Darsie Alexander - Böcker

A strikingly original exploration of the profound impact of World War II on how we understand the art that survived itBy the end of World War II an estimated one million artworks and 2.5 million books had been seized from their owners by Nazi forces; many were destroyed. The artworks and cultural artifacts that survived have traumatic, layered histories. This book traces the biographies of these objects—including paintings, sculpture, and Judaica—their rescue in the aftermath of the war, and their afterlives in museums and private collections and in our cultural understanding. In examining how this history affects the way we view these works, scholars discuss the moral and aesthetic implications of maintaining the association between the works and their place within the brutality of the Holocaust—or, conversely, the implications of ignoring this history.  Afterlives offers a thought-provoking investigation of the unique ability of art and artifacts to bear witness to historical events. With rarely seen archival photographs and with contributions by the contemporary artists Maria Eichhorn, Hadar Gad, Dor Guez, and Lisa Oppenheim, this catalogue illuminates the study of a difficult and still-urgent subject, with many parallels to today’s crises of art in war.  Published in association with the Jewish Museum, New York  Exhibition Schedule:Jewish Museum, New York(Opens August 2021)

Multimedia artist with a unique voice Over the past two decades, Lisa Oppenheim has developed a critically acclaimed practice that is deeply rooted in the field of photography while also constantly exploring its margins. She often focuses on the unexplored potential of the medium's artistic, technological, and sociopolitical histories. Combining material experimentation with archival research, Oppenheim transforms— or, in her words, “reprocesses”—images and ideas both recent and historical by employing creative mechanisms ranging from a host of photographic processes to other media such as textiles, film and video, and, most recently, sculpture. Published in conjunction with her exhibition Monsieur Steichen at MUDAM Luxembourg, this richly illustrated catalogue surveys Oppenheim's works from the past dozen years, and includes new texts by Darsie Alexander, Christophe Gallois, Jacob Proctor, and Bettina Steinbrügge, as well as a conversation between Lisa Oppenheim and artist Liz Deschenes.