Degenerate Kunsts

A number of people have asked about the name of the blog and on a related topic a perceived bias towards German culture of the blog. As to the question of whether we have a liking for German culture here at the Kunst Collective I would plead guilty as charged your honour! When Monty Python made the famous philosophers world cup sketch Germany were in the final against Greece, it is our belief that had they made the same sketch but for culture then Germany would once again made the final at the very least. The list of German artistic favourites of the KC  is long and covers most of the arts – the music of Bruckner, Mahler, Wagner and Kraftwerk, the plays and poems of Brecht, the art of Richter etc. as well as the philosopher Immanuel Kant, who's major work was the Critique of Pure Reason (and who can forget the Goombay Dance Band?).

As to the name of the blog, Kunst is the German word for Art of course and yes there is the love of the good old British double entendre, some of the greatest British contributions to the arts over the years have been the Carry On films and the seaside postcard both of which made a living for years out of double entendre’s (and not much else at times) and were all the better for it. The name also reminds us of the largest attendance for a modern art exhibition in history, over 2 million people, for the Nazi exhibition, Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) which was intended to show modern art as a degradation of the German spirit. To paraphrase Voltaire we at the KC might not like everything that is done in the name of art but we will fight to the death to allow artists to do what they want (ok not to the death, in fact we probably won’t fight at all, we’re lovers not fighters but we’ll support freedom of expression for artists at any rate).

Degenerate Kunsts of the world unite!