Gordon N. Murray
Crimes of Silence, 2004
NY
One of twenty copies. Signed by the artist.
591
Folio. (20)pp, accordionfold, which, when fully expanded, reach a monumental 60 feet in length. The text of Martin Niemöller's well-known confessional poem, written in response to the crimes of Hitler...
Folio. (20)pp, accordionfold, which, when fully expanded, reach a monumental 60 feet in length. The text of Martin Niemöller's well-known confessional poem, written in response to the crimes of Hitler and his fascist government, recounts with terrible rhythm the progressive disenfranchisements and eventual murders of various groups deemed unfit by the fascists. Niemöller's disillusionment extends both the direct perpetrators and those who watched the events unfold and still maintained an air of silence. it is among the first in a wave of artistic expressions that posed the question "Who is responsible?", painful proposition later conveyed by Alan Resnais's documentary Night and Fog and Margerethe von Trotta's The German Sisters as part of a lineage of reckonings with complicity and trauma. Murray's visual interpretation forces the situation into a view of such proportions that it becomes impossible to turn away. The enormous silkscreen illustrations reproduce images all to familiar to the record of the Holocaust, and that bear an disconcerting similarity to totalitarian actions taken today. Sheets held in box of rough wood, tied with cord. Fine.