unguided tour

Memory is performative. To remember is to repeat.
Not every memory gets performed and repeated. Some memories are so horrific that we censor their re-presentation. Perpetrator memories of the Holocaust as sexual extravaganza belong to this category.

Liliana Cavani’s controversial 1974 movie The Night Porter has been labeled “Nazi chic” (Roger Ebert). For some critics the film is a shamelessly pornographic fantasy of the Holocaust, a “sentimental idyll … exalting romantic love between victim and victimizer, against the brute reality of Nazi violence,” (Marga Cottino-Jones) using the Holocaust as a mere “backdrop to the erotic/sadomasochistic misadventures of Max and Lucia, Nazi and victim” (Rebecca Scherr); a “despicable attempt to titillate [the viewer] by exploiting memories of persecution and suffering.” (Ebert)
I’m not convinced.

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What is the difference between a rug and a map?

I confess the question never entered my mind until two weeks ago when I saw Mona Hatoum’s outstanding sculpture “Bukhara” in a group show at the Belvedere (Die Macht des Ornaments, through May 21, 2009).

“Bukhara” is a handwoven Turkmen-style carpet with the ancient Bukhara pattern, a geometric, octagonal ‘elephant’s foot’ print erroneously attributed to the Uzbek city of the same name. (For 2500 years — until the end of the 19th century when borders were redrawn — Bukhara, was a center of scholarship and the arts in Central Asia. From BukharaTurkmen rugs found their way to the West.) (more…)