; youth 17 and under, and those holding WIC, EBT/SNAP, or ConnectorCare cards.

Pre-registration is required. Register safely and securely online or call 413.236.2190 (M-F 9am-4pm) to register by phone with a credit card.

In Partnership with the Berkshire Museum