Activist art as historical lens to the Austrian memories of the Nazi past
In
recent years, historians have broadened their focus on Austrian cultural
responses to the legacy of the Holocaust. The scope of research has
included texts, film, music and plays as subversive responses to the
marked silence around the Austrian complicity in Nazi criminality.
Within the emerging literature, visual art has largely been neglected.
Accordingly, the focus of this presentation is memory artivist Gottfried
Helnwein (1948-), who has spent his artistic career challenging the
Austrian memories of the Nazi past.
[1]
Helnwein's
provocations have, oftentimes, been met with hostility: they have also
been met with silence. The proposed presentation will
examine Helnwein's artistic engagement with a protracted and ultimately
unsuccessful campaign to bring 'euthanasia' doctor, Heinrich Gross, to
justice.
'The Gross Affair' played out in the Austrian courts and
press over 20 years. As the former head of a neurological clinic, Gross
was accused of authorising the deaths of hundreds of children during his
wartime employment.Led by Gross's former victims and their families, as
well as outlying medical professionals, Helnwein was the only artist to
directly address Gross during this period (1979 – 1999). The public
silence that marked the campaign was compounded by the vested interest
that Austrian elites had in silencing the memory of the Nazi past.
A staunch commitment to post-war silence allowed former Nazis to retain
powerful positions and continue to marginalise Nazi victims.
For two
decades, as new evidence about the psychiatrist was revealed, neither
reporting, nor Helnwein's provocative responses received overwhelming
public attention. Yet, this does not negate the vital and confronting
work of Helnwein's interventions. Acting as an agent of historical
memory, Helnwein's strength as a memory artivist was in visualising
reminders of historical truths silenced by society. Working in the realm
of affect, Helnwein sought to probe the individual's conscience in
profound and shocking ways.
It could be argued that to measure the
efficacy of a memory artivist on public responses to art addressing a
society largely committed to silence would be missing the point. Rather,
by using Helnwein's art as a historical lens, it is the observable
manifestations of silence in the face of artistic provocation that
reveal fresh insights into a dark chapter of Austrian history many would
rather ignore.
['Memory
Artivist' draws on historian Carol Gluck's definition of the 'memory
activist' and 'artivism' which is the portmanteau of art and
activism. C. Gluck, 'Operations of Memory: "Comfort Women" and the
World', in S. Miyoshi Jager & R. Mitte, eds., Ruptured Histories:
War, Memory, and the Post-Cold War in Asia, (London: Harvard University
Press, 2007), 56-57.