“UNDER YOUR
WHITE STARS”
IN KRAKOW
Varda Getzow is an Israeli artist who lives in both Israel and German capital, Berlin. The curator of the exhibition, Dr. Dalia Manor, has emphasised that memory and drawing are the path of art for Getzow. Memory is the source of thoughts, ideas, forms as well as materials whereas drawing is her principal, intimate medium. Varda Getzow was invited to Krakow by the Director of Museum of Krakow Michał Niezabitowski and she prepared new works which are shown for the first time in public.
Varda Getzow’s work is intimately linked to her own memory of the Holocaust as a daughter of survivors. However, the Holocaust is not present directly in her drawings, but only evoked if her works are shown at a specific location that had witnessed the murder of Jews. Thus the current exhibition touches on the issue of human suffering, particularly the suffering of children in all contemporary conflicts.
The exhibition of Varda Getzow’s works is located in the former building of Oscar Schindler's Factory in Krakow. This is a unique place that links us all to the time of the Holocaust. One of the pieces of Getzow’s art is displayed on the floor of the exhibition hall. It is a colourful presentation of the green areas of Krakow that belong to both city’s history and present, but they have complete opposite meaning and functions: one is the large green meadow of the former Nazi German camp Plaszow and the other is the Botanic Garden. The artist is trying to focus our attention on nature that is an indifferent witness to human fate.
The exhibition of Getzow’s art in Krakow is entitled „Under Your White Stars”/”Unter Deyne Vaysse Shtern”. The sentence comes from a poem (1943) by a Yiddish-language poet Abraham Sutzkever.
The curator of the exhibition is Dr. Dalia Manor, art historian, lecturer and former director of the Negev Museum of Art in Beer Sheva, Israel.
The KL Plaszow Museum and the Museum of Krakow host an exhibition of works by Varda Getzow. The exhibition opened on October 7 and will be open for visitors until February 26, 2023. This is the first art exhibition organized by the KL Plaszow Museum.
KL Plaszow Museum