Join us at the Museum for a conversation with photographer Martin Schoeller and Sara Softness, the Museum’s Curator of Special Projects. They will discuss the Museum’s new exhibition, Survivors: Faces of Life After the Holocaust, Martin’s acclaimed work, and what inspired him to create this moving installation. The exhibition will be on view before and after the discussion.

Survivors: Faces of Life After the Holocaust is a powerful photography exhibition showcasing 75 large-scale portraits of Holocaust survivors taken by famed photographer Martin Schoeller. Stripped of artifice, Schoeller’s photographs portray the beauty, humanity, and resilience of those who survived and grew old in the face of antisemitism — while imagining those who were never given the chance. The portraits are accompanied by a biography of and message from each sitter, as well as video footage documenting the artist’s photographic process. This will be the first exhibition of the profound series in a major U.S. museum.

Martin Schoeller (b. 1968, Germany) is one of the world’s preeminent contemporary portrait photographers. He is most known for his extreme close-up portraits, a series in which familiar faces are treated with the same scrutiny as the unfamous. The stylistic consistency of this work creates a democratic platform for comparison between his subjects, challenging a viewer’s existing notions of celebrity, value, and honesty. Schoeller’s portraits are exhibited and collected internationally, as well as part of the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Martin lives and works in New York City.

 

Co-organized by Martin Schoeller and the Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. Originated by Yad Vashem on the occasion of the 75th Anniversary Liberation of Auschwitz.
Survivors: Faces of Life After the Holocaust is made possible by The Knapp Family Foundation, the Goldie & David Blanksteen Foundation, Ben and Victoria Feder, and other generous donors.
The Rita Lowenstein Gallery is dedicated by Wendy & Neil Sandler and Michael Lowenstein & Sheri Warshaw in honor of their mother, a hidden child.

 

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