THE WASHINGTON POST
By Philip Kennicott
NEW YORK---In March, shortly after the Neue Galerie in New York opened its exhibition “Degenerate Art: The Attack on Modern Art in Nazi Germany, 1937,” lines were forming outside the ornate Fifth Avenue mansion the museum calls home. So this exhibition has competing messages. The easiest, quickest and dumbest truism is that the Nazis unfairly demonized great artists, creating a pantheon of artist-martyrs whom we continue to celebrate today in part as recompense for how savagely they were treated. But the other message is that the practice of art is always deeply political, there are always winners and losers, and many artists, like other professionals, are very good at the infighting, undercutting and self-promoting it takes to climb the greasy pole. [
link]
 |
| “The Four Elements,” by Adolf Ziegler, who was president of the Reich Chamber of Art |
 |
| The Ziegler, a triptych, is placed next to a similarly scaled triptych, “Departure,” by Max Beckmann. |
NEW YORK---In March, shortly after the Neue Galerie in New York opened its exhibition “Degenerate Art: The Attack on Modern Art in Nazi Germany, 1937,” lines were forming outside the ornate Fifth Avenue mansion the museum calls home. So this exhibition has competing messages. The easiest, quickest and dumbest truism is that the Nazis unfairly demonized great artists, creating a pantheon of artist-martyrs whom we continue to celebrate today in part as recompense for how savagely they were treated. But the other message is that the practice of art is always deeply political, there are always winners and losers, and many artists, like other professionals, are very good at the infighting, undercutting and self-promoting it takes to climb the greasy pole. [link]
Comments