Himmler's Homework
Jim Riswold
Portland, Oregon
Himmler’s Homework, 2005
Color digital print on hahneméhle photo rag 308
Heinrich Himmler, head of the Schutzstaffel (SS) paramilitary force in Nazi Germany, once said:
One basic principle must be the absolute rule for the SS men –we must be honest, decent, loyal, and comradely to members of our own blood and nobody else.
What happens to a Russian or to a Czech does not interest me in the slightest. What the nations can offer in the way of good blood of our type we will take, if necessary by kidnapping their children and raising them here with us.
Whether nations live in prosperity or starve to death interests me only so far as we need them as slaves for our culture; otherwise, it is of no interest to me. Whether 10,000 Russian females fall down from exhaustion while digging an antitank ditch interests me only so far as the antitank ditch for Germany is finished.
Bio
Jim Riswold harpoons modern icons of the art world –Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, etc. –while simultaneously biting the hand that feeds, producing work that is “beautifully sleek and distinctively commercial.”