German artist poses 1,250 Nazi garden gnomes

[truth seeker]

Since we've been talking about art latley...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113786365

STRAUBING, Germany October 14, 2009, 09:29 am ET

A German artist is posing 1,250 garden gnomes with their arms outstretched in the stiff-armed Hitler salute in an installation that he calls a protest of lingering fascist tendencies in German society.

Artist Ottmar Hoerl posed the gnomes in the historic central marketplace of Straubing, a town in southeastern Germany, on Wednesday. The exhibit called "dance with the devil" is to run through Oct. 19.

Most of gnomes are black plastic, but about 20 are painted shiny gold.

Displaying Nazi symbols is illegal in Germany but a court ruled earlier this year that Hoerl's gnomes were clearly satire and thus allowed.

Hoerl says: "the fascist idea, the striving to manipulate people or dictate to people ... is latently dangerous and remains present in our society."

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this...

 

[JonnyRadar]

Since we've been talking about art latley...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113786365

STRAUBING, Germany October 14, 2009, 09:29 am ET

A German artist is posing 1,250 garden gnomes with their arms outstretched in the stiff-armed Hitler salute in an installation that he calls a protest of lingering fascist tendencies in German society.

Artist Ottmar Hoerl posed the gnomes in the historic central marketplace of Straubing, a town in southeastern Germany, on Wednesday. The exhibit called "dance with the devil" is to run through Oct. 19.

Most of gnomes are black plastic, but about 20 are painted shiny gold.

Displaying Nazi symbols is illegal in Germany but a court ruled earlier this year that Hoerl's gnomes were clearly satire and thus allowed.

Hoerl says: "the fascist idea, the striving to manipulate people or dictate to people ... is latently dangerous and remains present in our society."

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this...

yea, "satire" is a little weak when it comes to commentary on nazism and fascism. and Hoerl's comment that fascist ideas are only "latently dangerous" is absurd. latent implies something that is hidden and not visible or active at all, when as we can plainly see, fascism is all too visible and active these days.

on a scale of 1 to 10 i'd give it about a 3 when it comes to art installations. as i see it, it's a silly project that's supposed to pertain to an issue that is anything but silly. it seems to have a point (at least), but the point is weakly made.

 

[truth seeker]

I'm honestly having trouble with figuring out whether this was just an artist's genuine misrepresentation of satire or really some ponerized advertisement for the artist's hidden nazi views. I suppose I'll never know.