'Like book burning': Row over Channel 4 plans to buy Hitler's painting and have Jimmy Carr destroy it

13 October 2022, 09:46 | Updated: 13 October 2022, 12:22

Channel 4 has come under fire over plans for a new show that will see a studio audience decide whether or not Jimmy Carr should destroy a piece of artwork by Adolf Hitler.

The channel will host Art Trouble, a televised debate aiming to establish whether a piece of work can be separate from its creator.

It has bought artwork by a range of disgraced individuals including Rolf Harris, Eric Gill - and Hitler.

The audience will then decide whether the artworks should be destroyed.

Ian Katz, Channel 4’s director of programming, said the debate would not centre on Hitler himself but on whether his "moral character" should decide whether or not his art still exists.

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The idea has sparked outrage online, with people likening the plan to the Nazi book burnings, where books representing anti-Nazi ideologies were incinerated.

"It's like book burning," wrote one Twitter user.

Another said: "I love C4 but hate this. If you have a problematic artist, explain why and let others make up their mind. Fine, have the debate. But don’t destroy the work. How is that not like book burning?"

Others have said the painting constitutes a historic artefact and should be preserved regardless of its creator.

"This is wrong and trashy. It’s a historical artefact and in the future there may be too few left for this to be destroyed for no good reason," wrote another Twitter user.

Others have said the show sets an unnerving precedent that could develop into something more.

"This is awful, it encourages the idea that only art by 'good' people should be preserved, which at the extremes of evilness, like Hitler, sounds ok, but at some point it could move to making value about artists who just aren't 'good' enough, rather than genuinely evil," wrote one Twitter user.

Others have hit out at the show in general, with one person writing: "How about making a show about the art we could have had by artists who were abused/murdered by these f***s?"

However, others have said the show may prompt important debate.

"This could be a really interesting show, fair play Channel 4, this is a good idea," wrote one person.

Others have made light of it, with one person saying: "Ok, but watching Jimmy Carr put a Hitler painting in a shredder would be objectively hilarious".

Jimmy Carr has himself come under fire for 'jokes' made about the Holocaust.

In his show His Dark Material, he said it was a "positive" that thousands of Gypsies were killed by the Nazis.

His comments drew fierce criticism from Holocaust memorial organisations as well as members of the wider public.