Channel 4 is slammed for ‘scraping the bottom of the barrel’ as it buys painting by HITLER for ‘problematic artists’ show when audience will vote whether Jimmy Carr should torch it with a flamethrower
- Channel 4 slammed after announcing it has bought a painting by Adolf Hitler
- In show out this month, audience will be asked if Jimmy Carr should destroy it
- Art Trouble will ask if art can be separated from ‘problematic artists’ like Picasso
- Comedian Carr previously received backlash for ‘unacceptable’ Holocaust jokes
Channel 4 has been slammed after announcing that it has bought a painting by Adolf Hitler and will ask a studio audience whether comedian Jimmy Carr should destroy it with a flamethrower.
Among other purchases it has made for its new show, Art Trouble, are works by various ‘problematic’ artists, including convicted paedophile Rolf Harris, sexual abuser Eric Gill and misogynist Pablo Picasso
The channel said that the new show, which is out later this month, will question whether a work of art can be separated from the artist, before deciding whether to destroy them.
C4’s boss insisted it will celebrate a long tradition of ‘iconoclasm and irreverence’ on the channel, which turns 40 next month.
Channel 4 announced it will ask a studio audience whether comedian Jimmy Carr should destroy ‘problematic’ artists’ work
Channel 4 has been slammed after announcing that it has bought a painting by Adolf Hitler
‘There are advocates for each piece of art,’ Ian Katz, Channel 4’s director of programming, said in an interview with The Guardian.
‘So you’ve got an advocate for Hitler. There’ll be someone arguing not for Hitler, but for the fact that his moral character should not decide whether or not a piece of art exists or not.’
He added that if the studio audience chose to save the painting by Hitler it would not hang in the broadcaster’s boardroom but would be ‘appropriately’ disposed of.
‘There are advocates for each piece of art,’ Ian Katz, Channel 4’s director of programming, told The Guardian
Journalist and anti-Semitism campaigner Jonathan Sacerdoti told LBC he believes the show is an ‘utterly sick piece of entertainment television’ and a ‘desperate plea for attention’.
Social media users also expressed their shock at the programme’s format.
A Twitter user described it as ‘really scraping the bottom of the barrel’ while another bemused tweeter wrote ‘who was smoking what when they came up with this’.
Meanwhile, one questioned why Channel 4 ‘would even consider putting a portrait of Hitler in their boardroom’.
The channel reportedly hired an art expert to buy the works ‘from reputable auction houses’, although there have long been doubts over the attribution of Hitler’s art.
The work by Picasso that could be destroyed is a vase rather than a painting, due to budget constraints.
Stand-up comic and 8 out of 10 Cats presenter Jimmy Carr has himself been labelled a ‘problematic’ figure in recent months.
In a comment he made in his latest Netflix standup special, His Dark Material, in which he called the murder of ‘thousands of gypsies’ a ‘positive’ of the Holocaust.
Prior to this, in his September 2021 book Before & Laughter, he referenced the 1997 Oscar-winning film Life is Beautiful, which is about an Italian father and son who are sent to a Nazi concentration camp.
Carr said: ‘How could they make a Holocaust movie that was funny? Well, because that s*** happened. And I think it’s okay to joke about the Holocaust.’
The jokes were labelled as ‘dehumanising’ by a campaigner and ‘unacceptable’ by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
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