Himmler's Homework
Jim Riswold
Portland, Oregon
Himmler’s Homework, 2005
Color digital print on hahneméhle photo rag 308
Riswold believed the best way to disarm a dictator was to make fun of him. He was shocked to find that consumers can purchase model figures representing Nazi criminals including Adolph Hitler and Heinrich Himmler. Known for his cutting sense of humor, Riswold made photographs in which he juxtaposes these disturbingly realistic characters with out-of-proportion children’s Play School toys – the wooden car and blackboard. His intention was to make the Nazis appear ridiculous rather than heroic. He may also intend to make viewers squirm as we question our own values and understanding of history.
Riswold created these photographs while in treatment for leukemia as he was forced to take time off from his high-level job as an advertising director. He later explained his intention in an Esquire Magazine article and Ted Talks with the provocatively bizarre title, “Hitler Saved My Life.” Because he was accustomed to being consumed by a demanding job, being temporarily unemployed added psychological anguish to the pain of fighting cancer. In that difficult period, the project of disempowering Nazis gave Riswold’s life purpose and a source of acerbic humor.
To accompany this photograph, Riswold quoted Heinrich Himmler, head of the Schutzstaffel (SS) paramilitary force in Nazi Germany, who exposed the brutality of Nazi beliefs when he said:
One basic principle must be the absolute rule for the SS men – we must be honest, decent, loyal, and comradely to members of our own blood and nobody else.
What happens to a Russian or to a Czech does not interest me in the slightest. What the nations can offer in the way of good blood of our type we will take, if necessary by kidnapping their children and raising them here with us.
Whether nations live in prosperity or starve to death interests me only so far as we need them as slaves for our culture; otherwise, it is of no interest to me. Whether 10,000 Russian females fall down from exhaustion while digging an antitank ditch interests me only so far as the antitank ditch for Germany is finished.
Bio
Jim Riswold harpoons modern icons of the art world – Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, etc. – while simultaneously biting the hand that feeds, producing work that is “beautifully sleek and distinctively commercial.” An award-winning creative director famous for his advertisements for Michael Jordan and Nike, Riswold was eulogized by colleagues and friends with adjectives that included irreverent, sarcastic, cynical, hard-working, and brilliant.