Viktor Witkowski

When art & politics meet. Painting, filmmaking, and writing about art.

[Viktor Witkowski @WitkowskiViktor]

You will find me over at Meta’s “Threads”.
I am keeping my incognito Twitter account which I have had since 2009, but this here is just not working for me. When Musk no longer owns Twitter, I will be back.

[Olga Tokariuk @olgatokariuk]

💔 My dear friend, Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina has passed away. She was seriously injured in the Russian missile attack on Kramatorsk on June 27th and died on July 1st. This is us in London in April. So many books unwritten, stories untold, days unlived 💔 Because of Russia

[Viktor Witkowski @WitkowskiViktor]

Gerhard Richter

Davos (468-1)
1981 • Oil on canvas

#Albertinum #Dresden

[Viktor Witkowski @WitkowskiViktor]

Otto Dix
“The War”
1929-1931

Painted a decade after WWI this work offers a retrospective view on individual and national trauma while also foreshadowing the Second World War. The mixing of torn bodies with a ravaged landscape cannot be unseen.
#Albertinum #Dresden #OttoDix

[Viktor Witkowski @WitkowskiViktor]

Photograph by #BarbaraKlemm which depicts the last Soviet troops leaving East Berlin in 1994.

In the collection of the #HamburgerBahnhof #Berlin

[Viktor Witkowski @WitkowskiViktor]

An absolute knock-out pastel self-portrait by THERESA CONCORDIA VON MARON geb. MENGS
(Aussig 1725-1806 Rome)
from around 1744/45
(Pastel on blue paper over canvas)
At the Alte Gemäldegalerie in Dresden
#dresden #zwinger #altegemäldegalerie

[Viktor Witkowski @WitkowskiViktor]

@marta_zboralska Congratulations!

[Viktor Witkowski @WitkowskiViktor]

Can’t say the same about the overwrought memorial dedicated to #caspardavidfriedrich .
I wish the metallic ‘beams/strings’ weren’t there. And perhaps the quote could have appeared on the canvas? Just thinking out loud here.

[Viktor Witkowski @WitkowskiViktor]

I did not anticipate being moved standing in front of #caspardavidfriedrich ‘s grave in Dresden, but I was. The small tokens left behind on his grave, a flower pot, shells from the coast and river stones, seemed to bridge the past and present in a touching way.

[Viktor Witkowski @WitkowskiViktor]

Under Bernatowicz’s leadership, the term ‘Freedom of the Arts’ has become an excuse to censor some works while promoting others. It’s a little bit like @RonDeSantis suddenly deciding what art exhibitions get to be shown.

[Viktor Witkowski @WitkowskiViktor]

What this @artnet article misses to mention is how the director of CCA - Bernatowicz - canceled three planned shows when he was appointed without competition by the far-right ruling party’s culture minister.

[William Yang @WilliamYang120]

“#China has made yet another attempt to shut down Chinese dissident artist @badiucao’s upcoming exhibition in Europe. And again, the show will go on, with the host institution calling for the public’s support instead of caving in to Beijing’s pressure.” https://t.co/E6PVpor1gT

[Viktor Witkowski @WitkowskiViktor]

@marta_zboralska https://t.co/8RO68NyeXH - They have a page dedicated to Kherson at the moment.

[Viktor Witkowski @WitkowskiViktor]

While a wasteful conversation about who to accuse of the dam’s destruction is still happening across social media and news outlets, Russian State TV has moved to the next topic: how about destroying Ukraine’s dam north of the capital Kyiv?

[Oleksiy Goncharenko @GoncharenkoUa]

Propagandists on Russian TV are already threatening to bomb the dam in Kyiv. Terrorists!

[Viktor Witkowski @WitkowskiViktor]

Which one do you prefer?
Orange skies in NYC or orange liquid thrown by environmental activists on protective glass?

#ClimateActionNow

[Viktor Witkowski @WitkowskiViktor]

@happyhappyhenri @Gerashchenko_en Your joke is completely misplaced.

[Viktor Witkowski @WitkowskiViktor]

Ecocide + war crime

[Mustafa Nayyem @mefimus]

Blowing up the Kakhovskaya Hydroelectric Power Plant will have devastating consequences, including a decade-long water shortage in Crimea, irreparable damage to hundreds of thousands of lives, and the risk of drowning for thousands.

[Viktor Witkowski @WitkowskiViktor]

@ykomska Why did he apply for a Guggenheim in the first place?

[Viktor Witkowski @WitkowskiViktor]

PiS (Poland’s ruling party) is at it again: emulating autocratic structures which it claims to oppose. If it wasn’t for Russia‘s war in Ukraine, they would be having sleepovers with Putin.

[Viktor Witkowski @WitkowskiViktor]

A wall text in the room where Nolde’s painting is on n display speaks of Germany's colonial past and the Expressionists reference to ethnographic photography. But minimizes the problematics of this painting by leaving out further context about Nolde’s past.

[Viktor Witkowski @WitkowskiViktor]

In 1933, after attending a dinner hosted for Adolf Hitler, the painter Emil Nolde wrote in a letter: "The Führer is great and noble in his aspirations and a genius man of action."
Even after the Nazis had declared Nolde a 'degenerate artist,

[Viktor Witkowski @WitkowskiViktor]

he and his wife remained members of the Nazi party and supporters of Hitler until the end of the war.
To see this painting by Nolde without any context about his past as a racist, antisemite and National Socialist installed in the #NeueNationalgalerie is irresponsible.