Art Event #1

On Thursday 10/28, visiting artist Mirta Kupferminc came and spoke about her life, her work, and how her past has influenced her life and art immensely.  Mirta's parents were Holocaust survivors, but she was born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina.  Her work encompasses themes of loss, absence, silence, and Jewish questions of heaven and hell, as well as life and death.  The title of her presentation was “The Skin: Space for Repression and Expression.”  Throughout the presentation, Mirta repeated to the audience that the most important thing that happened to her happened before she was born, referring to her parents’ struggle during the Holocaust.  The first piece she focused on was photography and was also the main composition in relation to the title.  There were two photographs.  In one, her mother was sitting in a chair, and her tattoo from the Holocaust with her numbers is visible.  In the other, and Argentinean musician named Christian is sitting in the same chair.  He has tattoos all over his body, Mirta points out, were his choice, and a form of art, unlike her mother’s tattoo.  She went on to tell us that during one of her exhibits, a man was hired to give henna tattoos, but anyone wearing red would have to get a number tattoo, meaning that they would have been victims of the Holocaust during the time.  Mirta wanted to evoke the same feelings in the people who came to her show that Holocaust victims probably felt, so that they could better understand and connect with her work.  Mirta made the chair that both Mirta’s mother and Christian were sitting in.  On the sides of the chair there were wooden wings.  The chair appears in some of her other works.  The last piece of work that Mirta talked about was a video.  The camera was situated underneath of a tightly pulled material that represented skin.  At first, needles were poking the “skin” and the poking gradually got harder.  Then, the needle would thread through the skin with red thread, which caused the audience to wince.  One question that an audience member asked was if Mirta situated the camera inside the skin because she felt the need to be protected and if the skin was possibly a representation of her parents’ pain and struggles.  She said that it was not, because she doesn’t feel the need to be protected, that because the Holocaust happened before her time, history is protecting her.

If Mirta’s parents were not victims of the Holocaust, her struggles in life would not have been as intense.  She didn’t simply make art about the Holocaust, but instead focused on other themes, such as skin, to convey her pain and other thoughts.  I don’t know of any other artists who have similar ideas that Mirta does.  At the end of her presentation Mirta said that she thinks everything in life has meaning.  I know she was talking about the events in life, but relating this to my art, I try to do everything with meaning, and give every stroke or line a purpose.  I do not like to be mindless in my work.