Thursday, March 18, 2010

Baby Evil

From Haaretz.com... "IN PICTURES / Danish artist dresses her baby as Hitler, exploring the meaning of evil." Here's an excerpt and a photo:
"We all have evil within us. Even small children are evil towards each other," Danish-Norwegian artist Nina Maria Kleivan tells Haaretz as she explains why she chose to dress up her baby daughter as the most evil historical figures of the 20th century.

"Even my daughter could end up ruling Denmark with an iron fist. The possibility is still there. You never know."

In the controversial photo-series "Potency," Kleivan's daughter Faustina, then a few months old, depicts such infamous personalities as Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Saddam Hussein, Ayatollah Khomeini, Chairman Mao, Idi Amin, Augusto Pinochet, Slobodan Milosevic, and Adolf Hitler. The aim is to illustrate just one thing: We all begin life the same. We all have every opportunity ahead of us. To do good, or inexplicable evil. 
The entire article and more pictures of the artist's daughter dressed as evil historical figures (as noted above) are at the link; you see Mussolini above.  Bizarre.

(h/t: a tweet from Andy Levy)

9 comments:

  1. Funny that she did not put her daughter in photos of "good" people. Is that because they are not so famous or because "good" is more difficult to discern?

    I'm with Andy on this one.

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  2. Sound like the "artist" has lost any real inspiration.

    Pathetic.

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  3. Kids are evil to each other?

    Hardly.

    Kids can be mean to each other but not evil, at least not as infants and toddlers.

    Evil implies a certain amount of morality that just doesn't exist in small children.

    Yes we all have choices that are informed by our actions and those of the people around us. But small children being evil to each other - come on.

    The artist (I use that term loosely) just wanted to do something extreme to get attention.

    Lou - it's not that good is difficult to discern. It's that it's not as controversial and hence, doesn't get as much attention.

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  4. The entire concept of dressing up babies, in order to make them some sort of artwork, strikes me as weird. I don't think it says much good about the parent(s).

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  5. It's -- well, to be nice, it's a pathetic attempt to say "look at me", period.

    If this is what she does to her child, I hope she doesn't have any pets!

    People are just weird -- ALL present company excluded, I'm sure!! :)

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  6. I read the entire article. This lady really needs to get a new hobby.

    Chairman Mao? She has totally lost her mind in being able to seporate evil of one man (like Hiler or Saddam) and a revolution that invloved a policial party.

    This is not art in my book. It's an agenda.

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  7. I agree with all y'all. The only time kids should dress up as scary characters... historical or otherwise... is on Halloween. Period, full-stop.

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  8. She's definitely up there on the strange-o-meter.

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Just be polite... that's all I ask.