It's difficult to say something new about the Holocaust in face of an immense body of work produced over seven decades. Consequently more outlandish forms of expression are often required to inspire a fresh reaction.
Israeli artist Gil Yefman works with text, textures and textiles, weaving works that present a colorful version of sexuality and human identity. In the apt prisonlike setting of The Container (a shipping container inside a Daikanyama hair salon), the topic of an Auschwitz sex slave is treated with originality and creeping power for the exhibition "H." The title is a play on the Japanese "ecchi" — a slang term to describe sexual fantasy, roughly translated as "dirty" or "naughty."
The centerpiece is a knitted sculpture of a dismembered person manacled on a bed. Viewers are invited to touch — and the fact it is knitted from brightly colored fabric gives it a tactile, friendly appearance, arousing conflicted reactions. It seems to be mostly a woman, but an erect phallus protrudes from its head questioning its gender and ejaculating squishy knitted drops of blood. A vaginalike orifice meanwhile gapes like a flower inviting a willing hand. The body is studded with watchful eyes, organs roll about, intestines dangle. Even the chains binding its legs, which appear worn down to cartoonlike bones, seem cuddly and cute.
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