I'm planning to write more eloquently about the exhibit to see if I can't get my foot in the door at one of the magazines in town that cover such things. Tonight though, I'm still trying to come to terms with what I saw and how it affected me to the point where I just had to leave the building, go back to my car, and cry it out.
First exhibit:
Mark Seliger, a former Rolling Stones photographer who has probably shot your favorite photos of bands and actors, has a book out of the same name as the exhibit. The poster is a bit misleading, since the other 20 or so photos are portraits of Holocaust survivors, and most of those seen out of context don't scream Holocaust survivor. Take this picture for example:
What was tough about the exhibit wasn't so much the photos as the quotes from the interviews. I don't have a copy of the book, so I don't know how they got these people to give such mind-blowing quotes, but I would be reading along and come across emotional gut punches that turned any preconceptions I had into dust. "The day we received the tattoos was a good day for us; we had received them as if they were passports for life."
"Sometimes people ask, "Did it make you a stronger person?" I don't think suffering makes you strong."
One sole survivor of her family talks about leaving her mother in the bunk, knowing she would be dead when she returned, how she escaped and moved to New York. "I never discussed the Holocaust with my husband."
Another: "I find that the best ones went, and we who survived are the worst. My father and brother could never survive, not even a day. They were fine, sensitive, idealistic." This same person discusses suicidal thoughts after the war. "I gave myself a year. I told myself that, if I could make a human being out of myself, I would continue. And if not ..."
Those three dots still bring the tears to the surface.
Holy fucking shitballs, I was glad to be the only person in the exhibit, reading these stories, writing down the quotes that suckerpunched me.
Then, in the hallway, the second exhibit. The theme and name is "The Human Condition: A Survey of Humanity"
So after reading the stories of Holocaust survivors, I was taken through a wide array of photos showing the best and worst humanity has to offer, the joyous and the depressing, the weird and the amazing. Here's the winner of this show, titled "My Father, Pensive"
And it just makes you want to fucking wrap yourself up in puppy kisses and orphan dreams cause I see myself, too, sitting there in 40 years wondering what the hell's next.
Another photo had me creating a hell of a story for two little girls and the state of their lives when this is where they live: Check it out here. They apparently live in those mini-tubs? Shit, man.
And this one, the second place winner, must be seen in person. It's called Before the Briss, and the lighting is just unreal.
So, after being primed with Holocaust survivors and then washing through decades of photos that detail atrocities and triumphs of the human soul since then, (more here), you come to the third exhibit, Photographer Doug Knutson's portraits of Nobel Peace Prize winners.
Now, you'd think after the raw nerve scrubbing of the past two galleries, that portraits of nice people would be just the thing to help salve the open wounds of your soul. Not so.
Desmond Tutu, Elie Wiesel, The Dalai Lama and others look right at you, in you, and you can see their goodness and feel how you pale in comparison, and you finally can't hold it back any longer and have to leave to go back to your car and back to your wife who is in her fourth day of sickness but getting better, and back to your life of personal and interpersonal struggles. It's a cold day. The first layer of snow sticks to the pavement in this rather dismal, industrial section of north Minneapolis. Winter is coming, and we're all going to need some emotional super-juicing to get through it. The exhibits run through Jan. 4, so go see them.
No comments:
Post a Comment