digital junk

via www.chgs.umn.edu

Boris Kobe (1905-81) was a Slovenian architect and painter who became a political prisoner in the concentration camp of Allach, a sub-camp of Dachau, near Munich, Germany.

The contextual framework and point of departure of the art project is a deck of tarok/tarot cards made in Allach by Kobe most probably after the April 1945 liberation by American forces (see card XXI which depicts liberation and the Slovenian flag, and Allach being burned). As a whole, this work of art represents a visual summary of life in a concentration camp, the main vehicle of which consists of Kobe’s tragic and humiliating sequences spiced with acrid humor. At the same time, this tiny exhibit is a miniature chronicle of the twilight of humanity brought about by Nazism, which regarded a human being, and therefore the artist himself, as a mere number.