MAX AND THE SPIRIT OF DADA:
A Brief Introduction to the Modern Art Explosion
and Hitler's "Degenerate Art"

In the turbulent period between the two World Wars, modernism exploded, and with it came entirely new and radical notions about what could be expressed in art, and how. Once relegated to the decorous, art suddenly became dangerous and public - and artists themselves were threatened by political ideology. Perhaps nowhere in history was the intertwined tension between art and politics felt as strongly as in post-WWI Germany. And it was here, remarkably, that the historical Adolf Hitler, as a young man, pursued his career as a struggling artist amidst a thriving movement of Dadaists, Futurists and radical performance artists, many of whom his regime would later brutally persecute.

MAX takes a fictional route to explore Hitler's unusual collision with the art world. But the film and its title character clearly take their spirit from the daring, highly energized, irreverent art of the period, particularly the movement known as Dadaism. As Menno Meyjes says: "It was a time when people were looking to change the code of things, and with a new kind of art they could change the code and if you could change the code you would change the world."

The spirit of Dada and the other avant-garde art movements were forged, in a sense, in the trenches of World War One. In the aftermath of a war that introduced the horrors of chemical and industrialized warfare for the first time, the world stood stunned by its own brutality, and Europe was reeling from a new urban reality made up of widows, the disabled, the starving and the unemployed masses. Faced with this jarring and incomprehensible reality, poets, writers, painters and musicians responded with art forms never before imaginable. Some called Dadaism the "anti-art," a kind of electric shock to a society watching its values crumble and its past fall away without any clear vision of the future. As Zurich Dadaist Tristan Tzara wrote of the modern art movement: "Art is going to sleep for a new world to be born."

Artists of the time took up entirely new subjects: urban grit, the notion of speed, the worship and fear of machines, the horrors of war, the very feeling of chaos, irrationality and uncertainty. Some depicted a brave new world in which destitute war victims were as common a sight as classical European splendor; others looked optimistically to the modern future. Fearlessly, many artists expressed deep political dissatisfaction in their work and put out the disquieting philosophy that society could not go back, but had to face a future with new ideas.

Dadaists pioneered new means as well as messages: they began working in wildly anarchic photo-collages and photo-montages that reflected the dynamism and randomness of modern life, and they also developed the first multi-media performance art acts. The latter were often created specifically to push the audiences' buttons - to anger, incite or titillate them, and cause them to question what they had just seen. In one early Dadaist exhibit, the gallery-goers were handed axes so that they could destroy the art they saw if they so chose.

Through the 1920's, Dadaism spread like wildfire through Europe, especially cities such as Berlin, Zurich, Cologne, Hanover and Paris. In Germany, a country devastated by defeat in World War One and subsequent economic ruin, Dadaists such as George Grosz, Johannes Baeder, Hannah Hoch, Raoul Hausmann and Hans Richter rose to fame, becoming especially strong in the multi-media art of photo-montage.

But Dadaism and modern art in general clashed with another equally strong movement in Germany - a conservative, nationalistic movement that labeled modern artists as unpatriotic, decadent and criminally revolutionary. Although Adolf Hitler had dabbled in modern art once upon a time after he came to power along with the Nazi Party, the art world was literally purged.

By 1937, Hitler had labeled all the art he didn't like "degenerate art" and those who created it were often brutally prosecuted. Adolf Zieglar, whom Hitler appointed president of the Reich Culture Chamber, proclaimed of modern art: "What you are seeing here are the crippled products of madness, impertinence, and lack of talent . . . I would need several freight trains to clear our galleries of this rubbish." Many of Germany's most lauded artists escaped into exile but others died in concentration camps. Few artists of that time, no matter what the subjects of their work, were able to pursue their creative visions without dire and legitimate fear, or worse.

ARTISTS ARE AN IMPORTANT PART OF GOD'S PLAN
Invention of musical instruments
and instruments of iron and copper --Gen 4:21-22
Carpentry --Gen 6:14-16; Ex 31:2-9
Apothecary or perfumer --Ex 30:25; Ex 30:35
Armorer --1 Sam 8:12
Baker --Gen 40:1; 1 Sam 8:13
Barber --Isa 7:20; Ezek 5:1
Brickmaker --Gen 11:3; Ex 5:7-8; Ex 5:18
Calker --Ezek 27:9; Ezek 27:27
Compounding confections --1 Sam 8:13
Gardener --Jer 29:5; John 20:15
Goldsmith --Isa 40:19
Mariner --Ezek 27:8-9
Mason --2 Sam 5:11; 2 Chr 24:12
Musician --1 Sam 18:6; 1 Chr 15:16
Potter --Isa 64:8; Jer 18:3; Lam 4:2; Zech 11:13
Refiner of metals --1 Chr 28:18; Mal 3:2-3
Ropemaker --Judg 16:11
Stonecutter --Ex 20:25; 1 Chr 22:15
Shipbuilder --1 Kin 9:26
Smelter of metals --Job 28:2
Spinner --Ex 35:25; Prov 31:19
Tailor --Ex 28:3
Tanner --Acts 9:43; Acts 10:6
Tentmaker --Gen 4:20; Acts 18:3
Weaver --Ex 35:35; John 19:23
Wine maker --Neh 13:15; Isa 63:3
Writer --Judg 5:14

Skillful Artisans,
Jubal --Gen 4:21
Tubalcain --Gen 4:22
Bezaleel and Aholiab --Ex 31:2-14; Ex 35:30-35
Hiram --1 Kin 7:13-51; 2 Chr 2:13-14

ART IN THE EARLY CHURCH
(From Holman's Bible Dictionary)
Since most of the early Christians came out of a Jewish background which warned against idolatry, they were careful to make a clear distinction between the work of art and the object which it represented. They were aware of the teaching value which art might have. Even though the political situation did not let them openly display their works, they did manage to paint religious symbols and scenes on the walls of the catacombs (or burial chambers). As Christianity gradually became more accepted, the practice of meeting in private homes was replaced by meeting in buildings which were especially designed for worship. Such buildings were usually elaborately decorated with paintings of biblical stories (such as those of Moses, David, Jonah, Daniel, Christ, and the disciples). By the end of the fourth century, such paintings also began to show up on quite a number of the sarcophagi or coffins as well as the tops of boxes, dishes, and other utensils. Unfortunately, most of this artwork has not survived. That which has gives us a glimpse of the skill and appreciation which God’s people have always had for artistic endeavors.

LACK OF ARTISTIC VISION
I am very concerned by the near total lack of visual artistic expression in the church worship today. Why is this? I believe many in the church are afraid of its power! Perhaps its laziness. Perhaps its the emphasis on "the word" as expressed in black ink on white paper. But, in the Bible the Word is Living (John 1:1, 14). We live in a visual culture. How long will it be before the church digs itself out of the linear world of just the printing press (a technical machine) and enter the colorful artist world of creation itself.
--David Bruce, Web Master HollywoodJesius.com

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Max © 2002 Lions Gate Films. All Rights Reserved.

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