‘Germania’ (1993) Hans Haacke‘s contribution to the 1993 Venice Biennale.
“I learned that the pavillion’s present appearance was tied to Hitler’s rise to power in 1933. As part of an excursion to Venice for a meeting with his comrade Benito Mussolini, the man who had not succeeded as a painter in Vienna, paid a visit to the Biennale and the German pavilion. Hitler did not like what he saw. As a consequence, by 1937 an exhibition titled Degenerate Art opened in Munich, and plans for the re-styling of the pavilion in Venice were approved. A new national corporate identity was in the making – and so were preparations for the expansion of Germany beyond its borders and the introduction of a deadly programme of ethnic cleansing.”
