Collections from contexts of violence and abuse pose particular challenges for museums and archives. How do we deal with the knowledge of violent provenances and contexts of creation—and with works by perpetrators? How are such works cataloged and flagged in archives and databases? Who should exhibit them—and if at all, how?
The powerful impact of images and objects cannot simply be separated from their aesthetic or historical significance. In an exhibition space, the manner of presentation can obscure violence, abuse of power, and assaults, thereby contributing to their trivialization or normalization. At the same time, the perspectives and knowledge of those affected are often ignored or dismissed as merely subjective.
The conference “Shred Art by Perpetrators!” explores ways to critically engage with such collections and representations. The focus is on experiences gained from engaging with colonial and racist collections, with images from contexts of Nazi and Holocaust violence, and with artistic works that normalize sexualized violence or pedophilia. What practices of contextualization, intervention, and alienation can help challenge established visual policies and museum routines? And what specific challenges arise when problematic artistic positions are linked to progressive or emancipatory political causes?
The first, public day of the conference will open this discussion with welcoming remarks by Birgit Bosold (Stiftung Schwules Museum) and Susanne Wernsing (curator in Vienna and Hamburg), as well as presentations by the group MATHILDA and Daniel René Hartmann. Following this, Kristina Jaspers will address, in her keynote speech “The Complicity of the Gaze: Photographs of Violence and Their Viewers According to Susan Sontag,” Kristina Jaspers will explore the role played by those who view images of violence. Admission: free!
The conference is organized by the Schwules Museum Foundation in collaboration with the “InQueery Emancipation” project of ASH and HTW Berlin and is funded by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology, and Space.
The second day of the conference, on October 2, is open to registered participants and will delve deeper into the discussion through a keynote address, panel discussions, and a roundtable on the current state of the debate in museums. Unfortunately, registration is no longer open!
Image: Opening of the exhibition “Aufarbeiten,” Schwules Museum, photographed by Yu Mitomi (2023)