The Hitler exhibition in Vienna
Two heads of the Führer are well worth an exhibition. The museum of Austrian history has only been open for three years and anonymous donations of historical material related to National Socialism are frequent. But the museum also plans to redevelop a “cursed” space
Adolf Hitler returned to Vienna in ’38, but not as a simple citizen, as when as a young man, coming from a small Austrian town on the border with Germany, he had the ambition to enter the prestigious Academy of Fine Arts. twice he failed the entrance exam, and had to give it up. Art lost nothing, but in a few years the world there gain the greatest criminal in modern history. In Vienna, in fact, as the returned charismatic leader of Germany and “guide” (Führer) of the National Socialist Party, the only legally permitted party, whose ideological axioms rested on militarism, anti-Semitism, exaltation of the Aryan race and supremacy over the rest of humanity .
Hitler, therefore, in power in Berlin for seven years, on March 15, 1938, appears on the monumental balcony of the nineteenth-century Neue Burg, the residence of the Austrian government since the time of Franz Joseph. In this way he wants to solemnize the annexation of Austria to the German nation as a founding act of the so-called Third Reich. Two hundred thousand Viennese crowded in front of Heldenplatz to listen and cheer the dictator. The territorial annexation plan had already proclaimed it three days earlier in a public speech in Linz, his favorite city, which he defined “the pearl that just needs the right setting“.
THE HITLER BALCONY IN VIENNA
After the abyss the cult me in the ways we all know, that sinks into the abyss the cult me Viennese balcony trampled on by the criminal Hitler, it was closed to the public, and it still remains so to this day, the glass door of access remaining locked. Now there are those who ask that the time has come to remove that taboo to give a story space a positive future. A voluntary, as questionable, referendum is underway to sound out opinions. Its real-time transparency shows an exaggerated ease of judgment: at the moment, those in favor of the reopening outnumber the no by more than five times.
NAZISM AT THE MUSEUM
Meanwhile, the Viennese Neue Burg has become the site of museums, including the Haus der Geschichte Österreich (House of the History of Austria). And right on this side of the glass door family, along a semicircular transit hall, a documentary exhibition opened in this period which, in its presentation to the public, smacks of psychodrama. The set-up is of a seminar rigor, bringing to the visitor’s attention original documents and finds from the furnished period, arranged inside wooden tables above them, supported by simple glass windows. A dramaturgical vis-à-vis, a retrospective look at life, politics, customs, propaganda, objects. For example, the microphone from which the Führer announced the Anschluss to the inhabitants of Linz is exhibited. The excellent state of conservation of the object, perhaps more reused, tells us that over many decades it has been considered a precious relic. Alongside the techniques there are numerous explanatory sheets that are easy to consult. The curatorial team – Monika Sommer (director of the museum), Stefan Benedik, Laura Langeder – has also equipped the exhibition with an area equipped for research and documentation.
HITLER FROM PRESENT TO PAST
The title of the exhibition, Hitler entsorgen. Vom Keller Museum ins, is translatable as “Dispose of Hitler. From the cellar to the museum “. If the first phrase must be read in a drastic, and not symbolic, sense, urging ordinary people to get rid of the garbage heap of the time, the second allows the possibility that among the junk there are materials worthy of being saved and shown. The monitor targets the multiplicity of things kept both in public buildings and in private homes. attachment reveals that the cathartic incapacity of clear and radical detachment persisted in the consciences of the generations following the war. Then, evaluating these findings is, more often than not, a matter of point of view. Moreover, how to act when materials re-emerge in the closets or in the attic or in other closets that testify to the adhesion of relatives to command structures such as the Gestapo or the SS? The sociology of the present tells us that the preoccupation with historical inheritance also has another face, manifesting itself in the embarrassment of how to get rid of undesirable materials in a discreet way.
THE TWO BRONZE HEADS OF HITLER
The exhibition gives us testimony of the reappearance of two bronze heads of Hitler, recovered from the basements of the Austrian Parliament currently under renovation. Identical in their modeling, realistic and inexpressive the physiognomy: they are both exhibited lying sideways on the same table top. Inevitably, these two finds mark the point of greatest attraction of the, although the curators must take precautions, avoiding fatiguing the character. They are both backlit, so that the face is in shadow. A reduction of exposure to a minimum, leaving only the nape of the neck in evidence. Yet, precisely in this solution there seems to be a stumbling block that highlights them, also supported by a subtle appeal – involuntary? – to the “young man” (He, 2001) devoted and mocking of Maurizio Cattelan, sensational sculpture illuminated and always shown from behind.
THE DICTATURA OF THE SPECTATOR
It is questionable whether an exhibition entitled Dispose of Hitler. From the cellar to the museum, a tactically alternative to the usual historical demonization, does not instead transform the unpresentable character of the title into the protagonist of a new and unprecedented narrative. Consequently, by transferring improper skills to the public of art, or to a simple visitor, as an arbiter and judge of history. That is, to what extent could Francesco Bonami be right in giving the art public an unlimited faculty of judgment when in 2003 he titled his Venice Biennale The dictatorship of the spectator?
– Franco Verremondi