‘PIECE OF CRAP’ OIL PAINTING BY HITLER ON DISPLAY IN ITALIAN EXHIBIT
‘PIECE OF CRAP’ OIL PAINTING BY HITLER ON DISPLAY IN ITALIAN EXHIBIT
By JTA, Jerusalem Post, March 20, 2017
The painting is one of more than 200 artworks, objects, installations, photos and multimedia pieces in the exhibit, “Museum of Madness: from Goya to Bacon.”
A "piece of crap” painting by Adolf Hitler is on display in a recently opened exhibition in northern Italy on the theme of madness.
The small, untitled oil painting, on loan from a private German collector and never before exhibited, shows a seated man and a standing man at the front of a long, shadowy corridor. Hitler’s signature is in the lower right corner.
Speaking ahead of the exhibit’s opening earlier this month, politician and art historian Vittorio Sgarbi, who curated the show, described the painting artistically as a “piece of crap; the painting of a desperate man.”
He added, “it could have been done by Kafka; it says a lot about his psyche: here you don’t see grandeur, you see misery. It’s not the work of a dictator but that of a wretch.”
The Hitler painting is one of more than 200 artworks, objects, installations, photographs, and multimedia pieces in the exhibit, “Museum of Madness: from Goya to Bacon,” which explores the links between art and mental illness, instability, and madness. It is included in the exhibit’s section on “political madness.”
The exhibit, which runs until November 16, is housed at the State Museum in Salo’, a town on Lake Garda that was closely associated with Italy’s World War II fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. From 1943-45 Salo’ was the headquarters of Mussolini’s Nazi-backed puppet state, the Italian Social Republic, or (RSI, which capitulated after partisans captured and executed Mussolini and other RSI officials as they attempted to flee.
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If you did not know who painted this painting, is it one you would even think of buying?
No, but honestly, I feel that way about a lot of art.
I will bet if put up for sale it will be snapped up and for a high price if it is an auction. There are people who bought "artwork" from John Wayne Gacy and other mass murders. Most likely just for the shock value.
Maybe someone rich will buy it and publicly burn it.
"I will bet if put up for sale it will be snapped up and for a high price..."
I'm sure that if the artist were known it would, but my question was whether you would buy it if you did NOT know who it was. As it happens, it belongs to a private citizen.
my question was whether you would buy it if you did NOT know who it was.
No, it's not our style. Then again I wouldn't buy it knowing it was painted by Hitler. My wife and I collect art we like to put on our walls and look at, not for investment. The artist's name is usually not a consideration except that we like some artist's style, like Peter Max..
I just watched an episode of Justified where an art collector goes around collecting and burning "Hitlers." I didn't realize collecting his art was a real thing.
Being even a object, even if not a painting, that was created by or possessed by any historically famous (or in the case of Hitler, infamous) person it would be desired as either a collectable or investment by someone, as pointed out by Randy.
A good reason to ignore the Home (Front) Page - This is the only article that has nothing to do with American politics.
The painting, IMO, is not being displayed as "Art," it is being displayed as a kind of appeal for those who will, for whatever reason, look upon something from the hand and mind of a mad man.
Yes, as the title to the display indicates: “Museum of Madness: from Goya to Bacon.”
Of course it is a painting, at least, but is only one object of many different kinds in the exhibition. I would think, though, that any qualified art critic, even without knowledge of the name of the artist, might still consider the painting a "piece of crap".