I don't get the backlash around this show. The audience gets to decide if the painting is destroyed. If you don't want it destroyed you can vote against it.

You mean buy a ticket and fly to Britain to attend the recording of the show in order to get my opportunity to vote on whether a painting by Hitler gets destroyed? Sure, that's easy, I'll get right on that.

This reminds me of an episode of Justified where the Rayland meets a guy who collects Hitler's art and assumes it's because he is a neo nazi when he finds out this guy was a collector just so he could burn the paintings.

Because his father was the Nazi and avidly collected them. So he burned his dad's paintings and buys up the rest that Hitler made.

Also, isnt this a form of art in itself?

The very premise of this show is disgusting.

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I loved Justified, and this was one of my favorite episodes. I never saw that coming. It was such a great twist.

The scapegoat in today's culture is iconoclasm. Once you label something as iconoclasm, it ceases to function and becomes ugly.

That's what I was thinking. KLF style performance art.

Idk. I feel weird about it, but it’s kind of an interesting question to wrestle with. Which is the point, of course.

> Ian Katz, Channel 4’s director of programming, confirmed that if the studio audience chose to save the painting by Hitler it would not hang in the Channel 4 boardroom but would be “appropriately” disposed of.

So no matter what the audience chooses they’re going to destroy it anyway. Sounds like they just want to destroy art they deem inappropriate.

And just for the fact I need to mention it. This is not me being pro-Hitler or Rolf Harris or any other fuckwit artist. It’s me me being anti-Jimmy Carr Destroys Art, it’s a dumb idea for a show.

Any Justified ep that features Raylan Givens is a must watch.

"Disposing of" something doesn't inherently mean destroying it; it just means getting rid of it from their perspective in some manner. In this case, it would probably just mean it would go to a museum or something.

Similarly, Damien Hirst is doing the same. You can buy a square of dotted paper in physical form, or as an NFT where he burns the paper on livestream as part of a piece testing whether NFTs really are worthless or not.

If you read the article, the entire show is literally a debate between various art historians & culture critics on the morality of destroying works of art like this - before a studio audience votes on if it should be destroyed.

Frankly in an era where 'separating art from artist' is an everyday issue - it seems like a pretty smart way to get people informed on the conversation.

Maybe, and I don’t disagree. I just think going to all the effort to buy the art only to either destroy it or get rid of it seems like a waste of money.

While I agree with upping the conversation and I also agree with, well, anything to do with shit talking Hitler I’m not sure how I feel about destroying art.

He was a bad artist, and we’d still have images if not the originals so it’s not like destroying statues.

It kind of seems like burning books or the taliban smashing temples to me just on the way less offensive part of that spectrum.

I’m conflicted. Fuck Hitler. Jimmy is hilarious. I’m sure he’ll convince me.

This show sounds like a scrapped Black Mirror concept.

The debate is perfectly fine, i would listen to it. But why destroy the art though (or just why even have the opportunity to)? What message does that send? Guess what the nazis did with the art pieces they didn't like....

Jim'll smash it?

Funny thing if people just let Hitler paint he likely wouldn't have found out how good a orator he was.

That’s a…very different show

It's not though, it's in investment for a show that is supposed to earn them more money.

This is like saying building a set to film a show only to destroy it later is a waste of money.

are there any justified eps without Rayland Givens?

Sounds like an overly complicated 'Best of The Worst'.

Separate the art from the artist, Skeletor!

That's impossible He-Man!

Art shouldn’t be considered divine. Neither should the expression of art. It’s an idealized notion to think that preserving art is preserving history, when at the same time society doesn’t care about preserving more important things that aren’t culturally functional to the prevailing zeitgeist. Art itself can be seen a gesture, and so is preserving or destroying it.

I mean personally I would preserve the art, but it’s a good debate worth engaging, but I honestly don’t think Jimmy Carr should be the one to facilitate it.

Not divine sure, that wasn't my point. But this article at least made it sound like they plan to destroy it just because it's made by Hitler. First we should look at the art itself and then we can talk about whether if it's worth preserving or not.

But just because it's made by a controversial artist it shouldn't be destroyed. Even if it portrays hatred or racism, it can be examined and learned from. But ofc i'm not trying to pretend to be someone educated enough to debate this properly, but yeah, the debate about this is definitely a good thing. But destroying them - especially the audience voting on it - is just unnecessary and completely misses the point.

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It's not even art, it's an artifact. In 1000 years, people will still be talking about Hitler. He's not the kind of guy to just fade into historical obscurity. What survives to that time, no matter how irrelevant, will be priceless.

No one's sitting around saying: "I wish Ghengis Khan would have left less shit for us to study,' but, no, some museum probably has a comb of his or whatever. I say we save the painting and let history decide.

Thanks for your thoughtful reply

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And I’m sure there are viewers who tune in for the art history and cultural debates. I feel like the main attraction, though, is to possibly see an irreplaceable artifact gleefully and theatrically destroyed. And I find that nauseating.

Burning books is evil because it restricts access to information and infringes on a right to speech. Destroying temples is bad because it restricts the right to assemble and worship freely. Not because all art is sacred and destroying it is a crime against intelligence. Unsold books get pulped and recycled and ancient statues lose their paint and look completely different than intended. Even if there was still some artistic merit to get from an original Hitler that we haven't found yet, the act of destroying it wil be performance art making a more powerful statement of its own. It's not preventing people from expressing or sharing ideas nor is its destruction a tool to oppress anyone.

I’m imagining an Al Capones vault situation here where they vote to not destroy it and the show just awkwardly ends

Probably would be better to find a Jewish comedian to do the destroying, but I just hope it gets destroyed.

But if somebody tunes in for the possibility of art destruction, and learns something from the program - isn't that a successful outcome?

Because nobody's tuning in for an art history lecture. But they will tune in for the potiential to see Hitler's painting get destroyed, and they may learn something from the debate.

Can we get a show where they just film local councils going around painting over art that graffiti artists have put on otherwise bare walls? Because an awful lot of people are offended by the idea of art being destroyed, but seem to be fine with that as long as it's not in a frame.

The “jar room” scene is chilling

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Someone who's family was killed in the holocaust. But then it's not a comedy show. Well, Hitler, ya know

> but I just hope it gets destroyed.

Why?

Vandalism isn't art.

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'May'? Why else would they buy a painting by Hitler?

Nazis took books, they put them on a pyre and burned them in a theatrical display. As you say it was a performance art to make a powerful statement. You can justify it however you like, but it reeks of the same dark impulse. And all you have to do is — not — burn artwork to ash.

The nazis were burning history books about the groups they targeted, books of scientific research which contradicted their perceived superiority, and political books supporting platforms that went against their own. The loss of access to that information was devastating and the performance art of public burnings was in service of a nazi regime. Destroying Hitler's painting isn't keeping anyone from seeing the image and is performance art in opposition to nazis.

Hitler’s been dead a long time, long before my lifetime, but I still enjoy a good postmortem “fuck you hitler.” I think it’s easier to convince me that smashing up Hitler’s shit out of sheer spite is cool than it would be to convince me of the same for any other artists I can think of

Plus it’s just a real feel-good moment for a lot of people. Smashing up Hitler’s shit out of sheer spite 80 years after his death just sounds really cathartic to me.

Yea, I’m conflicted. I’m sure he’ll make me laugh one way or another.

I understand Nazis burned books in accordance with their values, burning their own books would be absolute absurdism. Thats what dumb humans always do. Its what christians did to the pagans, what the pagans did to carthage, etc. They did so publicly because it appeals to the dark heart of man -- the craving to see your opponents works fall into ash.

> and is performance art in opposition to nazis

the Nazi regime fell 75 years ago. “Opposition” to the most hated and despised regime which ever existed is like performance art against cannibalism. We live in a world where people can’t even have a small mustache anymore.

Cathartic is a weird notion considering this is happening only after the people who fought nazis and survived the Holocaust are mostly all dying off

Nah, tons of fascist dickheads still look up to him and ideologies he espoused are still alive and well. The legacy of the war he helped start is still felt to this day as well. Idk, he was a real dickhead. I think I would get a little kick out someone throwing a “Fuck Hitler Party” just to smash up some of his shit. There’ll always be a digital record anyways so it’s really more symbolic

Nazi ideology is alive and well in this world, even if the OGs are all ashes and dust now.

Oh, you're one of those people who thinks there are no more nazis since World War 2 ended. Well I had a nice discussion about whether it can ever be acceptable to destroy art with you. But now I just have to tell you that you're wrong. Nazis hold rallies and protests to this day in my country. They back politicians with bigoted platforms, radicalize young people online including in spaces that exist for my own hobbies, and occasionally try to kill people with a car or bomb or gun.

Losing a painting by a mediocre artist is a price worth paying to remind them their goals are not accepted. They've become far too emboldened in the last few years.

Uhh, it kind of is. Doesn't matter if it's illegal or if it's actively damaging and literally everyone except the person who created it wants it to be gone, it doesn't take away it being art. Bad art is still art, so is vandalism.

> you're one of those people who thinks there are no more nazis since World War 2 ended

So you make up an impossible straw man -- there are zero nazis after WWII, then argue with that strawman.

My guess, you crave power, you love holding power over people. Burning a dead artist's work has nothing to do with any vitreous goal, but to feed a darkness in your soul you won't even acknowledge is there. You haven't, as social scientists describe 'integrated your shadow.'

Instead of destroying a piece of history, you could get mad that Jon Stewart gave a medal at Disney world to a Ukrainian Nazi with a black sun tattoo. Or that the USA is funding Ukrainian nazis like the Azov Battalion. 100% chance you won't care, there won't even be the tiniest fucking droplet of sincerity when it comes to this issue -- at all, if you can't even stop salivating over flamethrowing a painting, then killing Russians (an enemy tribe) is going to give you an erection the size of mount Everest.

I didn't mean for it to be a straw man, but if you know there are nazis, why did you say there aren't?

> My guess, you crave power, you love holding power over people.

Not only am I not the one destroying a painting, I don't even intend to watch it. Chill.

Describing Hitler as "an artist" and one of his paintings as "a piece of history" is a really bad look. He is regarded as an average artist at best, it was a hobby he wasn't good enough at to turn into a profession, and there's no special artistic or historic significance to this piece in particular. He's no more of an artist than me and this painting isn't history any more than my sketches.

That I totally agree with. Had it been a culturally (positive) influential artist though I would not like to see that painting destroyed.

That said I’m not so conflicted on the loss of an original Hitler.

I also hope Jimmy takes the piss out of the British art system stealing all cultural art on the planet then defending it like it’s ok. That’s bolocks and I hope he roasts everyone.

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No, because the irreplaceable artefact is destroyed