What's in a Gnome?

Like some bizarre nightmare, a thousand little black gnomes confront you with faces turned in the air. They're identical except for one, a golden one that's embedded in the crowd. And as nightmares often do, it gets even weirder. All the surreal little gnomes have their arms extended in a Hitler salute.

The scene is actually an art installation by Ottmar Hoerl called "The Poison Gnome" in a German town called Straubing, close to Munich. According to the Guardian newspaper, it originated as a single, golden, saluting gnome but officials tried to remove the figure because Nazi symbols are illegal in Germany. The case was dropped when it was recognized that the piece was satirical.

It was then that the evolution of the project truly became art itself. From one, it grew to many -- 1,500 gnomes inhabiting a square to remind us, says Hoerl on his Web site "that people can coalesce into large and dangerous groups if rituals and gestures are used that under certain conditions are more signs of contempt rather than being socially beneficial."

Why Gnomes? Apparently they have quite a tradition in Germany and are a real part of German culture. I guess depicting the "master race" as ubiquitous little garden decorations does make one pause over an Oktoberfest beer -- at least long enough to question exactly what the heck you're looking at. That alone can't be bad.

Photo courtesy of artmakesmesmile via Flickr.