Some Irony With That?

0.cached.png

By Peter Plagens

See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.

As an artist, Adolf Hitler was a hack watercolorist who nevertheless enjoyed a fairly good overall sense of design. He had a hand in the look of all those dramatic torchlight Nuremberg rallies, Gestapo uniforms and even the original Volkswagen. Hitler also collected cliched, sentimental paintings that were at least legit works of art. By comparison as an art collector, Saddam Hussein is a true vulgarian--a cross between a leering beer chugger and a pubescent videogamer. The half-dozen paintings--the work of fantasy artist Rowena Morrill, based in Coxsackie, N.Y.--recently unearthed from one of Saddam's safe houses resemble nothing so much as oily versions of PlayStation 2 still frames. There are buff guys menaced by reptiles, and a woman (is that a suicide bomber's packet of explosives on her military belt?) about to be shot with an arrow. Those must have appealed to Saddam's warrior side. A couple of the other pictures display a full moon and a swirling cosmos behind dreaming or meditating pretty (and androgynous) faces.

But in the art world these days, context is everything. If the same pictures had been found on the crisp white walls of a hip gallery in Chelsea or Santa Monica instead of a tyrant's sandy hideaway, the critics might now be toasting yet another bright new artist whose work is so deliciously, ironically "bad." Pity it's only contemporary painters--and not dictators--who succeed by playing harmlessly at being the real thing.

Read More on News