The exhibition H, at The Container, is marking Yefman’s debut exhibition in Japan and has been developed specifically to Japanese viewers and to local context. The exhibition is the fruit of research the artist has conducted for the last couple of years, and it is the first in a series of exhibitions planned to be shown internationally. “H” as a symbol in Japan (pronounce “echi”), represents a condition of a sexual nature and associated with notions of the explicit and the perverse. This correlation between sexual deviance and the letter H evolved from the international interest in Japanese anime and its popularity going mainstream in the west. Hentai, traditionally meaning distorted or strange, has been hijacked by western anime lovers to describe pornographic anime or manga, and while the Japanese rarely use “Hentai” to refer to pornography, the term is commonly used in slang to suggest a “pervert” or a “weirdo.” More importantly, “H” is also standing in the context of this show for “Holocaust,” and exploring sexual aberration (“echi”) and sexuality, as experienced in the concentration camps of WWII.
For this exhibition, Yefman is interested, in particular, in what historians discovered to be “Block 24” in the Auschwitz concentration camp: a brothel to serve camp officials to relief them from the stress of war, and also to reward some “industrious” workers, termed by Sociologist and writer Wolfgang Sofsky as “prisoner aristocracy,” a strategy to create hierarchies within camp workers (and to encourage the men to work harder). The presence of Block 24 is not unique for Auschwitz, it is estimated that most concentration camps had an “in-house” brothel, referred to by the officials and soldiers as “Joy Divisions,” while across Germany (outside the camps) some 5,000 brothels were created during the Nazi regime to accommodate soldiers, foreign workers, and German men in general.
The exhibition at The Container pays homage to these women in an installation that explores the sexual, psychological, emotional, and social condition that they were forced into, and consists of a variety of elements: a make-shift bed with a life-size knitted “sex doll” made in the same physical dimensions detailed in a Personal Prisoner Card found at Block 24 in Auschwitz to identify a sex worker; a black mirror made of plexiglas, shaped and cut to the same measurements of an extermination furnace entry, and hanging above a shelf to resemble a vanity mirror (toilette); a small monitor presenting a looped video with nature footage from the surrounding area of Ravensbrück concentration camp; a portrait of Adolf Hitler’s mother, Klara, who incidentally, fits the exact physical description depicted in the sex-worker’s identification card; a neon sign with the inscription “Schlampe,” meaning in German a bitch or a slut; drawings; and a CCTV (surveillance) camera, monitoring the inside of the container and projecting the recorded footage outside the space, serving as a replacement to the peep-holes that were present in the actual brothels.
While this improvised concentration camp “residence” is somber and depressing, the life-size doll is colourful and playful, and visitors to the exhibit are encouraged to interact with it. Lying on the bed with its legs spread, fashioning multitude of breasts, a vagina leading to a womb, dripping of semen and blood, and sporting a wild expression. It is perverted and strange, dirty and repulsive, surreal, and surprisingly ironic and amusing. This contradiction and paradox are representative of Yefman’s works in large, and are a characteristic of his practice—blurring the borders between the childlike and staid, the humorous and the grave; inviting you to play and deride, while creating an environment rich in context and intensity. One cannot help feeling like a pervert once in the confines of the installation.
During the opening reception of the exhibition, Yefman is also performing live in the space. Wearing the actual doll and becoming the sex-slave himself, he is positioned under the bed, with his head inside the doll’s head. Once Yefman and the doll become one, visitors are invited to play and explore the doll and him—feel it, cuddle it, finger it, or molest it, while confronting the doll’s and his eyes, and the sound of his breath. Just remember, the unforgiving CCTV camera is recording, and projecting outside The Container for everyone to see.
Courtesy of The Container
