Pop-Art Hitler Show Near Dachau Sparks Outrage

[Khephra]

BERLIN (Reuters) - An artist who depicted Adolf Hitler as a pop art-style cartoon figure at an exhibition near the former Dachau concentration camp said Thursday he would close the 2-week-old show due to public outrage.

Walter Gaudnek said his brightly colored artworks aimed to provoke people by showing Hitler as a human rather than a monster, but Jewish community and local political leaders see the images as dangerous.

"I wanted to educate my students on the historical phenomenon of Hitler and show an aspect of him which has got lost over time," he told Reuters after his paintings were printed in a Munich newspaper.

"People forget why millions of Germans were fooled by Hitler ... but I painted a picture of him with his dog because he was once this figure in the past," said Gaudnek, an American who was born in Germany.

http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=entertainmentNews&storyID=7114963

[BamaLefty]

Pathetic... But History

Depends on your experiences with this issue though.

[Placebo]

1. NO ARTISTIC CENSORSHIP...

Under any circumstances. If I was him, I wouldn't care how much people protested my work, I would let it hang for the duration.

[oldhat]

2. You're kidding me.

A cartoon Hitler outside of Dachau? The "human side" of Hitler outside one of his machines that killed hundreds of thousands? This is patently offensive trash.

Is this was a cartoon Jefferson Davis outside of the Charleston slave auction, you would be screaming bloody murder.

[Placebo]

3. It's not my place...

to tell people what they can and cannot show, much less create. Nor is it yours, or any of ours.

[aikido15]

13. Hey.. there's billboards down south

...that display Bush with a caption that reads, "OUR LEADER" why not Hitler? It's just art, an expression of the artist.

NO CENSORSHIP, whatsoever! Don't like it don't look.

[GHOSTDANCER]

4. agreed!! .... It's really quite genius actually

of the artist here if you think about it to. Outrage is Art. Turn enough heads regardless.... Even if by miss interpreted assumptions and wallah art has done it's job.......And then to tear it down would be in a sense the very same act Hitler himself would have done. madly genius!!

[drhilarius]

5. I completely agree...

Furthermore, I think the point of the piece is one to be considered. If you depict Hitler solely as a "monster", then you are portraying him as a historical anomaly, a momentary blip of human madness, someone who wielded incredible power through some sort of mystical allure. None of that is true. This was a human being who did these things, and the people consented because they saw in him something they admired, something with which they were comfortable(something which should be considered). If you consider Hitler to be an exception in history, then you are paving the way for another Hitler to come to power.

A few years ago, how did everyone react to the Virgin Mary, on display in a NYC gallery,that was made out of cow dung? Ol' Rudy himself said it was an abomination and should be banned because it offended people. No one, of course, bothered to delve any deeper and find out (surprise) that in the artist's culture dung was imbued with tremendous significance, so the painting was ,in fact, done with the utmost respect for the VM.

[brentspeak]

6. Artists who need to resort to the schtick of calculated outrage

usually are not very talented artists.

[Placebo]

7. How do you judge artistic talent?

[brentspeak]

8. Ilustrative ability, sculpting ability

painting ability. The kind of work that make people go "I wish I could draw/sculpt/paint like that."

[Placebo]

12. But what's "good art" to one person...

could be "shit" to someone else. Who's to say which person is right? I hear people all the time saying "Oh I could have done that!" about people I consider to be great artists. Eh, it's all fluid, I still say that it's all about the POV. And how do we even judge ability? It can be expressed in so many different ways. :shrug:

[Voltaire99]

17. That's technical skill. Art is much, much more than that.

By your standard, wildlife artists--the many who paint such lovely ducks--are our truest artists.

Woe unto humanity if that were true! We will never learn anything from art that tries to be warm milk.

[Voltaire99]

18. That's technical skill. Art is much, much more than that.

By your standard, wildlife artists--the many who paint such lovely ducks--are our truest artists.

Woe unto humanity if that were true! We will never learn anything from art that tries to be warm milk.

[JohnLocke]

10. Ability to convey a message that makes people think

Instead of coveying a message that makes people go fucking insane.

[Griffy]

9. Art makes you think.. I think he is saying bush seems like a man too..

But is he a monster?!

[NorthernSpy]

11. that's why 'art' rhymes with 'smart'!

Ah... so Hitler was a human! I always thought he was a watermelon. We need more art like this in our lives. Then the learning will never stop.

[Dr Fate]

14. A watermelon cant fool a nation into murdering millions...

... but a likeable person can-and that is his point.

Apparently he was *likeable* to a at least 30% of Germany when he was elected...

It is interesting for art to point that out, actually.

[Dirk39]

15. ..."as a human rather than a monster"...

Hello from Germany,

as long as art deserves the name and isn't conformistic, Hitler would be shown as human as it gets and at the very same time being a "monster". It would show Dachau and Ausschwitz as daily buisness. It would show the way, Fox News would report and not report about Aussschwitz, if it would happen in the U.S. today.

There is one very good reason that Hitler can't become an object of art, and a lot of people did know this and the better german artists did know this. As a politician, as a historian, as a philosopher, you can judge: you're obliged to judge. But as an artist, you have to take the position of your object. You cannot judge. And if you judge, before you write or paint, whatever you might produce, it's not art. It's worthless shit.

And in Germany today, it needs so much less courage to do, what this "artist" did, than to critizise our government...
It's just another effort to "banalize" our past and to play down Fashism and Ausschwitz in the happily ever after reunited Germany.

Puking in Germany,
Dirk

[aikido15]

16. Wow..good insight!

You cannot judge. And if you judge, before you write or paint, whatever you might produce, it's not art. It's worthless shit.

I couldn't agree more!

[Voltaire99]

19. Interesting project. Too bad the intolerant have killed it.

The first function of art in this sleeping age should be to wake up the sleepwalkers.