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Dr. Otmar von Verschuer examines twins at
the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. As the head of the Institute's
department
for human heredity, von Verschuer, a physician and geneticist,
examined hundreds of pairs of twins to study whether
criminality, feeble-mindedness, tuberculosis, and cancer
were inheritable. In 1927, he recommended the forced
sterilization of the "mentally and morally subnormal."
Perfection is a dangerous thing. Who sets the standards
and to what extent will we go in order to achieve it? These,
of course, are not new questions. But in typical Warholian
fashion, this winter The Andy Warhol Museum will deliver
a dramatically fresh approach to considering them.
The
fact that leading medical experts of the time legitimized
Adolf Hitler’s genocide by advocating for racial
hygiene is the focus of Deadly Medicine: Creating
the Master Race, a traveling exhibition developed
by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and on view at
The Warhol December 16 through
March 18, 2007.
In tandem, The Warhol will encourage visitors
to explore their own ideas of beauty and precision, with
Director
Tom Sokolowski proposing this conversation starter: “Aren’t
we working towards creating a master race of sorts through
genetic engineering?” Add to that present-day society’s
penchant for plastic surgery and the subsequent erosion
of ethnic characteristics, and Sokolowski wonders, “Will
everyone end up looking like Britney Spears? Is that
something we want?”
Obviously, the Nazis didn’t
have Britney Spears in mind when they set out to conquer
Europe, but they did
march to the drum beat of eugenics. A popular theory
of the day, eugenics argued that the intellectually and
physically
inferior were depleting social and economic resources,
and if left unchecked would ultimately cost far more.
Deadly Medicine draws on hundreds of artifacts, photographs,
photographic reproductions and survivor testimonies to
tell the story of how reputable German physicians, psychiatrists,
geneticists, anthropologists, and public health officials
embraced the concept of eugenics—even before Hitler
took power in 1933. They welcomed his regime because
of its emphasis on biology and heredity and the additional
funding it brought for their research.
According to Hitler’s
deputy, Nazism was “applied
biology.” Consequently, the regime touted the “Nordic
race” as its eugenic ideal and attempted to mold
Germany into a cohesive national community that excluded
anyone deemed hereditarily “less valuable” or “racially
foreign.”
Complicity by the medically trained empowered
the government to begin constructing a policy of positive
incentives,
such as tax credits to foster large “valuable” families,
and negative measures, such as forced sterilization to
limit genetic “inferiors.” Under the cover
of war, however, the Nazis took eugenics to the uncharted
territory of genocide, systematically murdering six million
Jews, as well as hundreds of thousands of gypsies, homosexuals,
and the physically and mentally ill.
As a way of exploring
the continued attraction of biological and reconstructive
utopias that promote the possibility
of human perfection, The Warhol will feature its namesake’s
10 Most Famous Jews (Gertrude Stein and Franz Kafka,
to name two); portraits of Park Avenue ladies who have
had
several plastic surgeries too many; and beauty composites
that bring, for example, Greta Garbo’s forehead,
Joan Crawford’s eyes, Marlene Dietrich’s
nose and Sophia Loren’s lips together to create
one unsettling image. Also on view will be objects that
are said to represent
perfection, like a Greek bust and a cockroach (yes, a
cockroach; after all, this particular pest has managed
to survive
just about every imaginable cataclysmic event and flourish).
Programming
centered around the exhibition will include a slate of
lectures featuring philosophers, scientists,
and visual artists discussing topics ranging from history
and ethics to fashion and style; an outreach program
to area high school students; and a series of films that
could
include the obvious (Schindler’s List), as well
as the unexpected (The Stepford Wives).
“
This exhibition should provoke us into thinking about
the relationship between the needs and rights of individuals
as weighed against the larger concerns of the society,” says
Susan Bachrach, the Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Deadly
Medicine curator. “Scientists dreamed of
perfecting human beings by changing the genetic makeup
of the population.
So this does offer a cautionary note in that regard.
And it certainly also speaks to the importance of always
respecting
the value of the individual and the human dignity of
the individual.”
And what of the individual artist
who also dreams of creating perfection? “Art puts
forth a notion of perfection and beauty,” Sokolowski
says; “is it then a
form of eugenics?”
Time will tell.
This exhibition is organized by
the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington,
DC, and curated by its Curator of Special Exhibitions,
Susan Bachrach. Deadly Medicine is sponsored in part by
The David Berg Foundation, Lorraine and Jack H. Friedman,
The Blache and Irving Laurie Foundation, and The Viterbi
Family Foundation.
The exhibition is locally co-presented by The Holocaust
Center Of The United Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh
and sponsored by UPMC.