Pathologist
PATHOLOGIST
ISBN/EAN 978 90 72532 08 4
Concept: ©Gijs Assmann
Graphic design: Willem van Zoetendaal
Printing and binding: Wilco Amersfoort
Lithography: Paul Kooiker
Publishing: Van Zoetendaal, Amsterdam
Distribution: Idea Books Amsterdam
Financial support: The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture
The father of the artist Gijs Assmann spent his working life as a pathologist, so he was always searching for the root cause of misfortune, death and sickness. His interest in ‘the great evil’ led him to collect books about the Second World War, Nazism and the Holocaust. Gijs made a selection from his father’s library and reproduced the images in this publication without further explanation or commentary. The result is a gripping collection of images that we are acquainted with – or at least think are familiar – from the collective memory of the war. This silent reproduction of the images is in fact more terrifying than the many attempts to describe what happened during the war using words. The cover photo encapsulates the book’s content – the incomprehensibility of the horror – in a remarkable manner and at the same time confronts us with our personal views. In association with Paul Kooiker (photography) and Willem van Zoetendaal (design).
