Arte "degenerado" / "Degenerate" Art

In 1892, German journalist and art critic Max Nordau wrote the treaty Entartung (Degeneration), in which he harshly attacked pre-Raphaelites and symbolists, calling them mentally disturbed -once again, degenerates-, and proclaimed the superiority of the German culture. This document and other racist treaties were essential in the forging of National Socialism, whose reigns were in the hands of -lest we forget- a frustrated painter, Adolf Hitler. In the 1930s, the Nazi government closed modern art museums throughout Germany, confiscating over 16,000 artworks considered, once again, "degenerate." According to Hitler himself: "The State, and its leaders, must stop the people from falling under the influence of this spiritual madness." In the Führer's opinion, those works were so removed from the traditional canons of German realism that they could be nothing but abortions created by sick minds, by Jews or Bolshevik agitators. There was room for all the "isms" in that sack: Cubism, Surrealism, Dadaism... All and every one of them should be clearly and simply removed from Art History. Many of the confiscated works of art, the most valuable among them, were gathered in 1937 in an itinerant exhibition Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) and then sold to foreign art dealers. The rest, those which the assessors considered minor works, were burnt in the "redeeming" fire of Berlin in 1939. Artists as important as Otto Dix, George Grosz, Paul Klee, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso and many others were considered dangerous individuals by the Nazi regime, and their works were removed from museums in the interests of achieving the purification of the German culture.

It is now over sixty years since the end of World War II. Many profound revolutions have risen in terms of feeling, thinking and living in the West. Many of the artists insulted in times gone by are now recognised as great Masters. The "avant-gardes" have become classics. They appear in encyclopaedias and inhabit the walls of museums. We have seen the rise and fall of abstract expressionism, pop art, hyperrealism, op art, kinetic art, minimal art, conceptual art, the neo-expressionism of the eighties... If in the early 20 th century, with the avant-gardes, the paths art travelled forked out into dozens of different directions, after World War II they diverged into hundreds... Until our times, when there are as many paths as there are artists.

Nonetheless, Manet evidently fought against academicism, against those affected poses lacking in meaning, against that sterile classicism that fled from reality. On the other hand, German expressionists strongly criticised the abuses of that decadent and fanatical society that lit the wick of World War I. Yet, what are contemporary artists fighting against? What new ways of seeing things do they want to show us? What do they want to develop?

In 1989, Jeff Koons presented a porcelain sculpture that depicted Michael Jackson with a chimpanzee. Years later, he married Italian porn star Cicciolina, and published a wedding book to mark the occasion, in which the newlyweds unabashedly performed all types of sexual acrobatics. In 1991, Marc Quinn extracted three litres of his own blood to paint a self-portrait, a grotesque model of his own head painted in clotted blood. The piece was bought by a private collector, advertising tycoon Charles Saatchi. The year 1991 also saw the arrival of Damien Hirst's The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living , an enormous glass tank with a dead shark floating in formaldehyde with which the artist aimed to show that nobody really knows what feelings are. A year later, in 1992, Sarah Lucas exhibited the work Two Fried Eggs and a Kebab , comprising a table with two real fried eggs and a kebab, which she bought each morning at a nearby "döner kebab house." This year, at arco in Madrid, a gallery has exhibited a three-dimensional replica of Private Lynndie England torturing a prisoner at the Abu Grahib jail.

Evolving means entering an uncertain, dark world where one has to put old principles aside and accept new values. It is a painful trance, as are all changes, and requires courage. Perhaps that is why the vision of the new perturbs those who are comfortably positioned in the uses of the past, those who refuse to evolve. Nonetheless, contemporary art seems as ephemeral as Sarah Lucas' fried eggs that had to be replaced everyday. Everything has a sell by date, every few years the artistic phenomenon fluctuates, mutates, makes a 180º turn. There are no movements, there are individuals, and without us having the time to find out what they want to tell us, others appear and tell us the opposite. Messages overlap, without rhyme or reason, and galleries are full of works that nobody understands.

I wonder, if a viewer, any viewer, walks through a gallery and contemplates, for example, Damien Hirst's shark and asks him or herself "What does this have to do with art?," or, taking it a step further, "Can this actually be recognised as art?," and comes to the conclusion that said object cannot be recognised as art and that it is, therefore, non-art or "degenerate" art, what can we make of this opinion? Perhaps that the viewer is a foul reactionary hanging on to the past with all his or her might? Or, on the contrary, perhaps he or she right, and said object is a degeneration of what is considered art? A priori, the solution to this question is far from simple. Some will think it is not art, others will think it is, and both will find a more than enough arguments to defend their opinions. Altogether, many artists have been misunderstood in their era and considered geniuses by subsequent generations. Who knows if, just as nobody understood Manet's Olympia and Van Gogh's vibrant colours, many of us do not understand Damien Hirst's shark or Jeff Koons' sculptures. Furthermore, who knows if we do not understand certain so-called "avant-garde" works that are part of the collections on show at the Guggenheim, the Institut Valencià d'Art Modern or the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona... or those that are awarded the prestigious Turner Prize, or many of the works exhibited at each edition of arco .

Yet what genuinely astounds me is that there are never long queues of angry spectators demanding the withdrawal of any of the works, not even those which nobody understands. It seems that, in general, the audience of our times seems to prefer to fondle their chin softly and half close their eyes, acting as if they understand and see everything the artists display, be it a stuffed animal, a canned shit or a face with clotted blood. Translation: Laura F. Farhall