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A Lingering Presence — A New Temporary Photography Exhibition by the Irish Photographer Simon Watson
An exhibition of photographs by Simon Watson of Ireland will open on July 2 to mark the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the Museum, and will run until August 2.
This is the first exhibition of its type at the Museum. 17 large-format photographs are being shown in the former camp laundry building. Watson took them in original Auschwitz and Birkenau interiors that are not open to visitors.
Watson has been at work on the exhibition since the autumn of 2005. He has visited the Museum several times and taken about 300 photographs. He says that he wanted to capture the melancholy of empty spaces marked by the presence and suffering of thousands of prisoners.
In his work, Watson looked for vestiges of lost memory, seeking the transformation of those vestiges in material remains and attempting to depict the nostalgia of their endurance. That is why he calls his exhibition Lingering Presence.
Watson will publish some of the photographs in an upcoming book.
Simon Watson, Lingering Presence, photographs
Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
Oświęcim, July 2 – August 2, 2007
Artist CV and Exhibition History
Simon Watson, a native of Dublin, Ireland, has been living and working in New York for seventeen years. Although he studied film at the Liberties College in Dublin, he experimented in painting and other forms of visual art before concentrating on photography.
His recent solo show at Richard Anderson Fine Arts titled “Melancholia” documented the dark and quiet spaces of an abandoned house in Brooklyn and a temperate rain forest in Alaska. This coming July 2007 he will mount a large installation at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum of photographs he made there in the winter of 2006. His work is included in private, public and corporate collections in the US and Europe.
His work has appeared in numerous editorial publications such as W Magazine, Travel & Leisure and House and Garden; in addition to many print advertising campaigns, including Mastercard, American Express, IBM and Hyatt.
Select Exhibition History
- 1999 Group Exhibition, Richard Anderson Fine Arts, New York
- 2000 Solo Exhibition, Richard Anderson Fine Arts, New York
- 2000 Group Exhibition, Richard Anderson Fine Arts, New York
- 2001 Group Exhibition, Sept 11 Benefit Exhibition, Drive In Studio, New York
- 2002 Group Exhibition, A Reflected Light, Boylan, New York
- 2004 Group Exhibition, A Reflected Light, Boylan, New York
- 2006 Group Exhibition, American Beauty, ICP New York
- 2007 Group Exhibition, Humane Society, New York
- 2007 Solo Exhibition, Auschwitz–Birkenau State Museum, Oswiecim Poland
Reflections on Presence
In July 2007, we will have a chance to view the work of the Irish photographer Simon Watson, who showed enthusiasm and tirelessness as he roamed through the empty interiors of barracks and original camp buildings. He has taken hundreds of photographs on his visits to the Auschwitz site since January 2006. Visitors will be able to see 17 of them in the original interior of the camp laundry.
In Simon Watson’s photographs we see no people, but only walls, doors, corridors, and stairs. Many years ago, the space was filled with human presence. The people are there after all—people who tried to find the path to survival and freedom in the years when the camp was in operation.
Almost every meter of ground and every fragment of the walls at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp site is imbued with voiceless narrations, marked with the memory and knowledge of the witnesses. Fields of human ashes, the ruins of the crematoria and gas chambers, documents, and photographs remain.
The barracks that still stand and the ones that lie in ruins, the original paint on the walls of the rooms where prisoners were confined, and the items found here that once belonged to the victims of the Nazis are material traces of their presence here. They connect us with that time and with their experiences then.
In one of his first letters to the Museum, Watson said:
“I am very interested in the ideas of memory and transformation and exploring the melancholy within. In my work I seek to expose and find the lingering past of human presence. In many ways one could argue that time changes everything including our recorded factual history. Of course the factual history remains the same but the reactions to these facts change in our society and over time history will be re written again and again. There is a continuous erosion on all history, not just because it fades from memory but also because it is examined by different people at different times from different or changed societies. Perhaps this is unavoidable.
“In regards to Auschwitz, I am interested in examining the metamorphosis of the space inhabited now by the museum and the site; and seeking out the lingering memory of its past. I hope that my work, through this manner, can strengthen the now fading memory of this tragedy. In many ways, modern society today manipulates history with numbers and sensational information. Our society wants to examine issues in a fast, quick process and move on and not to linger. Of course we learn nothing from this. In this project I want to expose the ever fading enormous melancholy and great, great sadness again and to bring a very real humanness to this terrible history.”
It is impossible to say everything about Auschwitz, just as it is impossible to define art. Nor is it necessary to do so. Each minute part of the story that has unfolded throughout all the postwar years brings us closer to the truth, but does not bring us any closer to knowing that truth. We keep asking new questions, giving answers, and asking more questions.
A veil of dust covers the walls, sometimes scratched, of the rooms in which prisoners were confined. The years cover the stories reflected in the mirror-like panes of the barracks windows with oblivion. We whisper to ourselves our unuttered thoughts, and do so all the more correctly to the degree that we perceive, in the items and spaces left behind, the ordinary people who suffered here.
The world continues to perceive Auschwitz in ever-new ways, and I also have the impression that the experiences are constantly changing. Visits to the site of the camp evoke different emotions at different stages of life. It is worth returning here constantly, over and over again, to see Auschwitz through the eyes of a schoolboy, student, husband, father, and, at last, grandfather. We cannot—we must not—close our eyes to what existed here, even if it seems as unreal as a bad dream.
It is not easy, nor is it enjoyable, but perhaps the light will shine more brightly and more fully against the background of that gloom. What good does it do us to remember, reminisce, refuse to forget, put it into practice, and learn? Perhaps thoughts poured into creation, into something ineffable that we call art.
I also know that, aside from memory and reflection, love is the thing that we should carry away from Auschwitz. I have a feeling that this is precisely what most of the victims would want. Love in spite of the indoctrination in hatred and savagery that they were subjected to.
From their love of life and freedom, we should draw spiritual strength, the strength of goodness and love. I believe that love and beauty were here despite the will of the perpetrators and despite the spreading of hatred and ugliness. All of the spirits so tragically derived from this place seem to cry out to be freed from oblivion, to cry out for empathy.
I think that a plea for love is always present at the Auschwitz site. In the end, what could be a greater message from this place?
Krzysztof Antończyk – helped Simon Watson as he worked. On an everyday basis, he is the head of the Digital Repository where, together with his co-workers, he preserves for posterity the documents from the archives of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. He has worked at the Museum for 12 years. At present, he perceives the Memorial through the eyes of a husband, and the father of two daughters.
