EVA _
\nHitler Capitulates
\nEVIL MIGHT PERSUADE ITSELF THAT IT IS GOOD\u2026<\/p>\n
She occupies almost the entire central field.<\/p>\n
She is vertical, white, luminous \u2014 almost sculptural.<\/p>\n
She is monumental.<\/p>\n
And the small, hunched male figure on the left becomes almost a caricature of a fallen authority.<\/p>\n
The image could therefore be read like this:<\/p>\n
Eva = body \/ desire \/ life \/ colour<\/p>\n
against<\/p>\n
Hitler = power \/ death \/ paper \/ signature \/ ideology.<\/p>\n
\u201cFake news!\u201d
\n\u201cFalse document.\u201d
\n\u201cFictional document.\u201d<\/p>\n
The work imagines a reversal of the balance of power: the man who once claimed to dominate History finds himself symbolically \u201ccapitulating\u201d before Eva.<\/p>\n
But this is not merely a caricature of Hitler.<\/p>\n
It is also the burlesque image of a powerful man reduced to something smaller: a man writing to the woman he loves.<\/p>\n
EVA
\nThe contrast of the fishnet stockings, the red-and-yellow corset and her highly theatrical attitude introduces something of cabaret, eroticism, Expressionism and deliberate provocation.<\/p>\n
The work reclaims and diverts a device of resistance and subversion dating from the Occupation: the principle of the \u201cnesting poem\u201d (po\u00e8me gigogne).<\/p>\n
The original clandestine form was designed to say one thing on the surface and its opposite through a hidden reading. The alexandrines were \u201cbroken\u201d in two, allowing a second message to emerge when each line was separated.<\/p>\n
The Mus\u00e9e de la Lib\u00e9ration de Paris \u2013 mus\u00e9e du g\u00e9n\u00e9ral Leclerc \u2013 mus\u00e9e Jean Moulin preserves such a double-reading poem, known as Ode \u00e0 Hitler (L\u2019An I de la collaboration), dated 1941.<\/p>\n
Here, the device becomes a caricature through reversal.<\/p>\n
And the reversal goes beyond Hitler.<\/p>\n
It touches something far more universal in the representation of men in power.<\/p>\n
The leader.
\nThe dictator.
\nThe conqueror.
\nThe \u201cgreat man\u201d.<\/p>\n
When he finds himself alone, confronted with the object of his desire, he can become something else entirely:<\/p>\n
small.
\nvulnerable.
\nridiculous.
\nin love.<\/p>\n
Reference
\nPo\u00e8me gigogne \u2014 \u201cOde \u00e0 Hitler\u201d (1941)
\nNotice of the double-reading \/ nesting poem,
\nMus\u00e9e de la Lib\u00e9ration de Paris.
\nParis Mus\u00e9es Collections<\/p>\n