Let's just cut through the "freedom of artistic expression" -pontificating and say it: The only way this "Praying Hitler" installation could be "acceptable" art is to position a statue of a hooded headsman --poised with sword in mid-swing-- behind Herr H.

As with so much "statement art," the only point is often simply to provoke.

Mission accomplished, I guess-- tho as an artistic "statement," "Hitler" has, for too many folk, become merely a (rather tired) cliché: a theoretical concept rather than a (thankfully, and in this "artwork's" context, even blessedly) dead evil man.

But I can't seem to let it go at the above "statement." Remember the tsunami of '80s music videos, wherein powerful symbols were frequently used-- but apparently, not understood by the videos' directors and producers? They tended to evoke visceral reactions that the video "creators" seemed not to know how to shape or focus to get a specific, intended audience reaction--and not to care that it was therefore artless "art."

IMHO, here it is, again.

May we agree that neither immaturity nor pretentiousness is new, nor is either limited to one area of the "arts"? We see it in all fields-- for instance, how many pieces have you seen by a writer who's just not "there' yet... but wants to preen anyway?

They toy with fire... also IMHO, simply 'cause these clueless autuers don't know how to use their hapless conflagration to cook up a good dish.

This is not artistry; at best, it may be the so-called "evolution" of an artist...  much like toilet-training is an "evolution" toward adulthood.

Check back in with the grown-ups when you've learned not to soil your diapers in public, eh?

-- Earl Merkel

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 Backstory at http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/praying-hitler-warsaw-ghetto-sparks-emotion-18082492#.UN46v7bOZLJ