An exhibiton co-curated by Selma Holo and Stephen D. Smith at the USC Fisher Museum of Art

David Kassan joins a long history of artists responding to the Holocaust and its survivors. But Kassan paints from an entirely different perspective to the artists who lived through and even painted during the Holocaust. None of his subjects were meant to survive. And yet all of them did, and lived to old age.The wrinkles on their faces and hands are in themselves testament to their physical resilience. Kassan places them far out of reach of the Nazis and their destructive genocidal world. In the portraits, it is clear that these individuals outlived their oppressors and are no longer victims. They are dignified. They display no anger or bitterness. There is wisdom and depth in their eyes. They tell a story with no words.

“Testimony” is redolent of words -- words in written statement, words provided by a witness in evidence of a particular happening or truth. But the alternative meaning of testimony is in the context of proof being provided by the existence of something, which need not be in words. Almost all of the survivors of the Holocaust in Kassan’s collection of portraits have given an audio-visual testimony to USC ShoahFoundation or some other collection. Some have given multiple interviews, or made a documentary, or published a memoir. They have created and bequeathed words. That self-motivated feverish activity to ensure that their story is told, is conscious, as they seek to establish their own story in the historical record. Kassan lifts these individuals out of the world of words, because he understands that testimony in its essence is being. In so doing he lifts the viewer out of the world of words, out of the camps and the forests and the hiding places, away from the gas chambers, the starvation and the squalor, and creates a space for being; for being alive; for being human; for being old and dignified and wise; for being defiant; for simply being themselves as individuals, and numbers no longer. Because being is the ultimate testament to their individuality, their humanity and survival.

Stephen Smith PhD Finci-Viterbi Executive Director USC Shoah FoundationUNESCO Chair on Genocide Education

Mr. Kassan is the inaugural USC Shoah Foundation Artist in Residence, a program developed with the belief that artists bring a deeply personal and freshly creative approach to survivor testimony.

Central to the exhibition will be a multi-panel piece featuring life-sized portraits of 11 Holocaust survivors along with testimony clips of the exhibit's subjects from USC Shoah Foundation's Visual History Archive.

This one-of-a-kind exhibit will offer audiences multimodal experiences into the personal accounts of life, death and survival and encourage curious, creative and courageous participation in civil society.