More “youths” in action, this time in Dortmund.
An artist agreed to remove one of his paintings from a public place because some of the culture-enriching youngsters got a bit frisky around it, and others complained. Can’t have that, you know.
The work in question is not the one shown at the top of this post, which is “The Extraction of the Stone of Madness” by Hieronymus Bosch. The painting mentioned in the story is ugly, vulgar, insulting, and badly executed, and I won’t have it on our blog. If you want to see it, visit the original article in Ruhr Nachrichten.
What’s telling about this incident is that the artist — who under normal circumstances would never agree to the removal of one his paintings for any reason, no matter who complained or who was offended — buckled so easily when confronted with an argument based on multiculture. Lefty artists are usually so adamant about Speaking Truth to Power, so fiercely protective of their Right to Transgress, so insistent that Art Must Push the Envelope. Épater le bourgeois!
But not this time. Not when the culture-enrichers are calling the shots.
This is additional proof — as if we needed any — that Islam always trumps other lefty issues, every single one.
Many thanks to Nash Montana for the translation:
The reason why the painter Franz Ott removed this picture
DORTMUND The painter Franz Ott faced a difficult decision on Wednesday: As he was putting up his exhibition in the Foyer of the ‘Foreign Subsidiary Group’, his assistant Martina Plum appropriated from the group suggested that a certain painting should not be exhibited — in deference of the cultural feelings of some visitors.
100 to 140 unaccompanied minor refugees visit the Foreign Subsidiary Group building daily to learn German. They are aged 15 to 18 and are traumatized. 97% of the minors come from Arab countries; most of them are male.
On Tuesday, Franz Ott started to put together the exhibition with the title “Encounters”, which opened on Thursday. He hung nineteen paintings, one of which is titled “Slavery is past”.
Shortly thereafter employees who work at the foyer’s information desk and run the café filed complaints with Martina Plum: some of the male youths were reacting in an extreme fashion to the painting. They posed in front of the painting and amid loud hooting and hollering, they made vulgar gestures and imitated sexual activity with the painted woman.
Some of the other young Arabs reacted differently, but in no less an extreme manner: they stormed to their German teachers and indignantly demanded the painting be removed: that it was not right to show a woman in such a derogatory way. Plum called Ott: it would be better to remove the painting.
Freedom of Art in Danger?
Franz Ott, as any painter would, at first saw freedom of expression in his art endangered, and he was fuming. But he calmed himself down and discussed the issue with Martina Plum.
What spoke in favor of showing the painting: Art can not be censored. It has to be allowed to be uncomfortable. Freedom of expression in art is continuously endangered, and consequently it has to be defended by artists. Also, it was not Ott’s intention to degrade women in his painting, but it was criticism of the fact that many women still are not treated equally.
What spoke against showing the painting: It is easy to say, Whoever comes here has to adjust. easy and unrealistic. Martina Plum knows a lot of refugee stories: “They have experienced things that are inconceivable to us.” Many of the young men were dispatched by their families because they were the oldest or the strongest son. They were attacked and robbed on their flight, they were fleeced by smugglers. Plum says they were all traumatized long before they ever left their home countries.
Girls who are learning German in the building are mostly from Africa, many from Guinea. They have experienced even worse things in the past: They often flee all alone of their own accord, either out of fear of genital mutilation or because they fled from forced marriages.
The Soul is Gone
Many had to sell their bodies in order to survive their escape. “They were,” says Plum, “handed around from ship to ship. When they got pregnant, they were thrown off at the next port. If they were lucky it was a port in Europe.” Some of them eventually arrived, with a baby in their belly from a stranger. “When I look into their eyes: The soul is gone,” says Plum.
Franz Ott knew that. That’s why he didn’t choose any of his paintings with distinctly obvious war scenes for this exhibition.
The painting with the woman, he thought, was okay, because it didn’t show a scene of war and because it says something crucial about our Western society. “I thought that they should see that not everything is wonderful and happy here.” Plum says. Many refugees think that here a person gets rich and happy quickly. One could say, Ott wanted to enlighten with this painting.
Discussion Day with Students and Artist
This is the decision: Martina Plum and Franz Ott agreed to remove the painting. Because the Foyer of the building is not a museum, in which only art is important. And because Franz Ott’s paintings can have an uncomfortable effect, it’s unnecessary to make existing traumas any worse.
Plum and Ott are convinced: The reactions to the painting show that simple, easily said truths do not help when the issue is to integrate refugees. They want to hold a discussion day, perhaps in the evening, perhaps during teaching hours. They want to show the painting to the students again and talk with them about the painting in peace — Plum, Ott, the teachers and the students.
The translator adds this afterword:
The painting had to come down because it’s a ridiculous racist stupid America-hating moronic immature dumb waste of space.
The painting had to come down because it’s a ridiculous racist stupid America-hating moronic immature dumb waste of space.
But those are the very things that make the artist rich.
I didn’t even read this, sorry to say. Maybe I will have the stomach for it tomorrow.
What will it require to take back our country? What will it take to stop this madness that portrays the religion of pieces as something peaceful when any fool can see that head-chopping is not exactly peaceful, and neither is rapine, stealing, and attacking others who don’t look like you. Will Europe recover from its madness and send all these [miscreants] back to where they came from? They BELONG in the desert.
While I don’t want to look like a religious zealot since I’m not — I do look forward to the day when some of these [worthless things] finally face their maker and realize they really did misunderstand the moral conundrum we are facing.
Murder and rape are WRONG. Even fools know that. So what is the matter with these people.
Riddle me this, Dymphna. (Or not, I don’t want to stress you further).
In the meantime, I’ll put another check in the mail because that is the best I can do in this fight for life and I do believe it is that. I’m just not smart enough to do anything but cheer for the right side. Sigh.
My basic problem is why were the people in 1683 so much smarter than people today? It must be cell phones and computers, right? Nobody has to think at all now, in fact they are discouraged from thinking. And I have read that all this crap actually does affect the brain and not in a good way. Back to Walt Whitman, Benjamin Franklin, anyone?
So Baron and Dymphna, is there any book out there you could recommend at this time? And of course God bless you and God speed you and I’ll put the check in the mail tomorrow.
There’s a huge part of the left in Europe and North America that has major daddy issues. What they really want to do is to destroy their own societies, somehow. Whether that’s directly, or by supporting Nazis/Communists/Islamofascists, they’ll do the needful to achieve their goal.
The painting aside, it’s possible this multiculture nonsense will eventually pass, as does any fad. After all, even Merkel admits that blending unlike cultures is a mistake. And the Queen, her highness of perfect bloodline, admits that U.K. would benefit from a Brussels divorce. To revert to pre-EU, with sovereign states and cultural uniqueness, is the best solution although power mongers would argue otherwise. As my grandfather said, “Start making hay or get the hell out the way.” Which is why we need Trump, Le Pen, et al.
>> it’s possible this multiculture nonsense will eventually pass, as does any fad
No it won’t, not without direct action to defeat it. This is not a fad, it is planned policy by the elites to cower the native people of their own lands. It is design.
I remember about 20 years ago I met some young afghan women in the office building where I worked. I asked them about Afghanistan. One of them told me “All the men are animals. ALL OF THEM.” I said something pretty much equivalent to:
“I thought that they should see that not everything is wonderful and happy here.”
They looked at me like I was an idiot.
I was younger then and brainwashed with a lot of self-hatred so I know exactly why I said what I said at the time, but at some point I figured out why it was BS.
This artist is a typical idiot artist who is in his own little deluded world and hasn’t bothered to make any effort to figure out what anyone not like himself is thinking.
So this is supposedly about being sensitive to migrants who have been through such horrific experiences. And no doubt when they have properly adjusted to their new environments and are sufficiently recovered from their ordeals, the offending painting will be reinstated.
Little by little, day by day, our freedoms slip away ….
I was Czech linguist/spy in the US Army stationed in Germany during the Cold War in the 1960’s so I clicked on the article in question in the German paper. At the end is a poll for the readers. As of now the results after 630 votes:
1) 9% -ok to remove picture
2) 15% – should have left it up
3) 5% – I’m not sure
4) 71% – the refugees should learn to live with our way of life
Thanks for posting that tidbit. Excellent. I hope Merkel and the EuSSR-philes get slaughtered in the next German elections.
Buried in this article was the tidbit that families are sending their eldest sons to Europe. That tells me that the minors aren’t ‘refugees’ (why do the rest of the family stay behind?) but economic migrants, tasked with sending money home.
I should have added – maybe also tasked with gaining an education at Europe’s expense.
I commend to you the essay Repressive Tolerance by Herbert Marcuse, published in 1965. It is one of the foundation texts of leftist critical theory and goes a long way towards explaining why they are the way they are. It ought also help us to sort out just whom we can, and whom we cannot, offend.
Any type of censorship for whatever reason is most likely designed to control thought or perspective on an argument they are trying to make. Why not just declare “life” itself to be offensive and be done with it.
I think it was right for the artist to remove his painting. Any girl or woman who had been raped, forced into sexual activity, witnesses such or been threatened by such would be re-traumatized by the painting.
Knowing that males “They posed in front of the painting and amid loud hooting and hollering, they made vulgar gestures and imitated sexual activity with the painted woman.” is another reason to take it down. Why get them sexually excited in the very place they are to learn to assimilate? Adopt German values? Respect women?
I am not for censorship, although I find the painting offensive and would not want to be confronted by it in a place I went for education.