‘In an extended metaphor, Manson compares his own often-criticized music to the entartete Kunst banned by the Nazi regime’
Videos for Marilyn Manson’s Mobscene and This Is The New Shit. Made in collaboration with Gottfried Helnwein. From 2003.
‘Avant-garde German artists were now branded both enemies of the state and a threat to German culture.’
In 1937, the Nazi party hosted ‘Entartete Kunst.’ This traveling exhibition showcased modern art as the work of madmen, ‘degenerates’ out to destroy the world.
Confiscated art – works of Kirchner, Nolde, Beckmann, Ernst, Chagall, Matisse, Picasso, Van Gogh, Dali, Klee, Kandinsky, Lissitzky, Grosz and many others – filled the show. After, the pieces were either destroyed or auctioned off.
For more about Entartete Kunst, watch David Grubin’s powerful 1993 Degenerate Art documentary here. Read more here and here. The show’s exhibition catalog is posted here.
Art, ideas, original thoughts: All dangerous.
This past weekend I saw a documentary on The Inquisition. Things such as inquisitions, persecutions – Entartete Kunst, McCarthyism – cycle throughout history.
What beliefs, doctrines and laws exist today that limit freedom, individuality and progress?
Ludwig Meidner, Apocalyptic Landscape, 1912
Images from the Weimar blog post ‘From Calgari to Hitler,’ named for Siegfried Kracauer’s book on German cinema (1910-40).
Jakob Steinhardt, The City, 1913
Robert Wiene, Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari, 1919
Original sketch for a scene in The Cabinet of Dr Caligari from Lotte Eisner
Erich Godal, Die Straße (The Street), 1923
Louise Brooks in “Pandora’s Box” (G.W.Pabst, 1929)
Rudolf Klein Rogge in Lang’s The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, 1933
Otto Dix, The Actor Heinrich George, 1933
George Grosz, John, the Lady Killer, 1918
Art director Erich Kettelhut & crew create the futuristic city set of Metropolis
Raoul Hausmann, Mechanical Head (Spirit of Our Age), c. 1920
John Martin, Illustration to Paradise Lost, 1825
Magnus Zeller, The Orator, 1920
Leni Riefenstahl, Triumph of the Will, 1934
Yves Lecoq
Ever wonder what Germany may have looked like if the Weimar Republic kept going?
I like to think answers to this question could be found in the wonderful image sets posted over at kraftgenie’s Weimar blog. Each post is a collection of seemingly related imagery that is simply . . . Weimar.
Eugenio Recuenco
Yuval Yairi
Sabine Pigalle
Chantal Michel
Mikel Uribetxeberria
Bill Brandt
Madame Peripetie
Brooke Shaden
Brooke Shaden
Marilyn Minter
Inez van Lamsweerde
Tamara Lischka
***
‘In her 2010 documentary about the Berlin cabaret scene of the interwar period, Fabienne Rousso-Lenoir includes archival material, excerpts from German cinema classics, rediscovered promotional and institutional films, rare modern art experiments as well as documentaries of the time – all restored in high-definition.’
Above, the first five minutes of Fabienne Rousso-Lenoir’s Cabaret-Berlin: Die wilde Bühne (The Wild Stage) 1919-33. This 2010 documentary is loaded with incredible images from an era that went away in the 1930s.
Watch the entire untranslated film here. (Note: Veoh player download required)
Berlin of the 1920s was considered by many to be the cultural center of Europe; home to innovative art, music and a bawdy nightlife – all squashed when the Nazis came to power in 1933.
Above, Walther Ruttmann’s silent (add your own music) Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927), which ‘portrays the life of a city mainly through visual effects and music, not narrative content. The impression it conveys of daily life in Berlin is dynamic, anxiety-ridden, cacophonous – and a helluva lot of fun!’ -Jessica Glaser, MoMA
Below, visual highlights from MoMA’s recent exhibition, German Expressionism: The Graphic Impulse. Additional commentary here.
‘Philip Colbert created a fashion music film as part of his autumn/winter 2011-12 collection, Venus in Sequins’
The Rodnik Band. Rock band, fashion label. Referencing Duchamp, Van Gogh and Warhol.
Website – with free track downloads – here.
Found via Wearable Art Blog
Above, artist Sherrie Levine’s Fountain (Buddha) (1996) with Duchamp’s original (1917). From the exhibition, Keeping it Real (2010).
Below, ‘a personal note from Queen’s Roger Taylor’ (2011).
Roger Taylor: Dear Mr Murdoch
‘does adding the sticker to your loo make it a work of art?’
R. Mutt sticker. A replicate of the signature on Marcel Duchamp’s ‘readymade’ Fountain (1917).
Snag one here.
Found via Switched On Art
‘Vorticism was a radical art movement that shone briefly but brightly in the years before and during World War I.’
A few months back, I picked up Black Sparrow Press’ reprints of Wyndham Lewis’ Vorticist journal Blast Magazine. Vorticism was the British entry into the realm of modern art.
There were only two issues – which ‘blasted’ old Edwardian forms in favor of the new machine aesthetic that was about to take over the world.
Out with the old, in with the new, as it were.
The two issues of Blast – there were only two – are available for browsing at issuu. Check them out here and here.
I see a connection between Lewis’ work and the original production design of TRON. But that may just be me.
There is also a retrospective now going on at the Tate. Video referencing the work of Vorticist practitioner Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (1891-1915), below.
the work at the mehallo blog. beta. is licensed under a creative commons attribution - noncommercial - no derivative works 3.0 united states license. if reposting, credit must be given to steve mehallo - and if possible, please provide a link back to the mehallo blog. beta.
i include images for the purpose of critique, review, promotion and inspiration - and always make my best effort give credit/link back to the original source. if i’ve screwed up, please fire me a note.
page layout based on the wordpress 'darkwater theme' by antbag, adapted and redesigned by mehallo. valuable php assistance from bill mead.
