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Hitler’s Bunker Meme Gets Arty

February 15, 2010 by Marion Maneker

Linda Yablonsky discovers the Hitler’s bunker meme, a clip from a 2004 movie about Hitler’s downfall that has become the standard way to express frustration and disgust with prominent decisions. Recent versions have hilariously covered Conan O’Brien and disappointment over the iPad. Here’s Yablonsky on the latest version:

With its pitch-perfect sendup of both museum politics and artists who can never get enough respect, it put everyone and his mother in stitches. It’s wicked. But the video doesn’t just fling a big mud pie in the face of art-world rivals. It speaks truth to power with genuine wit. And the more you watch it, the funnier it gets. […] The video’s creator is just as obviously intimate with the strange-bedfellow partnerships that can influence either the art market or the reputations of its major players, in this case the DeMille-like Deitch and his sometime client, the billionaire collector Eli Broad, whose $30 million donation saved MOCA from going under last year.

It also exposes lingering resentments over Broad’s grip on L.A.’s cultural life (he was formerly on the boards of both the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Hammer Museum) and Angelenos’ fear that the carpetbagging Deitch’s penchant for pop culture and outlandish street parades would turn precious MOCA into a three-ring circus. As if Hollywood’s infatuation with fame didn’t already do that. (Witness MOCA’s lavish 30th anniversary gala in November, when Lady Gaga – not any local artist — was the star attraction.)

Hitler v. Eli Broad: A Comedy (New York Times)

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Filed Under: Museums Tagged With: Deitch, LA MoCA

About Marion Maneker

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