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23 September 2004
BERLIN – A woman visitor to a controversial Berlin art exhibition had damaged two works of art in an apparent protest action, police said Thursday.
The incident happened Wednesday evening on the first day of the exhibition of modern art of collector Friedrich Christian Flick, grandson of Nazi industrialist Friedrich Flick.
The woman, whom a police spokesman said had a record of assault and damaging property, began trampling an art work until it was broken. She then proceeded to trample on another art work.
A report in the Berlin daily Tagesspiegel said that the woman shouted after she had damaged the first art work, “Flick, now I forgive you”. Police confirmed the newspaper’s account.
The exhibition was officially opened Tuesday evening by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, but was first opened to the public on Wednesday.
Controversy had surrounded the exhibition, which is set to run for seven years in showing the vast collection of modern and contemporary art collected by Flick.
Opponents called the Friedrich Christian Flick collection tainted, arguing it had been acquired from money he inherited from his grandfather’s fortune, made during the Nazi era from factories filled with slave labourers.
Backers of the exhibition argued that Friedrich Christian Flick, born in 1944, could not be held accountable for the deeds of his grandfather and that the art show could help the country deal with the dark chapter in its history.
DPA
Subject: German news