The Primavera statue is exclusionary and violates the university's values (!), as it suggests female devotion, and its wide pool embodies the desire to give birth, according to the rainbow supporters.
A three-dimensional rainbow colored question mark stands in the lobby of the Oslo building of the European University in Flensburg. At the top of the postmanse there used to be a life-size sculpture called Primavera by the German sculptor Fritz During (1910–1993).
The talented artist's life was cut in two by the second great war, military service, and prisoner of war, but the details of this are not important enough to be made public. Perhaps fortunately for the artist, During was spared the usual fascist, Nazi and other epithets that are fondly attached to soldiers who fought in German uniforms.
It was not During's past that played a role in the removal of the statue, but the figure he shaped. The artist poured the desire for beauty of a person who survived the horrors of war into small sculptures and public sculptures. He dreamed of women, with wide, sheltering, opening female hips. With the symbol that has been a recurring motif in fine art since the Venus of Willendorf. Primavera is also such a work, a statue of spring, youth, renewal, and femininity.
It was not by chance that the statue was placed in the lobby of the teacher training college founded after the war. The teaching profession began to feminize at that time, there was a shortage of men in all fields in Germany. The World War had seven million German victims, half soldiers, half civilians. Other sources put the number of dead and missing German soldiers at almost five million. Those disabled for life are missing from these statistics, as are those who were never able to process the horrors they experienced.
After the war, cleaning up the rubble, starting anew, raising children and teaching fell on women. A significant number of teacher training college students were also women, and men returning home from war were lassoed by the universities.
We don't talk about this, it's also a taboo subject, and for one reason or another it's still unprocessed in the German culture of memory.
In any case, in 1956, During created the Woman, a slender stretching female figure with powerful hips. The face is not elaborated, why not, the essence is what it radiates. That is, what it has broadcast for 67 years, until now. Since then, a lot of water has flowed down, let's say, the Eider - because the river does not reach Flensburg. The former teacher training college advanced to a university, taking on the really trendy name of Europe. Accordingly, they teach social sciences, with study programs written in Bikkfan language.
Source: Neue Zürcher Zeitung
Students committed to the future, sustainable development and social transformations, or "Student*in" in German, suddenly began to be disturbed by the statue of Spring, the eternal Woman. "Student*in", this is the politically correct name for a university student, male/female and the asterisk in between denotes all other genders together, so no one is excluded from the student body because of their gender identity. These students (how simple and modern our language is in this confused world) demanded that the statue be removed from the university lobby.
The Equality and Diversity Committee held a debate on whether such a provocative statue had a place in a European university. According to them, Primavera's sensual sculpture suggests female devotion, its wide pool suggests the desire to give birth, it is exclusionary and violates the university's values. During the ideological debate, what art should and should not depict was also a topic.
There was no mention of artistic freedom, because then the restriction or, if you like, ideological censorship would have been immediately revealed.
Will Diversity Committees (LGBTQ) be the vanguard of abolitionist culture from now on? Do they remove anything that offends their sensibilities?
Maybe not. Although the management immediately took the statue to the office and replaced it with that particular rainbow question mark, the case was not closed. The university senate was aggrieved that their opinion was not sought in response to the pressure of the diverse committee that takes all interests into account. And the opinion of the Senate is certainly not the same as that of the rainbow ones. The text of the petition is unintelligible to the professors, they do not understand what the "university social value system" is, which the statue does not reflect, and they do not even understand what values are in question at all. The members of the Senate have yet to learn the neo-Marxist language.
It seems that the violence of people of color has become a lot even in a very modern North German university. Because suddenly the student government demands the restoration of the statue. Artistic freedom should not be restricted in any form, they say. The match is 2:1, let's not wait for a decision yet, there is a semester break until the middle of October.
Until then, Primavera is gathering dust in the study department.
I would recommend to the teaching faculty that the issue of artistic and creative freedom and the harmful effect of various ideologies on society be included in the study program. If they have enough blood in their pussy, they could really take it on.
Featured image: MH/Róbert Hegedüs
