2. Hitler’s Degenerate Art, 1937
Entartete Kunst or Degenerate Art was a term coined by the Nazi regime in Germany to describe virtually all Modern Art. This period in world and art history reflects the fascist manipulation of Modern Art to be used against certain minorities and is a true reflection of hatred. Such art was banned on the grounds that it was un-German, Jewish, or Communist in nature and those identified as degenerate artists were subjected to sanctions that included being dismissed from teaching positions, being forbidden to exhibit or to sell their art, and in some cases being forbidden to produce art. Degenerate Art also was the title of an exhibition, held by the Nazis in Munich in 1937, consisting of modernist artworks chaotically hung and accompanied by text labels deriding the work: There were slogans painted on the walls. For example: ‘Insolent mockery of the Divine under Centrist rule’, ‘Revelation of the Jewish racial soul’, ‘An insult to German womanhood’ and ‘Madness becomes method’ were but a few. A large amount of ‘degenerate art’ by Picasso, Dalí, Ernst, Klee, Léger and Miró was destroyed in a bonfire on the night of July 27, 1942, in the gardens of the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris. Why stop at burning books; hatred and fear go hand-in-hand after all.