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German artist Ottmar Hörl's controversial Nazi-mocking gnomes\
Like white picket fences and perfectly manicured lawns, garden gnomes — those colorful residents of front yards the world over — are icons of the suburban ideal: quaint, cheerful and totally inoffensive. But in Germany, one little gnome is stirring up big trouble. In a case that pits art against the country's anti-Nazi laws, prosecutors in the south German city of Nuremberg launched an investigation last week after a gnome giving the Hitler salute was put on display in the window of an art gallery.
Art | 14.10.2009
Nazi garden gnomes spark controversy
A collection of controversial garden gnomes, whose stubby right arms are raised in a Hitler salute, went on display in the Bavarian town of Straubing on Wednesday. The display, entitled "Poisoned," consists of 1,250 saluting gnomes arranged in rank and file. Most of the figures are black plastic, but about 20 are painted shiny gold.
German artist Ottmar Hoerl said the installation was a protest of lingering fascist tendencies in German society.
"The fascist idea, the striving to manipulate people or dictate to people is latently dangerous and remains present in our society," said Hoerl, who is also a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg. He said he had a serious point to make, namely to draw attention to the rise of the far right throughout Europe. This wasn't just a German issue, he said. There were neo-Nazis in other European countries as well.
Though he chose the Hitler salute, Hoerl said the exhibit was not only about terror from the right. The dangerous "Fuehrer Principle" also occurred in other dictatorial systems.
"I could have just as well used a Communist balled fist," he said.
Satirizing, not promoting Nazi ideology
Hoerl has already displayed his provocative gnomes in Belgium, Italy and two German art galleries. The exhibition in one Nuremberg gallery had sparked an enquiry this summer into whether the display should even be allowed. Hitler salutes and Nazi symbols have been illegal in Germany since the end of World War II.
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Hoerl wants to provoke debate
But prosecutors accepted the artist's argument that the 40-centimeter (15-inch) gnomes were satire ridiculing the Nazis, not promoting them.
The art installation, part of Hoerl's project "Dance with the Devil," will be officially inaugurated on Thursday and is the first public display of the gnomes in Germany. But it has already been the subject of heated debate in Straubing - much to the artist's pleasure. While Hoerl set up on Wednesday, passersby and a group of schoolchildren entered a heated debate about it.
"I didn't do the work in order to fail through indifference," the artist said about the reactions. "It is a work that is meant to get people to think, to react."
A guarded welcome in Straubing
The town itself has stressed that it would like the art to provoke critical discussion of Hitler's regime. However, Mayor Markus Pannermayr from the conservative Christian Social Union said he was distancing himself from the project. He said there were considerable reservations about the installation.
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: The gnomes will be guarded day and night
"Popular opinions appear to differ widely," Pannermayr said. But it wasn't the case that people did not want to concern themselves with right-wing extremism.
"It's the question whether this is the suitable form for debate," he said.
Straubing's culture committee had rejected presenting the project in the town's name. In addition to reservations with regards to content, the project would have cost 20,000 euros ($29,800). Ultimately, the town's Social Democrats commissioned the work.
The gnomes will be guarded around the clock during their sojourn in Straubing's main square, which runs until Monday. The gnomes are also for sale on Hoerl's website - priced at 45 euros or signed by Hoerl for 120 euros.
sac/dpa/AFP/AP
Editor: Nancy Isenson
Calls grow for IPCC chair Pachauri to resignGerman artist Ottmar Hoerl said the installation was a protest of lingering fascist tendencies in German society.
"The fascist idea, the striving to manipulate people or dictate to people is latently dangerous and remains present in our society," said Hoerl, who is also a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg. He said he had a serious point to make, namely to draw attention to the rise of the far right throughout Europe. This wasn't just a German issue, he said. There were neo-Nazis in other European countries as well.
Though he chose the Hitler salute, Hoerl said the exhibit was not only about terror from the right. The dangerous "Fuehrer Principle" also occurred in other dictatorial systems.
"I could have just as well used a Communist balled fist," he said.
Satirizing, not promoting Nazi ideology
Hoerl has already displayed his provocative gnomes in Belgium, Italy and two German art galleries. The exhibition in one Nuremberg gallery had sparked an enquiry this summer into whether the display should even be allowed. Hitler salutes and Nazi symbols have been illegal in Germany since the end of World War II.
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Hoerl wants to provoke debateBut prosecutors accepted the artist's argument that the 40-centimeter (15-inch) gnomes were satire ridiculing the Nazis, not promoting them.
The art installation, part of Hoerl's project "Dance with the Devil," will be officially inaugurated on Thursday and is the first public display of the gnomes in Germany. But it has already been the subject of heated debate in Straubing - much to the artist's pleasure. While Hoerl set up on Wednesday, passersby and a group of schoolchildren entered a heated debate about it.
"I didn't do the work in order to fail through indifference," the artist said about the reactions. "It is a work that is meant to get people to think, to react."
A guarded welcome in Straubing
The town itself has stressed that it would like the art to provoke critical discussion of Hitler's regime. However, Mayor Markus Pannermayr from the conservative Christian Social Union said he was distancing himself from the project. He said there were considerable reservations about the installation.
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: The gnomes will be guarded day and night"Popular opinions appear to differ widely," Pannermayr said. But it wasn't the case that people did not want to concern themselves with right-wing extremism.
"It's the question whether this is the suitable form for debate," he said.
Straubing's culture committee had rejected presenting the project in the town's name. In addition to reservations with regards to content, the project would have cost 20,000 euros ($29,800). Ultimately, the town's Social Democrats commissioned the work.
The gnomes will be guarded around the clock during their sojourn in Straubing's main square, which runs until Monday. The gnomes are also for sale on Hoerl's website - priced at 45 euros or signed by Hoerl for 120 euros.
sac/dpa/AFP/AP
Editor: Nancy Isenson
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been drawing increasingly
negative attention these past few weeks. The panel's chair, the Indian
scientists Rajendra Pachauri, is facing growing pressure to resign.
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A short bus ride took me past the Jet d’Eau, Geneva’s trademark fountain, to the manicured main square of Cologny.
gnome2 (nōm)
gnome
[fr. Gk. gnome, thought, judgement, opinion]
a short pithy statement of a general truth; a proverb, maxim, aphorism, or apophthegm
[fr. L. gnomus]
1) an ageless and often deformed dwarf who lives in the earth and usu. guards treasure
2) an elemental being (in the theory of Paracelsus) that inhabits the earth
號稱顛覆莎翁經典名劇《羅密歐與茱麗葉》的3D動畫《糯米歐與茱麗葉》（Gnomeo & Juliet），莎翁名句穿插其中，但僅供點綴。
manicure
- [mǽnəkjùər]
[名]
2 ＝manicurist.
━━[動](他)(自)（…に）マニキュアを施す；（手・爪・芝生・庭園などの）手入れをする
［フランス語←ラテン語manicūra （manus手＋cūra世話＝手のめんどうをみること）. △MANUS, CARE］
well-manicured lawns
手入れの行きとどいた芝生.
手入れの行きとどいた芝生.
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