Akiva Kenneth Segan, J’accuse

Photo of Star of David in a painting titled J’accuse is courtesy of Akiva Kenneth Segan who wrote to me that it was created back around 1981-82, based on the Dreyfus affair.

IMHO Akiva Kenneth Segan connects here very cleverly the yellow badge with its anti-Semitic origin in France and the "I blame" (in French: J’accuse) is put not only on the Germans and the Nazis but also on the French and every other anti-Semite.
Copyright: Akiva Kenneth Segan 2007
PO Box 1721, Seattle, WA 98111 U.S.A.
Phone: (206) 624-4154 e-mail: underwings@connectexpress.com

Art & Artist, Aqiva Kenet Segan

Copyright: Aqiva Kenet Segan 2008

Aqiva Kenet Segan Wrote to me:

Attached: The Mira Steiner drawing with mosaic-in-progress. The mosaic has 3 sections glued down: the Star of David and bird on top and at the very bottom there's a section with broken tiles, rocks and an old animal bone of some sort I picked up from the dirt alongside roads by Jerusalem's old walled city. Once the entire mosaic imagery is glued down and in place then the daunting (!) task of grouting and dental-tool-breaking scraping begins. Mira Steiner, a beautiful young Jewish woman, was drowned in Croatia by Fascists.

Akiva Kenneth Segan

Akiva Kenneth Segan, 57, is an artist from Seattle, Washington. He made in 2000 a big-sized work of art titled Shoah Dreams, which shows artist Felix Nussbaum as he looked on his “Self-Portrait with Jewish Identity Card” (with his yellow badge) but with wings.  Wings appear on all of Akiva Kenneth Segan's drawings of Holocaust victims. 

Akiva Kenneth Segan, Mosaic

Photo of Star of David mosaic/drawing is courtesy of Seattle artist Akiva Kenneth Segan
Title: Life & Death In The Ghetto.
Created in August - December, 2005.
Mosaic made from colored glass and ceramic plates, bowls and cups.
The drawing media is ink, gouache & colored pencil.
Size: 3 feet x six feet.
Copyright: Akiva Kenneth Segan 2007
PO Box 1721, Seattle, WA 98111 U.S.A.
Phone: (206) 624-4154 e-mail: underwings@connectexpress.com

Armband

Blue Star of David on a white armband as part of a work created by Akiva Kenet Segan

Copyright: Akiva Kenet Segan 2008

From:

http://lakewood.connectexpress.com/~holocaustart/Gallery%20Page%203.htm

Photo plates from the "Wooden Synagogues" book, portions of which were used to draw images depicted in the young man's torso between his shirt collar and arms folded across his chest. In the Wooden Synagogue book photo above, there are five flying birds in the synagogue wall-painting towards the upper left of the photo. In the artwork, the birds were painted above the violin - seen directly below the man's left arm - seen on viewer's right. Photo (below at left) of the Torah parchment from the book 'The Last Jews of Eastern Europe.' Photo at lower right of detail of a wooden synagogue wall, some of which was drawn in the torso area of Young Man with Star....

The yellow patch was not uniform in all the places under the Third Reich regime and at least at the start there were a few blue Stars of David on a white arm band. It was somewhat like precursor of the Israeli flag.

Lody Means Ice Cream In Polish

Star of David as part of a work created by Akiva Kenet Segan

Copyright: Akiva Kenet Segan 2008

From:

http://lakewood.connectexpress.com/~holocaustart/images/4lody.jpg

UWG Art No. 21

The child victims portrayed in this mixed media piece were drawn from Warsaw Ghetto photos - the child at viewers left from a photo by Nazi soldier Heinz Jost [see also UWG Drawings No. 7, 9, and 33]. Josts caption for the photo stated:
On the sidewalk in a side street I saw this tiny child who could no longer pull himself upright. The passers-by didn't stop. There were too many children like this one. Lody means ice cream in Polish. Store signs seen in Warsaw Ghetto photos pre-date the Nazi occupation and the sealing in of the ghetto. I was struck, living in Seattle ~ with my home city's close proximity to Alaska and Native American culture, by the incongruity of a store sign in the Warsaw Ghetto for Eskimo brand ice-cream.

Warsaw Ghetto Trolley

Akiva Kenet Segan drew this Star of David on the Muranow Street Trolley Car in the Warsaw Ghetto

Copyright: Akiva Kenet Segan 2008

From:

http://lakewood.connectexpress.com/~holocaustart/UWings%20Art%20Gallery.htm

Drawn from a photo in the book The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising - 45th Anniversary (Interpress, Warsaw, 1988) this drawing became the first drawing of the Under the Wings of G-D series. The photo is in the chapter Life in the Ghetto.

I was struck by the three figures: the conductor and two men on either side of the of the front of the trolley, all of whom, I contemplated, probably went up in smoke in the gas chambers or died in the ghetto, itself a concentration camp where over one-hundred thousand people died in 1941. The trolley itself would have been removed by the Nazi's for its valuable metal.

The two wings were drawn on subsequent visits to the Burke Museum of Natural History at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Star of David in Akiva Kenny Segan's Drawing

Star of David in a new Drawing by Akiva Kenny Segan

(c)

From the album:  The Rita Rosani memorial drawing  

Watch the amazing 30 second video

Yellow Badge Painters

I started collecting photos of paintings in which there are Yellow Badges. My first impression is that close to the holocaust the Yellow Badges in these paintings were small and realistic and only closer to our days they became big and abstract. It seems that memory intensifies this unique emblem.

In order to see what I found till now search on this site for:
Dr. Martin Kieselstein
Samuel Bak
Yaakov Agam
Jacques Heller
Roni Reuven
Reli Wasser
Zoya Cherkassky
felix nussbaum
Hersz Schilis
Helena Olomotzki
Esther Luria
Ella Liberman Shibber
Isic adolf feder
Jaques Gotko
Charlot Borschova
Eric Vanounou
Robert Fisch
Akiva Kenneth Segan

P.S.
Self Portrait of painter Isaac Celnikier

Mosaic

There is an interesting connection between Mosaics and Stars of David. Why? I'm just asking the question and waiting for a learned answer. Here are some examples I stumbled upon recently:
Artist Akiva K. Segan presents on his web page some slides of the phases of his Star of David project. He constructed two wooden frames to separate the drawing and the mosaic. He documented the project on film.
Making Stars of David from mosaics was common thousands of years ago: in Ein Yael in southern Jerusalem; in St. Euthymius (Khan el Akhmar in Mishor Adummim, east of Jerusalem); Construction workers found in Ramle, near Tel Aviv, Israel, a Moslem six-pointed star embedded into a mosaic floor from the 8th century CE.
Marc Chagall designed in the Israeli parliament building a floor of mosaics. One of the main subjects described in it is the Star of David.
Aviva Beigel made a Star of David mosaic, sand on wood, titled Present Situation. It expresses what she feels towards the current state of affairs in Israel.
Even Zeev Golan is selling on the BiblicalGallery neckwear with a Star of David mosaic pattern.