http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/showbiz/article-23392783-details/The+Nazis+were+'just+amazing'+says+Bryan+Ferry/article.do
I never buy the "aesthetics" argument for Nazi-ists like Ferry. In my mind it just doesn't play. Combine that with calling his studio the Fuhrerbunker and only one word comes to my mind. Asshole.
...
No.
It just doesn't work.
Yes, the Nazis used strong visual images along with many other things, but you always have to think first about what they were using them for.
Ferry's origins are quite humble... As an entirely decadent artist he would have found that his admiration for the Nazis would not have be mutual.
He too has used iconic imagery to further his career - He should know that putting style over substance is always a very short-lived plan.
He exists now entirely on his back catalogue.
t.
Last edited by Terry Lean (2007-04-17 01:03:14)
Puts me in mind of the wise words of a good friend:
"When does a fish get caught? When it opens its mouth."
This is an impossible topic to discuss.
Everyone loves to hate the Nazis, and condemn them, without thinking.
They've become history's whipping boys.
But that's too easy.
They were people just like us, and it could happen again. Indeed, it is likely to happen again. After all, it happened before, many times. Okay, sure, next time it won't be the Jews on the short end of the stick, but we've got lots of other minorities around which lend themselves to a solution.
In other words, get off your high horse. Leave condemnation to God, which is his right & province, not ours.
TV
The problem with the Nazis is that they are so embroiled in their own ethical controversy that anything associated with them acquires a certain stigma.
Take the directer and photographer Leni Riefenstahl for example.
Last edited by Incroyable (2007-04-16 18:08:03)
Will Twin Six change one of his avatars?
Will the Brits torpedo his career? Shades of Don Imus.
isn't his son the big fox-hunting activist?
Who's his tailor?
"Arse-Pants" (I'm not joking) were Antony Price's great invention -
They were so cut as to make the wearers arse look small & tight whilst making his balls look big.
It was something to do with the central seam and some kind of darting going on down there I think.
'Tis true.
As for Bryan... Yeah, probably he was just talking & got carried away. Flirting with Nazi aesthetics is always a good way to grab attention. Bowie has done it in the past too. Bryan being an art school boy & in particular one who studied under Richard Hamilton the great English pop-artist is bound to have a different take the power of various cultural symbols.
His mistake was indulging in art school talk with a journalist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hamilton_(artist)
t.
Last edited by Terry Lean (2007-04-17 01:16:22)
Last edited by Horace (2007-04-17 02:27:28)
One other thought. I've only read a few books of architecture and probably never thought as critically as I could about all the buldings I admire in London, Paris, the US, and so forth. But does not an "idea" exist behind every bulding (i.e. Speer's great dome as a place for the volk to amass and chant), or Bauhaus as something soul-stripping (as Tom Wolfe argued in a very good book I thought). That is, like other works of art, architecture usually inspires some feeling be it dread, or grandiosity or communion with the divine, or a reflection of what a politician thinks of you (council towers). There's something chilling about Speer's vision. But I don't know if it's completely tied with Nazism that it's inseparable from.
... I've got a Wagner problem too...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wagner (The bit down the bottom)
This makes even less sense than my Speer problem.
And again I lack the brain power to listen to him in a 'neutral' way...
... All I hear is Hitler a tappin' his toes!
Great thread, Ken.
Speer might have designed buildings for a particular client in mind, but they were designed for humans to use. London, on the other hand, is replete with examples of buildings designed with only tentacled extraterrestrials in mind, so +1 to Speer.
Don't get me started on Gehry and decontructionist architecture...
TV