An artist that reportedly mixed the ashes of holocaust victims with paint is under investigation by Swedish police. Watercolour painter Carl Michael von Hausswolff told the media that he collected the ashes of the victims during a visit to the former Majdanek concentration camp in the late 1980s. He said he later mixed them with watercolour paint to create his back and white piece ‘Memory Works’, which he claims reflects the suffering of holocaust victims during WWII.
The work has since been put on display at the Martin Bryder Gallery in the southern Swedish city of Lund, but the work has drawn fire from at least one spectator.
Annika Johansson of the local police authorities confirmed that von Hausswolff is being investigated after a member of the public complained that the artist had “disturbed the peace of the dead”. The complainant called the work a “desecration of human remains”.
The piece remains on display at the gallery but can only be viewed by appointment.
Von Hausswolff and gallery personnel have yet to comment on the matter, although the artist states the following on the gallery’s website: “I collected some ashes from one of the crematoriums but didn’t use it for the exhibit – the material was too emotionally charged with the cruelties that had taken place there,” Sky News Australia reports.
He adds, “In 2010, I pulled out the jar of ashes and decided to ‘do something’ with it. I took out a few sheets of watercolour paper and decided to cover just a rectangular space with ashes mixed with water. When I stepped back and looked at the pictures, they ‘spoke’ to me: figures appeared… as if the ashes contained energy or memories or ‘souls’ from people… people tortured, tormented and murdered by other people in one of the most ruthless wars of the 20th century.”