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Good Art. Bad Artists: Admiring the Work of Artists We Despise
Image: "Breakers" (1936) by Emil Nolde
Is it right to admire works created by artists we despise? In this lecture, James Skidmore explores whether it’s possible to separate art from the artists.
Using three case studies from German culture – Leni Riefenstahl (filmmaker), Emil Nolde (painter), and Peter Handke (writer) – Skidmore will discuss the thorny issues surrounding the appreciation and study of creative works by creators whose political or social views we find abhorrent.
Lecture Video
Review the lecture transcript.
Further Reading and Resources
- “A Prize for Lies.” The Intercept. theintercept.com, https://theintercept.com/collections/a-prize-for-lies/.
- Devereaux, Mary. “Beauty and Evil: The Case of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will.” Aesthetics and Ethics: Essays at the Intersection, edited by Jerrold Levinson, Cambridge UP, 2010, pp. 227–56. www-cambridge-org.proxy.lib.uwaterloo.ca, doi:10.1017/CBO9780511663888.009.
- Flood, Alison. “Swedish Academy Defends Peter Handke’s Controversial Nobel Win.” The Guardian, 21 Oct. 2019. www.theguardian.com, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/oct/21/swedish-academy-defends-peter-handkes-controversial-nobel-win.
- For Once And For All, Stop Asking Us To Separate Art From The Artists. www.wbur.org, https://www.wbur.org/artery/2019/03/13/stop-asking-us-to-separate-art-from-the-artists.
- ginnybatty. “The Political Picture – How the Nazis Created a Distinctly Fascist Art.” Ginnyandthemoon, 26 Sept. 2015. ginnyandthemoon.wordpress.com, https://ginnyandthemoon.wordpress.com/2015/09/26/the-political-picture-how-the-nazis-created-a-distinctly-fascist-art/.
- Gordon, Jeremy. “Separating the Art from the Artist Isn’t so Hard.” The Outline. theoutline.com, https://theoutline.com/post/7070/separating-the-art-from-the-artist-isnt-so-hard.
- Grady, Constance. “What Do We Do When the Art We Love Was Created by a Monster?” Vox, 11 Oct. 2018. www.vox.com, https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/10/11/17933686/me-too-separating-artist-art-johnny-depp-woody-allen-michael-jackson-louis-ck.
- Heer, Jeet, and Josephine Livingstone. “Woody Allen, #MeToo, and the Separation of Art and Artist.” The New Republic, Feb. 2018. The New Republic, https://newrepublic.com/article/146876/woody-allen-metoo-separation-art-artist.
- Hickley, Catherine. “Stripping Away Lies to Expose a Painter’s Nazi Past.” The New York Times, 10 Apr. 2019. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/arts/nolde-nazi-exhibition-berlin-merkel.html.
- Kohn, Eric, and Eric Kohn. “YouTube Pulls ‘Triumph of the Will’ For Violating New Hate Speech Policy.” IndieWire, 6 June 2019. www.indiewire.com, https://www.indiewire.com/2019/06/youtube-hate-speech-policy-triumph-of-the-will-1202147879/.
- “Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will Wasn’t a Cinematic Masterpiece; It Was a Staggeringly Effective Piece of Propaganda.” Open Culture. www.openculture.com, http://www.openculture.com/2017/03/why-triumph-of-the-will-wasnt-a-cinematic-masterpiece-but-a-staggeringly-effective-piece-of-propaganda.html. Accessed 30 Apr. 2020.
- Mackenzie, Michael. “From Athens to Berlin: The 1936 Olympics and Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 29, no. 2, The University of Chicago Press, Jan. 2003, pp. 302–36. journals.uchicago.edu (Atypon), doi:10.1086/374029.
- Marcus, J. S. Apocalypse Now. Sept. 2000. www.nybooks.com, https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2000/09/21/apocalypse-now/.
- Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Emil Nolde. A German Legend. The Artist during the Nazi Regime. www.smb.museum.
- The Buried Nazism of Expressionist Emil Nolde. www.newstatesman.com, https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/art-design/2019/09/buried-nazism-expressionist-emil-nolde.
- Tooze, Adam. “To the Bitter End: The Nolde above the Sofa.” London Review of Books, 25 Nov. 2019. lrb.co.uk, https://lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n23/adam-tooze/to-the-bitter-end.
- Handke, Peter. A Journey to the Rivers. Justice for Serbia. Viking, 1997.
- “Triumph of the Will (1935) - (Documentary, History, War, Foreign) - Video Dailymotion.” Dailymotion. www.dailymotion.com, https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6uajey.
- “Emil Nolde - 50 Artworks - Painting.” www.wikiart.org, https://www.wikiart.org/en/emil-nolde.
About the Instructor
James Skidmore is the Director of the Waterloo Centre for German Studies, a research institute at the University of Waterloo. A member of the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies since 2000, Skid studied at the University of Saskatchewan before earning his PhD at Princeton University. Professor Skidmore research focuses on the representation of political and social change in contemporary German-language literature and film. He is also an award-winning instructor who specializes in online and open education. Learn more at https://jamesmskidmore.com.
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