Tuesday, May 14, 2024 GUESTS WELCOME

1:30 pm via Zoom 

Art and the Demands of Memory at the Katzen Art Center

Aneta Georgievska-Shine, professor of art history, University of Maryland

This exhibition deals with ways in which art is shaped by memories of traumatic experiences, focusing on the “second generation” Jewish artists/survivors. For most of these artists, these memories exist only through the accounts of their parents or relatives. Nonetheless, they are often just as “real” regarding their impact on their work.

Learn about each artist’s personal story, sensibilities, and shared preoccupation with the past and how it has left an imprint. Some approach this through direct storytelling using the language of representation. Others are more abstract or conceptual. Some depict specific places associated with the wartime experiences of their family members, while others revisit those sites of trauma more metaphorically. Some of their works have an almost documentary character. In others, the beholder is led along oblique pathways toward broader themes of identity, displacement, migration, and oblivion.