Mother dressed her baby as Hitler, other dictators for exhibit

[Syt]

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2690533#ixzz0icHpoisy

Bored and confined to a wheelchair for months, Danish-Norwegian artist Nina Maria Kleivan saw inspiration in her newborn child and began to sew.

Soon enough, her four-month-old daughter, Faustina, became both muse and model, adorned in miniature costumes replicating nine infamous men including Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler.

Crafting the latter costume, Ms. Kleivan, 50, said from her home in Denmark, was the most emotionally trying, "It was very difficult for me to sew the swastika on her little sleeve. I could never have done this to someone else's child."

Ms. Kleivan's exhibit, Potency, also featured photos of her daughter dressed as Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Mao Zedong, Idi Amin, Augusto Pinochet and Slobodan Milosevic. In the 10th and final photo of the series, Faustina -- depicted as a boy throughout -- was naked, revealing her gender and, according to the artist, her innate innocence.

"We are all born as a blank slate, who knows who we will become," Ms. Kleivan said. "I wanted people to think about where tremendous evil comes from."

The art exhibit is so controversial and so startling that, nine years since it debuted in Sweden and long after Ms. Kleivan sold the series to a private collector for approximately US$11,000, Potency is again garnering headlines.

The Danish newspaper Politiken recently published the photos alongside a review about Ms. Kleivan's new book, Enigma. It was not long before the images were again circulating the globe, and even became a lead story on the website of Israel's Haaretz newspaper yesterday.

"I'm a bit nervous about how people will react now that it's back out there again," Ms. Kleivan said. "I know how angry my Jewish aunt was when she saw the exhibit a decade ago."

For her part, the artist said she long harboured hatred toward Germany, and even became "a little obsessed with the war." Her father was part of the Norwegian resistance movement, and was held captive in a German prison camp for years.

"As a little girl, I used to carry around a note with the name of the prison guard, and I swore I would someday kill him," Ms. Kleivan said. "I had such great hatred toward the Nazis for what they had done. I felt like I had a right to work with this subject."

Ralph Erber, professor of psychology at Chicago's DePaul University and co-editor of the book Understanding Genocide: The Social Psychology of the Holocaust, said it is no wonder people have again been outraged: The image of a baby dressed as Hitler is wildly conflicting and therefore provocative, he said.

"The visual of Hitler -- even just his moustache -- instantly evokes an emotional reaction, one that most people would describe as repulsion," Mr. Erber said.

"It is extremely difficult for most to conceive that Hitler was ever an innocent baby. People have limits on their ability to stomach something like this."

However, Ms. Kleivan said she was "surprised" when, in 2001, staff at the Kulturhuset, a Stockholm cultural centre, threatened to strike if the image of Faustina as Hitler graced the gallery walls. And, after Potency travelled to Berlin, Germany and Italy, she was equally surprised by the slew of "angry letters" she received.

"I was a bit blindsided by the reaction -- I expected people to laugh and then reflect on the concept of evil," she said.

"People could not believe that I could dress my own daughter as these characters. Yes, it was strange to see her dressed as Hitler, but I thought of her as a doll."

Bernie Farber, head of the Canadian Jewish Congress, said he recalls discussing the exhibit when it first gained notoriety 10 years ago, and said the issue has again become a talker in Jewish community.

"While I understand the artist's intentions, I don't agree with the way she went about it," he said.

"I have a visceral reaction to using children to try to explain an adult concept like evil. Surely, there's a better way to explore evil than to throw a swastika on a baby."

Gallery:
http://www.nationalpost.com/multimedia/photos/gallery/index.html?id=2689649
Has Hitler, Mussolini, Pinochet, Stalin and others. 

[Josquius]

love it

[The Brain]

Aw.

[Martinus]

Languish Mother of the Decade Award.

Btw, Syt, on an unrelated note, I was meant to ask you: what's up with Austrian politics lately? I read something about some nazi Holocaust-denying bitch having a fair shot at Presidency or something.

[Razgovory]

That is so cute!

[Syt]

Btw, Syt, on an unrelated note, I was meant to ask you: what's up with Austrian politics lately? I read something about some nazi Holocaust-denying bitch having a fair shot at Presidency or something.

She ahs a shot, but not a fair one, because her politics are two extreme except for a fringe, oh, 10% of the electorate. She has given a statement against allegations that she's a nazi nutter, but no one really believes it, and even the FPÖ is having trouble rallying behind her. She has 10 kids (one of which is a student intern in our company, but fortunately she's "normal", and is not of her mother's political conviction - due to her last name "Rosenkranz" I always thought she was Jewish), all of which have German(ic) names, sometimes edits her husband's nazi rag and otherwise is just a nutter.

This follows a pattern that while the right wing FPÖ is basically just one guy (HC Strache) who leads the posse - but fortunately with much less brains than Haider had in his prime - he hardly ever runs for any office, because he knows he can't win a majority.

[MadImmortalMan]

It's no worse than that child-exploiter Anne Geddes. That woman needs to go to jail.

[Ed Anger]

Crap, I'm a few kids short. 

[DisturbedPervert]

Needs a Pol Pot, some of those others are minor league

[sbr]

Stalin baby #9 wins. 

[HisMajestyBOB]

That's Cute

[The Brain]

That's Cute

Canute? He hardly qualifies IMHO.

[Caliga]

It's missing a Little Eichmann.

[Jaron]

What country was Eichmann dictator of again?

[CountDeMoney]

Stalin baby #9 wins. 

That one is awesome, but I think baby Idi Amin, complete with leopardskin sash, takes the cake.