The one style appreciation that dare not speak its name...

[carebear]

I don't post this to invite a round of "PC-run amuck" comments. We've had similar discussions in other threads about where the line is drawn between "style" and "meaning" when the topic is Golden Era (Nazi) Germany. This is yet another example of the struggle to define that line.

Plus I like Bryan Ferry.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2536859.ece

Ferry dropped by M&S after comments on 'beautiful' Nazi parades

By Sophie Goodchild and Susie Mesure
Published: 13 May 2007

Bryan Ferry, the voice of Roxy Music, has been dropped as the face of Marks & Spencer's menswear collection.

The move follows criticism of the singer over remarks he made about Nazi Germany and his admiration for the work of Leni Riefenstahl, notorious for her Nazi propaganda films.

His agent confirmed yesterday that he is no longer being used by the retailer and that negotiations were not taking place for a new contract.

Although officially M&S said it "hadn't decided what we're doing" regarding the next batch of Autograph adverts, in which Ferry posed in a suit, privately the company admitted that they would not feature Ferry.

The male style icon provoked outrage in the Jewish community after The Independent on Sunday revealed the contents of an interview he gave in Germany.

In the piece, published in Welt am Sonntag, the 61-year-old acknowledged to calling his studio in west London his Führerbunker and revealed how he reveres the aesthetics of Nazi Germany.

"My God, the Nazis knew how to present themselves," he said.

"Leni Riefenstahl's movies and Albert Speer's buildings and the mass parades and the flags - just amazing. Really beautiful."

This prompted MPs led by Andrew Dismore to table a Commons motion urging shoppers to snub M&S and refuse to buy Ferry albums. The singer then issued an apology in which he said his comments had been made from an art history perspective.

An M&S spokeswoman said none of its models are on an ongoing contract, and that it would be "really unusual" for any of them to work with them for more than two seasons. She added that "no further executions are planned" of the Ferry campaign.

Stephen Howard, his manager, denied that Ferry had been officially "dropped" and said that the original deal signed with the retailer had only been for two photo shoots for two campaigns.

"Technically he fulfilled the obligations of the contract when he did the last photoshoot," said Mr Howard. "It was a successful association for both parties."

Additional reporting by Jonathan Owen

 

[Feng_Li]

Leni Riefenstahl would approve

of appreciating the aesthetics of the work independent of the meaning behind it.

 

[Tomasso]

First Harry, now Ferry....What's up with these Brits?

 

[Fletch]

I'm a great admirer of German culture between the wars – Expressionism, the Bauhaus, their esthetics of industry and film – but most of the best had already happened by 1933. What remained was watered down, or bastardized to serve the cause of fascism, or just stomped out. Riefenstahl might have been an exception, but she energetically served the cause.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Interesting. More interesting that he should be expected to apologise.

bk

 

[Dagwood]

As for me, I prefer watching real life hustle and bustle than a well-scripted march into Berlin. If I want to see men putting on a show, I'll buy a ticket to Broadway.

 

[BellyTank]

Bah!

That's not even close to being worrisome.

It's all true.

B
T

 

[Cobden]

 

[Feng_Li]

Quick! Check the armholes!

 

[Dr Doran]

of appreciating the aesthetics of the work independent of the meaning behind it.

So do I.

 

[Dr Doran]

Fine article in the current New York Review of Books (June 14, 2007) on this very subject by Ian Buruma. It is entitled "Fascinating Narcissism" and Ian Buruma wrote it: it is a review of 2 new books, Steven Bach's Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl and Jurgen Trimborn's Leni Riefenstahl: A Life. Buruma also mentions the Brian Ferry debacle. In the article, Buruma asks

"... great artists don't have to be nice. The question is whether Leni Riefenstahl was really a great artist, as she claimed, and as many others, by no means all Nazi sympathizers, still believe. Or was her work so tainted by bad politics that it could never be regarded as good art, however technically inventive? This raises other questions: Can fascist or Nazi art ever be good? And what about the work Riefenstahl did before and after the Third Reich?"​

Big questions, and I don't think they can be glibly or easily answered. Nor do I think there is a universal answer: with art, as with religion, the answers are always highly subjective. One set of questions would be: given that Stalin killed way more people than Hitler did, should Stalinesque art be condemned as well? Should all Communist art be condemned? If we hate all Nazi sympathizers over the frenzied course of the 20th century (and this would mean rejecting even Celine's early works, which I personally cannot do), then why don't we reject, for example, all of that (large) group of American leftist intellectuals of, say, the mid-20th century who vocally sympathized with Communism? Most did NOT carefully distinguish between being in favor of Communism vs. being pro-Stalin. Given that each social or intellectual movement is a combination of many influences, are we to hate and reject all those influences as well? Should we hate Knut Hamsun's book Hunger because the Nazis later idolized it? Should we hate all forms of nationalism because the Nazis were nationalist? All forms of hereditarianism are in bad smell now because of Hitler; but Stalin killed more people in the name of egalitarianism and anti-hereditarianism ... forgive me if these questions seem trite to some of you, but to me they are still important and of great significance to the issues raised in this thread.

 

[carebear]

Not trite at all. They are the meat of the issue. Good post Doran!

 

[Lincsong]

Whenever I see a Che Guevara or Fidel shirt I want to (censored). That murderous (censored) I don't see how anyone can put that little (censored) on their body.

 

[panamag8or]

The Germans did know how to throw a parade. Than again, so did the Russians, but their uniforms were boring.

eta: No offense, Vladimir.

 

[Vladimir Berkov]

I wouldn't say Russian uniforms are boring, but you are right, by the Second World War German parades were the BEST I have seen from any nations.

I once saw a modern US parade shortly after the first Gulf War, with Stormin' Norman even, and it was pale shadow of a pre-war German parade.

Here is a pretty standard wartime one, nothing "fancy" but still look at how exacting it is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js6Kpwtpquw

 

[Sefton]

It will take more than sixty or even one hundred years for any apprecitation of the Arts as created in Nazi Germany to be judged apart from the politics of that-and this-era. When we look at Art from the ancient world,say from Rome or Greece, we can value it for it's qualities as Art precisely because we are too far removed in time to associate the work with the culture that created it. I wonder if the Trojans or any of the enslaved nations of Rome or Egypt ever considered the value of the Art of their oppressors? This is an interesting thread. Thanks for posting it.

 

[Jovan]

Nazi Germany had very well designed and tailored uniforms, I must say, despite the symbolism they carry for everyone now. I'm a big fan of the leather overcoats they wore, made by Hugo Boss. You can see one on an officer in Der Untergang, I think, but it's the only one I recall in that movie strangely enough. (The movie's a really good watch, by the way.)

Quick! Check the armholes!

I do not like the man, but those armholes hug him beautifully.

 

[carebear]

It will take more than sixty or even one hundred years for any apprecitation of the Arts as created in Nazi Germany to be judged apart from the politics of that-and this-era. When we look at Art from the ancient world,say from Rome or Greece, we can value it for it's qualities as Art precisely because we are too far removed in time to associate the work with the culture that created it. I wonder if the Trojans or any of the enslaved nations of Rome or Egypt ever considered the value of the Art of their oppressors? This is an interesting thread. Thanks for posting it.

Sefton,

That's a good question. I think one thing we can look at is how Western art evolved.

Rome quite liberally stole from Greek art and philosophy as did everyone they came in contact with. Even after Rome fell, the barbarians who remained became Romanized, keeping many of the cultural and artistic memes and tropes from them.

In that case it was definately a case of the oppressed appreciating their oppressors and that during and after their oppression.

 

[Miss Brill]

Some people are repugnant, and it never crosses my mind to care if they are stylish. Pretty is as pretty does...

 

[reetpleat]

of appreciating the aesthetics of the work independent of the meaning behind it.

Yes, but others would say she deluded herself and her approval does not connote any kind of artistic merit. I mean, you could sy hitler would approve, but that would not be much of an endorsement. For the record, I am willing to give an artist the benefit of artistic freedom, and I also think that beauty is beauty, despite what it might represent.

On the other hand, if I hired a spokesman, I would expect him to have a little better judgement and keep his mouth shut on sensitive topics. He has the right, but I have the right to drop him if he is going to cost me money.