Korperschaft
- Mixed Media
-
45 x 49.5 x 1.75 in (framed)
(114.3 x 125.73 x 4.45 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.
The painting part of this work depicts events in the Nazi evacuation of Poland’s Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. According to the U.S. Holocaust Museum, Jewish people comprised more than 1/3 of the Polish population before World War II. In 1939, the Nazis invaded Poland. By 1940, they forced about 400,000 Jewish people into what was called the Warsaw Ghetto, a 1.3 mile area in Poland’s capital city, which they surrounded by a ten-foot-high brick wall, topped by a barbed wire fence. More than seven people had to occupy each room in the ghetto. Over 83,000 died of starvation and disease. In 1942, Nazis sent 265,000 residents to a concentration camp called Treblinka, where they were killed. When Warsaw Ghetto residents learned that the Nazis killed those who had left, not resettled them as the German authorities had promised, the remaining Warsaw Ghetto residents revolted, in what was called the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. All attempts to survive and fight back failed. In 1943, the Nazis attacked and destroyed the ghetto, and killed all who remained. If you wish to find out more, please read history books or check reliable web-based research sites. Librarians and/or professors can help you find trustworthy sources.
Why is this work called “Korperschaft”, which is the German word for “Corporation”? In 1978, through Executive Order 12093, President Jimmy Carter established the Presidential Commission on the Holocaust to address three questions: Why remember? Whom are we to remember? How are we to remember? The artist quotes the author of the Commission's findings, Elie Wiesel, and also Richard L. Rubenstein: “The holocaust was not a throwback to medieval torture or archaic barbarism, but a thoroughly modern expression of bureaucratic organization, industrial management, scientific achievement, and technological sophistication. The entire apparatus of the German bureaucracy was marshaled in the service of the extermination process…. The death camps were thus, a logical conclusion to the values and procedures that predominate in modern corporate enterprise.” This statement brings in to question how and if we can direct corporate power toward the purpose of human and environmental health, happiness, and survival?
- Framed: 45 x 49.5 x 1.75 in (114.3 x 125.73 x 4.45 cm)
- 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