Kleeblatt, Norman L., ed. Mirroring Evil

In 2002, the Jewish Museum in New York hosted the exhibition Mirroring Evil, which showcased contemporary artwork dealing with the figure of the Nazi perpetrator. This exhibition caused something of a scandal. On the day the exhibition opened, around a hundred people protested, who felt that the exhibition was insulting to the victims of the Holocaust; the Jewish Museum was not the right place to exhibit art that represents Nazis. Contemporary reviews of Mirroring Evil fuelled the controversy surrounding the exhibition. Laura S. Levitt explains that this controversy led to a lack of critical engagement with the content of the exhibition. Gene Ray also outlines the mixed reactions to the exhibition, from outright rejection of its subject matter to an appreciation of what Kleeblatt tried to do (see Linda Nochlin’s article for an example of the latter).

What may have contributed to the controversy is the exhibition’s title – Mirroring Evil. This implies that the exhibition does not only portray evil, but it also mirrors the evil within the visitors – there is evil in all of us. This suggestion was difficult to digest for many visitors to the Jewish Museum, who may have been (related to) survivors of the Holocaust, who were victims and not perpetrators. Originally, the title for the exhibition was supposed to be Art After Maus, referring to the graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman. This title might have framed the exhibition differently.

Trying to pre-empt the expected criticism, the Mirroring Evil: Nazi Imagery/Recent Art catalogue was released prior to the exhibition, in order to show critics and prospective visitors that the exhibition was not a cheap ploy to shock, but rather that there was a thought process behind the exhibition. The catalogue collects an overview of the artwork as well as several essays which engage with the art on display. The contributors come from different backgrounds such as art history, literary studies, and cultural criticism, and the list includes James E. Young, Norman L. Kleeblatt, Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi, Ellen Handler Spitz, Lisa Saltzman, Ernst Van Alphen, and Reesa Greenberg.

In the first essay for the catalogue, “The Nazi Occupation of the White Cube: Transgressive, the curator Norman L. Kleeblatt draws the reader’s attention to the provocative precedents for the artwork displayed in Mirroring Evil, and then discusses how the artists in the exhibition attend to the moral and ethical issues relating to the contemporary society through the use of Nazi imagery.

In the second essay, “Acts of Impersonation: Barbaric Spaces as Theater,” literary scholar Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi explores the complicated issue of identifying with the perpetrator not just in the exhibition but also in both German and Hebrew culture through an extensive study of literature, drama, and film about Holocaust or Nazi.

Ellen Handler Spitz’s “Childhood, Art, and Evil” explores how some of the works in Mirroring Evil problematizes the conventional association between childhood and innocence and how they engage with the subject of evil critically and playfully.

In her “Avant-Garde and Kitsch’ Revisited: On the Ethics of Representation”, art historian Lisa Saltzman associates the works in Mirroring Evil with the 1960s neo-avant-garde movement, and discusses how they play with the aesthetics of kitsch. (For an in-depth discussion of van Alphen’s argument in this essay see the separate entry in this bibliography.)

Literary scholar Ernst van Alphen’s “Playing the Holocaust” discusses the pedagogical role of toy-art in Holocaust remembrance and the issue of identification with Nazi perpetrators through the study of three cases in Mirroring Evil. (For an in-depth discussion of van Alphen’s argument in this essay see the separate entry in this bibliography)

In her “Playing It Safe?: The Display of Transgressive Art in the Museum,” art historian and cultural critic Reesa Greenberg provides a critique of the “playing it safe” curation strategy of art museums today, arguing that Mirroring Evil as a “dangerous exhibition” exemplifies a more viable option for curators, critics, and visitors to engage with the dangerous legacies of Nazi.

See also:

Levitt, Laura S. “Refracted Visions: A Critique of ‘Mirroring Evil: Nazi Imagery/Recent Art’.” Studies in Gender and Sexuality, vol. 6, no. 2 (2205): 199-216.

Nochlin, Linda. “Mirroring Evil: Nazi Imagery/Recent Art.” Art Forum (2002).

Ray, Gene. “Mirroring Evil: Auschwitz, Art, and the ‘War on Terror’.” Third Text, vol. 17, no. 2 (2003): 113-125.

Authors of this entry: Nynke Hartvelt and Chihhen Chang

Kleeblatt, Norman L., ed. Mirroring Evil. New York: Jewish Museum, 2001.