At the occasion of the 70^th anniversary of the beginning of Doctors’ Trial (1946), one of the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials, the Institute for Contemporary History of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic in co-operation with the Center for Medicine After the Holocaust (Houston) and National Technical Museum in Prague has organised an exhibition dedicated to the investigation, documentation, and impact of Nazi medical war crimes.

Artists Respond to Nazi Medicine and Its Legacy
An art exhibition curated by Andrew Weinstein a show of historical information about Nazi medicine.

Contemplating a history of Nazi eugenics, euthanasia, and harrowing medical experiments forced on human beings, as well as the legacy of such practices in medicine today, participating artists may be called “artist-philosophers” because they consider issues that historians do not ordinarily address.

Half of the artists probe the character of the Nazi mindset that violated age-old medical ethical standards.

Arie A. Galles distills the Nazi contradiction into visual form by placing stripes, like concentration camp uniforms and prison bars, over the ancient Hippocratic Oath, which doctors pledge to “do no harm.” Nazi self-delusions are the focus of Susan Erony, who uses documents about eugenics to investigate the philosophical roots of Nazi ideology and its transgressions. Nazi lies attract the attention of the artistic collaborators Vitaly Komar and Anna Halberstadt, who explore the dialectical contradictions inherent to the swastika alongside one family’s story of Nazi destruction. Aharon Gluska’s manipulations of a Nazi identification photograph of a victim intensify its message of dehumanization.

A dehumanizing attitude in medical science survived the war and remains with us today, suggest the other artists.

With ink-stained sheets of medical-grade latex, Ruth Liberman invites viewers to touch and read the evidence of experiments conducted by the American government and American corporations that ignored or circumvented the principles of the Nuremberg Code, which American judges had established at the trial of Nazi doctors in 1947. Photos by Verena Kaminiarz document her alternative laboratory installation that critiqued current scientific practice and protocols by giving names and comfortable retirements to laboratory mice.

Meanwhile, in what looks like the work of mad scientists, Aziz + Cucher’s monstrous creations remind us of present-day genetic engineering, which advances with little or no public discussion even though it will transform society in unimaginable ways. A video by Heather Dewey-Hagborg, Aurelia Moser, Allison Burtch, and Adam Harvey offers a playful if ultimately serious meditation on the powers and dangers of genetic science as a tool for surveillance. Their call for ac tivism suggests that we all have an interest in the consequences of contemporary medical science.

Artists:

Aziz + Cucher
Heather Dewey-Hagborg, Aurelia Moser, Allison Burtch, and Adam Harvey
Susan Erony
Arie A. Galles
Aharon Gluska
Verena Kaminiarz
Vitaly Komar and Anna Halberstadt
Ruth Liberman

                                 
                                     Aziz + Cucher, Chimera #4, 1998
 

The exhibition was prepared as part of ‘Strategy 21’ programme of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and in collaboration with the Center for Medicine After the Holocaust (Houston), the Claims Conference, International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, and Holocaust Memorial Houston. 

The exhibition is located in the foyer of the 1^st floor of the National Technical Museum.