The Face and the Number

Memorial and Statistical Narratives in Auschwitz-Birkenau’s Central Sauna Portrait Exhibit

Bibliographic Data

ID12910576
AuthorsDanielle Taschereau Mamers (0000-0002-7089-1449, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume11
Issue1
Pages41-59
Publication date2017-11-27
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePhotography and Culture (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1751-4517 • E-ISSN: 1751-4525
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17514517.2017.1387086
OpenAlexW2770537864
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited22

Statistical data and photographic portraits are two techniques of explanation frequently used to narrate both the magnitude and the specificity of mass death. Numbers offer a census of the dead while photographic portraits promise an intimate glimpse into the specificity of lives lost. This paper analyzes the use of photographic portraits in an installation in the so-called Central Camp Sauna building at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum (ABSM). I analyze the portraits as objects whose meaning and uses have been structured by their history of material transformations, including their material condition in the ABSM installation. I argue that the material relations between the portraits and the other aesthetic elements of the installation tether the evidentiary function of the photographs to the symbolic task of representing absent – and thus abstract – others. This tethering of faces and narratives makes visible a tension between the one and the many, documenting the specificity of individual victims as well as symbolizing both the broader losses of community and the collectivizing character of mass violence

Art · Art history · Character (mathematics · Epistemology · Face (sociological concept · Literature · Meaning (existential · Narrative · Portrait · Social science · Sociology · Visual arts · Mathematics · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Philosophy · Photography and Visual Culture · Visual Culture and Art Theory

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