A friend has just brought to my attention a report (click here) concerning an extraordinary piece of German advertising. Can this brazenly racist depiction of Wagner metamorphosing into a caricature beyond crudity of Kent Nagano be for real? It looks as though it might have been rejected as not subtle enough for Der Stürmer. Most staggering of all, perhaps, is the fact that Michael Preiswerk, company board spokesman for the Art Directors Club, the advertising group that awarded the this image a gold medal prize (!), commented: 'It's an excellent poster that goes beyond cultures to form a great work and that very strikingly and succinctly shows Asian culture. It's charming and funny and shows openness and multiculturalism.' I doubt that even Dr Goebbels would have been able to keep a straight face whilst delivering those words.
