NATALIE ARNOLDI: This Happened Here September 15 - October 31, 2018 | Venice, CA
This Happened Here
This Happened Here As an artist I have always been interested in communicating strong emotional narratives in my work. In many of my paintings I use universal iconography to evoke scenes that are at once ambiguous and highly personal. One of my earliest bodies of work included paintings of old rail road tracks leading into the fog. To me, these works are at once melancholy and serene, representing an unknown journey and the legacy of railroads in this country which is so closely tied to the modernization of our society. However, a few years ago a woman broke down in my studio looking at one of my railroad paintings. She explained that her grandmother had been a prisoner at Auschwitz-Birkenau, and that my painting evoked for her the moment when her grandmother arrived at that hell on earth. This experience made me realize the potential power of a painting and how capturing a particular place and atmosphere could generate a strong emotional connection with a piece of history. I began to do research on the Holocaust and found that I was drawn to historical images of spaces from Nazi concentration and death camps. The contradiction of these rooms, which are so mundane in appearance but are the site of heinous acts of cruelty, haunted me. Not only because of what occurred within them, but because as many of the last Holocaust survivors pass away, these places will soon be last physical relic of the largest manifestation of human evil in history. Although I am not a particularly spiritual person, I believe that places carry the feeling of past occurrences, and that a unique type of empathy can be evoked by inhabiting these spaces. My goal in creating these paintings is to generate that same kind of empathic experience. I recently travelled to Poland to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek. It is impossible to accurately describe how it feels to visit these places in person; they are devastating, humbling, and powerfully perspective-altering. Genocide is something we all know exists, but is often too distant or troubling to fully comprehend. Being in a place where countless people were stripped of their humanity and thousands of innocents were murdered forces you to confront the Holocaust and makes you question humanity and your own morality. Nothing can compare with the visceral, heart breaking power of visiting these places in person, but if I can convey even a small piece of that feeling in this body of work, then these paintings are a success. I am not Jewish, nor was my family directly impacted by the Holocaust, but this is a part of our collective history that we need to confront, especially now when our news cycle is so often dominated by stories of prejudice and so many in power tout narratives spreading fear and mistrust. I make these paintings as a human being deeply saddened and angered by what happened before and fearful of what will happen in future if we forget. I hope these paintings serve as a platform for remembrance and introspection. Each painting in this series depicts a real room in a concentration camp and their titles refer to the dates when each respective camp was liberated by the Allied forces. -Natalie Arnoldi, 2018
A few years ago a woman broke down in my studio looking at one of my railroad paintings. She explained that her grandmother had been a prisoner at AuschwitzBirkenau, and that my painting evoked for her the moment when her grandmother arrived at that hell on earth.
Helix, oil on canvas, 55 x 65 inches, created by the artist in 2012
Strain, oil on linen, 22 x 18 inches, created by the artist in 2014 Ed Moses Estate
Tarnish, oil on linen, 18 x 22 inches, created by the artist in 2014 Ed Moses Estate
Dachau concentration camp (Konzentrationslager [KZ] Dachau) was the first large scale camp established by the Nazi regime and was operational from March 1933 until its liberation by American Forces on April 29, 1945. Located in Southern Germany, the camp was originally intended to hold an incarcerated work force of German political prisoners. Over time, other groups were imprisoned and murdered at KZ Dachau, including Jews, Jehovah’s witnesses, Roma (Gypies), homosexuals, and “asocials”. Throughout its duration, it is estimated that 188,000 prisoners were incarcerated and at least 32,000 died at KZ Dachau. Prisoners were forced to live and work in inhospitable conditions and constant fear of brutal and inhumane treatment. This painting depicts the entrance to the gas chamber at KZ Dachau. Brausebad, meaning “baths” or “shower” in German, was painted above the door to preserve the facade that the chamber within was merely for decontamination, rather than execution.
April 29, oil on canvas, 102 x 96 inches, created by the artist in 2016
Mauthausen concentration camp was established by the Nazi regime in Northern Austria in 1938 and was operational until its liberation on May 5, 1945. Originally housing male political prisoners transferred from KZ Dachau and, later, people from a suite of different groups including many Jews, Mauthausen was infamous for its brutal conditions. Over the seven years it was operational, more than 190,000 prisoners were held at the camp and it is estimated that over 90,000 people died there. However, because SS officers destroyed many of the camp’s records before it was liberated, it is impossible to determine exactly how many people were murdered. Like other concentration and death camps, KZ Mauthausen used gassing operations, firing squads and other forms of execution, and many died of disease, starvation, and exposure. This painting depicts the operating room adjacent to the gas chambers where gold teeth and other valuables were removed from victims after execution.
May 5 II, oil on canvas, 81 x 67 inches, created by the artist in 2018
Breendonk internment camp was established by the Nazi regime in a Belgian fortress outside of Antwerp, Belgium in August 1940. The camp held approximately 4,000 prisoners throughout the four years it was operational until it was abandoned in August 1944 as Allied forces approached. Several hundred prisoners were murdered by means of execution, torture, and inhumane living conditions. This painting depicts a torture chamber at Breendonk interment camp and is based on a photograph taken in 1944 and accessed from the United States Holocaust Museum Archive. The following notes accompany documentation of the room: “Note the table on which the prisoner was beaten [‌] The marks on the wall and roof indicate where a pulley used to be. Prisoners were strung up to the roof by means of a pulley -sometimes feet-first, sometimes head-first. The pulley was dismantled by the Germans in August 1944.â€?
August, oil on canvas, 102 x 96 inches, created by the artist in 2016
Mauthausen concentration camp was established by the Nazi regime in Northern Austria in 1938 and was operational until its liberation on May 5, 1945. Originally housing male political prisoners transferred from KZ Dachau and, later, people from a suite of different groups including many Jews, Mauthausen was infamous for its brutal conditions. Over the seven years it was operational, more than 190,000 prisoners were held at the camp and it is estimated that over 90,000 people died there. However, because SS officers destroyed many of the camp’s records before it was liberated, it is impossible to determine exactly how many people were murdered. Like other concentration and death camps, KL Mauthausen used gassing operations, firing squads and other forms of execution, and many died of disease, starvation, and exposure. This painting depicts the entrance to the gas chamber at Mauthausen. The circular window in the metal door was referred to as the “Judas Opening� and offered a window into the interior room so that SS officers could monitor the suffering within.
May 5, oil on canvas, 81 x 67 inches, created by the artist in 2017
Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp (Konzentrationslager [KL] Auschwitz) was established by the Nazi regime in German occupied Poland in 1940. The original camp, Auschwitz I, was situated on a former Polish army base and could hold approximately 16,000 prisoners. As the operation grew, the camp facilities were expanded to include two additional large camps, Auschwitz II (Auschwitz-Birkenau) and Auschwitz III (Monowitz), and several smaller satellite camps. At the height of the camp’s operational capacity in 1944, KL Auschwitz covered about 40 square kilometers and held an approximate 135,000 prisoners, comprising 25% of all people being held in the Nazi concentration camp system. Combining the labor camp organizational structure of KZ Dachau with the extermination methods of death camps like Treblinka and Belzec, prisoners were sent to KL Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau as slave laborers and to be murdered by mass extermination in gas chambers. During the camp’s 5 years of operation, an estimated 1.1 million people were murdered. The vast majority (1 million), of the victims were Jews. Other groups victimized include Poles, Soviet POWs, Gypsies, Byelorussians, Ukrainians, French and many others. Auschwitz was liberated on January 27, 1945 by the Soviet Army. This painting depicts the gas chamber at Auschwitz I, where thousands of victims were murdered. Upon construction of much larger gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1942, the gas chamber at Auschwitz I was no longer used. However, in the days leading up to the camp’s liberation by the Soviet army, SS officers destroyed the crematoriums and gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau and no photographic documentation exists of these.
The international monument at Auschwitz-Birkenau built upon the ruins of Crematoriums II & III reads: Forever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity, where the Nazis murdered about one and a half million men, woman, and children, mainly Jews from various countries of Europe. Auschwitz-Birkenau 1940-1945
(image on following pages) January 27, oil on canvas, 102 x 192 inches, created by the artist in 2016
Majdanek (Konzentrationslager [KL] Lublin) was a German concentration and extermination camp located outside the city of Lublin along Poland’s eastern border. The camp operated from October 1941 and until it was liberated on July 22, 1944. During this time, an estimated 150,000 prisoners were held at the camp and 79,000 men women and children were murdered. Because of the rapid advance of the Red Army, Majdanek was abandoned by SS forces nearly intact and was the first camp discovered by Allied Forces. It remains one of the best preserved Nazi concentration camps. This painting depicts the “SS� room, located next to the carbon monoxide chamber where victims were murdered using the gas. The window visible in the corner allowed the officer in charge of administering the gas to observe the victims within the chamber. This is the only painting in the exhibition painted from a photograph taken by the artist in current times.
Majdanek, oil on canvas, 81 x 67 inches, created by the artist in 2018
All Artwork and Text Š 2018 Natalie Arnoldi Exhibition Images Š 2018 Charlotte Jackson Fine Art, Inc. ART SANTA FE PRESENTS, INC. 554 S. Guadalupe St., Santa Fe, NM 87501 artsantafepresents.org presscontact3@artsantafepresents.org This catalog was produced by Art Santa Fe Presents, Inc., a tax exempt 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to further the understanding of contemporary art through a variety of public programs including art criticism and the publicaiton of artists books.