A satirical sculptor from Düsseldorf has expressed bewilderment after Russian prosecutors charged him in a Moscow court with criminally defaming the country’s army.
Jacques Tilly, 62, is Germany’s most prominent designer of carnival floats and has spent 40 years creating outsized and grotesque papier-mâché models of figures including President Trump, Angela Merkel and Baroness May of Maidenhead.
Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, his floats have repeatedly mocked President Putin’s brutality.
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This year’s float for the Düsseldorf carnival depicted Trump and Putin shaking hands, with President Zelensky crushed in their grip and haemorrhaging blood, along with the caption: “Hitler-Stalin pact 2.0”.
Previous editions have shown Putin choking on a map of Ukraine and posing naked alongside Trump and President Xi of China, with a gigantically enlarged scrotum emblazoned with the words “Make Russia great again”.
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It’s satire. Satire is meant to be hyperbolic. No comparison of current events with past events can ever be fully accurate.
The message is fairly straightforward. Trump’s peace negotations with Putin are exclusively for splitting Ukraine up between the US and Russia. Not necessarily in the sense of occupation (for the US parts) but in terms of exploiting Ukraine’s resources for the sole benefit of Russia and the US. That’s it.
The connection is two powerful countries splitting up a third one to its detriment. What other well-known historic German event could this be compared with except Molotov-Ribbentrop?
Right, but I criticize on the basis that its not clear what abstraction is even being used to make the comparison. A common method of propaganda that confuses is comparing two things but not establishing a basis for the comparison. It is an empty signifier, to be filled with whatever political meaning one chooses.
I see it all the time, among political allies and opponents. I’ve never seen it deliver a greater degree of understanding or engagement. I think we use abstraction unconsciously so much, so seamlessly in our conception of meaning, that we can’t tell if an abstraction is faulty or valid. Our brains just go “sure seems right” and we go along with it, but dont consider in what ways the abstraction is faulty or valid. Art has a way of revealing hidden connections or meanings, propaganda has a way of obscuring.
I appreciate other posters helping me to recognize the connection between Poland in Molotov-Ribbentrop and Ukraine in our current day. But I still dont see the connection being made here and I dont like obscurative or vibe-based political messaging.
Any artist knows that you can’t just depict a feminine form and call it art. There is like 10000 years of history in that depiction, and it is taken very seriously, referenced very carefully. Why can’t a similar level of care be taken when considering a political subject? I think I might be a little obstinate on this point, but I’m really just trying to engage with the subject from my own perspective