Constructing a Voice of Degeneracy: Entartete Kunst, Munich, 1937

Mark Nicolou Professor Adam Jolles Modern Art Exhibitions 26 April 2011

Mark Nicolou Professor Adam Jolles Modern Art Exhibitions 26 April 2011

Constructing a Voice of Degeneracy: Entartete Kunst, Munich, 1937

On 19 July 1937, Adolph Ziegler, president of the National Chamber of Fine Arts of the NSDAP, opened the Ausstellung Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art Exhibition) in Munich at the Archologisches Institut. Throughout the exhibition space, the curators constructed didactic criticisms and ridicule through quotes, commentary, and their methods of arrangement of the more than 650 works. The words of Hitler and other NSDAP members appeared exclusively in Deutsche Schrift (German script), their Fraktur typeface, while those of modernist artists and unauthored criticisms were in childlike or inconsistent Romanized form referred to as Shriftentartung (degeneracy of script). This duality is continued in the corresponding exhibition catalogue as well as other NSDAP propaganda including pre-1937 degenerate art posters, the Entartete Musik exhibition and Der Ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew) exhibition. In addition to these carefully constructed displays, the use of typography was extended into other areas of visual culture to engage in the Total War that Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels would later declare.1 These exhibitions are among the many propagandistic efforts by the Reich to instill nationalistic cultural policies into the German people and inoculate them from the scourge of the avant-garde.

The simultaneous presence of these differing modes of dissemination by the German state in Entartete Kunst signify the extent to which the NSDAP went to constrain and manipulate cultural nationalism. It is my contention that the application and differentiation of the formal aspects of written language, beyond their content, reflect a desire for cultural homogeneity in Germany - all as part of the construction of a government approved national identity. Specifically, these different forms represent two distinct voices by means of typography, one of refined, historically validated authority and another of modern degeneracy. Further, I posit that the criticism of non-Fraktur typography, alongside the banning of avant-garde art relates the Rosenberg-Goebbels debate with the Fraktur-Roman typography debate.2 Both of these controversies represent the nuanced concern of the new German government with the smallest components of national culture. Disputes of National Cultural Policy As described by Neil Levi, the 1935 Rosenberg-Goebbels dispute negotiated two variants for developing a national art.3 Alfred Rosenberg, Commissar for Supervision of Intellectual and Ideological Education of the NSDAP, supported a neoclassicist, realist mode of painting while Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, championed a Nordic, anti-bolshevik expressionist style.4 In either case the goal was a German national art, representative of the aims of the German people. Upon Rosenbergs rhetorical success, all stylistic modes of avant-garde art were branded degenerate. A parallel exists to this debate regarding the treatment by the Reich of typography. The point of contention was, again, modernity contrasted with history and nationalism. In the Roman-Fraktur dispute, proponents of New Typography, such as Jan Tchishold and Paul Renner, Nicolou 2

supported a Romanized, streamlined, and universally legible type.5 As a counterpoint, the conservative members of the German design community criticized the new type, and found the Gothic-based Fraktur to be the most readable and expressive of the content of the words.6 An influential text in this dispute was by Heinrich Wieynck, professor of typography at the University of Dresden. His 1931 review Guiding Principles on the Problem of Contemporary Letterform Design attacked the new Romanized types as unGerman, alien to the national spirit, and most scathingly termed these types Schriftentartung (degenerate scripts).7 The NSDAP settled on Fraktur as the official German typeface in 1935 requiring all official printings, school textbooks, newspapers, and government subsidized publishers to switch to the German type.8 Several designs were spread which reinforced the new official position of the government. Design contests were held to establish acceptable variants of the Fraktur types; the Element typeface was created specifically to complement the swastika (fig. 1). 9 Additionally, slogans were spread which associated Fraktur with German nationalism (figs. 2 and 3).10 The first reads: German script is an indispensable protective weapon for Germans abroad against menacing de-Germanization, and the second states: Feel German

Think German Speak German Be German Even in your Script11 Each example illustrates the proper scripts and encourages their use for explicitly German purposes. The latter slogan presses the idea that not only is the script German, but one should

Nicolou 3

embrace German-ness through the aesthetic of letters. In the following years the forced acceptance and adherence to both of these policies was conducted on the battlefield of the exhibition. Art and Typography in Entartete Kunst Exhibition Catalogue, 1937 While the 1937 Entartete Kunst and its accompanying catalogue have been discussed in relation to the Rosenberg-Goebbels debate, the treatment of typography in either of these has remained largely unexplored. Among the most iconic images of this exhibition, the catalogue cover presents a clear example of the defaming of modern art and script (fig. 4). The mocking quotations around KUNST appear insignificant compared with the rough crayon sketch of the text. The insult is immediately directed to the uncredited cover image of Otto Freundlichs improperly lighted Der neue Mensch (1912). The crayoned text implies that the creator posesses a childlike skill or mind. The bold, capitalized, red word is effortlessly contrasted with the official status of the book as Austellungsfhrer (exhibition guide) in an officially approved type, as if to say, rather sardonically, they will provide the art (Kunst), we will be your guide (Fhrer) to this contagion. Within the catalogue, the concept is repeated. Each page spread contrasts the official statement of the Nazis with the avant-garde art held within the exhibition (fig. 5). Without fail, the left page reveals the authority of conservative criticism in Fraktur type, while the right side contains thumbnails with brief quotes out of context and vague defamatory descriptions in Modern typefaces. The page spread in figure 5 contains the opposition of the exhibition intent with the images and ideas of avant-garde artists. Page two of the spread begins:

Nicolou 4

What does the Degenerate Art Exhibition mean to do? It means to give, at the outset of a new age for German people, a firsthand survey of the gruesome last chapter of those decades of cultural decadence that preceded the great change. It means to appeal to the sound judgement of the people and thus to put an end to the drivel and claptrap of all those literary cliques and hangers-on, many of whom would still try to deny that we ever had such a thing as artistic degeneracy [] It means to expose the common roots of political anarchy and cultural anarchy and to unmask degenerate art as art-Bolshevism in every sense of the term []12 The facing page contains three George Grosz graphic works, a Marc Chagall painting, and another unidentified painting; the upper left corner contains a quote that reads: To become an art-Communist [kunstkommunist] is to pass through two phases: 1. to take ones place in the Communist party and assume the duties of solidarity in the struggle, 2. to take the revolutionary transformation of production. The Jew Wieland Herzfelde in The Opponent 1920/21.13 In this comparison, the NSDAP statement implies the cultural end of Weimar decadence, the quality of rationalism in those who agree with the state positions, and the offsetting of degeneracy upon Bolshevism. By this first spread of explanatory text, the reader/viewer can be sure what the official position is on art and politics, but with an additional subtlety the way in which the typefaces cast the elegance of German perfection and National Socialist modernity in opposition to the old decadence of Weimar culture, to be found in politics, art, and type. Inside Entartete Kunst, Munich, 1937 Within the exhibition space itself, these contrasting voices of authority and degeneracy are continued. In the main entrance Ludwig Giess Kruzifixus (c.1921) is briefly explained (fig. 6). Attached to the base of the cross a Fraktur title-card reads Christus von Prof. Gies, Berlin.

Nicolou 5

This work appears to be the only one which uses the official script to identify the work, inviting the comparison to the traditional tablet attached to the cross. Completing the comparison, the title card identifies Germany, by means of its official script, as the murder of degenerate art. Below this is the continued attack which leaves the newly arrived visitor with no other way to read the object below a photo of the sculpture in situ, it states: This horror hung as a war memorial in the cathedral of Lbeck. Beside the work a larger placard is directed generally at all the work in the room. At the top it implores the viewer; it states, Man staune! (Marvel! or Its amazing!)14 Behind the text a Bauhaus inspired, roughly painted question mark contradicts or mocks the admonishment to Marvel! and instead encourages an act more like gawking. Because this sight introduces the exhibition, this is the attitude intended to be repeated by the viewer. In the third and largest room hangs the infamous mockery of Wassily Kandinskys Der schwarze Fleck (1921). Like the installation of Gies, this piece establishes the proper reading of the images and the text around it (figs 7 and 8). In ridiculing a modernist artwork by recreation, the text above in both content and style can be taken the same way. The George Grosz quote reads: Take Dada seriously! its worth it. The derisive employment of the quote is doubled by the uneven and inconsistent type within which it is written. A discussion of the misplacement of a quote about dada over an Expressionist Kandinsky is reductive of the larger situation. It is, however, significant that the lyrical quality of the text is reflected by the lines of the mock painting. Using the same movement of the composition, the quote follows an organic flow atop the panting. Further, the text is rendered in the same paint and varied line weights as the Kandinsky, and, although no color images exist, a secondary color is present in the text which is

Nicolou 6

visible as a grey-tone in the apertures of the letters of the word Dada. Similarly the tittle of the i in Sie extends irrelevantly upward as those part of the painting as well as the exclamation mark, which leans to the right like the abstract forms below. Although the text was intended to harshly critique the work, the application of the paintings principles reflect an understanding of the visual qualities of Kandinskys intentions. Also on this wall, two dada publication covers are present: Der Dada numbers 2 and 3 (figs. 9 and 10). Each of these images combines a multitude of types, sizes, and compositional methods. This appears to be a tactic of the curators to validate the criticism above; however to even a mildly discerning eye, the differences are vast. The dada constructions employ the methods of photomontage and collage to create a disorienting display that remains relatively legible. The Grosz quote is connected to the staggered type of Der Dada No. 3 by the inclusion of Groszs dada works. The page lists the Directeurs of the journal as groszfield, hearthaus, and georgemann; the puppet-like figure, beside a Richard Huelsenbeck poem, is further credited to Grosz-Heartfield. With this direct comparison, a viewer approaching closely might find the preposterous quote above reconciled with the page below. Because the larger text dominates the space, it informs the reading and ridicules the smaller image. On the south wall of the same room, a similar technique of criticism is attempted (fig. 11). Above a series of sculptures, an undulating quote is taken as a self-assertion of artlessness. This text is preceded by the neatly and properly written: They say it themselves: it continues, We act as if we were painters, poets, or whatever, but what we are is simply and ecstatically impudent. In our impudence we take the world for a ride and train snobs to lick our boots!

Nicolou 7

While the wobbling text matches the varying heights of the sculptures below, their intentional placement defies a logical design order. The first sculpture under the text is Eugen Hoffmanns Mdchen mit blauem Haar, (c. 1919), followed by Rudolf Bellings Dreiklang (1924), and finally returning to Hoffmann, his Weiblicher Akt. The intentional placement of the Hoffmann sculptures on either side of the Belling creates the uneven ground upon which the text lies. If the Hoffmann sculptures were placed together (switching the Belling with Hoffmanns Weiblicher Akt) both visual and oeuvreic order would be restored. This subtle feature compounds the confusion of the multivalent display techniques to prevent the viewer from becoming contaminated by an artists degeneracy. The official voice is forcefully established and distinguished in this exhibition space. Again, in moving closer, the viewer finds the two voices amongst each object. In the CuboConstructivist Walter Dexel painting, Lokomotive, the perceived simplicity of the image is reflected in typography of the artists name, title, museum collection, year, and inflated Weimar cost (fig. 12).15 In an attempt to cast this and all other works taken from museum collections as degenerate, a secondary level of criticism is imposed upon the museum that purchased the work. All of the pre-Nazi history of the work is rendered in a sans serif, Roman type and contrasted with a red letter Fraktur placard below. As with many paintings throughout the exhibition, it reads: Paid for by the taxes of the German working people. The intended effect of this was certainly to incite anger in the viewer. All of these subtle techniques represent the first time the NSDAP exposed a large number of German citizen to these modes of propaganda. In the subsequent exhibitions, these techniques, begun in this successful exhibition, were honed to serve broader uses and sharper

Nicolou 8

criticisms. The following section will examine the previous methods of typographic propaganda in exhibitions, as well as those which the 1937 show influenced. Other Exhibitions of Degeneracy Pre-1937 Exhibitions of Degenerate Art Before the 1937 exhibition, the NSDAP attempted other less expansive exhibitions of the art which they found to be degenerate. Surviving Entartete Kunst posters from Dortmund in 1935 and Munich in 1936 express the same ideological critique of modern art and modern type refined by the culminating show in 1937. By directly contrasting the official writing with the cartoonish quality in the Dortmund poster, the effect of the alienation of the art is established; before entering the actual exhibition, the viewer knows how to read the display (fig. 13). The poster states: Special Show: Degenerate Art. Services provided by Judeo-Bolshevik cultural poisoning.16 A further tie to the differentiation between the legitimate and illegitimate elements emphasized in this poster are evident in the diacritical mark over the u in K!nst. This is a vestigial element from blackletter typefaces, such as Fraktura, which helps differentiate a u from an i. This establishes a subtle mockery of the new typefaces as well as the new art. Similarly, the poster for the 1936 Munich exhibition, held at the White Hall Police Department, employs elements of Russian Suprematist design to create a parody of the avantgarde (fig. 14). The poster clearly mocks and reverses El Lissitzkys lithography Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (1919) (fig 15). Much like the treatment of fellow Russian Kandinsky in the later Munich show, Lissitzkys work is reversed and recast as degenerate. Rather than the red wedge attacking the white, the white (perhaps Aryan) wedge assaults the red circle. The poster

Nicolou 9

insults the design principles of modernism while informing the viewer of the degenerate features of Jewish and Bolshevik art by stating: Degenerate Art exhibition of cultural documents of Bolshevist and Jewish subversion.17 The insult continues: What we see in this interestinglooking [work], was once taken seriously!!!!! Both of these works use the authority and supremacy of the government in constructing degeneracy. By creating a spectacle of Otherness, the viewer, even of the exhibition poster, becomes aware of the proper response. Elements of each of these types were later used to strengthen the message in the 1937 exhibition from the mockery of Kandinsky to the divergent textual voices of aesthetics. The multifaceted methods of converging art and typography are not unique, thus this technique was expanded after the culminating 1937 show. Outside Entartete Kunst: Munich, Berlin, and Dsseldorf As the 1937 Entartete Kunst exhibition traveled to other locations after Munich, at least one well documented feature helped to externalize the typography insult of the exhibition within. Although no subsequent incarnation of Entartete Kunst was documented as well as the opening in Munich, several photographs of the faades in later exhibitions have been retained. The lettering on these faades also reveals the increasing reliance upon typography to distance the visitors from the avant-garde. The original show in Munich, at the Archologisches Institut, used a sign that read: Ausstellung Entartete Kunst Eintritt frei (Exhibition: Degenerate Art Free admission) (fig. 16). This signs expresses its official status with its Fraktur lettering and its defamation of the avant-garde as degenerate with no typographic insult to the art. Rather, it relies on those

Nicolou 10

techniques within. In the traveling of this exhibition, the faade lettering came to reflect the interior insults upon the art in similar ways to the exhibition catalogue and the walls of the Munich show. By the end of the Munich exhibition in November 1937, the Entartete Kunst exhibition was taken over by the Reichspropagaleitung (Reich Propaganda Directorate) and became more outwardly direct about the conflicting voices within the show. The first exhibition after Munich and the administrative transfer was held in Berlin from 26 February until 8 May 1938 at the Haus der Kunst. The sign for this show divided the two voices and asserted its official status more clearly than in Munich (fig. 17). The sign read: Ausstellung der NSDAP bau Berlin, Entartete Kunst (Exhibition of the Nazi Party Building Berlin, Degenerate Art). As with its predecessor, the top line was composed in the official typeface and claimed credit as the NSDAP in the title. Furthering their assertion of authority, below the sign hung a banner emblazoned with a swastika. Between these two official symbols (text and flag) the words Entartete Kunst were written in a clumsy, sharp-pointed, type. This clear distinction between these two conflicting voices is therefore as apparent externally as within the exhibition. The Dsseldorf exhibition, held from 18 June to 7 August 1938, at the Kunstpalast Ehrenhof used a very similar sign, yet without the swastika (fig. 18). Atop the building however, was a much more didactic method of differentiation: Arno Brekers Aurora, which still perches on the edge of the Kunstpalast faade. Breker was considered to be the ideal sculptor by the standards of the Reich.18 In this example, the comparison becomes clear, although there is no degenerate work on the exterior, the mock-degenerate text creates a contrast with the proper form

Nicolou 11

shown above it. While other exhibitions employ similar techniques, these two earlier shows best demonstrate the development of the ideas begun on the walls of the Munich show. Degeneracy of Race and Music As a demonstration of the committedness to constructing otherness/degeneracy by means of typography, the NSDAPs The Eternal Jew exhibition yields one of the most memorable examples of their dedication. Held in November 1937 at the Library of the German Museums in Munich, the exhibition imposed a strong textual degeneracy upon the Jewish race. Rather than simply attacking a cultural development of Jewishness, the exhibition constructed an Otherness to distance the desired nationalism of the German people. Apart from the frequent use of the stereotype of the greedy, Bolshevik Jew, they further removed the Jews by alienating their language. The posters and entrance banner for the exhibition employed a pseudo-Hebraic typeface which, while legible is awkward and antagonistic to a well trained German viewer (fig. 19 and 20). This Hebrew mimicry made a major resurgence after the 1941 decree that all Jews must wear a yellow patch with the word Jude (fig. 21). This example of the NSDAP social policy is clearly derived from the typographical propaganda which reached maturity in 1937 in Entartete Kunst. The 1938 Entartete Musik exhibition, also held in Dsseldorfs Kunstpalast Ehrenhof, employed the expanded propagandistic techniques which where largely developed in the 1937 Entartete Kunst exhibition. This exhibition targeted Jewish composers and black jazz musicians. The gallery space contained various paintings and insults directed toward the music and the musicians. In one installation example, four elements of conservative cultural policy coalesce (fig. 22). A painting hangs off-center overlapping two banners of crudely painted text which Nicolou 12

read: the Jew Arnold Schnberg as Kokoschka saw him. To the right, the composers atonal composition is expressed as sheet music and is further mocked by the presence of the lyrics to a simple childs song: Steht auf, ihr lieben Kinderlein (Rise, my dear little children). With this relatively simple display, the concepts of Jewishness, modern painting, avant-garde music, and new typography were simultaneously condemned. This show brought the elements of constructing degeneracy to its apex. Conclusion All of the propaganda techniques developed from the pre-1937 posters through the multiple incarnations of Entartete Kunst, to Der Ewige Jude, the 1938 exhibition brought together these typographic installation elements to discredit the artistic merit of painters, musicians, Jews, and Communists. All of these perceived forms of degeneracy easily were attacked in a single exhibition space which was initiated with the major exposure and careful construction of the 1937 Munich Entartete Kunst exhibition. Through increasingly complex developments of typographic propaganda, the NSDAP established two voices. The first voice was the official, historical, and properly nationalistic Fraktur which operated in an administrative capacity to communicate the ideals of the Reich to the German people; they were so effective in the use of this typeface that it is seldom used today without evoking Nazi Germany. The other voice, that of the degenerate avant-garde, was separated from any fascist ideologies. The freedom of these typefaces to reflect pluralism, personal identity, and formally expressive elements is characteristic to their resistance of conservative cultural fascism. The typefaces used in Entartete Kunst separate these two voices as the NSDAP desired. However, the compared legacies of the Third Reich and the so-called degenerate artists have been settled.

Nicolou 13

All of these complex methods and results of NSDAPs propaganda for cultural policy are derived from this highly popular experiment of exhibition installation. By developing and perfecting the methods which helped to draw over two million visitors in four months to the Munich exhibition, the new German Reich was able to expand its desire for control into other cultural critiques. Following the 1937 show, the attack was extended into the social policies imposed upon Jews and assisted in moving toward their goal of Total War with the Entartete Musik exhibition by attacking all of their enemies simultaneously on the Eastern and Western fronts as well as on the battleground of the museum.

Nicolou 14

The idea of total war was declared in Goebbels 1943 speech Nation, Rise Up, and Let the Storm Break Loose. See Calvin Colleges German Propaganda Archive.
2

See Neil Levi, Judge for Yourselves!-The Degenerate Art Exhibition As Political Spectacle. October (1998: 85), 41-64 and Peter Bain and Paul Shaw, Blackletter: Type and National Identity (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998).
3 4 5

Levi, 45. Ibid., 46.

For a discussion of New Typography, see Christopher Burkes Active Literature: Jan Tschichold and New Typography (London: Hyphen, 2007) and Paul Renner: The Art of Typography ( New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998).
6

Jeremy Aynsley, Graphic Design in Germany: 1890-1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 181.
7 8 9

Ibid., 185. Bain, 44. Burke, Paul Renner, 150. Ibid. Burkes Translation. Ibid.

10 11 12

Stephanie Barron, Facsimile of the Entartete Kunst Exhibition Brochure trans. David Britt in Degenerate Art: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1991), 360. Emphases in original.
13 14

Ibid, 361.

Mario-Andreas von Lttichau Entartete Kunst, Munich 1937: A Reconstruction trans. David Britt in Degenerate Art: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1991), 51. The text continues: The concentrated simplification of all the motifs is not meant as a halting primitivism but it is a deliberate effort to convey aesthetic stimuli . . . . The spiritual values too are so profound and individual that they would in themselves make the work one of the richest documents of modern religious experience . . . . It would be hard to find a symbol that would convey to posterity with greater power and depth the significance of the Great War and its fallen heroes.

Nicolou 15

The cost of 1000 refers to Deutsche Papiermarks, the currency of the Weimar Republic which hit a period of hyperinflation in 1923. At the height of this inflation a pound of meat cost 36 Billion . However, it is unknown at what point of the inflation period each of the works was procured.
15 16 17 18

My translation. My translation. Barron, 18. Breker was also a juror for the 1937 Groe Deutsche Kunst Ausstellung.

Nicolou 16

Bibliography Aynsley, Jeremy. Graphic Design in Germany: 1890-1945. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. Bain, Peter, and Paul Shaw. Blackletter: Type and National Identity. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998. Barron, Stephanie, Peter Guenther, Christopher Zuschlag, et al. Degenerate Art: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1991. Burke, Christopher. Active Literature: Jan Tschichold and New Typography. London: Hyphen, 2007. -. Paul Renner: The Art of Typography. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998. Clark, Toby. Art and Propaganda in the Twentieth Century: The Political Image in the Age of Mass Culture. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1997. Ellul, Jacques. Propaganda; The Formation of Men's Attitudes. New York: Knopf, 1965. Golsan, Richard Joseph. Fascism, Aesthetics, and Culture. Hanover: University Press of New England, 1992. Jolles, Adam. "Stalin's Talking Museums." Oxford Art Journal. 28, no. 3 (2005): 429-455. Jowett, Garth and Victoria O'Donnell. Readings in Propaganda and Persuasion: New and Classic Essays. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2006. Levi, Neil. Judge for Yourselves!-The Degenerate Art Exhibition As Political Spectacle. October. 1998 85: 41-64. Mario-Andreas von Lttichau Entartete Kunst, Munich 1937: A Reconstruction. Translated by David Britt. In Degenerate Art: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1991. Michaud, Eric, and Janet Lloyd. The Cult of Art in Nazi Germany. Translated by Janet Lloyd. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004. Petropoulos, Jonathan. Art As Politics in the Third Reich. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.

Nicolou 17

Sax, Benjamin, and Dieter Kuntz. Inside Hitler's Germany: A Documentary History of Life in the Third Reich. Lexington: D.C. Heath, 1992. Steinweis, Alan. Art, Ideology & Economics in Nazi Germany: The Reich Chambers of Music, Theater, and the Visual Arts. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993. Taylor, Brandon, and Wilfried van der Will. The Nazification of Art: Art, Design, Music, Architecture, and Film in the Third Reich. Winchester: Winchester Press,1990. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Propaganda. 2010. http://www.ushmm.org/ propaganda/. Zuschlag, Christopher. An Educational Exhibition: The Precursors of Entartete Kunst and Its Individual Venues. In Degenerate Art: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1991.

Nicolou 18

Figures

Figure 1. Third Reich Fraktur-based typefaces. National by Walter Hhnisch, 1934; Element by Max Bittrof, 1934; Gotenburg by Fritz Heinrichten, 1936; Tannenberg by E. Meyer, 1934(Burke, 150).

Figure 2. Deutsche Schrift. Printed Slogan of the Third Reich c. 1935. German script is an indispensable protective weapon for Germans abroad against menacing de-Germanization (Burke, 148). Nicolou 19

Figure 3. Figure 2. Fhl Deutsche. Printed Slogan of the Third Reich c. 1935. Feel German / Think German / Speak German / Be German / Even in your Script (Bruke, 148).

Figure 4. Entartete ,,Kunst Austellunsfhrer, 1937. Content by Fritz Kaiser. Published by Verlag fr Kultur- und Wirtschaftswerbung, Berlin. Image: Otto Freundlich, Der Neue Mensch, 1912, plaster cast, location unknown. Nicolou 20

cr

q
CT

H} r

fit rh.

nF

rfl r t'

IF r

cn

C,

|n

lJ

g= E !. E:EEE Ed *s E ;=E -E;i vre;= ,iE Ei EEi!: ElSi

ili

EiiEF iE

iizEE ii Ei r-1 ?;':gF."lE

ii

k
l
l-. te

iEi!-i::

i:

G
-l

c,
c)
t-

o
lh) v \
(5)
=

?;E s5i, liigE3EE

-?

*Eg iliiiEi i gii i EFiE .-s E-:;::ts=;Erg3 !! ggl1i g ?=IiF; rs :E;E Eg

V/+f R v99vr hw

l; iA
--,L -:H )-bF

3=

s gg

q) '.lg 6t
J ri-

: =F:asF+*ieg69l 3i= 3gi::g iE

I

a
t-

c)

iEsF:i:iggiiEigi:i
.lg <t

B
t"-t

='=l=?_Agis; z=a*# : 6 = i== qE = ! igTlE i : ; iF' E: 7;z

11

; sgf ;3fi ; :

;:i

iiiiigiig ii
fF
; ;F ; gi; ; +: ; gligis ;

It

Figure 5. Entartete ,,Kunst Austellunsfhrer, 1937. Pages 2 and 3.

Nicolou 21

Figure 6. Ludwig Gies, Kruzifixus, c.1921, wood; formerly in Lbeck Cathedral, probably destroyed; shown here on the landing in Room 1 of Entartete Kunst.
tuoo1 ut SulPuel aql uo araq tsur;.alal)glxqJo I rpoo'm'r1161 r'irstrtt) PaUr)nrJ) 'llerpaqre, lcaQl1 u, x1''"-*,o1
u^\ogs lPaKorlsaP '{1qeqo:o

nx{rzua 't'Dr;tJ$;

Nicolou 22

Figure 7. Wassily Kandinsky, Der schwarze Fleck (The black spot), 1921, o/c, 138 x 120 cm; Kunsthaus, Zurich.

Figure 8. Detail of the Dada wall in Room 3; work on view by Haizmann, Hausmann, Klee, and Schwitters over mock Kandinsky. Nicolou 23

Figure 9. Raoul Hausmann, title page of Der Dada, no. 2, December 1919.

Figure 10. George Grosz, Raoul Hausmann, & John Heartfield, title page of Der Dada, no. 3, April 1920. Nicolou 24

F 1r|

Figure 11. View of a portion of the south wall of Room 3; work by Baum, Belling, Campendonk, Dexel, Felixmller, Hoffmann, Klee, and Nolde.

WW
W
r-c

t
YY
.AZ'

!_ I

LrG

6Z--t 6 TU J

trffi .?
gf @ ry. #* ffi -ffi: u/'.

3F

h^,

t,

OJ

---i

-aE

3j=
',.

-ul 36 ox
or ,9
vx q.)

J-

.e

L_..1

o5
9* o !-

?z

,"=
-=d,

d>

", i

!3tr
-0r >-o LL/V

>

Nicolou 25

case from

director of the Stadtmuseum in Dresden, c out-of-context quotations from their own

Villrich's

Sciuberung des Kunsttgftipg

ostensibly didactic organization. Actuaily th directly related to the works themselves,

Reoelation oJ tbe Jewisb racial soul Tbe cultural Bolsheoiks' order oJ battle An insult to German womanbood

The organizers attempted to bring som into the overcrowded exhibition by groupin series of tendentious signs, labels, and head purpose was both to rerieve the impression and to emphasize the themes of degeneracy

Insolent mockery of tbe Dioine under Centrist

Tbe ideal-cretin and wbore Deliberate sabotale of national defense

Cerman

t'armers-r yiddisb oiew

for
tbe wilderness reoeals

*L*k**n**$v*$

Ruhmeshalle Bqrrnan

The Jewisb longing

l9:?

t{,$$AA

becomes tbe racial ideal of a deqenerate

Nx* t vr,\ t*,1 S i!.r, rr$\iil\e? P\ **s;rgr$s*.;*,lS uN,

Madness becomes metbod

Crazy at any price

Nature as seen by sick minds Eoen museum bigwigs called this "art of the Ge

"verdicts" Figure 12. Walter Dexel, Lokomotive , c.1921, o/c, 70 x 82cm, location unknown. Entartete that had been passed by Hitle4 Cle \Zafter Dexel, Lofronrotiue (Locomotive), c l92l , oilon canvas, 70 x g2 cm (271h x 32t/o in),location unknown Entartete logue Alfred Rosenberg on the outrawed art, Kursf, Room Room 3, NS Kunst, 3.inventory no unrecorded

Figure 40

Also painted direcdy on the wall in larg

rnovements, and their adherents With great p captured the essence of the virification that co around. For example, "lt is not the mission of for filth's sake, to paint the human being only faction, to draw cretins as symbols of mothe.h deformed idiots as representatives of manly str These texts were intended to emerge as t the midst of the Nazi-contrived atmosphere o also provided the organizers with morar and p left the visitor in no possible douht rher rhe o-

Figure 13. Poster for Entartete Kunst, Dortmund, 1935.

Nicolou 26

Figure 14. Poster for Entartete Kunst, Munich, 1936.

Figure 15. El Lissitzky. Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge, 1919. Lithograph.

Nicolou 27

+.

-.o-

Figure 16. Sign for Entartete Kunst on the faade of the Archologisches Institut, Munich, 1937.

Ii

r\

9-

.=

w?t'
6,

:.

o -c

Lrl

.!

%,:Y:,

{try.
X = -

54

&. w,t&
.:
9?

1;:

i.!

Ll- Ill

= H;

. iE E;tEIi:i Eiiiig E',EEij IEr; s iE{ij := ilt*t;gEr = Ei;i E ;ti:l: ii:o iE!fE; = s ? !g 1i ?i4EE'- 3E E! X3 : i+; ?- I; i? , ; * r liti 3tlit;r ae:i tli l!= g! E? g;i;i$i Rit:E:Et:r;:i5i;E'i5i;

E .;i!fi;5;i+gi;;E:iiEir +i !Eifi:

siiaHE:85!E:;+EisTas iE:5,;r?

iPPo, --#H+rtEE::

e5:

ot

b =s

*' * EuE 1igi 41'i$ liB IiE lii g*g!i;! g; :ii ir E;E; *f5fsEEj+i;;;i Etii j
E I t

i:iEi; Ii tf

ri"EIr

Figure 17. Sign for Entartete Kunst on the faade of the Haus der Kunst, Berlin, 1938.

Nicolou 28

Nv 9JI 5oi

ii

Figure 18. Sign for Entartete Kunst on the faade of the Kunstpalast Ehrenhof, Dsseldorf, 1938.

Figure 19. Der Ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew) Exhibition poster, 1937. Nicolou 29

Figure 20. Sign for Der Ewige Jude on the faade of the Libraries of the German Museums, 1937.

Figure 21. Yellow Star of David badge with Hebraic lettering of Jude.

Nicolou 30

;i E ;; i t 3 :ffiEE iE E.E EE

Figure 22. Exhibition installation of composer Arnold Schnberg in Entartete Musik, 1938.

iE<
2

rn-u

.! ^J

t!

:Y

-o

U)

o '-:

.s

.E

:o

il)

qJ

6 L

bo

>

Nicolou 31

L]