Exhibition at the Jewish Museum: Yentl, the Nanny and the Hitler Carpet
Der Standard, November 29, 2022
German original: https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000141338835/yentl-die-nanny-und-der-hitler-teppich
Exhibition "100 Misconceptions about and among Jews" uses humor to dispel clichés and prejudices. New director Staudinger: "Museum is a political place".
Colette M. Schmidt
"Hi Jewboy," it calls out to you in red letters painted on a light blue rectangle. It is one of several paintings by American artist Cary Leibowitz on view in the exhibition 100 Misunderstandings About and Among Jews at the Jewish Museum Vienna. And it points out one of the many misunderstandings right at the beginning of the show: Jew is not a swear word, you don't have to describe it as "Jewish fellow citizens," you can simply call Jews by their names.
Wit with depth
In the exhibition, the new director of the house, Barbara Staudinger, together with her team around chief curator Hannes Sulzenbacher, gets to the heart of the matter with a lot of wit and depth, and also begins to sweep at her own door. The name of the building in Dorotheergasse, Palais Eskeles, is not a historical one, but an art name once invented by the museum to recall Jewish salons. However, the family of the same name owned the house only briefly.
Jewish museums in particular, one learns in the exhibition, have solidified many of the common clichés about Judaism right up to the present. Philosemites, those people who automatically classify everything that is Jewish as special and good, are also taken for a ride here.
No, not all Jews are intellectuals and artists, no, Yentl was not a documentary about an eastern Polish shtetl, but a Hollywood ham. Andy Warhol's portraits of intellectuals such as Franz Kafka, Sigmund Freud or Albert Einstein illustrate this, as does a station about the legendary film with Barbra Streisand and its reception.
Staudinger wants to open the house to a discourse that is not afraid to look behind clichés. "For us, a museum is a political place," Staudinger says. There will also be regular debate evenings at the museum.
Faux leopard skin
But back to the exhibit. Religious myths, such as the various messiahs that have appeared throughout history, are discussed, as are pop culture figures who have shaped the public image: An original costume with short skirt and faux leopard skin by Fran "The Nanny" Drescher can be found, as well as the original baseball bat from Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. The latter leans, not coincidentally, in a corner with artworks that deal with the involuntary victimhood of Jews since the Shoah. A neon sign on the wall reads "Endsieger sind trotzdem wir" - the work by Sophie Lillie and Arye Wachsmuth uses the Nazi word "Endsieg" on the one hand, while on the other it plays with a quote by the artist Heinrich Sussmann, who also meant his own survival in the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Hitler as bedside rug
Beneath the illuminated lettering lies a graying Hitler as a fireside rug. Hitler Rug is the name of this work by Boaz Arad, who died in 2018. Here, too, a misunderstanding is to be cleared up: The biblical quote "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" does not call for revenge; it is meant to limit damage.
Anyone who wants to know more about misconceptions, for example about Jewish sexuality, circumcision, the Mossad or ritual murders, should visit the exhibition. If you don't have a Jewish granny yourself, you can at least have your picture taken for a selfie with a Jewish background: either in front of a family photo wallpaper, a Hakoah team or migrants on a ship off New York.