October 2005
Roaring Shame
Munich's Lion Parade is an embarassment to the city
It’s a roaring shame. Munich—one of Europe’s great cultural metropoles—has been artistically savaged.
We’re not talking about Paul McCarthy’s controversial exhibition, nor are we referring to Helmut Newton’s risqué display at the Kunsthalle. The appearance of glamor model Pamela Anderson as a photographic icon in the Haus der Kunst may have turned heads, but its artistic merit can be argued. What cannot be justified, however, is the Munich Löwenparade. Over the past six months, 300 life-size model lions, each painted in the worst possible taste, have sprung up around the city. The animals, apparently, are meant to provide Munich with a more marketable, tourist-friendly image than that of the Frauenkirche’s twin towers, for example. Oh, puulease. Is the average Munich visitor really that shallow that some colored creature holds more interest than a 500-year-old building? But that’s not really the issue. We’ve nothing against the idea of using lions to market Munich. After all, the city was founded by Henry the Lion. And of course, the fact that the whole thing is in aid of charity is some consolation.
What we take issue with is the way it’s been done. The whole project is a lazy copy of a scheme initiated by the Swiss, who commissioned artists to paint model cows. The Berliners followed, with bears. Munich boffins then scratched their heads and probably spent many days in meetings to come up with the rather brilliant idea of doing exactly the same thing with lions. Talk about initiative. With their creative juices drained, it was then decided to flog the beasts to corporate folks, who’d be responsible for the actual design. Another remarkable plan. Who needs Munich’s hotbed of young, artistic talent when you’ve got a brigade of men in suits, clearly renowned for their eye for style?
The whole saga seems like Hans Christian Andersen’s tale, “The King’s New Clothes.” Anybody who’s anybody feels they have to put their name behind the project, because it’s supposed to be for the city’s good. Personally, they may consider the lions an embarrassment, but nobody dare speak out and call a halt to the situation before organizers make it worse and deploy the remaining 200 monsters around town. And so it comes down to Munich Found to play the role of Andersen’s little boy who points out that there is no magic suit of clothes and that the King is stark naked and has been swindled. We may normally be a mild-mannered magazine, but we do have a certain loyalty to protecting the city’s artistic integrity. These lions are dreadful. They are tacky, have turned every corner into an eyesore and are by no means artistic. What’s more, they don’t appear to comply with city building legislation. In a previous ruling, officials refused to allow one project, on the grounds that constructions should neither be
“unlusterregend” nor
“krass.” In other words: garish structures that could provoke feelings of contempt must be not permitted. Our thoughts exactly. Stop the parade. Clear the city of lions and restore Munich’s cultural credibility before it is damaged for good.
