word shot

In witty ways, the volume [The Holocaust, Art and Taboo] performs what it proposes through its overall design and use of graphic elements. The subtly chosen cover image, part of Ruth Liberman’s 2002 Word Shot series, depicts shot-through German words “whose sound [the artist] hated” (p. 44). Not immediately recognizable as Holocaust art, this word-image poses precisely the kind of questions the collection tackles: Is the Holocaust nothing but a word? What counts as (Holocaust) art? What makes a Jewish artist Jewish? And does art, in its “avant-garde impetus” (p. 11), have no choice but to break taboos?

“Provoking Taboos: Representing Holocaust Art Today,” KULT_online 28 (2011) p. 1. A review by Dr. Julia Faisst of Komor, Sophia; Rohr, Susanne (eds.): The Holocaust, Art and Taboo: Transatlantic Exchanges on the Ethics and Aesthetics of Representation. Heidelberg: Winter, 2010.