Ideological Degenerate (Revolutionary Suicide)
- Mixed Media
-
29 x 48 in
(73.66 x 121.92 cm)
- Johanna Vogelsang
Thank you to the Eyerman family--artist Johanna Vogelsang’s daughter Kirsten Eyerman, her granddaughter Kyra Eyerman, and her son-in-law Edward Eyerman--for the generous donation of this work.
Also, thank you to the Hudson County Office of Cultural Affairs and Tourism for the generous grant to mount this exhibit of works by Johanna Vogelsang dealing with Social Justice.
The views expressed in this work are solely those of the artist, and do not reflect the views of Hudson County Community College, the Hudson County Community College Foundation, anyone working at this college, or any local, state or government organization.
According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, a “degenerate” is a person who has, “sunk to a lower and usually corrupt and vicious state.” This was the label Nazis placed on the people they vilified before and during World War II. The label became a justification for cruelty and murder: If a person embraces a false belief that someone is less than human, then harming or killing that person can be justified by that false premise. The Nazis also conducted horrific inhumane “medical” experiments on human beings, and justified this by the fact that they had labeled those people “degenerate.”
A medical experiment authorized by the United States Government called The Tuskegee Syphilis study, which started in the 1930s, left 399 Black American men with syphilis untreated, without their informed consent. This was allegedly done to learn about the course of the disease. The men were told they had “bad blood.” The study went on for 40 years, even though a cure for disease was available in 1947. This destroyed the lives of the individuals and their families. A 1972 Associated Press story about the study caused public outcry that eventually brought the study to an end. Jeri Laber wrote in the Washington Post on September 26, 1975, “To know that torture exists anywhere in the world and not to act is also dehumanizing. Those who shield themselves from the knowledge of what is happening right now to human beings like themselves become silent accomplices.”
Critical educational questions raised by this work are: How do we know when it is time to stand up for others who are being hurt? How do we take effective action on their behalf?
- Created: 1982
- Current Location: 2 Enos Place - 3rd Floor
- Collections: Art that Includes Writing, Mixed Media, Portrait or Figurative, The Totalitarian State, Works by Women