The Art of Controversy

Today the Associated Press is carrying a story about German artist Ottmar Hörl's (or Hoerl) installation in Strauburg, a city in southern German, of 1,250 small plastic garden gnomes, each with its right arm raised in a Nazi salute. While Germany still outlaws the display of Nazi symbols, the courts ruled that Hörl’s artwork, titled “Dance with the Devil,” was clearly “satiric” and therefore allowed.

According to Hörl, “The fascist idea, the striving to manipulate people or dictate to people … is latently dangerous and remains present in our society.”

The installation is bound to cause controversy, both in Germany and elsewhere, because it is designed to provoke introspection and discussion. (Indeed, it already has.) The gnomes, all dressed in business suits, are mostly black, though some twenty are gilded. The iconic garden gnome could easily be taken to represent a common humanity, and the massing of 1,250 of them evokes the mass rallies of Nazi supporters preceding and during World War II. This juxtaposition seems to ask, Could such mass manipulation happen again? Is it, in fact, happening or brewing somewhere? Should we be aware?

To an extent all cutting-edge artwork is thought-provoking, but some artists bring a specific social or religious intentionality to their images. Another example that springs to mind is Andres Serrano’s controversial “Piss Christ,” a photograph that showed a small crucifix submerged in a container of the artist’s urine. When it was exhibited in 1989, it drew howls of protest. Detractors included U.S. Senator Jesse Helms and then-New York City Mayor Rudolf Giuliani, who attempted to have the exhibit shut down. Detractors were outraged not only by the image’s seeming religious blasphemy but also by the fact that Serrano had received public funding for his art through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. A campaign subsequently was launched to limit the endowment’s ability to fund controversial art.

Support for the work also emerged. The piece was a winner of the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art’s “Awards in the Visual Arts” competition. Freedom of expression was the subject of countless editorials. Art critic and Catholic nun, Sister Wendy Beckett, said in a television interview that she regarded the work not as blasphemous but as a statement on “what we have done to Christ,” a commentary on how today’s society regards Christ and traditional Christian values.

Hörl’s garden gnomes have provoked controversy when exhibited elsewhere, such as in the German city of Nürnberg, once a Nazi stronghold and where the artist is now president of the Nürnberg Academy of Fine Arts, and in the Belgium city of Ghent. Doubtless it will continue to do so. Artworks such as “Dance with the Devil” serve a vital purpose, as controversial works often do, to provoke serious consideration of important ideas and to generate meaningful discussions about issues that truly matter in the social and religious lives of people everywhere.