On March 25, Arie Galles, professor emeritus, delivered a presentation on his on artwork, showing his project, “Fourteen Stations/Hey Yud Dalet,” which he produced to honor the millions who were murdered in the Holocaust.

Galles taught art classes at the College at Florham from 1972 until 2004, when he left for California to become the Chair of the Art Department at Soka University of America.

“Fourteen Stations/Hey Yud Dalet” is a suite of fourteen large-scale charcoal drawings of aerial photos of Nazi concentration camps. The title draws on both Christian and Jewish symbolism.

The “fourteen stations” refer to the fourteen Stations of the Cross and also the tendancy for the camps to be located next to railroad sidings. The “hey yud dalet,” is a Hebrew acronym for “Hashem Yinkom Damam,” which means “May God avenge their blood.”

In this case, Galles said that the vengeance is not one of death, but simply living and living a good life—thus robbing Hitler of victory.

Galles called his project his “Kaddish” for those murdered in the Holocaust. In Judaism, the Kaddish is a prayer that is said by family and friends when someone dies. Galles said that in each of the Fourteen Stations drawings, he wrote one-fourteenth of the Kaddish, thus “the full suite offers the prayer for those who perished and had no family to recite it for them.”

The Fourteen Stations collection of drawings are all aerial views of concentration camps. Galles said that he drew them that way because drawing them any other way would have been too close for him to deal with emotionally.

Yet, he acknowledged that it is important to engage the Holocaust in art. In a statement on his Web site, Galles said that “Under no condition can art express the Holocaust. To withdraw art from confronting this horror; however, would assign victory to its perpetrators. That must not be. Each survivor, individually, must affirm his or her humanity and existence. As an artist, and a child of survivors, I can do no less.”

Despite the serious nature of the topic, Galles was lighthearted in his presentation. In an interview, he said “I can’t let Hitler win; I’m going to have fun.” This view came out in the interview and in his presentation. He possesses an animated personality and when he was speaking about something he liked, he would get so excited about it, that he couldn’t stand still. He punctuated his sentences with a broad smile that spread across his face.

Besides his “Fourteen Stations/Hey Yud Dalet,” Galles discussed some of his other art projects and his evolution as artist. An interesting medium that Galles has done quite a bit of work with is reflected light. Using ingenious creativity, Galles used painted aluminum rods to reflect the colors of the painting onto a white canvas. Thus what is seen is not actually a painting per se, but rather the colored light that is reflected.

Photos of Galles’ work, including “Fourteen Stations/Hey Yud Dalet” and his reflected light work are available on his Web site: ariegalles.com

DAN LANDAU
Photo Editor