Tuesday, November 09, 2010

"Degenerate" Art on Display

In Germany, after Hitler and the Nazi's came to power, but prior to attacking Poland, there was a movement to condemn "degenerate" art. "Degenerate" was defined as works that don't show the Aryan people or German Nation as an ideal.
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There was a traveling show of some of this art, lost during the war.
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Well, they just found some of it in a basement of the Berlin Town Hall. Not a "basement" like we think of it, but a basement of a burnt out, bombed building. They showed most of the sculptures (2 of the 12 were destroyed). Experts think the sculptures were stored on higher floors and fell to the basement during the bombing.
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A visitor looks at the bronze sculpture 'standing girl' (Stehendes Maedchen),1930 by Otto Baum at the exhibition of 11 sculptures recently unearthed during archaeological excavations

The mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit, and the head of the Berlin Museum of Prehistory and Early History, Matthias Wemhoff, inspect a sculpture