This is a painting of artist's uncle dressed in Wehrmacht uniform, made after the old photograph.

The size of the painting is relatable to Tuyman's Gas Chamber (1986). Why is Richter's painting so small? On the one hand, human-size portrait of a Nazi soldier could be perceived as a process of facing the "evil", or rather facing a real person standing behind that "evil", even though a person is blurred and not clear, so it can raise the question if the "evil" can be faced at all; on the other hand, could making a human-size portrait of a Wehrmacht soldier seem inappropriate 20 years after the WWII ended? How this situation can be compared to the situation in contemporary Russia, would it be possible to create a painting of a Wehrmacht soldier and exhibit it, or it would fall under the law of demonstrating Nazi symbols or offending religious people? Is the size of the painting reflects the "unspeakable", related to the Holocaust theme, or it is the "unspeakable" of a different kind?

As discussed above, this work can raise questions of censorship and working with guilt in the second generation.

#history #family #memory #postmemory #painting #photography #censorship