The ‘Defamiliarising’ Aspect of Art about the Holocaust: New Curatorial Strategies of Display

Abstract

Since the 1980s, art curators have increasingly adopted novel strategies of display of visual art that explores the subject of the Holocaust, including a movement away from images of Jewish victimisation towards more detached and ‘defamiliarising’ representational attitudes. This essay discusses this transition, suggesting that the changes in art display emerged alongside generational shifts and involved a re-evaluation of the representation of the Holocaust in the visual arts. This analysis focuses on a number of exhibitions and artworks displayed in art museums and galleries in the United States in the 1990s, exploring how the new curatorial paradigm challenged and, to a certain degree, altered the public perceptions of the role of art about the Holocaust.