“Entartete Kunst” or “degenerate art” was
the name given by the Nazis in Germany to modern art that wasn’t according to
their norms of what art should be. The term was especially in use during the
years 1933-1945, when the Nazis were in power. Degenerate art was removed from
state-owned museums. Generally it was banned in Germany, as it didn’t fit the
Nazi idea of Germanhood, meaning that it allegedly was un-German, Jewish,
Communist, and the like. “Degenerate” artists, so artists that made such art,
were boycotted, forbidden to exhibit or sell such art, or sometimes even
forbidden to produce it. Their art was often abstract. Also music could be
degenerate, like “negro music”, as the Nazis called it, so jazz.
In 1937 some 5,000 works of degenerate art
was confiscated from museums and art collections, including work by Vincent van
Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall and many German painters. A selection of 639
works was exhibited in a special exhibition called “Degenerate Art”. The
exhibition was shown in many towns in Germany. It’s intention was to horrify
the visitors. Now that from then on artists who made degenerate art were seen as
official national enemies, many fled abroad or went into “internal exile” by
stopping to make the kind of art that had been forbidden.
It’s striking that one of the artists who
was branded as degenerate was Emil Nolde. Nolde was an expressionist artist but
he was also a committed member of the Nazi party. However, after a bitter
ideological dispute, also expressionist art was seen as un-German, and in 1936
Nolde was ordered to stop his artistic activities. Among the 5,000 works
confiscated in 1937 about 1,000 had been made by Nolde. The artist was upset
for he didn’t understand what the problem was, but of course it was no help. After
the Second World War Nolde became world-famous. He was known as an artist who
had been classified as degenerate by the Nazis and whose work had been boycotted
by them. That Nolde was a fanatical Nazi and an ardent anti-Semite even till
1945 had been more or less forgotten. After the war he did as if he had been
persecuted by the Nazis. And so it happened that two of his paintings were on
the wall of the office of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
A few weeks ago an exhibition dedicated to
Emil Nolde has been opened in Berlin, titled Emil Nolde. A German legend. The artist during the Nazi regime. The
makers of the exhibition had made a thorough inquiry into the life and
political views of the artist and had disclosed the truth: That Nolde was
rather a dedicated contributor to Nazism than a victim. The intention of the
exhibition is to show this. It was a shock to many.
And Merkel? She decided to remove the two
paintings by Nolde from her office and to replace them by two “innocent” works.
I fully understand, and I certainly would have done the same. Nevertheless there
is something problematical about doing so. The removed paintings are beautiful,
at least in the eyes of the highest political authority of Germany – I assume –
and of others. From an “objective” point of view they are outstanding works of
art. That’s the artistic side. But politically? From that point of view the
paintings were not allowed to be beautiful and outstanding in a sense, not by
the Nazis and not by many people today, including Angela Merkel. However, there
is a difference: The Nazis banned Nolde’s paintings because of their content;
now they are banned because the artist himself is considered “degenerate”, so
to speak. But whatever the reason may be, apparently art is always political,
anyhow. Even “innocent” art fundamentally is, for society changes and what is
“innocent” today may be “unacceptable” tomorrow, both because of what or how a
work of art represents and because of the ideas the artist stands for. Does
innocent art really exist? I am afraid it doesn’t.
Actually, the matter is more complicated
than only the political aspect just discussed. A work of art represents
something, namely what you see in it (or what you think to see). By doing so,
it excludes what the work of art
doesn’t present, incidentally or on purpose. Take by way of example my photos.
Most of them don’t have an explicit political content. However, the image in
the photo takes the place of everything that is not in the image, not only
because it has been incidentally left out – for I can’t capture the whole world
in one shot – but also because I intentionally
didn’t want to photograph it. This can happen – and usually happens – because
what’s outside the image didn’t fit my feelings but also because I didn’t want
to include in the picture what’s not in the image because I consider it ethically
and/or politically not acceptable. Everything has a meaning, also when it
hasn’t. Nobody is innocent and nothing is innocent. Which does not need to mean
that everybody is also responsible, though.
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You can find my photos on https://www.flickr.com/photos/photographybytheway
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