Tate Reading Rooms
The photo above is a pamphlet of propaganda against Hitler and his attacks on art. [7043.17.2] © Tate Reading Rooms, Tate Britain: London, UK
Salience is not Peace
“It is a thousand pities never to say what one feels.”
– Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway;
inspired by Hitler’s attacks on Modern Art
To truly understand art,
is to know how the earth moves–
how She caresses her soft,
tender arms– how she cradles you
until you fall asleep, and how She
teaches you what it means to
be human– to think, and to
understand someone else.
To truly understand art,
is to eat the apple from the tree,
that He forbade you to have,
but because you did so,
you knew what was right,
and because you knew that,
he had to get rid of you,
because He ate the apple too,
and vividly saw the blood on his hands.
Aaron Asparin
The Tate Reading Room experience was wonderful-- especially since we were taken into the back rooms of the archive to explore the vault pertaining to storage of the historical documents, as well as having such a wonderful archivist take care of us, and guide us throughout the entire experience! It was also amazing to have had an archivist who was incredibly passionate about the subject, which allowed us students to truly and deeply understand every facet of our chosen document for analysis. This poem was written with the documents found at the Tate Reading Rooms kept in mind-- in specific, the anti-Hitler pamphlet found about, on his attacks against modern art. This document provided so much context to the art society in London at that time period-- the burning of art being such an interesting yet devastating thing to act on. To eradicate an entire generation of art because of its' power is simply heartbreaking-- all of the missing memories, erased history, etc. was taken out of existence and yet something I think about is how proving this is of how powerful art can really be.