Saturday, December 02, 2006

Lego Ghetto part three

See, I'm not totally alone. What a nice change.

...while misuse of Holocaust imagery in contemporary culture does not lend itself to easy definition or categorization, we, too, can recognize it when we see it. At the same time, we must be careful not to excoriate individuals or institutions merely for seeking to find innovative or unfamiliar ways of dealing with the Shoah.

Four and a half years ago, I was sharply critical of an exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York entitled "Mirroring Evil: Nazi Imagery/Recent Art." That ill-conceived show included one artist's "Giftgas Giftset" of poison gas canisters packaged with Chanel, Hermes and Tiffany & Co. designer logos; a historical photograph of emaciated Buchenwald inmates into which another artist digitally inserted himself holding a can of Diet Coke; a "Lego Concentration Camp Set," complete with crematorium and plastic inmates made with the popular children's building blocks; and an installation of six glorifying plaster busts of the notorious Auschwitz SS doctor Josef Mengele. I believed then and believe today that individually and collectively, these works desecrated and trivialized the Holocaust.

Just because artist Zbigniew Libera's "Lego Concentration Camp Set" was part of an offensive exhibit does not mean, however, that Lego building blocks cannot legitimately be used in the context of Holocaust education. Stephen Schwartz, an American architect, has developed what appears to be an effective children's workshop in which a 400-square-foot replica of the Warsaw Ghetto is constructed with Lego blocks, followed by an age-appropriate history lesson on the ghetto.


Wait, you mean we have to use nuance and judgment? No fair!

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