Art and architecture of the Shoah: open problems

Somehow ironically, the art and architecture related to the Holocaust - in Europe generally referred as the Shoah - are among the most lively phenomena of the contemporary world. Especially after 1989, which marks the fall of the Berlin wall, the memory of the Holocaust is indeed gone far beyond the historical dictate. Citizens of today are now facing a 'globalized' and multi-faceted memory of the Holocaust, as evidenced, for instance, by the construction of a new class museums in many Western cities, following the model of Yad Vashem, in Jerusalem. Not always, however, the world of critics and the so-called 'art system' as a whole has shown to be in step with the times and, for relapse, to be able to give proper answers to the issues that these artifacts pose. The seminar starts from the critical phenomenon as a whole, to focus later on some key cases. These include the Risiera di San Sabba in Trieste; the Jewish Museum in Berlin; the project of Museum of the Holocaust in Rome and the Holocaust Museum in the recent re-setting by David Gafni in Kibbutz Yad Mordecai, Israel.