The Most Difficult builds upon distorted images of a derelict basement stairway whose rotted structure is surrounded by walls of exposed concrete. Onto this background is layered a haunting historic photograph of lighthearted camaraderie among staff members of the Auschwitz extermination camp.
The Most Difficult is both provocation and meditation. The collage challenges the reassuring narrative that those who take part in monstrosities are themselves inhuman monsters–that is, that they are fundamentally distinct from ourselves.
Scholars inform us that approximately half the violent deaths of the twentieth century occurred over the seven years 1938-1945.[1] The present is also a period of intense violence. As of March, 2022, twenty-one mass murders are currently underway.[2] The Most Difficult is a meditation on the question of how to live during periods of concentrated killing.
Notes:
[1] 70 to 85 million are estimated to have been killed in WWII. (Source: Leaving World War II Behind. N.p.: David Swanson, 2020.) Over the twentieth century, roughly twice that number of lives (167-175 million) were violently cut short. (Source: Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the 21st C. Touchstone: Brzezinski, Zbigniew, 1995.) Other estimates suggest a twentieth century total in excess of 200 million. (Source: Necrometrics: Estimated Totals for the Entire 20th Century.)
[2] These include state-led mass killings in Burma/Myanmar, Ethiopia, Iraq, Nigeria, North Korea, Philippines, South Sudan, Sudan, and Syria, as well as non-state-led mass killings ongoing in Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, India, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, South Sudan, and Syria. The figure of 21 mass-killings is reached because two state-led mass killings are currently ongoing in Burma/Myanmar and two state-led mass killings are currently ongoing in Sudan. See The Early Warning Project, a joint initiative of the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College. (Source: Early Warning Project, Center for the Prevention of Genocide. Retrieved March 12, 2022.)