Museum's future clouded by chance discovery: Swastika hiding in plain sight
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Sunday, November 3, 2024


Museum's future clouded by chance discovery: Swastika hiding in plain sight
Alexandra Eicks, a museum employee, in the room in which she discovered a swastika in the mosaic floor at the Kunststätte Bossard, in Jesteburg, Germany, on Aug. 3, 2020. The discovery of a Nazi symbol in the mosaic floor of the museum has prompted bitter debate about its creator’s past and the institution’s role. Gordon Welters/The New York Times.

by Thomas Rogers



JESTEBURG (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- In 1911, Swiss artist Johann Bossard came across an empty property in the grasslands near this small town south of Hamburg. Inspired by the location, he purchased the land and together with his wife, Jutta, spent decades building his life’s great project: three esoterically shaped art-covered buildings and a landscaped garden. Since 1997, the site has been a museum known as the Kunststätte Bossard, and an off-the-beaten-path destination for fans of expressionist art and architecture.

But in 2017, Alexandra Eicks, an employee on the site, made a discovery that threw the project in a more sinister light. Eicks was preparing for a children’s art class when she noticed a geometric shape on the studio’s mosaic floor that nobody at the museum had seen before: a swastika. Because the tiles had been installed after the Nazis’ rise to power, it raised the possibility that the Bossards held more troubling views than had previously been known.

Three years later, the mosaic is at the center of a pointed debate in this pastoral corner of northwestern Germany. Activists are demanding the swastika’s removal, but the museum says the whole site is a “Gesamtkunstwerk” — a total work of art — that should not be altered impulsively, and that the symbol should stay so it can be used to educate visitors about the country’s past.

It has also prompted a broader discussion about what should be done with art created by Nazi sympathizers, and about whether an artwork’s cultural value should ever override Germany’s ban on Third Reich symbols.

The Kunststätte Bossard includes a large building containing the couple’s home and studio, as well as an adjacent churchlike construction known as the “art temple” and a separate studio. The buildings’ exteriors include countless figurative and abstract reliefs, including animal faces and organic shapes, and their interiors display numerous large-scale murals and sculptures that reference Nordic mythology.

Bossard died in 1950, and his wife lived on the property until the 1990s, when she died at age 93. After her death, the site was turned into a museum. In a phone interview, Kai Kappel, a professor of art history at Humboldt University in Berlin, described the site as an “Expressionist Gesamtkunstwerk of special international importance,” that blends elements of art and architecture movements of the early 20th century, including Heimatstil, an architecture style emphasizing the use of local elements, and the Traditionalist School.

After the swastika was discovered, the museum incorporated research on the mosaic into a continuing investigation into the Bossards’ activities during the Third Reich. It concluded that, although Johann Bossard initially expressed support for the Nazis in the hope of advancing his career, he never joined the National Socialist party. He became a member of an association for Nazi educators, but later withdrew from the group.

The investigation’s results were presented in 2018, in an exhibition on the site and a two-book compendium, “The Bossards During the Nazi Period,” which suggested that Bossard was primarily interested in the symbol for its ancient roots, not its association with Nazism. But a recent decision by federal lawmakers to grant the institution 5.4 million euros, or around $6.4 million, to build an extension set off a new dispute.

Amid a debate on whether local authorities should contribute funding to the project, Jörn Lütjohann, a politician in the district assembly, seized upon the museum’s research and accused the institution of not sufficiently publicizing the artist’s pro-Nazi views.




He pointed out in the assembly that one of the books the museum published included correspondence by Bossard in which the artist expressed the wish that “there was a Jew I could blame” for his own failure to get a monument commission from the Nazi regime; in another text, Bossard described the Third Reich as “the most important turn in our people’s history.”

The debate was taken up by the national media, with Der Spiegel, the German newsmagazine, publishing an article with the headline “Tax money for the swastika.”

Lütjohann said in a phone interview that he viewed the swastika as “the keystone for the whole artwork.” He called for the museum’s expansion plans to be called off and for the swastika to be removed from the building, not only because it is illegal to display the symbol in Germany, but also for fear that it might turn the museum into a site of pilgrimage for far-right extremists.

Ivar Buterfas-Frankenthal, 87, a Holocaust survivor who lives a 10-minute drive away, learned of the swastika’s presence in the museum in June, and contacted the public prosecutors’ office, alerting them that a banned symbol was on display. The authorities asked the museum to cover the mosaic, and employees there have since placed a carpet over it.

In an interview in his home, Buterfas-Frankenthal said that he lost 17 family members to the regime represented by that symbol, and that he would not be satisfied until the swastika was removed or covered permanently. “For all I care, they can put depictions of sunflowers over it, or lobsters,” he said, adding that he was not a fan of Bossard’s art, regardless. “It’s all bad, anyway. Sorry, I need to say that.”

In an interview, Heike Duisberg-Schleier, the museum’s commercial director, explained that Bossard’s views were clearly problematic, but that many artists active during the Nazi period had questionable positions. “At a certain time, Bossard sympathized with Nazism, he wanted to gain advantages from it, but when that hope didn’t fulfill itself, he turned back to his art.”

She argued that the public debate around the museum had become oversimplified and added that the museum had not hidden anything, but rather been responsible for uncovering the quotes in the first place. She also explained that, as far as museum employees know, the site had never been visited by neo-Nazis.

“I don’t think they are our target demographic,” she said.

The museum is now commissioning an independent study into Bossard’s relationship with Nazism, with the extension plans frozen until the study’s completion. But Duisberg-Schleier was adamant that the swastika should not be hastily removed. “We have a teaching and communication mandate to deal with such a symbol, and put it in context and explain it critically,” she said, adding that the entire site is under historical protection, meaning that any alterations to the building would require the approval of the state heritage authority.

But she added that it might be time to shift the museum’s emphasis to focus more broadly on the role of artists during the Nazi period. “Nobody is asking the question of how you deal with artists who have questionable views, but are still being recognized for their art,” she said. “I think here we have an opportunity.”

© 2020 The New York Times Company










Today's News

August 12, 2020

Museum's future clouded by chance discovery: Swastika hiding in plain sight

A Black nurse saved lives. Today she may save art.

Enrico Navarra, art world visionary, is dead at 67

Drawings from the Marron Collection co-presented by Acquavella Galleries, Gagosian, and Pace Gallery

China promotes its 'heroic' battle against virus in new exhibition

Lisson Gallery opens an exhibition of works by Bernard Piffaretti

Benin restores slavery monuments to testify to brutal past

Works by Marcia Hafif, Carol Rama, and Mario Schifano on view at Fergus McCaffrey's St. Barth location

Sperone Westwater announces an online viewing of Jitish Kallat's new installation

Garvey│Simon opens an Artsy-exclusive exhibition curated by Louisa N. Pancoast

Artist Glenn Kaino directs "Sunday Bloody Sunday" by Deon Jones ft. Jon Batiste

Nohra Haime Gallery opens an online exhibition of works by Hugo Bastidas

Jutta-Annette Page to retire from the Barry Art Museum at Old Dominion University

ICA at VCU and VPM announce initiative to launch a new community media center at the ICA

International Center of Photography presents #ICPConcerned: Global Images for Global Crisis

Simon Allford elected RIBA President

For Greece's theaters, the coronavirus is a tragedy

Bright for Brighton: Colourful, rainbow works in gallery and city suburbs revealed

Preston Evans announces a colossal four-day auction event

Joshua Rose joins Santa Fe Art Auction

The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art opens online exhibition of works by Elias Sime

Line up announced of 23 new artists commissions and projects for first Brent Biennial

The Book of Everything by Mary Ellen Mark to have U.S. release this September

Buy Twin XL Heated Mattress pad to save your kid from cold nights.

How to Make Your Dating Life Healthy?

Golden Opportunities: Easy Ways to Make Money on the Side

How to Format SD Card for Mac and Windows on PC?

How chatting with someone can decrease stress?

Flexible Working: Importance, Types, and How An Expert Can Help

10 Amazing Museums in Las Vegas You Need to Visit




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful