Karen Baldner (German, American, 1952- ). German/Jew. edition 5 of 10. 2003. Bloomington, Indiana.
Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica, Special & Area Studies Collections, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida.
Book artist Karen Baldner grew up in post-war Germany. The child of German-Jewish parents who were persecuted during the Nazi era, Baldner’s work tries to capture this experience. The book comprises four heads made of pigmented handmade paper shaped from a plaster cast of her head. Because the casts do not close, the sculpture gives the effect of multiple personalities, or at least layered dimensions, of what may seem a single entity from the outside. The words “German” and “Jew” are stenciled into the paper heads in German and English where they repeat, collide, and infringe upon each other.
