„The memory of the Holocaust unites the Museum of Contemporary Art in Kraków (MOCAK) and the Center for Persecuted Arts in the Solingen Art Museum. Maria Anna Potocka (Director of MOCAK), Delfina Jałowik (Head of the Art Department at MOCAK), and I have been working closely together since 2015. Our exhibition and projects do not exclusively deal with the Shoah, but it is always present.“
– Jürgen Kaumkötter, Director of the Center for Persecuted Arts
The MOCAK is located in the former Oskar Schindler factory. The exhibition program is strongly influenced by the museum’s proximity to the former Kraków ghetto, the concentration camp at Płaszów, and the short distance to Auschwitz, as well as by the sociopolitical significance of the Shoah. The memory of the Shoah and the rehabilitation of forgotten artists was the reason for the founding of the Center for Persecuted Arts. In the collection of the Center, a civic foundation for persecuted arts, there are many works from the ghettos, camps, and hiding places: the art of catastrophe.
„Because Solingen is a city which, in my view, has the task of being a constant admonisher—in Europe, in Germany—for human rights. In the 1990s, we experienced the darkest hour of our post-war history when five young women were murdered here. And that is a task for the city, also for the future, to never stop admonishing: ‘Be careful, it can happen very quickly that words become actions. Be careful that arsonists do not find a platform to assert themselves here.’ This must always be the admonishing role of the city of Solingen.“
– Mayor Tim Kurzbach on the founding of the Museum Center for Persecuted Arts
Timeline Statements
- ↑ „Poland – Israel – Germany. The Experience of Auschwitz“ in Solingen – December 9, 2015
- ↓ The first joint exhibition by MOCAK and the Center for Persecuted Arts – May 15, 2015