A Stray Dog By Hjalmar Söderberg Translated by Mikael Hertig ONE man died and when he was dead no one took care of his black dog. The dog mourned long and bitterly. The dog did not, however, lie down on his master’s grave, perhaps in the meantime he did not know where it was; perhaps…
Category: Human life
The Greenlanders and I
I and the Greenlanders Why am I so happy to have been in Nuuk, Greenland for four years? Greenland has confronted me with the question of who I am. Understanding is a journey into the other’s land. As long as I walked around in my Danish circles in Taastrup, Copenhagen, I knew my circles. We thought almost the same…
The Facebook inquisition
Facebook’s sanctions mechanism lacks transparency I received this message this night. First, I got some message that something was done in a wrong way. What I have done wrong I don’t know. The explanation in Danish can be translated to something like “you have proceeded to fast”. WTF does that mean? In which connection is it forbidden to proceed to…
A sovereign Catalonia?
Violence or understanding? By Mikael Hertig1 ”Understanding is a journey into somebody else’s land” Why am I so interested in the Catalan freedom movement? In the Danish-Greenlandic relationship, I am working for changing Danish colonial behavior into an attitude building on more respect and less superiority. I may criticize government of Denmark in…
Denmark – bizarre way of forcing people to work
Seriously ill but forced to test ‘workability’ This article is inspired from Avisen., witten by MP for Enhedslisten Finn Sørensen Danish legislation has went from bad to worse. Now, seriously ill cancer patients are forced to having tested their “workability”. And this bizarre maltreatment is almost common practice. We have already seen many examples when seriously ill citizens…
ECRI: Racism in Denmark – recommendations on hate crime, refugee’s discrimination and…
ECRI Severe criticism of Denmark. Racism and discrimination ? Article by Mikael Hertig, Nuuk, Greenland. ECRI has delivered its report about human rights and democracy in Denmark for 2012-17 Every 5 years, ECRI delivers its report about the stage of democracy and human rights among each member state. March 2017 it presented its report to the Danish government,…
‘Degenerate Art in Denmark’ – a new political campaign
A proposal from Danish People’s Party
The right wing political party “Danish People’s Party” has made a proposition: Moving some of the public tax money from two museums for modern art, Museum of Lousiana and Museum Arken to old national tresórs as “Fregatten Jylland”. According to the size of the budget costs, exhibition plans for 2017 must be dropped. One of those is an international Picasso exhibition at Museum Lousiana.
When it comes to priorities for Art in Denmark, direct political intervention as this is normally banned because the norm is to follow a principle of “arms length”.
In Denmark, Art is publicly supported with ½ bn DKK each year . (= 80 million $ or 13 $ per Dane)
Mikael Hertig, M of Sc. Pol
af Mikael Hertig, Nuuk
“Weird “or “degenrate ” art?
Alex Ahrendtsen rejects modern art: “weird”, “ununderstandable”
MP Alex Ahrendsen, spokesman for the proposition called Modern Art “weird”.
MP Alex Ahrendtsen
“Why”, did he ask during a TV-interview, “should we spent public money on “weird art” that people do not understand?”
In Germany the government banned “Entartete Kunst” (Degenerate Art) from 1933 to 1945. Of course, a substantial reduction in public support is not just the same as excluding some sorts of art. Nevertheless, in a small country as Denmark with only 6 mn people public support is a necessity.
The actual amount of support for Modern Art Museums is 0,8 DKK per inhabitant each year. Mr Ahrendtsen proposes to reduce these 80 cents per year to 60.
One might look at this proposition with a shrug. The amount money at stake is a minimum.
However, Danish People Party has had great success with ideas as this one. While more responsible political representatives are focusing at finance the populist approach just uses this as a means to produce changes in practice.
Feeling secure: Back in uterus?
The Populist core consists of automatically rejection of anything you do not immidiately understand, “weird”. This can be called ‘reductionism’ in a new sense of the word. To a narrow minded person very many daily impressions can be rejected as ‘weird’ because it may seem difficult to understand them.
Mr. Ahrendtsen has a M. of Art in Danish and Religion Service. He knows exactly what he is doing. An article of Danish People Party’s media strategy (in Danish) can be read here.
To educated people as Mr. Arendtsen, the world is complicated and difficult to understand. However, when writing and speaking to the public, it is a necessity of populism to reduce complexity to something simple.
Reducing the worldview to a secure uterus or at least a romantic picture of a world of harmony in the past is the whole idea. One could put it this way:
Are Picasso paintings needed in Paradise? And if not, why don’t we ban them here already?
Gallery of Degenerate Art
I will present you some paintings representing degenerate art asking if ‘weird art’ are represented by these pictures. We all know that accepting avantgarde art takes some years. These pictures and painters could not stop working. But people were prohibited in seeing them.
I have to emphasize that the proposition of Mr. Ahrendtsen has nothing to do directly with censorship. But he is deliberately attacking the the searching and wondering approach to life in order to sell an illusion of security in a fragile world.
I think it is a good idea to present for some of the pictures banned by the German government 1933-45. Have a look. If you find any paintings worth seeing send a positive thought to western democaracy and not those trying to make a new enclosure.
Emil Nolde.
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Emil Nolde, watercolour on paper, woman with red hat (From “Unpainted paintings”)
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Emil Nolde 1867 – 1956 Watercolur on paper (from unpainted paintings)
Three faces
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Emil Nolde, 1867-1956
Two faces, watercolour on paper
From “Unpainted paintings”
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Paul Klee 1879 – 1940
You can read about Paul Klee here. Look at his pictures beneath
Paul Klee, face. Oil on canvas
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Paul Klee 1879-1940 Jumping Jack Litography print
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Paul Klee
Abstract picture separated in three parts Title: In Zoo Gardens Print
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Paul Klee, “Woman in súnday dress” Oil on canvas
Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Kandinsky (1866 – 1944)
Vassily Kandinsky,. 1936, Composition Oil on canvas
Vassily Kandinsky, Train and castle at Murnau. 1909. Oil on canvas
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Vassily Kandinsky, 1939, Composition 10, Oil on canvas
Max Ernst
Max Ernst, 1891- 1976
Surrealistic composition
Oil on Canvas
Death came suddenly
We lay on a narrow bed in the living room. She had returned home to die. I have promised her that she should die at home if it in any way was an option. Our experiences from the hospitals excluded this alternative. We are so often talking about the “struggle against cancer”. This saying may be…