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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I think we’re talking interpretation and opinion here, and without digesting much of what you’re saying I wouldn’t be doing your time justice by responding to much of what you’re saying.
However, I want to pick up on this, which you’ve picked up on at least twice in these comments:
I think the artist of this piece was referencing either this photo:
Or this photo:
So, if this was a direct 1:1 mapping of leaders (which I’m not convinced it is), it would follow that Putin is Stalin, and Trump is Hitler.
I guess it depends which side of the float you are standing on, like is the writing only on one side, or both? But digging into the comparison is interesting because both leaders are Hitler/Stalin in their own ways.
Oh, duh lol I didn’t even think of that. Yeah, it’s double-sided, with writing on both sides, so it’s probably not a 1:1 mapping.