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The Heart of Adolf Hitler

Glass jar, Ethanol, Heart, 2020, 25 x 15 x 15 cm

The presentation of objects and artefacts that are attributed to historical figures is a common phenomena in museums and institutions around the world, ranging from the wooden staff of the Biblical Moses displayed in the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul as an authentic piece, to the brain of Albert Einstein on view at the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia. Part of a certain “celebrity culture”, the momentousness of the presented objects is determined by the cultural significance of the person they belonged to. As such, they become objects of desire, which also possess the capacity of delivering a certain prestige to institutions that are the owners of such unique pieces. ‘The Heart of Adolf Hitler’,which declares itself to be the actual, preserved heart of Adolf Hitler, uses the same disposition in order to comment on the role that museums play in society as possessors of Truth, while bringing together notions of cult, commemoration and bad taste.

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