The Immortal Residue: A Retrospective of the Work and A Biography of the 20th-Century German-Jewish painter Charlotte Salomon (1916–1943), produced in cooperation with the Jewish Historical Museum, Amsterdam
My Nightmare, 2051, scratchboard drawing
“Und immernoch gibt es Freude und immernoch wachsen Blumen und immernoch scheint die Sonne.”—“And yet there is still joy, flowers still grow, the sun still shines.”
Those are the words that the doomed 20th-century German-Jewish painter Charlotte Salomon printed in a deliberately childlike hand across one of the last in a series of gouaches that she painted while hiding from German soldiers in the South of France.
This month, in association with the Jewish Historical Museum, Amsterdam, ArtChannel commemorates Charlotte Salomon’s death in a gas chamber at Auschwitz with a retrospective exhibition of her work based on her biography by Luisa Materassi entitled The Immortal Residue.
Salomon was an original 20th-century painter. Her magnum opus, Leben? oder Theater? (Life? or Theater?), is an innovative, painted autobiography. It consists of 769 gouaches combined with written texts created from 1940 through 1942.
From John Firth Baker’s interview in The International Review of Manual Art:
ArtChannel’s show on Charlotte Salomon got me thinking. I decided to draw a picture as a memorial to her.
Just before her deportation she wrote on one of her paintings: “And yet there is still joy, the flowers still grow, the sun still shines.” I wanted to use those words in my drawing. I viewed images from the Holocaust for one to go with them.
In an old film on the liberation of Auschwitz, I spotted a single, shorn braid atop a gigantic pile of hair the Nazi phallocrats planned to make into felt slippers and mattress stuffing. The hair had been cut from the corpses of the Jewish and Gypsy wimin and girls gassed in the camp between 1941 and ’45.
Soon as I started drawing, I discovered that a braid has a complex structure. I needed to understand how it’s woven together. Polly taught me to braid Mother’s hair.
Polly Baker
I never saw Johnny so happy.
From John Firth Baker’s interview in The International Review of Manual Art:
It took me hours to draw three strands of hair woven together into one braid. I also had a tough time printing Charlotte’s words in my own handwriting. In the end, Mentor made me the 60-point Palatino letters; I felt like a cheat.
Mother called my drawing Cut-Off.
Cut-Off, 2051, scratchboard drawing
Mother let me read her unfinished Ph.D. thesis on Charlotte Salomon. Mother said, “Nazi-type phallocratic tribalism is alive and kicking in various guises all over the world. The Gender War’s just heating up!”
Next day I asked Teddy. “Which side is Jesus on in the Gender War?”
He said, “Neither,” and quoted me Galatians 3:28: “There is neither male nor femayl; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” As the words came out of his mouth, I got an idea for a drawing that symbolized the union of male and femayle in Christ’s name.
The next four days I played hookey from school and made the scratchboard drawing called Galatians 3:28. It was my second attempt—à la Charlotte Salomon—to integrate a text with an image in one composition. I didn’t pull it off.
From Jeanette Baker’s journal, November 12, 2051:
Johnny’s latest drawing, Galatians 3:28, illustrates a quote from the Bible. I fear Teddy is turning Johnny into a Christian—and you can’t be a Christian and a Gynarchist. I told Johnny so.
I said, “We Gynarchists believe that humin males and femayles are engaged in a perpetual struggle for dominance and that the femayle gender must seize control and feminize—civilize—huminkind.”
Johnny: “Christ offers us eternal life.”
Indira Rabindra
I first saw Galatians 3:28 at Polly’s open house on New Year’s Day 2052. It was hanging in Johnny’s bedroom. I couldn’t believe my eyes! In front of the cross, he’d drawn a lingam-yoni, the ancient Indian bisexual symbol for the Divine Mother! Johnny was in the kitchen watching the Huskers whip Alabama at the Cotton Bowl. We discussed his picture.
Galatians 3:28, scratchboard drawing
Johnny said, “I didn’t know my symbol was Indian. It came to me on its own. It symbolizes words of Scripture.”
Something told me, “Change the subject!”
From Jeanette Firth Baker’s journal, January 4, 2052:
Today Johnny asked me to raise his allowance from $40 to $55 a week, out of which he’ll buy all his art supplies.
I suggested that he earn twice the money by working after school at Polly’s Parlor, where he could eventually become an apprentice and learn a trade that would guarantee him respect and a good living while he developed as an artist.
“Work?” said Johnny. “I’ll think about it.”
He was a sourpuss all evening. Just before bedtime, he said, “OK. Have it your way. I’ll give the job a shot.”
Hair on floor of Polly’s Parlor (untitled), 2052, scratchboard drawing
Polly Baker
I hired Johnny to work at Polly’s Parlor a couple of hours after school for $100 a week. He served snacks and drinks to the customers and swept up their hair. After two weeks or so, he made me a gift of a little rectangular scratchboard drawing of hairs scattered over the floor.
Johnny said, “Oh, Aunt Polly! Everywhere I look is something to draw!”
From John Firth Baker’s “A Glimpse of the Life of One Fourteen-Year-Old American Living Fifty Years Ago from a Written Document of that Time,” 9th-Grade History Class, Cather Keep Junior High School, February 19, 2052:
While searching for documents describing the life of an American who was my age fifty years ago, I came across a letter published in the Lincoln Star Journal on April 6, 2002.
Lorena Wobig
9th grade, M.S. 131
Lincoln, Nebraska
What is it? How do you get it? Can it be cured?
These are three of the many questions people have about cancer. I myself knew little about cancer until my mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer last winter.
Cancer is considered a silent killer because there are often no or few symptoms until it has spread far beyond control. Over one million people per year are stricken with cancer and more than half of them die. I hope in the future that number can be drastically reduced. Through research and public awareness I believe we can increase the survival rate of people stricken with cancer.
I hope that one day in the near future I will turn on the television and learn to spot the symptoms of cancer. That won’t help my mother, but I hope other people will benefit from the knowledge.
I quote Lorena Wobig’s letter in full because it’s a glimpse into the life of one fourteen-year-old American in the first decade of this century. It was a tough time for Lorena and her mother. Death from cancer was commonplace. Surefire cures and preventatives for all varieties of the disease were as yet unknown. And since the genetic profile had not yet been invented, people never knew when cancer would strike them. The onset of Lorena’s mother’s cancer obviously took Lorena and her mother by surprise—something hard for us to grasp today.
Reading between the lines of Lorena’s letter, I suspect that her mother’s ovarian cancer had already “spread far beyond control.” Lorena doesn’t even hope for a cure, which in 2002 was still eight years in the future.
On August 2, 2005, the Lincoln Star Journal published an obituary of Lorena’s mother, Eliza Wobig, aged fifty-one, who died of ovarian cancer “after a long and valiant struggle.”
Lorena Wobig’s historical period seems remote to me even though it’s only half a century ago. Nevertheless, I feel for Lorena because my mother’s gen-pro indicates that she’ll probably come down with breast cancer in her early fifties. Mother is forty-one. But thanks to modern medicine, she should live over one hundred years. Disease is no threat to her, but we now know that the aging and death of
complex animals like ourselves can neither be prevented nor cured. They can only be postponed. Though my mother’s old age and death are a long way off, they worry me. The truth is, I worry about my own as well. Nothing has really changed since 2002. Every day of our lives still brings us closer to death.
The Rev. Theodore Petrakis
I was admitted to Oberlin in April 2052. Johnny said, “Congratulations!” and talked about coming to visit me the next fall in Ohio.
I sat him down and said, “No, dear boy, it’s not to be. I can’t have you visit me on campus. People wouldn’t understand. And there’s another thing I have to say. Look at you! You’re turning into a tall, handsome young man. Why, you’ve grown three inches in the last year! And that’s wonderful! But before long you’ll be too grown up for me. I love young boys.”
From Jeanette Baker’s journal, April 2, 2052:
(6 P.M.) Johnny’s sobbing in his room.
The Rev. Theodore Petrakis
The next Sunday, Johnny skipped church. I sent him a dozen magenta metamorphic roses.
Frances Petrakis
I asked Johnny to supper, spiced eggplant with stuffed baked potatoes and, of course, deep-dish manna pie. He accepted. Teddy ate out, so Johnny and I spent the evening alone.
I said, “I missed you at church today.”
He picked at the eggplant and said, “You really believe that Christ rose from the dead and is coming again?”
“Yes,” I said. “I surely do.”
He said, “Lucky you.”
From Jeanette Baker’s journal, April 10, 2052:
Johnny: “What do you believe, Mom?”
I answered him with Clorene Welles’ poem “On the Matter of Mind”:
Mind is entwined
with matter.
Since all the matter
in the universe
will decay,
mind must cope
without a hope
of permanence,
& find the bravest way
to live
as it unwinds at every turning of the day.
Johnny: “What’s the bravest way for you to live, Mom?”
“Sober.”
Francis Petrakis
Johnny didn’t come to church on Easter Sunday, either.
Teddy and I missed Johnny; we ate without him at Flora Flower’s, the fancy Palm Springs restaurant.
From John Firth Baker’s interview in The International Review of Manual Arts:
I joined Local 103 of the Guild as an apprentice on March 23, 2052. The dues were $150 a month. Mother and Aunt Polly sponsored me.
Polly was the Guild’s State Chairpersin in charge of Commemorative Events and Public Displays. Her chief responsibility was to organize and equip our contingents, including a thirty-piece brass band, that marched in Martin Luther King Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Arbor Day, International Wimin’s Day, Earth Day, and Labor Day parades all over Nebraska.
The big Earth Day parade, which goes from Mandan Park to the Offutt Helium-3 Fusion Plant in Bellevue, was coming up. This year’s theme was the worldwide protest against China for burning coal; a huge crowd was expected—meaning, extensive news coverage. Polly asked me to design a new marching banner for Local 103.
Polly Baker
Johnny wanted five hundred bucks for the job. We settled for three. I gave him half the money down with the rest to be paid him when I okayed his design.
From Jeanette Baker’s journal, April 12, 2052:
Johnny spent the whole advance on his first earnings as an artist to buy me a bound first edition of Phillip Spratt’s The Fruited Plain: Two Hundred Years of Gay and Lesbian Life in the Midwest.17
From John Firth Baker’s interview in The International Review of Manual Art:
Searching for an image that would immediately identify Local 103, I thought of my scratchboard drawing of hair on a floor. That became the basis for a little collage, representing a 20" × 30" banner, which took me a couple of days to get right.
Polly accepted my design and had the banner made up just in time for the Earth Day parade.18
Polly Baker
Jeanette kept the paper cutout.
Earth Day banner, 2052, paper cutout and scratchboard drawing, on paper
Anselmo Diaz
I was one of the two first trombones in my Guild’s brass band, the Blow-Dries. I met Johnny after the Earth Day parade at Local 103’s picnic in Offutt Garden. He plunked his plate down next to mine at my table. Shit! A real piece—a fuckin’ princess! And I’m a humin hard-on. I smelled beer on his breath. He was sweaty and antsy. We introduced ourselves. He’s like, “I’m a keepie. Crowds get on my nerves.”
He told me he lived with his momma in Cather Keep. We made small talk. I told him I was half Mexican and half Irish, but my better half—from the waist down—is Mexican. That made him smile; he got a sweet smile. I’m doin’ good. Then this gorgeous Gaian guru from Omaha, a she-he named Billy Lee Mookerjee, led a crowd in a slow, round dance on the lawn. I seen this before. While they dance, they sing the Gaian vision song, “Mother Earth.” I knowed the words and joined in. I still remember them:
(sings)
We love our Mother Earth,
Our Mother Earth who gave us birth.
We love to dance, we love to sing
And drink from Her living spring.
We love to feel our union flow,
While round and round like Her we go.19
Johnny was like, “I’m through with religion.”
But he couldn’t take his eyes off Billy Lee, the first Gaian guru he ever seen—with a tattoo on his forehead, a beard, and big naked tits that jiggled up and down while he danced.
I axed Johnny if he had a boyfriend.
He said, “Not no more.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t wanna discuss it.”
We walked on the sandy street lined with sagebrush trees, and he told me his sad story. Then he was like, “Let’s go to your place.”
Lord, we had such a ball. He called his momma and told her he was spending the night with a friend in Omaha—meaning me at my squat on Dodge Street.
He complained about my smoking. At that time, I was a chain-smoker.
Towards morning, my sleep was cut short by a thunderstorm. I found Johnny hiding under the bed.
He said, “I’m not used to thunder and lightnin’.”
From an interface between John Firth Baker and Mentor, April 22, 2052:
J.F.B.: What’s the meaning of the tattoo on Billy Lee Mookerjee’s forehead?
Mentor: Sri Billy Lee Mookerjee, like all Gaian gurus, is tattooed on the forehead with the astronomical sign for the planet Earth. It indicates he’s gained Gaian Consciousness.
J.F.B.: Why the big tits?
Mentor: In Mookerjee’s posting “Why I Grew Tits,” which appeared on his home page three years ago, he wrote: “My androgynous body is the outward symbol of the harmonious reconciliation of opposites that Gaian Consciousness has wrought within me.”
From Jeanette Baker’s journal, May 8, 2052:
FATHER TIHON YEFIMYEV, RUSSIAN ORTHODOX PRIEST
WHO FINGERED DEAD ARSOGENIC METAMORPH AND HER
FAMILY, FOUND BRAIN-DRAINED IN MOSCOW MONASTERY
Poisoned By Barundanga, He Suffers Incurable
Amnesia And Inability To Remember New Information;
Kremlin Blames Outlawed Gynarchists
Special to IN-News
By Margaret Law
MOSCOW, May 8. Father Tihon Yefimyev, 53, who in February 2048 unmasked the deceased ten-year-old Nadia Kammerovska as an arsogenic metamorph, was discovered drugged with the neurotransmission blocker barundanga in his cell this morning at the Monastery of Saint Czar Nicholas the Martyr.
A monastery spokesman reported that the drug has drained Father Tihon’s memories from his brain and destroyed his ability to remember new information. “Father Tihon is suffering from incurable anterograde lacunar amnesia with
irreversible after-effects,” the spokesman said.
An unnamed police source in Moscow stated that 6 milligrams of the odorless and tasteless barundanga, a scopolamine derivative, was administered to Father Tihon in a can of Coca-Cola, into which the poison had been injected through a tiny hole.
Father Tihon’s accusations against Nadia and her parents resulted in the latter’s investigation by the Holy Synod for blasphemous desecration of the humin genome, a crime punishable by twenty-five years at hard labor under Article 58 of the Russian Penal Code. On February 20, 2048 Nadia’s father Oleg, 46, shot his wife and daughter to death and then turned the gun on himself.
Kremlin ecclesiastical officials close to Father Mikhail Magnitsky, 97, Procurator of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, blamed the Baba Yaga Brigade of the outlawed Russian Union of Gynarchists for poisoning Father Yefimyev. “The sinful wimin who committed this diabolical crime against an Orthodox priest will be brought to justice,” one official said.
Polly Baker
Johnny confessed to me that he was shocked by the savagery of the wimin’s revenge on Yefimyev. Jeanette had raised him to believe that wimin were more forgiving than men.
Alex Thomas jr. to John Firth Baker, May 15, 2052:
I hate Juilliard.
I recently won the Charles Ives Prize for my Harlem Renaissance Microtonal Jazz Suite. My jealous fellow students have spread the rumor that I’m a musical arsogenic metamorph, which I’ve publicly denied. Arsogenic metamorphs are hated here. Many of the students and faculty belong to the American Association of Naturally Gifted Artists (AANGA). They believe that artistic talent is a gift from God, who alone should decide who gets it.
So I live a lie. I advise you to do the same if you go to an American manual arts school.
From Jeanette Baker’s journal, June 4, 2052:
Johnny won’t apply to any manual arts school, not even the Manual Art Students League in NYC, but won’t tell me why.
From John Firth Baker’s interview in The International Review of Manual Art:
Very early one morning in June, 2052, I ran into the Gaian guru Billy Lee Mookerjee, with a towel around his waist, in the locker room of the Cather Keep Y.
He said, “Make a pencil sketch of me.”
The Song of the Earth Page 8