With the best will in the world, I can't see a swastika
I can't see a swastika with the best will in the world is a painting by Martin Kippenberger from 1984. The picture was in 1988 in the Hamburger Kunsthaus , in 2006 on the occasion of the Kippenberger retrospective in the Tate Modern and in 2008/9 in the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles shown.
|
With the best will in the world, I can't see a swastika Martin Kippenberger, 1984, oil and silicone on canvas, 160 × 133 cm Figure (external web link) |
|---|
description
In Kippenberger's work, a collection of juxtaposed and interlocking, angular surfaces is shown, which are set in different light gray, red and yellow tones and white. These mostly contoured surfaces appear in the picture as bar-like and angular structures, which are distributed over the entire picture, seemingly floating in space.
A disturbing effect emanates from the expansive, very restless composition in front of a dark gray to black background. This is brought about by a high-contrast color scheme, the lack of a uniform perspective and the resulting absence of a point of calm.
Above all, the association with a deconstructed swastika , which is consciously brought about by the title , but which is not shown in the painting at all, supports the emergence of a negative emotionality triggered in the viewer.
interpretation
Through the reference made in the title and in the composition to the symbol of the swastika, Kippenberger addresses what, from his point of view, is specifically German identity problems: the inability of the German citizen of the 1980s to deal with the Nazi past is addressed subversively . The associated taboo and repression of National Socialist crimes is revealed and criticized with the help of the satirical method .
The formal recourse to analytical cubism and constructivism in the design of the composition can also be understood as a further parody. With this, Kippenberger refers to classical modernism , which contradicts the official Nazi aesthetic . At the same time, he refers to contemporary Neo-Geo painting , which in turn is ironized by the sketchy painting style in the Bad Painting manner . It is the revisionist wish to bend the signifieds (bars) in order to be able to deny or suppress the signified (National Socialism).
With the best will in the world , Kippenberger uses the title I can't discover a swastika, in addition to contextualizing the image content, as a direct means of communicating with the recipient. This is addressed directly and also manipulated because, contrary to the artist's statement, he begins to look for the swastika.
In summary, it is about Kippenberger's painting
“A meta commentary with which he satirized the heterogeneous artistic preoccupation with Nazi history; secondly, the contemporary boom of the swastika motif [...] turned ironically and thirdly, the observer was able to become aware of his own negative fixation on the Nazi symbol ”.
review
In the second half of the 1980s in particular, the painting was viewed as a provocation and an insult, and Kippenberger was accused of right-wing extremist tendencies.
A deeper examination reveals a very complex, well thought-out and reflective work, which is an important part of the process of coming to terms with the Holocaust .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Brown mesh DER SPIEGEL 41/1988
- ^ Exhibition: The great guide Mark Rappolt, ZEIT ONLINE, March 7, 2007
- ↑ Martin Kippenberger: The Problem Perspective ( Memento of the original from July 7, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 246 kB)
- ^ Stefan Hartmann: Martin Kippenberger and the art of persiflage , Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-422-07194-0 , pp. 161–163.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Ibid., P. 158.
- ↑ Ibid., P. 160.
- ↑ Ibid., Pp. 161-163.
- ↑ Ibid., P. 169.
- ↑ Ibid., Pp. 169–170.
- ↑ See Assmann / Frevert: Geschichtsvergessenheit - Geschichtsversessenheit. On dealing with German pasts after 1945 , Stuttgart 1999, found in Hartmann, 2013, p. 161.
