AfD criticism of the Bauhaus: Are they still Democrats or can they get away?

Opinion

Where does the question “Is this art or can it go away?” can no longer be reliably reconstructed. According to legend, the phrase was created in connection with the destruction of two works of art by Joseph Beuys. One of them was a “fat corner”, several kilos of butter installed in the Düsseldorf Art Academy, which in the 1980s were not recognized as art by the caretaker or a cleaning lady and were cleaned away.

The question is still very popular today, whenever people have doubts about whether a famous work of art really deserves its appreciation.

The AfD Saxony-Anhalt has now presented its own interpretation of the classic. In an application, she describes Bauhaus art as the “misguided path of modernity” and calls for a reassessment. The Bauhaus should be appreciated as an “art historical and historical phenomenon”. But it is essential to discuss which “architectural sins” have caused it to occur due to its “purist aesthetics”. Some Bauhaus buildings would be described as “inhumane,” the application states. By whom, apart from the AfD, remains unclear.

Behind the term Bauhaus lies, in very short terms, an art school founded in 1919 by the architect Walter Gropius in Weimar, Thuringia, which not only revolutionized the way of building with its unique mix of clear, minimalist design. Today it is a world cultural heritage site.

The National Socialists already disliked the modern style; The Bauhaus first had to move to Dessau and finally close completely under political pressure. Today the Bauhaus Museum and the associated foundation are located in Dessau, i.e. in Saxony-Anhalt, where the location will also celebrate its 100th birthday next year.

The AfD is playing with the Nazi past

The anniversary is the starting point for the AfD’s application. It is a provocation that is transparent in every respect, clearly plays with the past and aims to arouse maximum outrage.

Isn’t the best way to thwart these plans by simply ignoring the stick thrown out by the right-wing, instead of loudly jumping over it, as the Federal Government’s cultural commissioner, Claudia Roth, did? Especially since, as expected, the AfD motion did not find a majority.

Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple. Anyone who leaves such initiatives uncommented is inadvertently promoting their normalization. Especially since the AfD is supported by its supporters on social networks. Some people there describe the Bauhaus as a “shoebox” and “absolutely ugly”.

The perception of aesthetics is individual. Who hasn’t stood in front of a work of art and shook their head because it didn’t seem impressive at all? Who has never sat through a film that was hailed as a masterpiece completely at a loss in the cinema?And how many people would have really recognized Beuys Fettecke as art?

The AfD builds on this feeling. By declaring “feeling” to be a generally valid standard. Art is torn from its history, its new impulse, its innovative power is denied, in order to squeeze it into the primitive category of a diffuse “gut feeling” and combine it with a reflex against everything modern, vulgo: change.

This is what populists do today, just as fascists did back then. The National Socialists spoke of “degenerate art” in order to suppress works and artists that did not correspond to their taste and ideology. Anyone who allows this method to take hold should not be surprised if we soon become a society driven by instincts, willing to drift here and there depending on the spirit of the times and without any awareness of history.

School trips to Bauhaus locations

But what can you do? In fact, the loud contradiction, as necessary as it is, is also new fuel for the AfD. The answer can only lie in education. As many schools as possible should dedicate an hour to the topic of Bauhaus in their art classes in the coming days and weeks, explaining where the style comes from, what defines it, what was groundbreaking about it and why it was ostracized by the National Socialists.

Teachers could take trips to Bauhaus locations to bring the art to life. Then such provocations from the “Are they still Democrats or can they get away?” party no longer have a chance.