Giuliani on Art, Hitler on Art
ARTISTpres
Quotes from Hitler and Giuliani and Commentary
by Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T.
(Artists’ Response to Illegal State Tactics)
“It is not the mission of art to wallow in filth for filth's sake, to
paint the human being only in a state of putrefaction, to draw
cretins as symbols of motherhood, or to present deformed idiots
as representatives of manly strength”.-Adolf Hitler excepted from
a speech made at a National Socialist Party rally, Nuremberg,
September 11, 1935.
“Mayor Giuliani yesterday left open the possibility that his office
might begin screening art exhibits bankrolled by taxpayers. The
closer scrutiny would come on a "case-by-case basis,"...Giuliani's
comments came a day after he warned he would slash money to
any of 41 city-funded cultural institutions that presented works,
which, in his view, aggressively attacked religion”. -Daily News
10/6/99 Mayor Hints at Art Exams Says city might do
'case-by-case screening of exhibits
“The artist does not create for the artist: He creates for the people
and we will see to it that henceforth the people will be called in
to judge its art”. -Adolf Hitler
“This has nothing at all to do with the suppression of artistic
freedom and modem progress”. Joseph Göbbels, November 26th,
1937, in Von der Großmacht zur Weltmacht on the seizure of
thousands of works of German art.)
“Right from the start the National Socialists began to stage
propaganda exhibitions of the most blatant examples of bad
modern art. The aim was to educate the public by showing them
how taxpayers' money was spent”. [From: Degenerate Art
http://www.ns.aus.tm/propaganda/index2.html].
Immediately after assuming power in Germany, Hitler went to
great lengths to attack contemporary German art as morally
decadent and as a misuse of public tax dollars. He seized art from
both public museums and private art galleries, but rather than
simply hiding the art he claimed to find so appalling, he went to
great lengths to publicly display it, organizing huge art shows of
Degenerate Art across Germany.
The entire notoriety of the painting of the Madonna by Chris
Olfili is similarly due to Mayor Giuliani’s efforts. Thanks to the
Mayor this otherwise insignificant painting has appeared each
day on the covers of newspapers and magazines, on television
news shows and is the main topic of discussion on radio talk
shows and in opinion columns. In his own way the Mayor has
sponsored a “degenerate art show” exactly paralleling Hitler’s.
Lurking beneath Mayor Giuliani’s attack on the Brooklyn
Museum’s alleged Catholic bashing, misuse of tax dollars and
offense to the general public’s sense of morality lies a much
larger issue. What is an artist’s responsibility to society and to
his or her government? Is artistic expression an act of unfettered
individual freedom or is it like owning a car or a gun, a limited
privilege that government has a responsibility to strictly control
in the interests of public safety and decency ?
Listening to the opinions of Mayor Giuliani and his various
religious and secular and defenders on this controversy one is
reminded of the exactly similar attack on artistic freedom that
took place in Nazi Germany from 1933 until 1945. The
expressionist art that was attacked, confiscated and destroyed by
Adolf Hitler is in fact the very origin of the artistic sensibilities
on display in the now controversial Brooklyn Museum show. It
too was attacked based on the idea that it debased humanity,
mocked religion and would, if allowed to continue, destroy
public morality.
It might seem bizarre to those who see Mayor Giuliani as being
extremely close to certain elements in the conservative and
orthodox Jewish community to suggest that his attack on the
museum also reeks of anti-Semitism, yet if one was present as I
was at the various demonstrations held by those offended by the
exhibition it would be impossible to ignore that this is one of the
key underlying messages of those who want this show closed. As
many of the anti-museum protesters loudly proclaimed, the
Museum director, Arnold Lehman, the president of its board of
trustees, Robert S. Rubin, and many of the members of its board
of directors are Jewish. Critics of the show, including the Mayor,
repeatedly use what they claim to be the parallel analogy of
dipping a Star of David in excrement to express their outrage
about the desecration of the Virgin Mary. In an article in the
9/25/99 NY Times the Mayor actually called the Madonna a
“national symbol”, which is something even religious
conservatives like Pat Robertson or Cardinal O’Connor would
admit crosses the line between the separation of church and state.
For much of the Renaissance there was a cultural debate, which
sometimes erupted in violence, imprisonment and executions,
about the conflict between the Catholic interpretation of religion
and the Jewish, or Jewish-inspired view. The painting of fig leafs
over the genitals of Michelangelo’s figures in the Sistine Chapel
is characteristic of this conflict between the religious and
humanistic view. Artists we now think of as devout Catholics
were severely punished by the church hierarchy for expressing
views that ran counter to orthodox teachings. Like Chris Ofili
who considers himself a devout Catholic, their artistic
interpretation of traditional symbols was seen as heretical and as
a desecration of the church.
Adolf Hitler, a man few today would consider to be in any way
religious, described himself as a Catholic, ("I am now as before a
Catholic and will always remain so"). A major thrust of his attack
on Jewish art and artists in Germany was the idea that they were
desecrating religious symbols and attempting to foster a
degenerate view of mankind. Read the following quotes on
so-called Degenerate Jewish art by Hitler and the accompanying
quotes by Mayor Giuliani and you will see that underlying this
Giuliani-created controversy is the exact same anti-Semitic,
ant-art and anti-freedom ideology.
The following quotes from Adolf Hitler, from contemporary
German newspapers and magazines and from the actual catalogue
of the Degenerate Art show staged by Hitler are from a pro-Nazi
website
Degenerate Art [http://www.ns.aus.tm/propaganda/index2.html].
These historical materials as well as digitized versions of Hitler’s
infamous book, Mein Kampf, are becoming increasingly difficult
to get access to. Many online booksellers have succumbed to
pressure and removed Mein Kampf from their catalogues. If you
want to really understand what the Nazis were about and why
their ideology is still very much alive today and is the driving
force behind numerous contemporary social, scientific and
political policies here in the U.S. including censorship, public
health and the agenda of much of the military-industrial complex
which President Eisenhower warned about, there is no better
source than this very extensive and profusely illustrated site.
While Hitler is of course long dead and the activities and
propaganda of today’s neo-Nazis youth can hardly be considered
a significant threat to society, the fact remains that thousands of
real Nazis were brought to the U.S. by our own government after
the war and installed in the military, in industry, in research
universities, in think tanks and in the intelligence and
propaganda branches of the U.S. government. Mayor Giuliani has
direct ties to many of these elements and is a proponent of their
social policies as exemplified by the Manhattan Institute and the
Rockefeller Institute. This is why he finds my paintings of him
with a Hitler-like moustache so threatening and why he has had
me falsely arrested 40 times in an attempt to censor my ideas.
The family of Presidential candidate and Giuliani pal, George W.
Bush, was so closely linked to the Nazis during WWII that the
Federal government seized a significant portion of their financial
assets and closed a number of their banks to prevent them from
continuing their economic support of Hitler. Likewise, The
Rockefeller family was a main sponsor of German, British and
American institutes and organizations which promoted the idea
of Eugenics around the world and which financed the research of
Josef Mengele and his associates which resulted in the most
horrifying human medical and psychological experiments in
human history. The results of those experiments are the basis for
much of today’s pharmacutical, pschological and biological
industries.
While it’s undoubtedly an overworn cliché to call a politician
one disagrees with a Nazi or compare him to Hitler this
comparison is not always undeserved. In this case, it is the
explanation for much of what Mayor Giuliani has so far done,
and what if allowed to go on to higher office, he and his
associates intend to do.
Robert Lederman 10/7/99
“In July, 1937 Hitler and Göbbels decided to clear museums of
all remaining modern works and to mount an exhibition of
modern works as an example of the most horrific art ever created.
The custodians of all government and private museums and art
collections are busy removing the most hideous creations of a
degenerate humanity and of a pathological generation of so
called artists, the magazine Der SA-Mann reported triumphantly
in the issue of September 18th, 1937.”
For the Mayor, the matter is simple, as he explained yesterday
morning during his weekly radio program: "Public taxpayer
dollars should not go for aggressive desecration of national or
religious symbols of great significance and sensitivity to people."
-NY Times 9/25/99
“Giuliani’s remarks came a day after he vowed to cut off all city
subsidies to the museum if it proceeded with the exhibition,
which he described as "sick stuff." "Anything that I can do isn't
art," he said. "If I can do it, it's not art, because I'm not much of
an artist. And I could figure out how to put this together. You
know, if you want to throw dung at something, I could figure out
how to do that."
“Art that cannot rely on the joyous, heartfelt assent of the broad
and healthy mass of the people, but depends on tiny cliques that
are self-interested and blasé by turns, is intolerable. It seeks to
confuse the sound instinct of the people instead of gladly
confirming it.” Adolf Hitler
“A Commission under the painter Adolf Ziegler, President Of
The Reich Culture Chamber, aided by some art historians,
including the Director Of The Folkwang Museum in Essen,
Klaus Graf von Baudissin, seized over 5,000 works from private
and public collections. Among the works were:1,052 by Emil
Nolde, 759 by Erich Heckel, 639 by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and
508 by Max Beckmann. They also took works by Georges
Braque, Marc Chagall, Giorgio de Chirico, Robert Delaunay,
André Derain, Theo van Dösburg, James Ensor, Paul Gauguin,
Vincent van Gogh, Albert Gleizes, •Alexei Jawlensky, Wassily
Kandinsky, Fernand Léger, El Lissitzky, Franz Masereel, Henri
Matisse, •László Moholy-Nagy, Piet Mondrian, Edvard Munch,
Pablo Picasso, Georges Rouault, and Maurice Vlaminck”.
Degenerate Art [http://www.ns.aus.tm/propaganda/index2.html].
“In 1936, Hitler decided to stage his own show of the hated
modern art. An official exhibition of Entartete Kunst --
Degenerate Art opened in München on July 19th, 1937, a day
after the opening of the first Great German Art Exhibition, to
which it was a useful pendant. With great satisfaction, Göbbels
announced: How deeply the perverse Jewish spirit has penetrated
German cultural life is shown in the frightening and horrifying
forms of the Exhibition Of Degenerate Art in München ..... This
has nothing at all to do with the suppression of artistic freedom
and modem progress. On the contrary, the botched art works
which were exhibited there and their creators are of yesterday
and before yesterday. They are the senile representatives, no
longer to be taken seriously, of a period that we have
intellectually and politically overcome and whose monstrous,
degenerate creations still haunt the field of the plastic arts in our
time”. (Göbbels, November 26th, 1937, in Von der Großmacht
zur Weltmacht.)
“The exhibition of Degenerate Art was installed in the old
gallery in the Hofgarten. In his opening speech Adolf Ziegler
announced: Our patience with all those who have not been able
to fall in line with National Socialist reconstruction during the
last four years is at an end. The German Folk will judge them.
We are not scared. The Folk trust, as in all things, the judgment
of one man, our Leader. He knows which way German art must
go in order to fulfil its task as the expression of German
character ..... What you are seeing here are the crippled products
of madness, impertinence, and lack of talent ..... I would need
several freight trains to clear our galleries of this rubbish. He
added proudly, to thundering applause, This will happen soon”.
(Ziegler, July 19th, 1937, Mitteilungsblatt der Reichskammer der
bildenden Künste, August 1st, 1937.)
"First we are told how vile and degenerate the exhibition is, and
now we are being expected to open it up to children?" Lehman
said in a phone interview last night. "The Mayor is sending a
mixed message that we obviously need to sort out."
NY Times 9/24/99 Giuliani Threatens to Evict Museum Over Art
Exhibit
“Young people were barred from the show due to the obscenity
of the exhibits from which decent German youth had to be
protected. The Directors of the show wished that they could
place the previous criminal museum directors and idiotic artists
next to the works so that the public could spit at them...The
apparently chaotic display had order built into it. The exhibits
were classified by subject just as in the other official exhibition.
Only the themes here were Farmers Seen By Jews, Insult To
German Womanhood, Mockery Of God. The spectacular and
sensational way in which the art was displayed was aimed at
mobilising vigorous popular protest. It was meant to be the last
chapter of a barbaric age, while the official show signalled the
dawn of a new one. Over two million visitors came. Does this not
sufficiently prove the necessity for such an education through the
horror chambers of degenerate art? reasonably asked one of the
prominent members of the League For The Defence Of German
Culture”. (Dr. Walter Hansen, Judenkunst in Deutschland,
Berlin, 1942, page 197.)
“The press joined in the tirades against the modern artists and
announced proudly that the cleansing of the temple of German
art was complete. The aim of the show was to kill off modern art,
and it succeeded. Göbbels had achieved his aim of making the
public the true judge of art...There were suggestions that the
remaining works be burned, and on March 20th, 1939, 1,004
paintings and 3,825 watercolours, drawings, and graphic works
were burned in the courtyard of the fire station in Berlin”.
http://www.ns.aus.tm/propaganda/index2.html
“The director of the German Art Association had this to say to
the cultural theorist Alfred Rosenberg: Throw this decaying
foulness out of the art of the awakening Germany! Out also all
those who still allow and foster cultural Bolshevism! ..... The
undersigned knows that The Leader and you, Herr Reich Leader,
cannot do everything alone ..... Therefore we make ourselves
available to fight unreservedly, with all our strength and ability,
for a German worldview, for the fertility of German life, and
through this for German art. We are at your command. Heil
Hitler!”. http://www.ns.aus.tm/propaganda/index2.html
“Jewry was able, largely by exploiting its position in the press, to
enlist the aid of so-called art criticism not only in gradually
obscuring all normal ideas of the nature and function of art and
its purpose, but also in destroying the general healthy response
in this area”. -Adolf Hitler
“For it is an affair of the State ..... to prevent a Folk from being
driven into the arms of spiritual lunacy ..... for on the day that
this kind of art were actually to correspond to the general
conception, one of the most severe changes of mankind would
have begun; the backward development of the human brain”. --
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf.
“It is not the function of art to wallow in dirt for dirt's sake, never
its task to paint the state of decomposition, to draw cretins as the
symbol of motherhood, to picture hunchbacked idiots as
representatives of manly strength”. Adolf Hitler speech at the
Nazi Party Rally in Nürnberg in 1935.
Robert Lederman is an artist, a regular columnist for both the
Grenwich Village Gazette [See: http://www.gvny.com/ ] and
Street News, and is the author of hundreds of published essays
and letters to the editor concerning Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. His
writings have appeared in (to name only a few) the NY Times,
NY Post, Daily News, Newsday, Brooklyn Bridge, Park Slope
Courier, The Daily Challenge, Amsterdam News, Sandbox,
Penthouse, Our Town, NY Press and which are availiable on
hundreds of websites around the world. Lederman has been
falsely arrested 39 times to date for his anti-Giuliani activites and
has never been convicted of any of the charges. He is best known
for creating hundreds of paintings of Mayor Giuliani as a Hitler
like dictator.
Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T.
(Artists’ Response To Illegal State Tactics)
ARTIS...@aol.com (718) 369-2111
http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html
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