Abroad – 13th Linz Album of Hitler's Returned to Germany – NYTimes.com
The best pictures are by Adolph von Menzel and Hans Makart, with whose early underappreciation Hitler perversely identified.
Time whitewashes evil, or not. Mr. Edsel expressed his opinion this week that more and more curios like Mr. Pistone's album would surface now that the last surviving veterans are dying.
“Emotional value doesn't transfer across generations,” is how he put it. “People don't inherit passions.” One man's private memento becomes another's opportunity to sell something on eBay, notwithstanding that German and American authorities insist that artifacts like the Linz album are cultural property that shouldn't be sold.
{ 4 comments }
I love this article, not only because it quotes W.G. Sebald (my favorite author EVER), but because it covers a range of interesting topics. For starters:
-let’s face it, 75 years ago is not long ago AT ALL, yet, as the Sebald quote (and the article of course) reveals, one washed up clue can be an archaeological revelation
-where do you draw the line between souvenir and artifact? Personally,I don’t feel so guilty about ripping off a small piece of oxidized copper from a balcony roof in Stockholm to bring home, but my Dad bringing home a rock from the base of the Great Pyramid of Giza? Well….
-when does such an object come to the breaking point of commodification, and what emotional baggage comes with it? (I’m thinking now of the art world (reallY?!?!), but no, specifically this book I just read by this asshole art dealer Richard Polsky (yeah, I said it), whom, at the beginning of the book really seems to care about the pieces he’s buying, and cringes when he lets them go, but by the end of the book doesn’t give a shit about the art, and only cares about making money. Shocking, I know.)
-not to mention, I was totally unaware of Hitler’s insane obsession with this would-be hallucinatory museum
Great article.
I love this article, not only because it quotes W.G. Sebald (my favorite author EVER), but because it covers a range of interesting topics. For starters:
-let’s face it, 75 years ago is not long ago AT ALL, yet, as the Sebald quote (and the article of course) reveals, one washed up clue can be an archaeological revelation
-where do you draw the line between souvenir and artifact? Personally,I don’t feel so guilty about ripping off a small piece of oxidized copper from a balcony roof in Stockholm to bring home, but my Dad bringing home a rock from the base of the Great Pyramid of Giza? Well….
-when does such an object come to the breaking point of commodification, and what emotional baggage comes with it? (I’m thinking now of the art world (reallY?!?!), but no, specifically this book I just read by this asshole art dealer Richard Polsky (yeah, I said it), whom, at the beginning of the book really seems to care about the pieces he’s buying, and cringes when he lets them go, but by the end of the book doesn’t give a shit about the art, and only cares about making money. Shocking, I know.)
-not to mention, I was totally unaware of Hitler’s insane obsession with this would-be hallucinatory museum
Great article.
I love this article, not only because it quotes W.G. Sebald (my favorite author EVER), but because it covers a range of interesting topics. For starters:
-let’s face it, 75 years ago is not long ago AT ALL, yet, as the Sebald quote (and the article of course) reveals, one washed up clue can be an archaeological revelation
-where do you draw the line between souvenir and artifact? Personally,I don’t feel so guilty about ripping off a small piece of oxidized copper from a balcony roof in Stockholm to bring home, but my Dad bringing home a rock from the base of the Great Pyramid of Giza? Well….
-when does such an object come to the breaking point of commodification, and what emotional baggage comes with it? (I’m thinking now of the art world (reallY?!?!), but no, specifically this book I just read by this asshole art dealer Richard Polsky (yeah, I said it), whom, at the beginning of the book really seems to care about the pieces he’s buying, and cringes when he lets them go, but by the end of the book doesn’t give a shit about the art, and only cares about making money. Shocking, I know.)
-not to mention, I was totally unaware of Hitler’s insane obsession with this would-be hallucinatory museum
Great article.
I love this article, not only because it quotes W.G. Sebald (my favorite author EVER), but because it covers a range of interesting topics. For starters:
-let’s face it, 75 years ago is not long ago AT ALL, yet, as the Sebald quote (and the article of course) reveals, one washed up clue can be an archaeological revelation
-where do you draw the line between souvenir and artifact? Personally,I don’t feel so guilty about ripping off a small piece of oxidized copper from a balcony roof in Stockholm to bring home, but my Dad bringing home a rock from the base of the Great Pyramid of Giza? Well….
-when does such an object come to the breaking point of commodification, and what emotional baggage comes with it? (I’m thinking now of the art world (reallY?!?!), but no, specifically this book I just read by this asshole art dealer Richard Polsky (yeah, I said it), whom, at the beginning of the book really seems to care about the pieces he’s buying, and cringes when he lets them go, but by the end of the book doesn’t give a shit about the art, and only cares about making money. Shocking, I know.)
-not to mention, I was totally unaware of Hitler’s insane obsession with this would-be hallucinatory museum
Great article.
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