dangerous art HUM

Background: Early Modernism

What influenced the development of Modern Art?

•The Advent of Photography

•Einstein's Theory of Relativity

•Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle

World War I

Impact of WWI on art

•The first experience of “mechanized death”

•Mustard gas

•10 million dead by the end of the war, including artists Franz Marc and Guillaume Apollinaire

•More than twice that severely  wounded, including Georges Braque.

•Images of death censored in the press.

•Enormous gap between the official language of the state and the reality of war.

While advances in military technology allowed us to make weaponry that killed more people more easily, advances in medical technology allowed more

people to survive their devastating injuries.

The Bridge

•This group was founded in Dresden and led by  Ernst Ludwig Kirchner who claimed that German art needed to “fly with its own wings.”

•A style characterized by pathos, violence, and emotional intensity.

•Overriding desire is to externalize internal emotional states

•Predominantly and Northern European art movement

•Inherited the brooding, melancholic spirit of Goethe, Wagner, and Van Gogh

•Favor the macabre and intimate subject matter

•istorted forms

•Dissonant colors

•Haunting use of black

Max Beckmann, Hell: 1919 (on left)
Otto Dix: A Street in Prague 1917 (on right)

10 million dead by the end of the war, including artists Franz Marc and Guillaume Apollinaire

More than twice that severely  wounded, including Georges Braque.

Images of death censored in the press.

Enormous gap between the official language of the state and the reality of war.

Blue Riders: The other group of German Expressionists

1911:  Founded in Munich and led by Russian émigré, Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc. 

No uniform style but all were obsessed with color.

In Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Kandinsky wrote, “Color directly influences the soul.  Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings.  The artist is the hand that plays…to cause vibrations of the soul.”

1929:  The Combat League for German Culture

Artistic and cultural issues were central to the National Socialist ideology. 

Founded by Heinrich Himmler and Alfred Rosenberg to “defend the value of the German essence in the midst of present-day cultural decadence by promoting every authentically native expression of German cultural life.”

The terms “Bolshevik”, “Insane”, and “Jewish” were interchangeably used to describe the decadent influences on Modern art.

The Rosenberg-Goebbels Dispute and the Challenge of?

Emile Nolde

Rosenberg=

representational way of seeing

Goebbels argued that figural distortion and non-naturalistic color was part of an expressive and futuristic Nazi aesthetic. Wanted to redeem German artists led astray  by  Jews.

The Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda

All museum directors supportive of contemporary are were dismissed from their posts:  Kathe Kollwitz and Heinrich Mann at the Prussian Academy; Otto Dix at the Dresden Art School and many others

Bauhaus, which was dismantled in Dessau in 1932, moved to Berlin, and was forced to close in 1933.

These people were replaced with fascists sympathetic to the goals of the Combat League.

The new museum and gallery directors began to organize small exhibitions of modern art for the purpose of

discrediting it.

word meanins

Dresden:  “Reflections of Decadence”

Stuttgart:  “Art in the Service of Decay”

Mannheim:  “Cultural Bolshevism:  Nuremburg Horror Chamber of Art”

•Chemnitz:  “Art that did not come from our soul”

In the summer of 1937, five Nazi officials conducted a

sweep of 32 public museums over a period of 10 days.

•

In addition to pillaging art museums, they restrict political humor in cabarets and institute the “Order Concerning Undesirable and Dangerous Music” to suppress jazz.

Hitler’s speech inaugurating the “Great Exhibition of German Art

“Works of art which cannot be understood in themselves but, for the justification of their existence, need those bombastic instructions for their use, finally reaching that intimidated soul, who is patiently willing to accept such stupid or impertinent nonsense--these works of art from now on will no longer find their way to the German people

Confiscated Art

Over 16,558 paintings, drawings, watercolors and sculptures are confiscated

Many of these works were auctioned off to pay for the war effort.  This Van Gogh went for $40,000 but 7 paintings by Max Beckman sold for $325.

The Degenerate Art Show: July 19, 1937

Goebbels wants to host a large-scale art exhibition that would emphasize the difference between Nazi art and the degenerate art of the Weimar Republic.

Timed to coincide with the dedication of the House of German Art on July 18^th.

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•650 paintings and sculptures by 112 artists were put on display.

•The lighting was poor

•They hung art from floor to ceiling and scrawled graffiti and mocking quotes from Hitler around the art.

•Ironically, over 2 million people showed up for this exhibit.  Five times the number that visited the House of German art. 

•Still on record as the most well-attended art event in history.

Graffiti

•Phrases such as the following were scrawled between works of art:

•“Insolent mockery of the divine”

•“An insult to German womanhood”

•“Madness becomes method”

•“Revelation of the Jewish racial soul”

Acceptable Nazi Art

Themes: Heroism, Aryan racial ideals, rural life, motherhood, military strength.

Style: Realism and Neoclassicism — easily understood, emotionally powerful.

Bonfires and auctions

Financial records show that the works brought in 681,394 RM.

The money raised was allocated to museums for the purchase of appropriate art.

An unknown number of confiscated objects by obscure artists were destroyed—some in a bonfire in Berlin designed to train their firefighters.

Banksy: You Have Such Beautiful Eyes: 2005

Banksy secretly installed You Have Beautiful Eyes in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in March 2005. [1]

Artwork Overview

• The Piece: A modified 18th-century aristocratic portrait featuring a classic sitter wearing a modern gas mask. [1, 2]

• The Meaning: It creates a stark contrast between historical elegance and contemporary fears of pollution, war, and anxiety. [1, 2]

• The Stunt: Banksy used a fake beard and adhesive to hang the piece alongside an official-sounding plaque before it was discovered hours later. [1, 2, 3]

• The Quote: When asked why he did it, Banksy famously noted that his sister once told him his work wasn't good enough for the Louvre, prompting him to joke, "I thought why wait until I'm dead?

Banksy in Palestine: 2006

In August 2005 (often referenced around 2005–2006 with ongoing exhibition and media coverage), British street artist Banksy traveled to the Palestinian territories and painted powerful stencils on Israel's West Bank separation barrier. [1, 2, 3]

The Intervention and Key Artworks

• The Location: Banksy spray-painted nine major stencils directly onto the concrete barrier in areas like Ramallah, Bethlehem, and Abu Dis. [1, 2, 3]

• Famous Pieces: Notable works included Window on the West Bank (showing a tropical beach scene through a cutaway in the concrete), Balloon Debate (a girl ascending with balloons), and Beach Boys. [1, 2]

• The Message: Banksy stated that the barrier essentially turns Palestine into the world's largest open prison, aiming to use humor and surrealism to draw global attention to the heavily restricted landscape

banksy in palestine 2015

Street artist Banksy traveled to the Gaza Strip in February 2015 to paint murals on homes destroyed during the previous year's 50-day conflict. [1, 2]

Key Murals and Media

• The Weeping Figure: A Rodin-inspired weeping Greek goddess (Niobe) painted on a remaining iron doorway. [1, 2, 3]

• The Kitten: A white kitten with a pink bow playing with a ball of twisted metal, which Banksy noted was painted because people on the internet only look at pictures of kittens rather than real devastation. [1, 2]

• Children on a Watchtower: An image depicting children swinging on an Israeli military surveillance tower. [1]

• Satirical Video: A two-minute mock holiday video titled "Make this the year YOU discover a new destination," which documented the wreckage and living conditions in Gaza. [1, 2, 3]

Banksy and Art Appropriation

Banksy uses art appropriation by lifting recognizable icons from pop culture, advertising, and art history, then twisting their context to deliver sharp political and social satire. [1, 2]

How Banksy Uses Appropriation

• Borrowing Icons: He regularly takes familiar images—like The Simpsons or classic paintings—and alters them to change their meaning completely. [1]

• Challenging Authority: By subverting commercial and historical symbols, he critiques capitalism, war, and institutional power. [1, 2]

• The Culture Cycle: As discussed on Banksy Explained, his work treats copying not as theft, but as a normal way for culture to grow and converse with itself. [1, 2]

The Paradox of His Approach

• Commercial Contradiction: While he critiques commercialism, his own designs are heavily commodified, leading to debates about copyright and originality. [1, 2]

• Street Dynamics: Street art communities sometimes argue that his mainstream appropriation gentrifies traditional, grassroots graffiti culture. [1]

Banksy: Thunder Mountain

 2006
Banksy:

n September 2006, the street artist Banksy sneaked into Disneyland in Anaheim, California, and placed a life-size inflatable doll dressed as a Guantánamo Bay detainee inside the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride.

Key Details of the Stunt

• The Installation: A blow-up doll wearing an orange jumpsuit, black hood, and handcuffs/shackles was positioned within the scenery of the roller coaster.

• Duration: The figure remained on the ride for about 90 minutes before security guards noticed it, shut down the attraction, and removed the piece.

• Purpose: The protest aimed to draw attention to the human rights controversies and treatment of prisoners at the U.S. military detention camp in Cuba.

• Connection to LA Exhibit: The stunt coincided with Banksy's famous Los Angeles warehouse exhibition, [Barely Legal], which featured a live painted elephant and footage of the Disneyland prank. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]

Banksy: Dismaland: 2018

Banksy's Dismaland opened and operated exclusively in 2015, not 2018. It was a temporary, dystopian "bemusement park" pop-up exhibition held at a disused lido in Weston-super-Mare, England, running for just five weeks from August 21 to September 27, 201

Banksy: TheJungle: 2018  

Banksy's famous mural related to the Calais "Jungle" camp—specifically The Son of a Migrant from Syria depicting Steve Jobs—was actually created in December 2015, though public discussion, related works (like his 2018 Paris murals or 2016 French Embassy piece), and retrospectives often connect or reference it around 2018. [1, 2, 3, 4]

The Calais "Jungle" Artworks (2015–2016)

• The Son of a Migrant from Syria: Painted on a wall in the Calais "Jungle" camp, it shows Apple co-founder Steve Jobs—the biological son of a Syrian migrant—carrying a trash bag of belongings and an early Macintosh computer. [1, 2, 3]

banksy shredded balloon girl

Banksy's famous painting Girl with Balloon self-destructed by shredding itself moments after selling for £1.04 million ($1.4 million) at a Sotheby's auction on October 5, 2018. [1, 2]

The Auction Stunt

• The Event: Just as the auctioneer's gavel fell, a remote-triggered paper shredder hidden inside the custom frame activated, sliding the canvas halfway through and cutting the lower half into ribbons. [1, 2, 3]

• The Intent: Banksy later revealed that the shredder was built into the frame years in advance. He intended to destroy the entire painting, but the mechanism jammed halfway through during the live auction. [1, 2, 3]

• The Reaction: Shocked attendees and auctioneers watched as alarms beeped. Sotheby's famously noted it was "the first artwork in history to have been created live during an auction"

Ai Weiwei: 1957-

•Weiwei-isms

•The world is a sphere, there is no east or west.

•Art is not an end but a beginning.

•I call on people to be ‘obsessed citizens,’ forever questioning and asking for accountability. That is the only chance we have today of a healthy and happy life.

Being an artist is more of a mindset; a way of seeing things; it is no longer so much about producing things

Ai Weiwei: Remembering: 2010 and

The Sichuan Earthquake Names Project: 2008

“She lived happily for seven years in this world” is written using 9,000 backpacks.

“Remembering” was created on the facade of the “Haus der Kunst” in Munich for Ai Weiwei’s exhibition titled, “So Sorry”.

Ai Weiwei: Sunflower Seeds 2010

Ai Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds (Kui Hua Zi) is a massive 2010 installation featured in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern in London. [1, 2]

Key Facts

• Scale: The artwork features 100 million individually hand-crafted porcelain sunflower seeds.

• Weight: The total installation weighed 150 tons and covered 1,000 square meters.

• Creation: Around 1,600 skilled artisans in the Chinese city of Jingdezhen hand-sculpted and painted each seed over two years. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Meaning and Themes

• Individuality: Each seed is unique, representing the importance of the individual against a massive, uniform crowd.

• Mass Production: The work critiques China's mass-manufacturing industries and Western consumerism.

• Personal Memory: Sunflower seeds were a common, shared street snack during the artist's impoverished childhoo

french painter on the left called the gleeners made by mille

british landscape painting ehich he took and elevated, amy of diaif paintings had jumot

when and where was Ai weiwei born

1957 beijing china

why was ai weiwei family exiled

his father poet ai qing was denounced during maos antirightist movement

why did Ai weiwei study in beijing

he studied at bejingfilm acaxemy and cofounded the stars

what influenced Ais use of readymades

marcel duchamp and the concept of the ready made

what did Ai do with the 2000 year old urn

he photographed himself dropping and smashing it in 1995

how does ai repurpose demolished temples?

he transforms their wood into intricate installations

what does Ais use of sunflower seeds emphasize

handmade craftsmanship with mass production and collective identity

what did Ai do after the 2008 Sichaun earthquake

he documented victims names and created memorial works

what is a major theme of ai weiweis work

questioning pwoer, human rights, memory, censorship and responsibiltiy