ecopolis

Germany was ruled by the Nazis since 1933, and Hitler wanted to capitalize on the Olympic Games to present Germany as an open-minded and peaceful nation to prove that the “Aryan race” was superior to all other “races” in all aspects of life, including tollerance of (inferior) diversity and sports.

But the Nazis had not counted on Jesse Owens’s talent and his determination to win: he managed to win four Olympic gold medals (100m, 200m, long jump and 4×100m relay): No other athlete had ever won four medals at the Olympic Games. That feat was performed again only by Carl Lewis at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles 1984.

The audience was enthralled by his performance and Jesse Owens became the celebrated hero of Berlin. Jesse Owens had won the heart and mind of Germany and the world.
In the streets, children “played” Jesse Owens, and the “Führer’s” radio sports reporters had a hard time explaining how an African-American had managed to relegate the sure, prospective and “white” winners to second places. Everybody could see how upset Hitler was about this success. And Jesse Owens did not get a handshake.

But when Jesse Owens returned to the USA, even the US President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, ignored the top athlete and did not invite him to the White House: Roosevelt was campaigning for his re-election and he feared protests in the Southern States if he welcomed and honoured Owens publicly.
Owens remarked later that he felt insulted by Roosevelt rather than Hitler.

NAZIROCK

A feature-documentary by Claudio Lazzaro

The extreme right seen from the inside: its music, its leaders, its alliances, its rites, and the political acceptance that is opening the Italian Nazi-fascists the doors to institutionalized power.

But why are they being accepted and recognized? Because in Italy the radical right wing accounts for 500,000 votes that play a key role within the Italian election system, where 25,000 votes can make the difference and decide who is going to govern the Country.

NAZIROCK tells the story of this political transition using the “skin”, “oi”, “white power” and “punkadestra” musical bands who sing fascists songs as a main theme.

The film opens and closes on the images of the demonstration attended by the famous “2 million supporters” summoned by the ex premier Silvio Berlusconi and that took place on December 2nd, in Rome (on the speaker’s podium, together with Berlusconi, you will also see Luca Romagnoli and Alessandra Mussolini, the main leaders of the neo-Fascist coalition). But what counts more is that the film will also take you to a kind of Nashville of the estreme right: a big event, organized by Forza Nuova, the political movement whose leader is Roberto Fiore (sentenced to nine years for forming an armed band) that took place from September 29th to October 1st, in Viterbo, Latium, with the participation of several leading rock bands, activists and political leaders coming from Spain, Germany, France, Greece, Lebanon and Romania.

During that event, called “Campo d’Azione 2006”, souvenir stands sold badges showing the face of Hitler to be sewn onto sweaters as well as books denying the existence of the Holocaust, like the one written by Carlo Mattogno and entitled “Auschwitz: fine di una leggenda” (Auschwitz, the end of a legend). Until very late at night, in the large hangar that during the day was animated by speeches and discussions, we assisted to a very disquieting show featuring several rock bands frantically acclaimed by a crowd performing the nazi-fascist stiff-arm salute and sporting a huge banner, printed for the occasion and stating in large capital letters: “MORE NAZISM FOR US ALL”.

One of the most acclaimed speakers in Viterbo was Luigi Ciavardini, sentenced to 30 years for the Bologna slaughter and who, ten days after participating in the Viterbo’s event, was arrested for a hold-up. Another very passionate speech was delivered by Andrea Insabato sentenced to 12 years – reduced afterwards to 6 – for a bomb attack against the headquarters of the daily “Manifesto”. These images are accompanied by the music of the rock band Hobbit, chanting an hallucinated hymn to violence anticipating and almost calling for the bloody clashes that took place in Catania football stadium where the Police Inspector Filippo Raciti lost his life.
Resorting to a fragmented editing alternating nazi rock songs and archival footage reminding us of the horrors and destructions brought about by an ideology that caused only death and shame, and through the interviews with some of the young people attending the event, we tried to depict this right-wing Nashville.
A nightmare that leaves us speechless and on the hop, because the question is always the same: “How is it possible history did not teach us nothing?”

http://www.nazirock.it/index.php

Kara Walker, You Do, 1993-94 (detail). Cut Paper on canvas. Courtesy the artist and Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York

Kara Walker was born in Stockton, California in 1969. The artist is best known for exploring the raw intersection of race, gender, and sexuality through her iconic, silhouetted figures. The use of the traditionally proper Victorian medium, gives evidence of the her critical and artistic processes, creating a theatrical – yet controversial – space in which her unruly cut-paper characters fornicate, seduce and inflict violence on one another.

Kara Walker, “Art in the Twenty-First Century”, production still, 2003 © Art21, Inc.

Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love

The exhibition at Witney Museum presents a comprehensive grouping of the artist’s work to date, featuring more than 200 paintings, drawings, collages, shadow-puppetry, light projections, and video animations that offer an extended contemplation on the nature of figurative representation and narrative in contemporary art.

Drawing her inspiration from sources as varied as the antebellum South, testimonial slave narratives, historical novels, and minstrel shows, Walker has invented a repertoire of powerful narratives in which she conflates fact and fiction to uncover the living roots of racial and gender bias. The intricacy of her imagination and her diligent command of art history have caused her silhouettes to cast shadows on conventional thinking about race representation in the context of discrimination, exclusion, sexual desire, and love. “It’s interesting that as soon as you start telling the story of racism, you start reliving the story,” Walker says. “You keep creating a monster that swallows you. But as long as there’s a Darfur, as long as there are people saying ‘Hey, you don’t belong here’ to others, it only seems realistic to continue investigating the terrain of racism.”

Witney Museum of American Art
Until February 3, 2008

Kara Walker, Darkytown Rebellion, 2001. Cut paper and projection on wall
Musee d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg. Courtesy the artist and Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York