Realisms of the Avant-Garde 9783110637533, 9783110637021

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Realisms of the Avant-Garde

European Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies Etudes sur l’avant-garde et le modernisme en Europe Studien zur europäischen Avantgarde und Moderne Edited by Sascha Bru and David Ayers Editorial Board Jan Baetens ‧ Benedikt Hjartarson ‧ Tania Ørum ‧ Hubert van den Berg Advisory Board Dawn Ades ‧ Wolfgang Asholt ‧ Henri Béhar ‧ Timothy O. Benson ‧ Günter Berghaus ‧ Claus Clüver ‧ Antoine Compagnon ‧ Eva Forgács ‧ Cornelia Klinger ‧ Rudolf Kuenzli ‧ Bruno Latour ‧ Paul Michael Lützeler ‧ Laura Marcus ‧ Richard Murphy ‧ Peter Nicholls ‧ François Noudelmann ‧ Krisztina Passuth ‧ Marjorie Perloff ‧ Michel Poivert ‧ Susan Rubin-Suleiman ‧ Rainer Rumold ‧ Brandon Taylor ‧ Andrew Webber

Volume 6

Realisms of the Avant-Garde Edited by Moritz Baßler, Ursula Frohne, David Ayers, Sascha Bru and Benedikt Hjartarson

ISBN 978-3-11-063702-1 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-063753-3 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-063765-6 ISSN 1869-3393 Library of Congress Control Number: 2020934849 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

Contents Introduction  Moritz Baßler  Realism(s) of the Avant-Garde: An Introduction | 3

Modernist Realism?  Jasmin Grande  Realismus – Avantgarde – Phantastik Paul Scheerbarts Werk im Kontext von Verfahrensgeschichte und Intermedialität | 13 Jobst Welge  Mário de Andrade: Modernism, Realism, and New Stories | 29 Fae Brauer  Scientistic Magnetism and Hauntological Metarealism The Phantasmatic Doubles of Duchamp and Durville | 43 Roann Barris  Conditional-Realistic Constructivism or Constructivist New Realism | 77 Klaus H. Kiefer  „Eine Verteidigung des Wirklichen“  Kunst und Realität im Spätwerk Carl Einsteins | 91 Eva Wiegmann  Fremde Formen – neue Sprache  Zum innovativen Potential afrikanischer Kunst in Carl Einsteins Negerplastik | 107

Surpassing Realism?  Sara Bangert  Ähnlichkeit als Konzept des SurRealismus | 123

VI | Contents

Charis Charalampous, Thalia Trigoni  Surreal Science and Scientific Surrealism Dalí and the Fundamental Building Blocks of Reality | 139 Victoria Ferentinou  Toward the Conquest of (Another) Reality The Sur/realist Image in Nicolas Calas’ Art Theoretical Discourse | 153 Émile Bordeleau-Pitre  D’un réalisme indiciaire : la re vue Documents (1929–1930) | 167 Sophia Stang  Spiegelung des Selbst: Giorgio de Chirico über Gustave Courbet Realismus und Pittura Metafisica | 179 Irena Kossowska  A Quest for a “New Man”: Bruno Schulz and Giorgio de Chirico | 195 Stephan Brössel  Zeichen der Doppelbödigkeit Filmisches Erzählen als Funktion des Magischen Realismus bei Friedo Lampe | 209 Andrew McNamara  When the Reality is Unreal: Camps, Towers and Internment | 223

Media/Documenting the Real?  Danièle Méaux  Le réalisme des appareils | 247 Éva Forgács  The Inconceivable Reality Amateur Photography and Professional Painting | 261

Contents | VII

Meghan Forbes  A Beautiful New World Reflections of Russian Revolution in Avant-Garde Czech Print | 279 Jindřich Toman  The Real Reality: Notes on Boris Klinč and Photomontage in the USSR | 299 Anna Shvets  Constructivism between the Reality and an Aesthetic Performance Translating Poetic Performative Across Media in For the Voice by Vladimir Mayakovsky and El Lissitzky | 311 Justyna Michalik-Tomala  Reality as Disguise: Tadeusz Kantor’s Happenings | 331 Berit Hummel  The Cinema of Improvisation Bildwerdung zeitgenössischer Wirklichkeiten in Shadows und Pull My Daisy | 343

Realist Turns/Politics of Realism?  Rachel Boate  Fernand Léger’s New Realism Painting for the People in 1930s France | 363 Chara Kolokytha  Picasso vs. Fougeron Cahiers d’Art and Quarrels over Realism in France (1932–1949) | 375 Cristian Nae  Whose Figuration? Varieties of Realism in Romanian Art 1968–1972 | 391 Noemi de Haro García  The Use(s) of Realism in Spain: Politics and the Visual Arts in the Long Sixties | 407

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Paula Ribeiro Lobo  (Ir)Real Portugal Dictatorship and Resistance in Neo-Realism, Surrealism and Abstraction | 425 Mariana Pinto dos Santos  State-commission in Modern Times Realism and Modernism in the Mural Paintings of the Artist Almada Negreiros (1893–1970) | 439

Things/Thingness/Objectivity?  Helmut Lethen  Unter dem Pflaster ist die Kanalisation Oder war das Böse das wirklich Reale der Historischen Avantgarden? | 459 Christoph Schaub  Modernistischer Realismus der Arbeiterbewegungsliteratur | 473 Till Huber  Das Ich und die Dinge Nach-avantgardistischer Konsumrealismus in Irmgard Keuns Das kunstseidene Mädchen | 487 Janka Wagner  “… this is without a doubt the most despicable barbarism one could attain” Perspectives on the Negative Reception of Nieuwe Zakelijkheid in Dutch Literary Criticism | 499 Daniel Schneider  “Everything Is Symbolical” Explorations of Thingness in George Eliot’s Middlemarch and Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse | 511 Marijan Dović  “Reism” in Slovenian Neo-Avant-Garde Literature and Art | 525

Contents | IX

Sabine Kyora  Dinge als Akteure in (neo)avantgardistischen Texten | 547

New Sincerity/New Openings in the Twenty-First Century?  Steen Bille Jørgensen  Rewriting the Real – Dialogic Perspectives of Interventionist Strategies in Contemporary French Literature | 561 Burkhard Meltzer  Eine unzeitgemäße Zeitgenossenschaft? Über den Realismus des Designs in der Kunst der Gegenwart | 575 Sebastian Mühl  Historiographies of Realism in the Work of Chto Delat? | 591 Philipp Ohnesorge, Philipp Pabst, Hannah Zipfel  Whither Realism? New Sincerity – Realismus der Gegenwart | 603 List of Contributors | 619 Index | 621

About the Series – Sur la collection – Zur Buchreihe The avant-garde and modernism take centre-stage within European academia today. The experimental literatures and arts in Europe between ca. 1850 and 1950, and their aftermath, figure prominently on curricula, while modernism and avant-garde studies have come to form distinct yet interlocking disciplines within the humanities in recent years. These disciplines take on various guises on the continent. Within French and German academia, “modernism” remains a term rather alien – “die Moderne” and “modernité” coming perhaps the closest to what is meant by “modernism” within the English context. Here, indeed, modernism has acquired a firm place in research, signaling above all a period in modern poetics and aesthetics, roughly between 1850 and 1950, during which a revolt against prevalent traditions in art, literature and culture took shape. Similarly, the term “avant-garde” comes with an array of often conflicting connotations. For some, the avant-garde marks the most radically experimental arts and literatures in modernism from the nineteenth century onward – the early twentieth-century vanguard movements of Futurism, Expressionism, Dada and Surrealism, among others, coinciding with the avant-garde’s most “heroic” phase. For others, the avant-garde belongs to a cultural or conceptual order differing altogether from that of modernism – the vanguard exploits from the 1950s onward marking that avant-garde arts and literatures can also perfectly abide outside modernism. European Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies, far from aiming to reduce the complexity of various European research traditions, aspires to embrace the wide linguistic, terminological and methodological variety within both fields. Publishing an anthology of essays in English, French and German every two years, the series aims to compare and relate French, German and British, but also Northern and Southern as well as Central and Eastern European findings in avant-garde and modernism studies. Collecting essays stemming in large part from the biennial conferences of the European Network for Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies (EAM), books in this series do not claim to exhaustiveness. Rather, they aim to raise questions, to provide partial answers, to fill lacunae in the research, and to stir debate about the European avant-garde and modernism throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and into the twenty-first. The series attaches great value to interdisciplinary and intermedial research on experimental aesthetics and poetics, and intends to encourage an interest in the cultural dimensions and contexts of the avant-garde and modernism in Europe.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-202

XII | About the Series – Sur la collection – Zur Buchreihe

L’avant-garde et le modernisme occupent actuellement une place majeure dans les universités européennes. Les arts et les littératures expérimentaux en Europe de 1850 à 1950 et au-delà font partie intégrante des programmes universitaires, tandis que les recherches sur l’avant-garde et le modernisme sont devenues, à l’intérieur des sciences humaines, des disciplines à part entière mais solidaires l'une de l'autre. Ces disciplines varient néanmoins à travers le continent. Dans les universités françaises et allemandes, la notion de « modernisme » reste plutôt étrangère : les notions de « modernité » et de « die Moderne » s’utilisent sans doute davantage pour ce que désigne la notion de « modernism » dans le contexte anglophone. Dans la recherche anglophone, en effet, la notion de « modernism » a acquis une certaine stabilité : elle désigne avant tout une période de la modernité poétique et esthétique, approximativement entre 1850 et 1950, au cours de laquelle a pris forme une révolte contre les traditions artistiques, littéraires et culturelles prédominantes. De la même façon, la notion d’« avant-garde » prend des connotations divergentes, souvent conflictuelles. Pour certains, l’« avant-garde » désigne les arts et les littératures les plus radicalement expérimentaux qui se développent à l’intérieur du modernisme à partir du 19éme siècle. Dans ce cas, les mouvements avant-gardistes du début du 20ème siècle – dont le futurisme, l’expressionisme, le dadaïsme et le surréalisme – correspondent à la phase avant-gardiste la plus « héroïque ». Pour d’autres, l’avant-garde appartient à un ordre culturel et conceptuel entièrement différent du modernisme. Dans cette perspective, l’avant-garde survit au modernisme, comme en témoigne la permanence d’une sensibilité avant-gardiste après 1950. Loin de vouloir réduire la complexité et la variété des traditions de recherche européennes, la collection Études sur l’avant-garde et le modernisme en Europe vise à embrasser la grande diversité linguistique, terminologique et méthodologique à l’intérieur de ces deux domaines de recherche. Par la publication d’un volume d’essais en anglais, en français et en allemand tous les deux ans, la collection souhaite comparer et mettre en rapport les résultats issus des traditions de recherche française, anglaise et allemande, mais également d’Europe nordique et méridionale, centrale et orientale. La collection rassemble les travaux les plus novateurs et les plus stimulants de la recherche actuelle et se consacre à l’étude de l’avant-garde et du modernisme européens au cours des dix-neuvième et vingtième siècles. Le premier objectif de cette collection est de rassembler une sélection des textes présentés lors des rencontres bisannuelles due Réseau européen de recherche sur l’avant-garde et le modernisme (EAM). En ce sens, son ambition est moins d’épuiser un sujet que de soulever les questions, de suggérer quelques réponses provisoires, de combler certaines lacunes dans la recherche et, plus

About the Series – Sur la collection – Zur Buchreihe | XIII

généralement, de maintenir vivant le débat sur l’avant-garde et le modernisme européens au cours des 19ème, 20ème et 21ème siècles. La collection attache beaucoup d’importance à la recherche interdisciplinaire et intermédiale sur les esthétiques et les poétiques expérimentales et se propose de stimuler l’intérêt pour les dimensions culturelles et contextuelles de l’avant-garde et du modernisme en Europe. Forschungsinitiativen zum Thema Avantgarde und Moderne nehmen in der europäischen Forschungslandschaft weiterhin zu. Die experimentellen Literaturen und die Künste in Europa zwischen ca. 1850 und 1950 und ihre Nachwirkungen sind als Lehr- und Forschungsbereiche an den europäischen Forschungsinstitutionen und in den Lehrplänen heutzutage nicht mehr wegzudenken. Avantgarde und Moderne haben sich in den letzten Jahrzehnten zu unterschiedlichen, aber mehrfach miteinander verzahnten Forschungsgebieten entwickelt. Innerhalb der französischen und deutschen akademischen Welt bleibt der Sammelbegriff „modernism“ weniger geläufig – „die (klassische) Moderne“ und „modernité“ fungieren hier als nahe liegende Äquivalente zu demjenigen, was im internationalen Kontext als eine zeitliche und räumliche Ko-Okkurenz künstlerischer Ausdrucksformen und ästhetischer Theorien namhaft gemacht werden kann, die ungefähr zwischen 1850 und 1950 angesiedelt werden kann. Auf ähnliche Weise entfaltet die Bezeichnung „Avantgarde“ eine Reihe häufig widersprüchlicher Konnotationen. Für manche bedeutet die Avantgarde den radikalsten experimentellen Bruch der Künste und Literaturen mit den Darstellungs- und Erzählkonventionen des 19. Jahrhundert: im frühen 20. Jahrhundert zeugen davon Avantgardebewegungen wie Futurismus, Expressionismus, Dada und Surrealismus, Strömungen, die als die „emphatische“ Phase der Avantgarde bezeichnet werden können. Für andere gehört die Avantgarde zu einem kulturellen Umfeld, das sich, durchaus im Bunde mit der Klassischen Moderne, der Erneuerung ästhetischer Konventionen verschreibt. Die Buchreihe Studien zur europäischen Avantgarde und Moderne möchte der Komplexität der unterschiedlichen europäischen Forschungstraditionen gerecht werden und strebt danach, die breite linguistische, terminologische und methodologische Vielfalt abzudecken. Anhand einer zweijährlichen Sammlung von Beiträgen in englischer, französischer und deutscher Sprache möchte die Reihe nicht nur die französisch-, deutsch- und englischsprachigen, sondern auch die nord-, süd-, zentral- und osteuropäischen Ergebnisse der Avantgarde- und Moderne-Forschung einbeziehen. Die Aufsatzsammlungen der Reihe, die größtenteils aus Beiträgen von den zweijährlichen Konferenzen des Europäischen Netzwerks für Studien zu Avantgarde und Moderne (EAM) bestehen, erheben keinen Anspruch auf Vollständig-

XIV | About the Series – Sur la collection – Zur Buchreihe

keit. Ihr Ziel ist es vielmehr, Fragen zu stellen, einige Antworten vorzuschlagen, Forschungslücken zu schließen und Debatten über die europäische Avantgarde und die Moderne im neunzehnten, zwanzigsten und einundzwanzigsten Jahrhundert auszulösen. Die Studien zur europäischen Avantgarde und Moderne legen viel Wert auf die interdisziplinäre und intermediale Erforschung experimenteller Ästhetiken/Poetiken und setzen es sich zum Ziel, das Interesse an den kulturellen Zusammenhängen und Kontexten der Avantgarde und der Moderne in Europa anzuregen.

David Ayers and Sascha Bru Canterbury & Leuven 2020 Previous books in this series: Europa! Europa? The Avant-Garde, Modernism, and the Fate of a Continent, ed. by Sascha Bru, Jan Baetens, Benedikt Hjartarson, Peter Nicholls, Tania Ørum and Hubert van den Berg (2009). Regarding the Popular: Modernism, the Avant-Garde and High and Low Culture, ed. by Sascha Bru, Lawrence can Nuijs, Benedikt Hjartarson, Peter Nicholls, Tania Ørum and Hubert van den Berg (2011). The Aesthetics of Matter: Modernism, the Avant-Garde and Material Exchange, ed. by Sarah Posman, Anne Reverseau, David Ayers, Sascha Bru and Benedikt Hjartarson (2013). Utopia: The Avant-Garde, Modernism and (Im)possible Life, ed. by David Ayers, Benedikt Hjartarson, Tomi Huttunen and Harri Veivo (2015). Beyond Given Knowledge: Investigation, Quest and Exploration in Modernism and the Avant-gardes, ed. by Harri Veivo, Jean-Pierre Montier, Françoise Nicol, David Ayers, Benedikt Hjartarson and Sascha Bru (2018).

| Introduction

Moritz Baßler

Realism(s) of the Avant-Garde: An Introduction Realisms of the Avant-Garde – the title of the 6th biannual conference of the European Avantgarde and Modernism Network (EAM) that took place in Münster, Germany in September 2018, might seem a little oxymoronic at first. Wasn’t it one of the great achievements of the twentieth-century avant-garde movements to do away with realism, if not once and for all, then at least as the natural way of seeing and representing things in the arts? If the universe of pictorial strategies unfolds within the polarity of referentiality versus non-referentiality, it seems obvious that “the referential view of realist paintings serves the purpose to convey real circumstances that really exist or are meant to be induced”, whereas “the non-referential view of abstract paintings serves the purpose of an autonomous visibility proving the independence of the viewing subject.”1 Abstraction, here, appears as the acme of avant-gardism: Mondrian versus Courbet, or, in literature, the incomprehensible Expressionist and Surrealist textures versus the easy readability of nineteenth-century realism; a basic opposition that offers itself not just as a systematic but as a historical orientation, defining a before and an after. Things, of course, have never been that simple. Yes, the avant-gardes of the twentieth century define themselves, and are defined by us, essentially by their negative relations to various concepts of realism, and mostly they distinguish themselves eagerly from nineteenth-century realism, claiming, as Carl Einstein claimed of the Cubism of Picasso and Braque: “Man malte nicht mehr Aufsätze über Dinge.”2 André Breton is actually quite late to the party when he ridicules “l’attitude réaliste” in art as anti-intellectual mediocrity in his First Surrealist

|| 1 “Die referenzielle Ansicht des realistischen Bildes, das ganz im Dienst wirklich bestehender oder wirklich herbeizuführender Umstände steht. Die referenzlose Ansicht des abstrakten Bildes, das ganz im Dienst einer autonomen Sichtbarkeit steht, welche die Eigenständigkeit des sehenden Subjekts erweist.” (Venus, Jochen, „Die Erfahrung des Populären. Perspektiven einer kritischen Phänomenologie”, in: Marcus S. Kleiner/Thomas Wilke [ed.], Performativität und Medialität Populärer Kulturen. Theorien, Ästhetiken, Praktiken, Wiesbaden 2013, 49–73; 62). 2 “One stopped painting essays about things.” (Einstein, Carl, Die Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts [1931], ed. Uwe Fleckner/Thomas W. Gaehtgens, Berlin 1996, 119). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-001

4 | Moritz Baßler

Manifesto (1924), famously rejecting sentences like “La marquise sortit à cinq heures.”3 The problem with this kind of realism, though, lies not so much in its referentiality, but in its metonymic quality, its total and automatic dependence on well-established linguistic, cultural and generic frames that enable a kind of automatic understanding. “Thus, realism (badly named, at any rate often badly interpreted) consists not in copying the real but in copying a (depicted) copy of the real.”4 In this kind of realistic text, the reader finds him- or herself always already within the represented diegesis, the storyworld of the text, without any need to ponder over or even notice the linguistic or pictorial signs as signs, or material as material. It is first and foremost this “Realismus als Verfahren”,5 a realism defined as technique in the formalist sense of prijom, that the historical avant-gardes challenge and indeed overcome. The rupture with the kind of metonymic textural coherence which defines any realism-as-technique accounts for the notorious difficulty of modernist art, its calling for a meticulous or, with Barthes, ‘applied’ reading, a reading that “skips nothing; it weighs, it sticks to the text, it reads, so to speak, with application and transport, grasps at every point in the text the asyndeton which cuts the various languages – and not the anecdote”.6 This tendency towards the asyndetic (tmesis) will force the reader into a metaphoric mode of reading, with the additional handicap that these metaphors of “the modern text, the limit-text”7 will not easily give way to an understanding but rather lean towards the absolute metaphor of the Surrealists – just as Kafka’s prose compels us to read it allegorically without allowing any allegoresis to fully succeed. Thus, if you wanted to be considered avantgarde in the 1910s as an author, avant-garde in the programmatic sense of, let’s say, Kandinsky’s Über das Geistige in der Kunst, you either had to come forth with a difficult texture tending to the ‘abstract’ (as in Kandinsky’s play Der gelbe Klang) or to write satirically about the bourgeois confronted with the absolute (as in Franz Werfel’s play Der Besuch aus dem Elysium). While only the first would truly represent ‘the absolute Other’ you were aiming at, only the second would allow you to make use of realistic techniques.

|| 3 Breton, André, Manifeste du surréalisme (edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/4140895/ mod_resource/content/1/Manifeste du surréalisme.pdf), 3. 4 Barthes, Roland, S/Z, New York 1974, 55. 5 For a history of modern literature’s techniques see: Baßler, Moritz, Deutsche Erzählprosa 1850–1950. Eine Geschichte literarischer Verfahren, Berlin 2015. 6 Barthes, Roland, The Pleasure of the Text, New York 1975, 12. 7 Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text, 12.

Realism(s) of the Avant-Garde: An Introduction | 5

Nevertheless, avant-gardists often claim some kind of ‘true’ or higher (e.g. Sur-)realism for themselves, asserting that they have access to some primary reality that cannot be presented in traditional arts. In his seminal essay on African sculpture, Negerplastik (1915), Einstein insists that despite its non-realism (that might seem obvious from a traditional point of view), “[d]ie Negerplastik wird sich im formalen Sinn als stärkster Realismus erweisen”. This “strongest realism” is not construed as referential, but rather as a “formal realism”. Das Kunstwerk ist real durch seine geschlossene Form […]. Es bedeutet nichts, es symbolisiert nicht; es ist der Gott, der seine abgeschlossene mythische Realität bewahrt, worein der den Adoranten einbezieht. […] Formale und religiöse Geschlossenheit entsprechen sich; ebenso formaler und religiöser Realismus. 8

Of course, when Einstein talks about African sculpture here, an art form that had recently been discovered by Picasso and others, what he really is talking about is modern art. In his late work, such as his voluminous essay on Georges Braque of 1934, Einstein substantiates this avant-garde concept of realism. Wahrer Realismus heißt: nicht Gegenstände abbilden, sondern solche erschaffen. Durch Abbilden sublimiert man ästhetisch und füllt eine unvollkommene Welt mit Interpretationen und Fiktionen aus. […] Der [alte, MB] Realismus wird als Angst des Beschreibenden vor der Welt erkannt; dieser bemüht sich, Petrefakte durch Abbilden am Leben zu erhalten. Ahnenbilder werden als Aktuelles ausgegeben. Nun aber gilt es, das Schauen als Schöpfung zu retten; damit Malen nun heißt ein Dichten; den dichtend erschafft man Realität.9

This kind of poietic “Schauen als Schöpfung”, of course, will not succeed out of nothing, as the characters of Einstein’s early short novel Bebuquin oder die Dilettanten des Wunders (1909/12) have to find out painfully. The avant-garde artist, as programmatic writings of the time repeatedly show, has to connect to || 8 “The work of art [i.e. the African sculpture] is real by its closed form […]. It means nothing, it does not symbolize; it is the God who keeps his self-contained mythical reality, including the adorant whithin. […] Formal and religious closure correspond to each other; so do formal and religious realism.” (Einstein, Carl, “Negerplastik”, in: Einstein, Carl, Werke Band 1: 1908–1918. Ed. Rolf-Peter Baacke, Berlin 1980, 245–391; 252f.). 9 “True realism does not mean representing things but creating them. Representation means aesthetic sublimation, filling an incomplete world with interpretations and fictions. […] The [old] realism can be seen as the artist’s fear of the world; struggling to keep petrifications alive via representation. Ancestral portraits are passed off as current achievements. Now, though, we need to salvage perception as creation; thus, painting now must mean poiesis, for it is in poetic ways that we create reality.” (Einstein, Carl, “Georges Braque”, in: Einstein, Carl, Werke Band 3: 1929–1940. Ed. Marion Schmid/Liliane Meffre, Wien, Berlin 1985, 181–456; 259).

6 | Moritz Baßler

some kind of primary reality, to some higher or deeper realm, via his hallucinative or visionary powers. Practices of Surrealism like the notorious écriture automatique confirm this. The basic idea stays the same: by destroying the petrifications of common perception and its exhausted forms of perspective, of logic, of language – in short: of realism – avant-garde art comes closer to the real reality and therefore, in its radically new forms, proves to be not an abstraction but a truer, if not the “true” realism. In his Kunstgeschichte, Einstein even gives the reverse conclusion, claiming: “Wenn etwas abstrakt ist, so ein Naturalismus, der sein Objekt stilisiert, doch nie erschafft.”10 This is exactly what Barthes still claims in 1970: that realism (“the Balzacian text”) “stales, rots, excludes itself from writing (which is always a contemporary task): it is the quintessence, the residual condensate of what cannot be rewritten.”11 This avant-gardist claim to realism, of course, was bound to a promise, the promise that these new forms would indeed eventually change the basic principles of our perception, and thereby our worldview and, finally, our lives and societies. As soon as this promise was revealed to be premature, avant-garde realisms found themselves challenged by movements such as New Objectivity, Magic Realism, or different varieties of political or commercial popular art, which in their turn claimed to be more ‘realistic’ than the supposedly outmoded avant-gardes. Former expressionist poet Kurt Pinthus, for example, found himself quite sobered up in the late 1920s, now proclaiming a Neue Sachlichkeit as “Männliche Literatur”: Während der Jüngling des Expressionismus durch aufgerissenes Gefühl, aufreißendes Wort, zukunftheranreißende Idee wirkte, Wirklichkeit, Natur und Kosmos sprengte, um „aus dem Geist“ eine neue Welt zu schaffen, – bemüht sich die gegenwärtige Literatur, Dinge, Ereignisse und Empfindungen mit kurzem, scharfen Blick und Wort zu fassen, begnügt sich der Mann mit der klaren, oft handwerklichen Tat, mit realer Wirkung im kleinen Bezirk. […] das Greifbare, Bescheidene, Wirkliche wird gesucht, das Gegebene wird hergenommen […]. Die Erscheinungen der Realität werden nicht übersteigert oder zur Explosion gebracht, sondern beim rechten Namen genannt.12

|| 10 “If something should be called abstract, it is Naturalism, for it conventionalizes its objects but never creates them.” (Einstein, Die Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts, 107). 11 Barthes, S/Z, 98. 12 “While the expressionist youth took effect by means of stirring emotions, rousing words and ideas that carried along the future, breaking open reality, nature and cosmos to create a new world ‚from spirit‘ – contemporary literature makes an effort to grasp objects, events and perceptions in short, sharp views and words, the man is mostly content with simple acts of craftsmanship, with real effects within a small circle […] he is looking for the concrete, the

Realism(s) of the Avant-Garde: An Introduction | 7

Just like the avant-garde movements it means to disband, New Objectivity claims to offer a newer and truer realism, a “male”, that is: grown-up art and literature recognizing the state of things given and therefore returning to nonabstract, representational art and ordinary language, looking for models in journalism, academic and essayistic writing, and popular genre literature. Formally this must be seen as a fallback to more conventional realist techniques, to the easy readability of the metonymic, the anecdotal (Barthes), to contentorientation and plots set within a familiar diegesis. Even where artists of Neue Sachlichkeit include avant-garde techniques within their works, as did George Grosz in his satirical paintings of 1920s post-war society or Alfred Döblin in his metropolitan novel Berlin Alexanderplatz (1928), those are now put to referential use and no longer respond to the programmatic avant-garde claims of the Absolutely New. If you already know “das Gegebene” and just want to convey it to the reader, this of course makes perfect sense, as is particularly true in the case of political and Weltanschauung literature of any color. But easy readability does not only appeal to people with a message and censors of totalitarian systems, it also seems to appeal to the common reader given the choice of a book market. So it could be argued that ever since the mid-nineteenth-century, new art movements have always claimed to be the better ‘realisms’ compared to their immediate predecessors. In German literature, for example, Poetic Realism claims to be more realistic than Romanticism, Impressionism and Naturalism claim to be more realistic than Realism, and, as we saw, even emphatic modernist movements like Expressionism and Surrealism claim to have knowledge of a primary reality that remained inaccessible to their precursors. Their formalist break with realism-as-technique, though, as radical and promising as without doubt it was, is revoked by the new realisms of the 1920s and 30s – in the name of a return to reality that proved to be quite successful until the present day. We might very well claim that the age of the avant-gardes ended right there. But this would limit our view of modernism in more than one respect. Firstly, we can detect a considerable asynchronicity concerning the emergence and abatement of avant-garde movements and techniques not only between different arts and scenes, but between different cultures within and outside of Europe. While in Germany things were basically back to their old

|| humble and the real, dealing with the given. […] The phenomena of reality are neither heightened nor blown up any more, but called by their right names.” (Pinthus, Kurt, “Männliche Literatur” [1929], in: Anton Kaes (ed.): Weimarer Republik. Manifeste und Dokumente zur deutschen Literatur 1918–1933, Stuttgart 1983, 328–335; 328f.)

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realistic ways by the mid-1920s, French Surrealism around that time was just starting to flourish. And the picture becomes much more complicated once you start looking at other areas such as Scandinavia, Eastern and Southern Europe, or even Georgia, Brazil and Japan – as some papers on our conference did. Secondly, there are new waves of avant-gardism coming up after World War II, the so-called neo-avant-gardes. They, too, develop or struggle in competition with concurring varieties of ‘realism’. Just think of the nouveau roman and the French-German reflections on “Der Schriftsteller vor der Realität” in Vézelay in 1956, featuring, among others, Roland Barthes, Günter Eich, Ilse Aichinger and Alain Robbe-Grillet. Or think of Mario Amaya calling Pop Art “the New Super Realism”, thereby challenging Abstract Expressionism as the United States’ most avant-garde art form in the 1950s. As we know today, Abstract Expressionism, the art of Jackson Pollock and others, was even supported by the CIA as a supposedly democratic device against the heroic realisms favored by the likes of Hitler and Stalin. Of course, back in the States people were not quite as fond of abstract drip paintings as Clement Greenberg would have wished. Which, thirdly, confirms that art and literature featuring a realistic technique have been around for the whole of the twentieth century and, even in the high times of the avant-garde movements, have always provided the overwhelming majority of books and artworks. As our grandparents’ bookshelves and second-hand bookshops reveal, not just trivial and popular fiction and pictures, but most middle-brow art and literature, food for the bourgeois culture, followed l’attitude réaliste, and even in high art we find examples like the works of Thomas Mann or Marcel Proust. Or Georgia O’Keeffe, Edward Hopper or Harold Williamson. Most of the radical avant-gardes, especially in literature, were sustained by comparably small intellectual or bohemian scenes in their times, and furthermore, just a small part even of downright avant-garde works can be called ‘abstract’, nonrepresentational in the full sense of the concept. And isn’t Clark right when, at the end of his Episodes from a History of Modernism, he states that modernism “belongs to Rossellini as much as to Pollock”,13 to neo-realist film as much as to Abstract Expressionism? If truth be told, the marquise never quite stopped going out at 5 o’clock. Fourthly, one might argue that realism may have prevailed, yet has not been entirely itself after the disruptions of emphatic modernism. In full knowledge of the abundance of formal possibilities the avant-gardes opened up

|| 13 Clark, T.J., Farewell to an Idea. Episodes from a History of Modernism, New Haven, London 1999, 407.

Realism(s) of the Avant-Garde: An Introduction | 9

for art, literature and music, any retreat to realistic techniques has become something it had not been in the nineteenth century: a choice. Thus, somewhere in the paradigmatic realm of every work of new realism that considers itself not utterly trivial, modernist alternatives linger. The new realisms of the twentieth century have been exceedingly successful, especially on the book and art markets of our affluent societies, but they still tend to have something of a bad conscience, which might also be fueled by theories of realism like Roland Barthes’s (S/Z, Le Plaisir du Texte) or the Frankfurt School’s, theories that have survived the actual high time of the modernism they favor by decades. Further aspects might be added, such as the rivalry between artistic and political concepts of the avant-garde; the development of realistic narrative techniques in cinema, radio play, bandes dessinées, TV and video gaming; or the question of the avant-garde within post- or even post-post-modernism. In sum they all contribute to a quite complex picture of the twentieth century where avant-garde and realism always and everywhere not only seem to be around simultaneously but prove to be aware of, and react to, each other in what Clark calls “modernism’s continual two-facedness”.14 In one way or another they are part of each other’s self-fashioning. Or should we rather speak of avant-gardes and realisms, because there is no easy way to define either in a general way? Realism could, among other things, be construed either as referential (so that, let’s say, The Time Machine or The Lord of the Rings would not count as realistic) or as a technique (in which case they most certainly would). Avant-garde could be construed as a seminal tendency in art that in time becomes or hopes to become mainstream – for in the concept’s logic something that is not followed by army and baggage could hardly be called avant-garde (in this case, Tolkien or the South-American realismo magico of the 1950s would have been avantgarde). But the historical avant-gardes have been identified with non-realistic techniques to a degree that even today we call such ‘difficult’ works avantgardist, even though they might just contribute to well-established niches within our cultural field (for example in poetry, performance, or the kind of contemporary classical music played in Donaueschingen), without any suggestion that the rest might eventually follow. Even if exactly this lack of a discernible direction as to the way things will (or at least should) go, a direction that only a meta-narrative could provide, defines postmodernism, as people as different as Jacques Lyotard, Fredric Jameson and Simon Reynolds argue, the battle between realism and non-realistic techniques still remains an issue here. Concepts like Camp, Pop, Trash or Post|| 14 Clark, Farewell to an Idea, 407.

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Irony raise new questions about realism and the avant-garde, questions concerning the mode of reception that prevails, like: just how straight do we read, how seriously do we take a work of art? “One can be serious about the frivolous, frivolous about the serious”, as we learn from Susan Sontag.15 And ‘getting’ these new sensibilities does not stay without effect on our readings of older modernist art, too. We might change our mode of reception – “A full analysis of Art Nouveau, for instance, would scarcely equate it with Camp. But such an analysis cannot ignore what in Art Nouveau allows it to be experienced as Camp.”16 – or we might become more attentive to questions of mode put forth in the avant-gardist works themselves, like in DADA, or in Kafka and Joyce, as soon as we realize they might actually be funny. So, things are only getting more complex, but it seems safe to say that identifying the realisms that are at stake in the case of any avant-garde movement or work proves to be one of the tasks we definitely need to fulfill in order not to “miss part of the avant-garde’s energetic undertaking”, as Sascha Bru put it at the end of his ‘portable guide’ to The European Avant-Gardes, 1905–1935, but rather “to contain their untrammeled and radiant energy.”17 Therefore, I am very happy that the topic of realism(s) turned out to be a quite productive one for the EAM. More than 200 contributors to our 2018 EAM conference “Realism(s) of the Avant-Garde” tackled it in their diverse papers, dedicating themselves to all areas of avant-garde and modernist activity: art, literature, music, architecture, film, artistic and social movements, lifestyle, television, fashion, drama, performance, activism, design and technology, in a wide range of European and even some non-European avant-gardes. Thirty-eight of these contributions are compiled in this volume. Rather than exhausting and closing the topic, they are meant to open up the extensive field of avant-garde versus realism(s) to further research.18

|| 15 Sontag, Susan, “Notes on ‘Camp’”, in: Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation, London 1994, 275–292; 280. 16 Sontag, “Notes on ‘Camp’”, 281. 17 Bru, Sascha, The European Avant-Gardes, 1905–1935. A Portable Guide, Edinburgh 2018, 240. 18 The editors want to thank Sebastian Berlich and Holger Grevenbrock for typesetting this book. Thanks also to Lena Brinkmann, Hendrik Günther, Antje Heide, Fabian Rüther and Katharina Scheerer.

|

Modernist Realism?

Jasmin Grande

Realismus – Avantgarde – Phantastik Paul Scheerbarts Werk im Kontext von Verfahrensgeschichte und Intermedialität Schillernd, prä-dadaistisch, phantastisch, mäandernd, grotesk, humoresk, moralisch, expressionistisch, utopisch, modern, ... – die Summe der die Texte von Paul Scheerbart beschreibenden Adjektive ist immens und dokumentiert die Herausforderung der literaturgeschichtlichen Einordnung ebenso wie den hermeneutischen Kitzel, den es auszulösen vermag. Oder auch nicht, denn die Rezeptionsgeschichte des Scheerbartschen Werkes prägen Ablehnung, Kritik an der absurd-drolligen Überforderung oder der Verdacht einer sinnentleerenden Verwirrungscodierung ebenso wie die Begeisterung Walter Benjamins, z.B. für den als Hochzeitsgeschenk erhaltenen Band Lésabendio. Erst 2012 produzierte die Band kommandozurück eine Vertonung von Scheerbarts Text Na prost! Phantastischer Königsroman. Als Sprecher fungiert der Poetry Slammer und Künstler Andy Strauß, der mit seiner akustischen Interpretation den Text aktualisiert und seine eigene literarisch-performative Arbeit kontextualisiert. Der vorliegende Beitrag fragt nach dem Zusammenhang von epochalen Zuordnungen im Kontext von Moderne – Avantgarde, Realismus und Phantastik – und Erkenntnissen, die an den Primärquellen erarbeitet werden können, also nach dem Verhältnis des präsenten Wissens zur Quellenbefragung. Als theoretische Grundlage dient die Verfahrensanalyse Moritz Baßlers ergänzt durch Fragen aus kultursoziologischer und intermedialer Perspektive.

Realismus, Avantgarde, Phantastik Alle drei Termini technici stellen Ordnungssysteme dar, mit denen Texte historisch entweder in einen chronologischen Zusammenhang gesetzt werden oder als literaturtheoretische Befragungsmuster, als Metaebenen, verstanden werden. Beide Ebenen der einzelnen Begriffe sind selbstverständlich miteinander verwoben.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-002

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So meint der Begriff der Avantgarde die historische Avantgarde des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts als Teil der literarischen Moderne.1 Hierzu korrespondierend ist mit Avantgarde auch eine Aufbruchsbewegung gemeint, die sich gegen das bürgerlich-humanistische Ideal der Aufklärung absetzt.2 In Abgrenzung zum Moderne-Begriff, der die Gegenwartszugewandtheit fokussiert, meint Avantgarde einen sowohl formalästhetischen als auch ikonographiekritischen Aufbruch mit gesellschaftsgestaltender Relevanz.3 Das Ziel dieses Aufbruchs oder auch das Ergebnis stellt die Suche nach einem Kunstkonzept dar, das z.B. über formalästhetische Innovationen Gegenwartsrelevanz generiert und das Verhältnis von Künsten und Leben neu definiert.4 Realismus verweist sowohl auf die um 1900 u.a. durch den Naturalismus abgelöste, literarische Epoche als auch auf ein komplexes Kunstkonzept, das „die Kunst in Gegenstand und Gestaltungsweise der Realität verpflichtet“.5 Auch die Arbeiten von Moritz Baßler zur Neubewertung der literaturhistorischen Klammer Realismus im Kontext einer realistischen Schreibweise sind Teil der Begriffsreflexion Realismus. Mit Phantastik wären z.B. die an die Literatur des Fin de Siècle anknüpfenden Texte der Klassischen Phantastik von Hanns Heinz Ewers, Gustav Meyrink oder Alfred Kubin gemeint. Als strukturelles Konzept verweist Phantastik auf einen dem Realismus abgewandten Kunstbegriff ebenso wie auf ein inhaltliches Befremdungspotential, das sich aus einer fortwährenden Annäherungs- und || 1 Z.B Berg, Hubert van den/Fähnders, Walter (Hrsg.), Metzler Lexikon Avantgarde, Stuttgart, Weimar 2009, 11. „Man entgeht einigen Aporien der Avantgarde-Forschung, wenn man die Avantgarde als soziale Konfiguration auffasst und sie als ein Phänomen der sozialen Kohäsion und Gruppenbildung im kulturellen Feld beschreibt, das sich zusammenhängend als Netzwerk begreifen lässt. Die Avantgarde erscheint dabei als ein auf der synchronen Ebene heterogenes und auf der Ebene der Diachronie sich wandelndes und wanderndes, letzten Endes aber doch einheitliches Netzwerk, das alle Kunstbereiche umfasst [...].“ 2 Vgl. Jäger, Georg, „Avantgarde“, in: Georg Braungart/Harald Fricke/Klaus Weimer u.a. (Hrsg.), Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft, Bd. 1, Berlin, Boston 2007, 183–187. 3 Vgl. Berg/Fähnders, Metzler Lexikon Avantgarde. 4 Bürger, Peter, Theorie der Avantgarde, Frankfurt 1974. 5 Ritzer, Monika, „Realismus1“, in: Georg Braungart/Harald Fricke/Klaus Weimer u.a. (Hrsg.), Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft, Bd. 3., Berlin, Boston 2007, 217–229, 217; vgl. zum Realismusbegriff und seinen politischen Dimensionen: Karpenstein-Eßbach, Christa, „Ist literarischer Realismus entpolitisierbar? Historische Stationen einer Idee“, in: Moritz Baßler (Hrsg.), Entsagung und Routines. Aporien des Spätrealismus und Verfahren der frühen Moderne, Berlin, Boston 2013, 387–411, außerdem: Grande, Jasmin, „Krisendiskurs, Legitimationsstrategie und Demarkationslinie. Realismussplitter aus literaturgeschichtlicher, produktionsästhetischer und begriffsgeschichtlicher Perspektive“, in: Sören Fauth/Rolf Parr (Hrsg.), Neue Realismen in der Gegenwartsliteratur, Paderborn 2016, 147–156.

Realismus – Avantgarde – Phantastik | 15

Entfernungsbewegung vom Rand des Akzeptierten zum Zentrum und zurück vollzieht und damit fortwährend für neuen Input der Standards sorgt.6 Nicht zuletzt ist allen drei Begriffen ein disziplinäres Legitimationspotential immanent: So sorgt die Avantgardeforschung im Umfeld des Bauhausjahres 2019 deutschlandweit und international für ein Nachdenken über das Wirkungspotential der Avantgarden im 21. Jahrhundert. Die öffentlichkeitswirksame Neuverhandlung des Verhältnisses von Künsten, Politik und Gesellschaft (wer gestaltet wen?) ermöglicht auch den kulturwissenschaftlichen Disziplinen eine Neuverhandlung ihrer gesellschaftlichen und zukunftsgestaltenden Relevanz sowie ein erhöhtes Interesse an ihren Gegenständen.7 Hieran knüpft der Realismus als Kunstkonzept, das Literatur und Kunst auf gesellschaftliche und politische Relevanz verpflichtet – eine Forderung, der sich auch die Literatur- und Kunstwissenschaft stellen müssen, wenn sie sich nicht über den Elfenbeinturm legitimieren wollen. Als Testfeld des geisteswissenschaftlichen Theoriediskurses stellt die Phantastik einen besonderen Forschungsgegenstand dar.8 Darüber hinaus erprobt sie in Opposition zur Norm Grenzbereiche gesellschaftlicher Akzeptanz, archiviert die Leichen im Keller der Kulturgeschichte und bietet im Kontext der Neubefragung von Kulturgeschichten über das Stichwort der Transkulturalität9 einen umfangreichen Pool an provokantem Material. Reflexionen über das literaturwissenschaftlich konstruierte Verhältnis der drei Begriffe zueinander stellen damit auch immer Potenzräume der Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaften bereit. Je nach Schwerpunktsetzung in der Begriffsauffassung weisen sie auf das Dreiecksverhältnis hin, in dem sich das Nachdenken über A) die Künste in ihrer medialen Repräsentanz wie z.B. Text, Bild, Plastik etc., B)

|| 6 Vgl. z.B. Ruthner, Clemens, Am Rande. Kanon, Peripherie und die Intertextualität des Marginalen am Beispiel der (österreichischen) Phantastik im 20. Jahrhundert, Tübingen 2003. 7 So sorgt die Berichterstattung auf allen Kanälen über das Bauhausjahr 2019 für eine öffentliche Auseinandersetzung mit dem Bauhaus als Avantgarde und Bildungsinstitution in einem bisher ungeahnten Maße. Jenseits der inhaltlichen und formalen Kritik an der Verfilmung Lotte am Bauhaus (Erstausstrahlung am 19.02.2019) stellt der Film v.a. eine bisher noch nicht dagewesene Information für ein breites Publikum zu den Basics und Klischees des Bauhauses dar. 8 Vgl. Grande, Jasmin, Nussschalen der Wissenschaft. Aspekte des Phantastik-Diskurses, Düsseldorf 2016. Online erschienen unter: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn/resolver.pl?urn= urn:nbn:de:hbz:061-20161205-083836-4, 15.06.2019. 9 Vgl. zum Ansatz einer Theorie der Transkulturalität Sakai, Naoki, „The dislocation of the West and the status of the humanities“, in: Yukiko Hanawa/Naoki Sakai (Hrsg.), Specters of the West and the politics of translation (traces). Hongkong 2002, 71–94. Mit der Vorsilbe „Trans“ spielt das aktuelle Nachdenken über die Frage, was Kulturwissenschaft ist, auf die Geschichte der Vorsilbe an, wie z.B. in Transavantgarde. „Trans“ holt sozusagen das Nachdenken über den eigenen Standpunkt und den Körper in die wissenschaftliche Reflexion hinein.

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das, was unter dem Begriff „Wissen“ verstanden wird und C) das, was als die Produktion von Wissen – Wissenschaft – begriffen wird, zueinander verhalten. Die Analyse eines Kunstwerks umfasst also immer auch eine Positionierung mit Blick auf den jeweiligen Wissensbegriff und das Wissenschaftsverständnis. Wie eng Kunstwerk, Wissensbegriff und Wissenschaftsdefinition mit Avantgarde, Realismus, Phantastik verwoben sind, zeigt die Nähe aller Stichpunkte zur theoretischen und historischen Moderne. Als Verschiebebewegung von institutioneller ebenso wie weltanschaulicher Deutungshoheit über das, was als wirklich verstanden wird, kennzeichnet die Moderne ein Vakuum, an dessen Übernahme sich alle Akteure zumeist kämpferisch beteiligen. Ein Beispiel: die Diskrepanz zwischen einem kaiserlich diktierten, dem Historismus zugewandten Kunstbegriff und der Aufbruchsbewegung in den Künsten, die selten innerhalb eines institutionellen Rahmens stattfindet, sondern zumeist im freien Raum, z.B. in Form von Künstler*innengemeinschaften, Cafés, Cabarets etc., führt zu einem Zwischenraum, in dem über das Auseinanderklaffen der Positionen unterschiedliche Auffassungen von ‚Zeitgemäßheit‘ ein Vakuum verursachen, das mit den politischen Umwälzungen 1919 kurzfristig neu verhandelt wird.10 Künstler*innen und Schriftsteller*innen sind Teil dieses Prozesses. Auch Paul Scheerbart arbeitet mit verschiedenen Strategien, zur Erzeugung von Relevanz. Er ist in diesem Sinne Teil der Avantgarde in der Moderne. Angeregt von Naoki Sakais Nachdenken über das Verhältnis von Theorie und Objekt in der Konzeption einer vergleichenden Kulturwissenschaft, die nicht aus dem europäischen Zugriff heraus geprägt ist,11 wäre zu fragen, ob Realismus, Avantgarde und Phantastik als epochale Kategorien noch angemessen sind, weil sie in dieser Existenz zwischen Theorie und Geschichte sich selbst fortwährend reproduzieren. Moritz Baßler hat auf diesen Punkt mit seiner Verfahrensgeschichte Deutsche Erzählprosa. 1850–1950. Eine Geschichte literarischer Verfahren reagiert und einen theoretischen Ansatz entwickelt, der in der Verbindung von paradigmatischer und syntagmatischer Achse die textimmanenten Frames vor ihren kulturellen Setzungen reflektiert. Dem folgen meine Überlegungen hier, allerdings mit einem Vorbehalt gegenüber Baßlers Kritik der emphatischen Moderne: „Die avantgardistischen Strömungen machen Angebote, die auf Dauer in den demokratisch-marktwirtschaftlichen Gesellschaften nach 1919 nicht nachgefragt werden [...]. Die emphatische Moderne teilt damit ganz generell das Schicksal der älteren Hochkultur: Wo sie nicht mehr dem

|| 10 Cepl-Kaufmann, Gertrude, 1919. Zeit der Utopien. Zur Topographie eines deutschen Jahrhundertjahres, Bielefeld 2018. 11 Sakai, „Dislocation of the west“, 91.

Realismus – Avantgarde – Phantastik | 17

Distinktionsbedürfnis von Klassen dient, verliert sie ihren sozialen Ort. Allenfalls überleben, etwa in akademischen Zusammenhängen, der mit ihr verbundene Diskurs – und natürlich ihre historischen Zeugnisse, die Werke mit ihrem Fremdheitspotential, als Museum der modernen Poesie.“12 Baßler geht in dem 2016 erschienen Band von einer historisierenden Lesart der Avantgarden aus, der nach dem Bauhausjahr 2019 und der aktualisierenden und öffentlichen Befragung der Avantgarden 1919 neu untersucht werden muss.

Verfahrensgeschichte: Realistische Schreibweisen bei Scheerbart Baßler hat in seiner Monographie Deutsche Erzählprosa 1850–1950 sowohl die Grenzprozesse zwischen Realismus, Avantgarde und Phantastik in seiner untersucht als auch die Position des Scheerbartschen Werkes darin verortet. Ausgehend von einem strukturalistischen Textbegriff erarbeitet Baßler zunächst eine Theorie literarischer Verfahren, um mit dieser anschließend eine alternative Literaturgeschichte zu schreiben, die insbesondere neue Erkenntnisse über die Kontinuitäten und Brüche in der Literaturgeschichte zulässt. Der Fokus liegt dabei in der Untersuchung der Transfers zwischen Text-, Darstellungs- und Bedeutungsebene sowie der Ausrichtung der metonymischen oder metaphorischen Referenzebenen.13 In einem realistischen Text bestehen im Transfer der Text- auf die Darstellungsebene keine Hindernisse, es finden keine Überraschungen oder Irritationen statt. Irritationen entstehen aber dort, wo der Text mit Bildern arbeitet, die über die Diegese hinausweisen und den Ebenentransfer unterbrechen. Dabei erweist sich z.B., dass das Phantastische aus dem verfahrensgeschichtlichen Zugriff allenfalls in motivorientierten Fragestellungen noch Relevanz erfährt; als Erzählstrategie, z.B. im Sinne Todorovs, ist es Teil des realistischen Textverfahrens. Die Differenz zwischen der von Baßler als emphatisch bezeichneten Moderne und dem poetischen Realismus betrifft vornehmlich den Anspruch an die Bilddimension, die der gesamte Text entwirft. Maßgeblich ist hierbei eine Bewegung von sakralen sowie mythologischen Inhalten auf profane Kontexte, die als Annäherung an Wirklichkeit assoziiert wird: „Das mimetische Prinzip, das gesellschaftliche Gehalte auf der Darstellungsebene zur

|| 12 Baßler, Moritz, Deutsche Erzählprosa 1850–1950. Eine Geschichte literarischer Verfahren, Berlin 2015, 287. 13 Vgl. das einführende Kapitel in Baßler, Deutsche Erzählprosa 1850–1950, 9–30.

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Debatte stellt, war ja gerade emphatisch durch ein poietisches Prinzip abgelöst worden, das die überkommene Wirklichkeit von der Textebene aus revolutionieren wollte.“14 Scheerbarts Texte, die Baßler, in Abgrenzung zu den über sich hinausweisenden Symbolisierungen der realistischen Textverfahren des poetischen Realismus, den mit Routines arbeitenden realistischen Textverfahren der Moderne zuordnet, produzieren einen „Hä?-Effekt“:15 „Dieser Effekt [...] wird erzeugt, indem die kulturell gewohnten Frames, sowohl der Diegese wie auch der Textkomposition, zwar aufgerufen werden, aber nicht auch die realistischen Texten erwartbare Kohärenz stiften. Dass dies poetologisch gewollt und reflektiert geschieht, lässt sich [...] ablesen [...].“16 Die den Texten Scheerbarts zugrunde liegenden Routines prägt die Vorgabe des Spiels: „Er nutzt die neue Freiheit poetischer Kombinatorik, ermöglicht durch die Aufwertung der Teile gegenüber dem Ganzen und die Entdeckung der artifiziellen Gemachtheit von Literatur, in Form eines unendlichen erzähltextgenerierenden Spiels, das über sich hinaus auf nichts verweist – und dies ostentativ.“17 Im fortwährenden Wechsel zwischen Text- und Darstellungsebene, der immer wieder Kohärenz herstellt, um sie dann erneut aufzulösen, liegt die Überlegung nahe, Scheerbarts Texte auf ihre Selbstreferentialität hin zu untersuchen. Dementsprechend lesen sich Scheerbarts Romane als Verschachtelungssysteme: Motiviert durch eine Rahmenerzählung werden eine Vielzahl von Binnenerzählungen aneinandergereiht, die meist eher Fragen in Bezug auf das Gesamtkonzept denn kohärente Schnittmengen entwickeln. So z.B. in dem Roman Na prost! Phantastischer Königsroman (1898)18.

Paul Scheerbart: Na prost! Phantastischer Königsroman (1898) Nach dem Zusammenstoß der Erde mit einem Kometen in einer 10.000 Jahre entfernten Zukunft finden sich drei Germanisten in einer achteckigen Flasche wieder. Sie sind offenbar die einzigen Überlebenden. Aus der Flasche heraus || 14 Baßler, Deutsche Erzählprosa 1850–1950, 286. 15 Baßler, Deutsche Erzählprosa 1850–1950, 199. 16 Baßler, Deutsche Erzählprosa 1850–1950, 199f. 17 Baßler, Deutsche Erzählprosa 1850–1950, 202. 18 Scheerbart, Paul, Na prost! Phantastischer Königsroman. Herausgegeben und mit einem Nachwort versehen von Michael Matthias Schardt, Siegen 1987. Der Text erschien erstmals 1898 bei Verlag Schuster & Loeffler, Berlin und Leipzig.

Realismus – Avantgarde – Phantastik | 19

beobachten sie das brennende Weltall nach der Kollision und lesen sich Texte aus einem Blätterkonvolut aus dem 19. Jahrhundert vor. Die Rahmenhandlung ist in kurzen, überschaubaren Passagen gestaltet, unterbrochen von den Lesungen. Irritationen in der Reihenfolge der Textpassagen der Rahmenerzählung greifen die Frames Utopie und Robinsonade auf. Während die Rahmengeschichte weitgehend Kohärenz zwischen Text- und Bedeutungsebene herstellt, provozieren die in ihren Titeln oftmals als eigene Gattungssegmente – Kopf-Vignette, Bewegungsstudie, Kratergeschichte, Märchen, Tempelphantasie, Hundsvignette, Sterngeschichte, Nachtstück, Resignationsphantasie, ... -19 gekennzeichneten Binnenerzählungen den von Baßler aufgezeigten Wechsel der Priorität der Ebenen, mal erscheint die Darstellungsebene die Deutungshoheit zu übernehmen, mal die Bedeutungsebene.

Eine kleine Burg. Kopf-Vignette. Eine kleine Burg lacht hoch oben auf dem Berge. Sinnend steh ich unten und — will was. „Glaubst du an mich?“ Also hör‘ ich’s fragen vor mir in einer Höhle. „Nein!“ sag‘ ich. „Denn“, so fahr’ ich in Gedanken fort, „Ich will nicht an das glauben, was in Höhlen wohnt.“ Und leise säuselt der Wind durch’s Gebüsch, fächelt behutsam wie eine Sklavin Nebukadnezars meine heiße Backe, schwirrt an der Höhle vorüber, und ich höre wieder aus der Höhle hervortönen: „Du bist doch aber noch nicht auf dem Berge, warum verachtest du mich denn?“ „Du Schaf!“ versetz‘ ich, „weil du niemals auf einen Berg hinauf willst.“ Zischen antwortet. Ich blick‘ hinauf zur kleinen Burg und — und — will was… doch allmählich wird’s mir klar — ich will in der Burg oben wohnen — — — wohnen. „Mußt erst raufkommen!“ tönt’s höhnisch aus der Höhle hervor. — — und da fällt mir ein, daß ich überhaupt noch nicht wohne — nirgendwo.20

|| 19 Der Artikel zu Kurzprosa im Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft weist auf die Bedeutung von Kurzprosa im Expressionismus hin und stellt insbesondere fest: „Scheerbart etwa erfindet für jeden seiner Prosatexte eine eigene ‚Gattungsbezeichnung’; im expressionistischen Kontext werden die neuen Texturen aufgrund ihrer formalen Dichte und fehlenden Narrativität gelegentlich als ‚Lyrismen’ empfunden und bezeichnet [...]“. Baßler, Moritz, „Kurzprosa“, in: Georg Braungart/Harald Fricke/Klaus Weimer u.a. (Hrsg.), Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft, Bd. 2, Berlin, Boston 2007, 371–374, 372. 20 Scheerbart, Na prost, 19–20.

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Liest sich der Hinweis auf die lachende Burg zunächst mit Bezug auf den intraund homodiegetischen Ich-Erzähler potentiell als Frame Schöne Landschaft, so wird mit der Frage eines unbekannten Urhebers aus der Höhle die Möglichkeit eines phantastischen Frames parallelisiert: Die lachende Burg ist sowohl Personifikation mit symbolischer Leseempfehlung als auch Indikator einer metonymischen Lesart. Das folgende Gespräch zwischen dem Ich-Erzähler und einem Frager aus einer Höhle öffnet parallel die Frames Märchen (z.B. Zwerg als Höhlenbewohner) und Parabel (Bezug zum Höhlengleichnis?), auch hier bleibt die Bilddeutung unentschieden zwischen metaphorischer und metonymischer Schreibweise und konstruiert eine Offenheit, die mit der gleichzeitigen Unsicherheit und Präsenz des Wollens des Erzählers konvergiert. Die fünffache Wiederholung des Verbs Wollen (will was – will nicht – niemals hinauf willst – will was – will in der Burg wohnen) legt nahe, dies zur ebenendominanten Referenz zu machen und die Deutung der weiteren Informationen dem beizuordnen. Damit entwickelt sich eine Vielfalt an Interpretationsmöglichkeiten, von der Parallelisierung des Ich-Erzählers mit dem Subjekt der Moderne über das Potential individueller Handlungen und den Umgang mit dem Unbekannten bis hin zu Glauben vs. Nicht-Glauben. Insgesamt verdichtet sich das Für, Wider und parallele Miteinander der Bedeutungsebenen vom Text zu einer emblematischen Bild-Text-Strategie, auf die bereits die Titelmatrix „Vignette“ verweist. Der Dialog zwischen Bild und Inhalten, der sich dabei schon in der Überschrift entspinnt, verharrt ungelöst in der Feststellung „daß ich überhaupt noch nicht wohne – nirgendwo“. Nun lässt sich dieser Mangel an Sesshaftigkeit auf die Germanisten in der achteckigen Flasche beziehen und auf seine Kompetenz als mise-en-abyme befragen, eine Perspektive, die aber von der Aneignung unterbrochen wird, die die drei Insassen sofort selbst vornehmen: „Über diese Dichtung denken die Geister der achtkantigen Flasche ungemein eifrig nach; sie nehmen ihre gesamte Gehirnkraft zusammen.“21 Die hermeneutische Kompetenz dieser „bedeutendsten Germanisten ihrer Zeit“22 erweist sich allerdings jenseits ihrer Titulierung als überschaubar: Brüllmeyer interpretiert die Erzählung als Bild für den gesellschaftlichen Status der Dichter, Passko liest sie als Beispiel für einen bestimmten Typus Mensch, den Starrsinnigkeit und Freiheitsliebe auszeichnen, und Kusander knüpft hieran die „Wehmutsstimmung des sogenannten Zigeuners“. Der Zugriff aller Germanisten weist die Tendenz auf, die Interpretation der Geschichte aus der eigenen Perspektive heraus mit pseudohistorischem || 21 Scheerbart, Na prost, 20. 22 Scheerbart, Na prost, 16.

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Wissen zu unterfüttern. Im weiteren Verlauf spitzt sich der subjektive Interpretationsansatz zunächst zu, um dann mit der zunehmenden Ernüchterung über die tatsächlich einsame Situation und die Zukunftsperspektiven der „Geister der achtkantigen Flasche“23 das Gespräch über die Texte ganz einzustellen.24 Programmatisch stehen dem Roman zwei Sätze voran: der Aphorismus Georg Christoph Lichtenbergs verweist auf die Unzulänglichkeit einer positivistischen Lesart und die invertierte Sympathiebekundung an Richard Dehmel – „Meinem verhaßten Richard Dehmel“ – empfiehlt die Befragung des Textes auf Widersprüche. Roland Innerhofer hat in seiner Arbeit über Scheerbarts OrientBild auf die vielfältigen Quellen aufmerksam gemacht, mit denen Scheerbart in seinen Texten arbeitet: von der „Umformung autobiographischen Materials“25 über die Adaption kulturgeschichtlicher Studien. Hierbei arbeitet Scheerbart mit den gleichen Materialien wie viele Zeitgenossen, die ein stereotypes Orientbild reproduzieren. Die formalästhetischen Maßnahmen, die Scheerbart hierbei in z.B. Tarub, Bagdads berühmte Köchin. Ein arabischer Kulturroman (1897) verwendet, führen allerdings dazu, dass das Orientbild nicht im Kontext der typischen Exotismen und Stereotypisierungen Raum gewinnt: „Scheerbarts Romane verzichten von vornherein auf die Fiktion eines realen Orients. Sein Orientdiskurs beansprucht keinerlei Authentizität, die sich aus empirischer Erfahrung speiste. Aus ästhetisch vorgeformten Materialien, die sich auf keine außersprachliche, außerästhetische Realität beziehen setzt sich ein Orientbild zusammen, dessen ‚Authentizität‘ gerade auf radikaler Künstlichkeit beruht.“26 Zu diesen Maßnahmen gehören ebenso das Prinzip der Kurzprosa sowie die fortwährende Unterwanderung und Infragestellung der Gattungsmatrix: „Die Modernität Scheerbarts zeigt sich nicht zuletzt darin, daß er zwar die Gattungsbezeichnung ‚Roman‘ wählt, zugleich aber die formalen und erzähllogischen Vorgaben dieses Genres ständig unterläuft. Mehr noch als in der explizit als Bühnengeschehen dargestellten Binnenhandlung wird in der Rahmenhandlung jeder narrative Ansatz im Keim erstickt.“27 Das Spannungsfeld, das Scheerbart durch den fortwährenden Bruch der Narrative konstruiert, fungiert sowohl als

|| 23 So Passko ebd., 13. 24 „Es wird den Geistern der Flasche allmählich klar, daß ihre gelehrte Tätigkeit doch ziemlich zwecklos ist. Und wer die Zwecklosigkeit seines Lebens erkannt hat, wird von dieser Erkenntnis niedergedrückt.“ Ebd., 133. 25 Innerhofer, Roland, „‚Mir ist so orientalisch zu Muth‘. 1897: Paul Scheerbarts arabische Romane“, in: Alexander Honold/Klaus R. Scherpe (Hrsg.), Mit Deutschland um die Welt. Eine Kulturgeschichte des Fremden in der Kolonialzeit, Stuttgart, Weimar 2004, 209–216, 211. 26 Innerhofer, „‚Mir ist so orientalisch zu Muth‘“, 211. 27 Innerhofer, „‚Mir ist so orientalisch zu Muth‘“, 211.

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Routine Spiel als auch als Auflösung eines dualistischen Ordnungssystems: Alle Anteile der histoire sind mehrfachcodiert und stehen in multiplem Bezug zu den ihnen vorangehenden Sätzen und Textteilen, wie z.B. in der Kopf-Vignette. So sind die Protagonisten des Rahmennarrativs sowohl als Parodien der Zunft erkennbar als auch als exemplarische Charaktere einer 10.000 Jahre älteren Zukunft und als Individuen in ihrem Umgang mit den Texten. Innerhofer hat darauf hingewiesen, dass den Texten Scheerbarts ein dramatisches Gestaltungsprinzip zugrunde liegt, in dem die Kurzprosa als Guckkastenbühne fungiert, die Demarkationslinien zwischen den Welten einzieht. Das fortwährende Changieren zwischen den Ebenen resultiert in einem hermeneutischen Zwischenraum, in dem z.B. die durch Künstlichkeit hervorgerufene Authentizität des Scheerbartschen Orientbildes entsteht oder auch der Zukunftsraum, in dem sich die Weltallromane, vor allem Lésabendio (1913), aber auch bereits der Phantastische Königsroman (1898) bewegen. Als Maßnahme eines Aushaltens der Deutungsoffenheit bei Vorliegen einer Vielzahl an Angeboten stellt dieser Zwischenraum eine Maßnahme Scheerbarts zur textuellen Überschreitung dar. Seine Texte stellen Denkübungen bereit, spielerische Trainingscamps im Denken jenseits von Positivismus, Schwarz und Weiß, oben und unten etc. Insbesondere in der Gattungsreflexion, die zumeist als Irritation fungiert, weil sich die Frage stellt, in welchem Verhältnis Titel und Untertitel zueinander stehen und wie die Gattungsmatrix umgesetzt ist, steht Scheerbart der Provokation durch Abstraktion der Avantgarde nahe. Auch der von Scheerbart konstruierte Phantastik-Begriff, mit dem er im Verlagsprogramm eine Deutungsebene für den Literaturbetrieb einzieht, ist hier zu verorten. Oder die untersuchten Texte entsprechen, mit Blick auf Baßlers Verfahrensgeschichte, den Kriterien der emphatischen Moderne: Der Text behauptet eine Relevanz für die Primärwirklichkeit, die über sein Vermögen als Text hinausgeht. Dieses Konzept wird durch die hermetische Referentialität – der Text verweist auf sich, er selbst konstruiert Realität im Sinne „Absoluter Prosa“ – umgesetzt.28 Als Grundkonzept hierfür fungiert im Phantastischen Königsroman die Inszenierung von Sinnbildern in Texten.

|| 28 Vgl. Baßler, Deutsche Erzählprosa 1850–1950, 211–220.

Realismus – Avantgarde – Phantastik | 23

Arbeit an der Laokoon-Gruppe: Scheerbarts Räume Der heilige Hain. Asketensage In einer seiner ersten Publikationen inszeniert Scheerbart einen Text, der sich in ein symbolistisches Gemälde übersetzen lässt: Der heilige Hain. Asketensage.29 Die roten und gelben Rosen duften. Zwei Frauen wandeln an dem Schwanenteiche vorüber und betreten den heiligen Hain, der mit seinem dichten hohen Blätterdache die großen Wunderblumen beschattet. Kühl ist der heilige Hain. Tauperlen blitzen auf den großen weißen Lilien. Auch der dunkelgrüne Rasen ist unter den Morgenwolken feucht geworden. Die mächtigen Himmelsblüten wiegen sich sanft. Die blaßroten Nelken wachsen neben den Wurzelknollen der hohen Riesenbäume, deren dunkelgrüne Laubespracht den blauen Himmel mit seiner heißen Sonne nicht mehr ahnen läßt. Die roten und gelben Rosen duften auch hier überall hinein in den milden Wohlgeruch der großen Wunderblume.30

Als zweite Publikation Scheerbarts nach dem poetologisch reflektierenden Roman Das Paradies. Die Heimat der Kunst (1889) empfiehlt sich dieser erste Band im hauseigenen Verlag der Phantasten ebenfalls mit Appellen poetologischer Lesarten. Zugleich weisen die Titel Das Paradies. Die Heimat der Kunst sowie der Untertitel Asketensage, mit dem es vielmehr um den Hinweis auf Nietzsche denn um ein komplexes Deutungsverhältnis oder ein spielstrategisches Element geht, auf ein frühes poetologisches Konzept hin, auf einen Baustein zur Scheerbartschen Zwischenraum- oder auch Sinnbild-Poetik. Schon hier steht nicht die Entwicklung eines kohärenten Narrativs im Zentrum, sondern die Versinnbildlichung philosophischer und religiöser Positionen über den Text; dieser stellt damit eine Art Übergang zwischen dem Verfahren des poetischen Realismus, in dem der Text im Gesamt über sich hinausdeutet, und den Routines der Moderne dar. Dementsprechend kohärent gestaltet sich der Transfer zwischen der Textund Darstellungsebene. Scheerbart greift hierfür vor allem auf die Gestaltung

|| 29 Scheerbart, Paul, „Der heilige Hain. Asketensage“, in: Ja … was … möchten wir nicht Alles! Ein Wunderfabelbuch. Berlin 1893. 30 Scheerbart, Paul, „Der heilige Hain. Asketensage“, in: „Ja … was … möchten wir nicht Alles! Ein Wunderfabelbuch. Mit Illustrationen von Claudia Neuhaus. Herausgegeben und mit einem Nachwort versehen von Susanne Bek und Michael Matthias Schardt. Paderborn 1988, 64–80, hier 64f.

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einer Szenerie und ihrer Atmosphäre zurück, ephemer und abgeschlossen von der Außenwelt wirkt diese wie ein arkadischer Ort, dessen Bildhaftigkeit ein besonderes Vermittlungspotential innewohnt. Mit den weiblichen Hauptfiguren, die einen Austausch mit einer Gruppe von Frauenstatuen aufnehmen, werden Bezüge zu den Präraffaeliten ebenso wie dem Jugendstil hergestellt. Nicht der Wunsch nach dem Dortsein steht im Vordergrund, sondern die Darstellung eines Erkenntnisraumes. Die Vielzahl an Farbadjektiven sowie die die Sinne ansprechenden Verben und Adjektive tragen zur Verdichtung einer arkadischen Szenerie bei. Der Versuch, das, was zeitgleich in der Bildenden Kunst passiert, im Text zu erproben, liegt nahe mit Blick auf die Nähe Scheerbarts zur Kunstgewerbebewegung. Als Scheerbart 1897 nach Berlin umzieht, begegnet er hier den künstlerischen Bewegungen, die, Impulse vom englischen arts and crafts-Movement aufnehmend, Praktiken eines sowohl Sparten verbindenden als auch Handwerk integrierenden Kunstbegriffs erprobten. Über die Kunstgewerbebewegung veröffentlichte Scheerbart bereits 1894 Artikel unter dem Pseudonym Kuno Küfer.31 Die Vernetzung zwischen den Künsten stellt schließlich auch die Basis für seine Glastheorien dar. Während Scheerbart also zu Beginn seines literarischen Werkes den Transfer von der Kunst in die Literatur erprobt und sich hierbei an den aktuellen Strömungen jenseits des Naturalismus orientiert – hier mag sich auch die Freundschaft mit Richard Dehmel spiegeln – arbeitet er ab etwa 190232 an dem Transfer seiner Texträume in Illustrationen. Seine Zeichenwelten bestehen vor allem aus grotesken Wesen und Ornamenten; wie stark er seine Arbeit von der Konzeption her denkt, zeigt u.a. der Briefwechsel mit Alfred Kubin, in dem

|| 31 Z.B.: „Die moderne Goldschmiedekunst“, in: Das Atelier 1, 1890/91, Nr. 7, 5–7; „Die Gartenbaukunst, ihre Geschichte und ihre Stellung zu den anderen Künsten“, in: Das Atelier 1, 1890/91; „Eine neue Technik in der Glasmalerei“, in: Das Atelier 2, 1891/92; „Das Kunstgewerbe in der Berliner Kunstausstellung“, in: Amsler und Rudthardts Wochenberichte 3, 1894, Nr. 2, 19, Nr. 3, 27–28, Nr. 4, 35–36, Nr. 5, 48; „Die heraldische Ausstellung im Berliner Kunstgewerbemuseum“, in: Amsler und Rudthardts Wochenberichte 3, 1894, Nr. 9, 82. Über sein Ankommen in der Moderne äußert Paul Scheerbart in einem Brief an Franz Brümmer, der ihn um eine Biographie bat: „Daher gab sich S. im Jahre 1884 ganz und gar seinen litterarischen Arbeiten hin, führte in Leipzig, Halle, München, Wien u.a. Städten Deutschlands ein unstätes Leben und nahm Alles, was zu dem Worte ‚Kunst‘ Beziehungen gab, gierig in sich auf […]“, Brief Scheerbart, Paul an Brümmer, Franz, 3.12.1895, in: Mechthild Rausch (Hrsg.), 70 Trillionen Weltgrüße. Paul Scheerbart. Eine Biographie in Briefen. 1889–1915, Berlin 1990, 26–27. 32 Vgl. zum Zeitraum von Scheerbarts zeichnerischen Betätigung Wendermann, Gerda, „Jenseitskarrikaturen: ‚Paul Scheerbart als Zeichner‘“, in: Ulrich Luckhardt (Hrsg.), WortBild Künstler. Von Goethe bis Ringelnatz. Und Herta Müller, Ostfildern 2013, 224–233.

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er sich über seine Herangehensweise im Entwurf von Werken (es geht offenbar sowohl um Bild und Text) austauscht: „Allerdings – ich muß gestehen, daß ich dem Reinkonstruktiven mehr Raum gönne – das liegt wohl daran, daß ich eigentlich ‚nur‘ Zeichner sein will, während Sie mehr Maler sind – daher die Farbe, von der ich nur noch sehr wenig habe; ich glaube, ich werde niemals wieder Farben verwenden – wol [sic] aber möchte ich rasend gern Bildhauer werden. Vielleicht hängt damit zusammen, daß ich gradezu eine Sucht nach Deutlichkeit habe; wenn mich etwas in Ihrem Brief störte, so wars nur Ihr gelegentliches Befürworten der Undeutlichkeit.“33

Die Illustrationen sind also, folgt man Scheerbarts Notiz über seine Vorliebe für die raumschaffende Kunst der Bildhauerei, Mittel zum Zweck, auch wenn Scheerbart zeitweise angibt, das Zeichnen dem Schreiben vorzuziehen. Der Briefwechsel mit Alfred Kubin, der über die Entstehungsjahre von Lésabendio von 1906 bis zum Erscheinen mit den Illustrationen Alfred Kubins 1913 reicht, umfasst auch die künstlerische Krise Kubins, in der dieser den Roman Die andere Seite schreibt, der 1909 erscheint. Scheerbart steht mit der Bildsprache und den Motiven seines zeichnerischen Werkes nicht allein, neben Alfred Kubin ist z.B. Ilna Ewers-Wunderwald eine Künstlerin, deren Werk Scheerbart sicherlich vertraut war. In den Briefen an Alfred Kubin geht es ihm u.a. um die Ausdifferenzierung der unterschiedlichen künstlerischen Positionen, so grenzt er sich von der als „Traumlinie“ bezeichneten „Methode“ Kubins ab: „Bei mir ist das Wichtigste ‚das Kalt-Konstruierende‘. Dieses nachher zu beseelen, ist natürlich selbstverständliche Schlußarbeit.“34 Die Differenzen zeigen sich insbesondere in Scheerbarts Reaktion auf Kubins Entwürfe für Lésabendio, die er wegen ihrer Interpretation auf den Menschen hin kritisiert: „Sei so lieb und vermeide die Vermenschlichung.“35 Während Scheerbart in seinen Romanen über die Dekoration und kohärente Beschreibung der Räume eine Bildhaftigkeit entwickelt,36 die den Fokus auf die || 33 Brief von Scheerbart, Paul an Kubin, Alfred, 6.9.1906, in: 70 Trillionen Weltgrüße, 318–319, 318f. 34 Brief von Scheerbart, Paul an Kubin, Alfred, 23.9.1906, in: 70 Trillionen Weltgrüße, 322324, 322. 35 Brief von Scheerbart, Paul an Kubin, Alfred, 6.9.1912, in: 70 Trillionen Weltgrüße, 442–443, 443. 36 So konkret z.T. die Beschreibungen der Orte und Räume sind, in denen sich Scheerbarts Protagonisten bewegen, z.B. in der achteckigen Flasche: „Die einzelnen Räume sind im Innern der Flasche ganz und gar von oben bis unten gepolstert – köstliche bunte seidene Weberein mit unglaublichen Fabeltieren und Märchenblumen! Auch die Küche, die Provianträume und die Badestuben sind von oben bis unten gepolstert. Die Räume haben alle möglichen Formen,

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Fiktionalität der Inhalte legt, sind es in seinen Zeichnungen vielmehr die Ornamente, mit denen er die Konstruiertheit der Inhalte verdeutlicht. Scheerbart verbindet also bewusst unterschiedliche mediale Strategien miteinander, um so die Dichte seiner Konstruktion zu intensivieren. Seine Zeichnungen sind so gesehen Weiterschreibungen der emphatischen Moderne und Verdichtungen im Projekt Absolute Prosa. Schließlich wendet sich Scheerbart noch während der zeichnerischen Arbeit und der Arbeit an Lésabendio einem weiteren Projekt zu: dem Perpetuum mobile.

Über die Konstruktion eines Perpetuum mobile Der 1910 erschienene und parallel zum Lésabendio entstandene Text Das Perpetuum mobile. Die Geschichte einer Erfindung von Paul Scheerbart ergänzt die Beispiele um einen weiteren utopischen Text, allerdings mit Bezug auf die Naturwissenschaften: Der Ich-Erzähler und Protagonist versucht sich an der Konstruktion eines Perpetuum mobile. Mit überschaubaren 44 Seiten und einem Faltblatt, das die verschiedenen Modelle abbildet und dem Band beigelegt ist, nimmt sich das Werk eher bescheiden aus im Spektrum des Scheerbartschen Oeuvres. Auch sind die Zeichnungen rein technischer Art, sie sind nicht grotesk, der Text spielt nicht in der Zukunft oder im Weltraum. Das Ziel ist, ein Perpetuum mobile aus der Kraft der Erdanziehung herzustellen. In den Bericht sind Auszüge aus dem Tagebuch des homodiegetischen Erzählers eingespeist. Susana Oliveira liest den Text als Reflexion über das kreative Potential des Scheiterns: „Indeed, in The Perpetual Motion Machine, Scheerbart used failure as a means to revelation as a device for infinite creativity.“37 Auch hier wird mit der autopoetischen Reflexion ein Zwischenraum eröffnet, der mit der Vielzahl an Interpretationssignalen: biographisch, technisch, phantastisch, humoresk etc. das Aushandeln einer dominanten Perspektive vermeidet. Auf die Aktualität dieser Offenheit im Medium Text verweisen nicht zuletzt eine Vielzahl an youtube-clips, in denen versucht wird, Scheerbarts Perpetuum nachzubauen.

|| doch die Röhrenform herrscht vor. Elektrisches Licht leuchtet weiß und bunt – wie mans gerade haben will.“ Scheerbart, Na prost, 11f. 37 Oliveira, Susana, „Paul Scheerbart’s Kaleidoscopic Fantasies“, in: Brumal. Research Journal on the Fantastic, Vol. V, Herbst 2017, Nr. 2, 11–26, 4.

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Schluss „Paul Scheerbart […]. Er ist, obwohl er von Anfang an mitten in der modernen Bewegung stand, doch nie von ihr beeinflußt worden, sondern ist stets seinen eigenen scharf umgrenzten Weg gegangen, ohne nach rechts und nach links zu blicken.“,38 stellt Hanns Heinz Ewers 1921 fest. Mittels der Verfahrensanalyse ließ sich zeigen, wie Scheerbart über einzelne, konzeptionelle Ideen zu seinen komplexen, vor allem von Bildern getragenen Texten kommt und wo er hierzu Anleihen aus dem Genre der Utopie nimmt – vom Paradies über das Weltall, das Bild des Orients etc. Er verwendet dabei die Verfahren der Absoluten Prosa und sucht im Trend der emphatischen Moderne nach Verdichtungen, indem er die medialen Ebenen verbindet. Korrespondierend zu der Konstruktion eines Zwischenraums zwischen Text- und Darstellungsebene arbeiten die Texte an Möglichkeiten medialer Überschreitung und damit an dem Prozess einer Verschiebung der Deutungshoheit der Literatur in der frühen Moderne. Das Potential, das die Texte mit ihren Ansätzen aus der Kunstgewerbebewegung entwickeln, ließ sich über die Integration einer kultursoziologischen Perspektive zeigen. Anknüpfend an die historische Kontextualisierung bleibt zu fragen, was der Text kann. Moritz Baßler hat auf das Versagen der historischen Avantgarde in ihrem Ansinnen der Erzeugung von Realität hingewiesen. Die Texte können das, was sie für sich einfordern, nicht einlösen, sie bleiben unter sich. Gleichwohl zeigt exemplarisch die Rezeption z.B. von Scheerbarts „Glasarchitektur“ über Bruno Tauts „Glashaus“ auf der Kölner Werkbundausstellung, das bis in die Gegenwart international in Ausstellungen, Publikationen und künstlerischen Adaptionen als Denkbild für Utopie rezipiert wird, dass das Nachdenken über das Potential von Künsten im Kontext der Avantgarden noch nicht abgeschlossen ist. Dieses ‚Dennoch’, mit dem z.B. in Nordrhein-Westfalen das Bauhaus als Referenzebene für Modernität 1919ff. untersucht wurde, funktioniert über die Kritik der historischen Epochensetzungen. Die Erforschung der Geschichte der Avantgarden wäre dementsprechend nur ein Aspekt der Fragestellung, die über den Gestaltungsimpuls, der sich aus dem historischen und soziokulturellen Umfeld der Künstler*innen ergibt, mit dem prozessualen Potential an Input in die Primärwirklichkeit ergänzt wird. Das hat den Nachteil, dass wir es z.B. wieder mit den Autor*innen der Texte zu tun bekommen. Ein Vorteil ist,

|| 38 Ewers, Hanns-Heinz, „Paul Scheerbart“, in: Führer durch die moderne Literatur. Würdigung der hervorragendsten Schriftsteller unserer Zeit. Neue, vollständig durchgearbeitete Ausgabe mit zahlreichen Portraits in Photographiedruck, Berlin 1921, 142–143, 142.

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dass das Verhältnis oder auch die Relevanz der Geisteswissenschaften gestärkt wird, weil der Impact auf die Primärwirklichkeit aktualisiert werden kann. Das Absolute Kunstwerk bliebe dann also nicht auf ein Medium begrenzt, sondern wird erst dann zum Perpetuum mobile, wenn es innerhalb verschiedener kulturund literaturtheoretischer Ansätze untersucht wird. Über die Bedeutung des semantischen Felds von Moderne auch in den Lesarten von Avantgarde, Realismus und Phantastik findet darüber hinaus eine Rückversicherung des Fragerasters statt: So erweist sich das Phantastische als einerseits kultursoziologisch relevantes Stichwort für einzelne Publikationen Scheerbarts und andererseits als wissenschaftstheoretische Reflexion. Das Verständnis von Realismus im Sinne der Verfahrensgeschichte formuliert ein Basisverständnis moderner Texte, mit dem z.B. die Untersuchung von phantastischen Motiven bei Scheerbart einem anderen Erkenntnisanspruch zugeordnet werden muss. Die Zuordnung zur Avantgarde wiederum fordert den transmethodischen Blick.

Jobst Welge

Mário de Andrade: Modernism, Realism, and New Stories The call for realism in art is less often directly representational (as the wellknown metaphors of Stendhal’s mirror and Zola’s glass house would appear to suggest), but rather agonistic, in the sense that the demand for realism is set in opposition to current understandings of reality. As Wolfgang Preisendanz has argued, since the nineteenth century “the aspiration to write in a realistic manner is always relational and therefore always directed to a literary counterposition, which is said to have missed the true reality”.1 Of course, this oppositional, binary relation also shapes the confrontation between modernism and realism and its temporal reiterations. For this reason, Fredric Jameson, in his book The Antinomies of Realism (2014), suggests a dialectical approach to the phenomenon of literary realism, according to which the emergence of realist effects is understood as a constant renewal with regard to what was previously established as realist convention. Literary realism, Jameson argues, should be thought of as an emergence, as a compromise formation between different impulses: What we call realism will thus come into being in the symbiosis of [a] pure form of storytelling with impulses of scenic elaboration, description and above all affective investment, which allow it to develop towards a scenic present which in reality, but secretly, abhors the other temporalities which constitute the force of the tale or récit in the first place.2

If Jameson understands realism from a temporal perspective as the encounter between “destiny” and scenes of the “pure present”, while locating its historical origin in the oral tale and the classic novella, he also acknowledges that critical discussions of narrative realism have almost exclusively focused on the genre of the novel. Taking my cue, then, from Jameson’s dialectical definition of realism, I want to focus here on the genre of the short story. The modernist short story – not considered by Jameson – seems indeed particularly apt for the condensation of the “pure present” that Jameson speaks of.

|| 1 Preisendanz, Wolfgang, “Das Problem der Realität in der Dichtung”, in: id., Wege des Realismus, München 1977, 217–228. The original reads: “[…] der Anspruch realistisch zu schreiben, ist immer bezogen auf eine dichterische Gegenposition, die die eigentliche, die wahre Wirklichkeit verfehlt habe” (218). All translations, unless otherwise noted, are my own. 2 Jameson, Fredric, The Antinomies of Realism, London 2013, 11. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-003

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Furthermore, by focusing on the work of Mário de Andrade (1893–1945), one of the most iconic figures of the avant-garde and “heroic” modernism in Brazil, we will also have to account for how his short fiction of the 1930s might be continuous with, but also different from European models. In the following, I will first address a less well-known moment in Andrade’s literary career, in which he begins to criticize the program of avant-gardistic modernism (which he himself spearheaded during the early 1920s, in the wake of the legendary Week of Modern Art) for its supposed disregard of the Real. In a second step, I will briefly analyze some examples from his post-1920s work in the genre of short fiction, which may be understood as promoting a sort of “modernist realism”. This, we will see, is a compromise solution: it is tied to a world in crisis that abandons the idea of referential, mimetic realism in favor of the interior, psychological refractions of reality (in the spirit of modernism), yet it also stages a “return” to realism by focusing on the intersection between individuality and social reality.3

Mário de Andrade and the Retraction from Modernismo Toward the end of the 1920s, Mário de Andrade adopted a view according to which the avantgardism of the 1920s, known in Brazil under the name of modernismo and programmatically celebrated in the 1922 Week of Modern Art (“Semana de Arte Moderna”), allegedly sought to compensate a national inferiority complex and thereby distanced itself imaginatively from the concrete, social realities of the country. During the 1930s, with the beginning of the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas and the establishment of the so-called Estado Novo, Mário de Andrade asserted that the modernist prognostications had revealed themselves as illusionary and false.4 In a lecture from 1938 (“The artist and the artisan”)5 he criticizes aestheticist formalism and artistic individualism’s distance from social functions and calls for the recuperation of the collective di-

|| 3 Schøllhammer, Karl Erik, “Realismo afetivo: evocar realismo além da reprsentação,” in: estudos de literatura brasileira contemporânea, 39, 2012, 129–148, 131–132. 4 Rabello, Ivone Daré, “Novos tempos”, Afterword in: Mário de Andrade, Contos Novos. Rio de Janeiro 2011, 145–164, 149. In the following abbreviated and referenced as CN. 5 Mário de Andrade, “O artista e o artesão”, in: O baile das quatro artes, São Paolo 1963 (1943), 31.

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mension of art. His enormous cultural activity, comprising the most diverse literary genres, but also extensive studies in music and folklore, can be understood as the intellectual’s attempt to diminish his distance from the people and to integrate the various artistic tendencies of Brazil with the idea of a national collective.6 During the years 1934–1936 Andrade worked in the Department of Culture in São Paolo and undertook various concrete efforts for the democratization of Brazilian culture.7 Moreover, late in his career, in his retrospective assessment during the 1940s, he condemned the earlier avant-garde aesthetics in tones that are reminiscent of the near-contemporary position of Georg Lukács: O distanciamento entre a arte contemporânea e as massas populares atingiu tal e tão abstruso exaspero que é muito difícil estabelecer que função artística podem exercer as criações exacerbadamente ‘hedonísticas’ de um Léger na pintura, de um Schoenberg na música, como de um Joyce na literatura.8

This retraction from positions of the classical avant-garde might be put in the context of a transatlantic tendency in the arts to move toward a “return to order” during the 1930s.9 In fact, already three months after the iconic Week of Modern Art in 1922 Andrade had published a manifesto in the journal Klaxon, in which he played out the notion of “construction” against “destruction”.10 Likewise, in a late text on the composer Shostakovich he praises the “return to traditional constructive principles” and the concomitant “refusal of individualist aestheticism” in musical composition.11 The indictment of the latter implicitly condemns “the individualism of free verse” that Andrade had practiced and vigorously defended during the early 1920s, notably in his most important programmatic text, the “Prefácio interessantíssimo”, the preface to his avant|| 6 Fragelli, Pedro, “Engajamento e sacrifício. O pensamento estético de Mário de Andrade”, in: Rev. Inst. Estud. Bras., São Paolo, 57, 2013, 83–110, 86. 7 Jardim, Eduardo, Eu sou trezentos. Mário de Andrade. Vida e obra, Rio de Janeiro 2015, 145– 146. 8 “The distance between contemporary art and the popular masses reached such an exasperated state that it is very difficult to establish which are the artistic functions that might be exercised by the exacerbated ‘hedonistic’ creations of a [Fernand] Léger in painting, of a Schoenberg in music, and of a Joyce in literature.” Andrade, Mário de, “Distanciamentos e aproximações” (1942), in: Mário de Andrade, Música, doce música, Belo Horizonte 2006, 351– 355. 9 Clair, Jean, “Les réalismes entre révolution et réaction,” in: Jean Clair, Malinconia. Motifs saturniens dans l'art de l'entre-deux-guerres, Paris 1996, 41–57. 10 Jardim, Eu sou trezentos, 156. 11 Andrade, “Distanciamentos e aproximações”, 353.

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gardist poetry collection Pauliceia desvairada (1922, translated as Hallucinated City), which already testifies to his interest to interrogate the metropolis of São Paolo as a site of dramatic modernization.12 In his critical writings on the painter Lasar Segall (1889–1957) he also sought to exorcize all sense of the “hedonistic” and “aesthetic” in modern painting, allowing only for the emphatically Brazilian corporeal realism of Candido Portinari (1903–1962).13 In many of these art-critical interventions, then, Andrade favored such a “return to order”, or an an ambivalent national, “critical” modernism, in order to counter radically cosmopolitan tendencies with the concept of an art that explicitly took on Brazilian, national matters.14 After the moment of avant-gardist rupture and the heroic phase of experimentalist modernism, art was supposed to move in the direction of regeneration. Since the early 1930s, Andrade’s cultural agenda was at least partly influenced by Marxism and he explicitly strove to insert something like a “proletarian” sensibility into literature and to reconcile in modernist art the intellectual artist figure with the masses; his revisionary essay “The Modernist Movement” (1942) ended with the appeal “to march with the multitudes” (“Marchem com as multidões”).15 His earlier enthusiasm for the European avant-garde ceded to a critique of what he now saw as the egoistic subjectivity of abstract art. Andrade agonized over what he now deemed his prior “aristocratic attitude” and the “antiquated absence of reality among many of us.”16 Andrade’s art criticism has been exhaustively studied by Tadeu Chiarelli, who has concluded that “his conception of art was based on ethical values, in a compromise with the collective – an almost religious conception of art.”17 As Andrade, also heavily influenced by Catholicism, put it in a letter to the critic Sérgio Millet: “No art for

|| 12 Mário de Andrade, “Prefácio interessantíssimo”, in: Poesias completas, vol. 1 (2 vols.), Rio de Janeiro 2013, 59–76, 73. 13 Andrade, Mário de, “Lasar Segall” (1943), in: Aspectos das artes plásticas no Brasil. Belo Horizonte 1984, 61. Cf. Chiarelli, Tadeu, Pintura não é só beleza. A crítica de arte de Mário de Andrade, São Paolo 2007, 113; Jardim, Eu sou trezentos, 192–196; Ramos Flores, Maria B., “Estética e modernidade: sobre a imagem do Brasil modern”, in: Daniel Aarão Reis/Denis Rolland (eds.), Modernidades alternativas, Rio de Janeiro 2006, 191–206, 195–196. 14 For this concept, see Gabara, Esther, Errant Modernism. The Ethos of Photography in Mexico and Brazil, Durham 2008, 31. 15 Andrade, Mário de, “O movimento modernista” (1942), in: Aspectos da Literatura Brasileira, São Paolo 1974, 231–255. 16 Cf. Fragelli, “Engajamento”, 110. 17 The original reads: “sua concepção de arte era baseada em valores éticos, em compromissos com o coletivo—um conceito quase religioso da arte” (Chiarelli, Pintura não é só beleza, 57).

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art’s sake. In the primitive periods art is always interested and religious in a general sense.”18

New Stories: Interiority and Social Realism Now, how exactly does this compromise with the collective and the ethical commitment of the intellectual play itself out in Andrade’s work during and after the 1930s? How does Andrade himself move in the direction of a social function of literature and realist techniques of representation? How can the short story – Andrade’s privileged medium of narrative prose – be analyzed in terms of a specifically modernist realism? A significant turn into this direction is marked by the anthology of short stories collected under the title of Contos de Belazarte (Tales of Belazarte, first published in 1934), in which the urban protagonists are all socially marginalized, often migrational subjects, disinherited products, as it were, of the dramatic socio-economic changes in the São Paolo of the early twentieth century, and residing in the then suburban areas of Lapa and Brás. Brás was known above all for its Italian immigrant population, and Andrade had been influenced by the modernist writer Antônio de Alcântara Machado (1901–1935) and his short narratives of popular, immigrant life in the area of Brás (Brás, Bexiga e Barra Funda, 1927). The origin of Andrade’s collection goes back to the Crônicas de Malazarte (“Chronicles of Malazarte”) as originally published in the journal América Brasileira between 1923 and 1924, for which Andrade created the chararacter of Belazarte, as someone who habitually takes pity on the poor and other socially marginal people. Every single story begins with the phrase “Belazarte told me…” (“Belazarte me contou…”), thus mimicking a scenario of popular, oral literature.19 In fact, Mário de Andrade’s lifelong efforts to renew the Brazilian literary language relied on this incorporation of oral modes of speech, and the specific conjunction of the gesture of orality and modernism is most consistently explored in the genre of the short story, where Andrade is most visibly engaged in broadening the boundaries of literary language.20 In an apocryphal, revisionary preface to this collection (“Prefácio inédito de Belazarte de 1930”) || 18 The original reads: “Nada de arte pela arte. (…). A arte nos períodos primitivos é sempre arte interessada, religiosa num sentido geral” (Chiarelli, Pintura, 176). 19 Andrade, Mário de, Os Contos de Belazarte, Rio de Janeiro 2008. 20 Lokensgard, Mark, “Inventing the Modern Brazilian Short Story: Mário de Andrade's Literary Lobbying”, in: Luso-Brazilian Review 42, 2005, 1, 136–153.

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Andrade elaborates on how this turning point came about as a consequence of what he perceived as the “failure” of his novel Macunaíma (1928), until this day the mostly widely known and translated of his works: Depois que escrevi o poema héroi-cômico de Macunaíma e o li, meu desespero foi enorme ante a obra-prima que falhou. […] A pesar de toda a minha honestidade não servi para enriquecer ninguém. […] Si esteticamente Macunaíma foi bem o ponto-de-chegada da minha experiência brasileirista, espiritualmente era para mim um beco sem saída. Si não é possível em mim siquer uma esperança de mudar meu pessimismo neste pais desgraçado em que cada mocidade é um monturo nojento de fraquezas, ignorâncias, complacências e ambições paupérrimas, é por vías mais humanas que terei de cantar a elegia do caráter moribundo e a imundície de tudo quanto somos. Belazarte é um bom começo. Tem piedade de seres reais, que [eu] não tenho. […]. Mas por ele começam de novo em mim vivendo os seres reais.21

To engage social reality in literature meant for Andrade to delve into the social and paternalistic pressures exercised over individual, interior psychologies, and thus to revise his earlier, hugely optimistic and exuberant vision of Brazilian modernity. Since the form of the short story has no recourse to long, detailed descriptions, its realist dimension cannot (merely) be gauged with criteria attuned to the genre of the novel, for instance via categories such as realist “fillers” or non-signifying reality effects. More helpful in this regard are recent attempts to theorize an “affective realism”, according to which the readerly emergence in a narrative produces effects of identification and presentification. Again, the strictly “episodic” quality of the short story immunizes the narrative against reified plots and destinies, which are a greater “danger” in the novel.22 This dialectical understanding of social realities and individual psychologies, in the form of what we might also call a critical realism, is masterfully and densely handled in the posthumously published New Stories (Contos Novos, 1947), a collection of nine short stories which Mário de Andrade variously and continuously rewrote during the 1930s. These stories, it has been pointed out,

|| 21 “After I had written the heroic-comic poem Macunaima and read it, my despair was great in front of the master-work that failed. If aesthetically Macunaima was the logical endpoint of my Brasilianizing experience, spiritually it was a dead end for me. If it is not even possible for me to change my pessimism in this disgraced country, in which every youth is a disgusting dunghill of weakness, ignorance, complacency and very low ambitions, it is by way of more humane ways that I will have to sing the elegy of the moribund character and the filthiness of everything we are. Belazarte is a good beginning. He shows pity for real human beings, which is what I do not have. […] It is because of him that real beings begin to live in me again.” Andrade, Os Contos de Belazarte, 146. 22 Jameson, Antinomies of Realism, 143.

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address “new times” characterized by both progress and retrograde power structures, in which individual subjects experience failure and disillusion, and where the exterior reality becomes visible in states of subjective interiority.23 While some of these narratives relate domestic scenes from a first-person perspective, others, written in the third person, focus on public scenes in the streets of São Paulo. For instance, the second story of the collection, “Thief” (“Ladrão”) is taking place in an urban working-class district where various members of the community are pursuing a thief, who might in fact be wholly imaginary. As in Alcântara Machado’s sketches of suburban life, Andrade’s narrator uses a third-person narrator for social observation and “documentation”, but this is a narrator who delves, ever so briefly, into the psychology of these anonymous characters.24 These brief moments of presentification use radically abbreviated versions of indirect free discourse and provide a brief glimpse of collective solidarity and joy, even as these nameless characters are defined by the alienating, “mechanical” circumstances of industrial work. The narrative is choric in its exterior portrayal of social interaction, and the affective and bodily states of the people are made present as individualized and highly fragmented scenes. The multiplied perspectivism contradicts the ordering capacity of the third-person narrator.25 Of special interest for Andrade’s view of the popular masses is the story “First of May” (“Primeiro de Maio”, reworked over a long period: 1934–1942), the title referring of course to the date of the international (and, since 1925, national) worker’s day. As many of the stories, it is a plot of disillusion, the disillusion giving expression to the confrontation with the Real. In this case it is the experience of a worker, a man carrying suitcases at the train station, and who is designated not by name, but by the number 35. He is determined to enter the streets of São Paolo to celebrate worker’s day, but instead of participating in a festive crowd, he finds the streets of the city almost deserted, occupied by police forces. The celebration, instead, takes place in the Palace of Industries, presided over by official representatives of the government. This experience condenses an actual historical process, namely the fact that a very vital workers’ movement in Rio de Janeiro and São Paolo was coopted by the state’s formation of a corporatist syndicate, leading to a dramatic decline of numbers of demonstrating workers. Beginning with the great strikes of 1917 and

|| 23 Rabello, “Novos tempos”, 150. 24 Lokensgard, “Inventing the Modern Brazilian Short Story”, 143. 25 For further observations on the modeling of the narrator, see Daré Rabello, Ivone, A Caminho do Encontro. Uma Leitura de Contos Novos, São Paolo 1999, 61–62.

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1919, until the beginning of the government of Vargas (1930–1945), proletarian agglomerations in public spaces, first instigated by anarchism, later by communism, were a common sight.26 The story is emblematically focused on this single day and begins: “on the great day of the First of May” (“no grande dia Primeiro de Maio”) – and thus emphasizes the dimension of the social collective. The story is told by a heterodiegetic narrator, yet Andrade makes use of a brilliantly nuanced indirect free discourse, thus creating a characteristic intermediate zone between affective, subjective immediacy and distancing perspective, which evidently culminates in the fact that the worker is referred to as “Number 35”. Significantly, the conceptual arena of political discourse is overwhelmed by the worker’s bodily and affective experience, which, precisely through its overruling of conceptual thought, leads to the emergence of the effect of realism: Uma piedade, um beijo lhe saía do corpo todo, feito proteção sadia de macho, ia parar em terras não sabidas, mas era a gente dele, defender, combater, vencer … Comunismo? ... Sim, talvez fosse isso. Mas o 35 não sabia bem direito, ficava atordoado com as notícias, os jornais falavam tanta coisa, faziam tamanha mistura de Rússia, só sublime ou só horrenda (CN, 38).27

Here, as elsewhere in his narrative fiction, Mário de Andrade reproduces a markedly oral discourse. At the same time, the narrator emphasizes to what extent the “proletarian” consciousness is conditioned by the discourse of newspapers. The short story thereby foregrounds, through the evaluation of the omniscient narrator, that class consciousness is an effect of ideology as represented through media: “Com seus vinte anos fáceis, o 35 sabia, mais da literatura dos jornais que de experiência, que o proletariado era uma classe oprimida” (CN, 38) [“With his facile twenty years, number 35 knew, more through the literature of the newspapers than through experience, that the proletariat was an oppressed class”]. This potential gap between individual consciousness and the claims of a collective subject may be seen as representative for the general tension in Mário de Andrade’s work between individual artistic freedom and the social responsibility of art. The use of free indirect discourse shuttles back and || 26 Fragelli, “Engajamento”, 98; Foot Hardman, Francisco, Nem pátria, nem patrão! Memória operária, cultura e literatura no Brasil, São Paolo 2002, 173. 27 “A sentiment of piety, a kiss welled up from his entire body, made wholesome protection of the male, he will end up in unknown lands, yet it was his people, to defend, to fight, to win … Communism? ... Well, maybe that was it. Yet number 35 didn't really know, he remained dazed by the news, the papers talked about so many things, they made a big mess regarding Russia, either merely sublime or merely horrendous.”

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forth between the narrator’s repeated designation of the story’s subject as “number 35” and the unmarked introduction of various modes of speech, interior thoughts, oral language and vernacular malapropisms. The self-consciousness of the worker appears to be as much patriotic as it is proletarian, since his festive outfit dresses him in the colours of the national flag: “the luxurious black clothes, a wrong knot in the green tie with white stripes…, the green of the tie, the yellow of the shoes, the flag, the times of the school group…and number 35 was moved by a strong sense of exhaustion, loving well his immense Brazil, this immense, gigan-antic colossus” [“a roupa preta de luxo, um nó errado na gravata, o amarelo dos sapatos, bandeira, tempos de grupo escolar…e o 35 se comoveu num hausto forte, querendo bem o seu imenso Brasil, imenso colosso gigan-ante,…”; CN, 38]. The narrative’s move into interior focalization is also accompanied by a gradual move into the “now” of chronological clock time, which is not only typical for the modernist privileging of the time of the present, but also (following Jameson) for the mode of emergence that characterizes realism.28 In recording the ritualistic nationalism of the school days, the worker’s enthusiasm is almost portrayed in an ironic light, yet the scene highlights precisely the interior feelings and reactions of the character. The narrative turns around the contradiction between thought and action, insofar as it takes a single character out of the anonymous multitude, thus making visible a particular manifestation of subjectivity, which becomes visible as reacting to the exterior, objective socio-economic pressures of Brazilian modernity. Specifically, in this context, it is the political suppression of the workers’ right to manifest publicly in the street, by way of the “Law of National Security” (“Lei de Segurança Nacional”), as established in 1935. The worker-subject experiences an unconscious impulse: while he thinks he ought to go to a manifestation, his feet carry him dutifully, almost automatically, to the place of work (he works as a carrier of suitcases): “[…] so suddenly he stopped and, frightened, sought to find his sense of orientation. This way was not the right way, that was the right way to work” [“(…) mas parou de sopetão e se orientou assustado. O caminho não era aquele, aquele era o caminho do trabalho;” CN, 38]. The worker’s ambivalent stance toward whether he should participate in the officially sanctioned assembly in the Palace of Industries, or whether he shoud join those who want to set the building on fire, gives rise not only to expressions of fear and rage when confronted with the police forces in the streets, but also to an affective utterance of sacrifice of which he is only half aware: “Number 35 hardly perceived that he || 28 Kern, Stephen, The Modernist Novel. A Critical Introduction, Cambridge 2011, 201–204.

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was moved inside by a generous spirit of sacrifice. Once again, he felt himself overwhelmed by pity, he would die laughing, to die” [“O 35 mal percebeu que se regava todo por ‘drento’ dum espírito generoso de sacrifício. Estava outra vez enormemente piedoso, morreria sorrindo, morrer” (CN, 41)]. The repeated use of the misappropriated word “drento”, instead of the correct form “dentro” (“inside”, “in his inner thoughts”)29 is a very effective way to expose the worker’s “enormous solitude” (“solidão enorme”, CN, 43) and feelings of emptiness (CN, 446), his frustration over the missing multitude: “He felt pity, love, fraternity, and he was alone” [“Tinha piedade, tinha amor, tinha fraternidade, e era só”; CN, 45]. The single word “drento” emblematizes, as it were, the author’s attempt to show the inside of social reality. Furthermore, in the present case the emphasis on internalization points to a historical shift from a broad, publicly visible workers’ movement to a scene of virtually empty streets through which the protagonist is accompanied by the observing narrator.30 Towards the end of the story, the humiliation of number 35 gives way to his sudden, voluptuous desire for food as well as his return to his working colleagues at the train station Luz (“Estação da Luz”). Here, he gives a helping hand to an elderly colleague, number 22, “with a satisfying effort of his muscles” [“num esforço satisfeito de músculos”; CN, 47]. At the very end, he gives number 22 a clap on the back, in a gesture of bodily solidarity, yet not leading, as some critics have lamented, to any sign of “real” class consciousness. This representation of a worker’s ambivalent affective position, then, is a good example for Mário de Andrade’s general program to capture elements of his country’s social reality that do not conform to the universalizing paradigm of the bourgeoisie and which show the newly invigorated forces of authoritative power. “First of May” is part of a number of short stories in Contos Novos where the protagonist is described through the third person singular and where, similar to the homodiegetic figure of Belazarte, a narrator stands for the quasiethnographic practice (and Andrade’s authorial desire) to depict the minds of socially marginal subjects through a play of identification and irony. The story involves a moment of demystification, namely when the worker begins to understand the “masquerade of socialism” (“mascerada de socialism”, CN, 45) and thus discovers a reality previously obscured by illusions. The debunking of romance is, of course, a typical procedure of realism.

|| 29 As Lokensgard, “Inventing the Modern Brazilian Shot Story”, points out (146–147) subsequent editors have “corrected” this form. 30 On this historical shift, see also Foot Hardman, Nem pátria, nem patrão!, 169–170.

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The ideals and desires of the characters are put in contrast with the internalized laws and normative mandates of social and patriarchal society. Despite the differences in style and subject matter of the individual stories, Contos Novos is conceived as a consistent story sequence circling aroud this idea of the introjection of objective social forces into individual psyches with their often diverging identities and desires. In fact, the opening story (“Dressed in Black” / “Vestida de Preto”) of the collection introduces a quasi-autobiographical alias, Juca, who will reappear in some of the stories. The first sentence of the story (and the book) sets a certain confessional tone: “Many go now around being occupied with defining the short story that I do not know well whether what I am going to tell is or isn’t a short story; I know it is the truth” [“Tanto andam agora preocupados em definir o conto que não sei bem se o que vou contar é conto ou não, sei que é verdade” (CN, 15)]. This programmatic declaration is at once a declaration of subjective truth and a meta-narrative move, insofar as the apparent opposition between autobiographical directness and the question of literary genre is ironized by a later remark of the first-person narrator, in which he likened his own learning of the English language with the author’s learning of German: “Mário de Andrade narrates in one of his books that he studied German because of a grey foreigner….I did so as well”. [“Mário de Andrade conta num dos seus livros que estudou o alemão por causa duma emboaba tordilha…eu também” (CN, 21).] In other words: the I of the internal narrator is to be distinguished from the author (of which he is, in Pirandello-fashion, aware), thereby ironically emphasizing his own authentic existence. Therefore, the paradoxical narrative positioning of the conto can be seen as representative for the author’s efforts to reconcile in this specific literary genre its origin in oral performance and the modernist tendency to elaborate it into the artistic form for the representation of interior, psychic states.31 Let me briefly develop this idea with some further examples. The short story “The Well” (“O poço”) is similarly concerned with labor and social power, yet is now taking place in the rural countryside of the state of São Paolo. Here we have a number of workers dependent on the volatile whims of their patron, the fazendeiro Joaquim Prestes. The story is focussed on a single episode, the construction of a well under severe climatic conditions. When the patron’s ball pen falls into the well, one of the workers volunteers to climb down to the bottom of the well and bring it up. Here, the omniscient narrator presents to the reader

|| 31 See the classic essay by Benjamin, Walter, “The Storyteller”, trans. Harry Zohn, in: Michael McKeon (ed.), Theory of the Novel. A Historical Approach, Baltimore, London 2000, 77–93, 79– 80.

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the internal conflicts of Joaquim Prestes and José, brother of the self-sacrificing Albino, thereby showing also the fractures within the figure of authority itself which otherwise seeks to uphold its traditional façade.32 Another example I’d like to single out is the remarkable story “Behind the Cathedral of Ruão” (“Atrás da catedral de Ruão”), which centers on a woman, the Mademoiselle of French descent, who is caught between internalized morals of sexuality and the repressed manifestations of her unconscious bodily desires. Mademoiselle uses the interspersed words of the French language in such a way that seemingly normal expressions give voice to a hidden sexual subtext, thus alluding to a potential life that she, as Mademoiselle, did not have. The ironically employed French language evidently presupposes an educated reader, and French was of course the foreign language of the educated classes at this time in Brazil. Yet, as we have seen, other stories, such as “First of May”, privilege the popular register of language. Therefore, New Stories may be seen as representative for Andrade’s general program to open the boundaries between languages, thereby implicitly constructing an ideal “Brazilian” reader who would at least in part be able to enter into these various linguistic layers.33 As mentioned above, a series of interconnected stories is anchored in the first-person memories of a character named Juca, who remembers the sublimation of early love (“Dressed in Black”/“Vestida de Preto”), or formative events that occur under the traumatic shadow of the patriarchal authority of the father (“Christmas Turkey”/“O Peru de Natal”). In this latter story, the family of Juca eats a turkey dinner following shortly after the death of the father. Despite the family’s attempt to “forget” the tyrannical father and to proclaim him a saint, he makes himself present at the table, as well as in the psychic “now” of the retrospective account. The New Stories make present the formative events of an individual’s past, often making explicit the moment of remembrance or of story-telling itself. These stories show moments of plenitude and loss, thereby reflecting on the loss of modernist enthusiasm and its consequence, the narrative emergence of the real. This collection of stories is one of the author’s most felicitous responses to the crisis of the 1930s, during which the rift between modernist aesthetics and the social reality in Brazil could no longer be ignored. While Andrade in his later years struggled, often aporetically, to reconcile the demands of literary art

|| 32 Ginzburg, Jaime, “A crítica da sociedade patriarcal em contos de Mário de Andrade”, in: Ciénc. Let., Porto Alegre, 34, 2003, 39–45. 33 Huss, Markus/Tidigs, Julia: “The Noise of Multilingualism: Reader Diversity, Linguistic Borders and Literary Modality”, in: Critical Multilingualism Studies 5, 2017, 1, 208–235.

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and social consciousness,34 the New Stories constitute a rare equilibrium. They are paradigmatic examples of the modernist short story (distinguished by fragmentation, temporality of the present, interior states and revelations) while engaging the contradictory forces of social modernization on the level of individually rooted, affective states. They preserve the tale’s scenario of an oral performance of embodied language, even as they eschew the ordered temporality of the tale for scenic presentation. As such, they demonstrate how, during this historical constellation, modernist and realist impulses came to condition and correct each other.

|| 34 Fragelli, “Engajamento”, 92–95.

Fae Brauer

Scientistic Magnetism and Hauntological Metarealism The Phantasmatic Doubles of Duchamp and Durville Recently the early Modernism of Marcel Duchamp has been linked with the new sciences.1 Rarely has it been contextualized within the scientistic occultisms of Paris, particularly the experimentation undertaken at the French School of Magnetism by Hector Durville, and its intersection with a spate of scientific and medical discoveries.2 Within this context, Duchamp’s engagement with scientistic occultism and spectrality at the same time as Durville was experimenting with the magnetism and photography of phantasmatic doubles, may be located within an occulture of hauntology in which the empirical concept of realism was being redefined in terms of invisible sources of energy, as signified by Duchamp’s quest for what he called his “subconscious preoccupations toward a metarealism”, which he identified as “the satisfaction of a need for the miraculous”.3 During extensive experiments with magnetism, publicized by the Society for Psychical Research, the existence of invisible realms beyond the reach of the human eye appeared to be scientifically proven by a series of discoveries: The Xray by Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, radioactivity by Henri Becquerel; radium, polonium and radioactive isotopes by Marie and Pierre Curie, and wireless te-

|| 1 The most thorough investigation of Duchamp and the new sciences is: Henderson, Linda Dalrymple, Duchamp in Context. Science and Technology in the Large Glass and Related Works, Princeton 2005. 2 Henderson, Linda Dalrymple, “The Forgotten Meta-Realities of Modernism: Die Uebersinnliche Welt and the International Cultures of Science and Occultism”, Glass Bead, Paris, no. 0, 2016; http://www.glass-bead.org/article/the-forgotten-meta-realities-of-modernism. A notable exception to touch upon the significance of Durville’s Librairie du Magnétisme to the legitimation of occultism as a science and the development of Modernist Meta-Realities, Dalrymple Henderson concludes “it is clearly time to explore this long forgotten underpinning of Modernism in the international cultures of science and occultism [and] invisible meta-realities to which they give rise.” 3 Duchamp, Marcel, letter in English to Walter Arensberg, dated 22 July 1951; cited in French, L’Œuvre de Marcel Duchamp, catalogue raisonée (Paris: 1977), vol. 1, 34; Schwarz, Arturo, The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp (London, New York, 1970; revised edition, 1997), 528. I am grateful to David Hopkins for bringing this reference to my attention. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-004

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legraphy based on the electromagnetic waves identified by Heinrich Hertz.4 So convincing did the empirical evidence seem by 1900 that in a spate of articles, Gustave Le Bon argued that all materials were radioactive, matter could dematerialise, human bodies would become transparent and yet be photographed, while the atom was the reservoir of “a hitherto unrecognized force”, namely “atomic energy”.5 Conterminously the intricate phases of male and female hysteria, hallucinations, hypnotic transferences, seizures, somnambulism, trances, magnetic performances, out-of-body experiences, and double personas were being mapped in neurology, neuroanatomy and neuropsychiatry and illustrated by medical photography. Jules Bernard Luys’ Iconographie Photographique des Centres Nerveux, Jean-Martin Charcot’s Iconographie de la Salpêtrière and Nouvelle Iconographie de la Salpêtrière, Hippolyte Baraduc’s L’Âme Humaine, illustrating human thought, emotions, the soul and vital fluids, plus Commandant Darget’s photographs of “fluido-magnetic” bodily emanations, such as “Rayons V (Vitaux)”, all seemed to validate what Baraduc and many others, especially Hector Durville, termed “la force vitale”.6 Along with X-rays, radiology and radioactivity, these revelations were readily mobilized as scientistic proof of the mysterious power of spontaneous generation, following Jean Baptiste Lamarck’s evolutionary theory and its Neo-Lamarckian revision as Transformism, alongside its reconception by Henri Bergson as “l’élan vital”, and its manifestation in auras, effluvia, etheric bodies, astral bodies and dédoublement. Life does not evolve mechanically and rationally, as Bergson stipulated in L’Évolution créatice. “Elle ne procède pas par association et addition d’éléments mais par dissociation et dédoublement.”7

|| 4 Henderson, Linda Dalrymple, “X Rays and the Quest for Invisible Reality in the Art of Kupka, Duchamp, and the Cubists”, in: Art Journal, 47, 1988 no. 4, 323–340. 5 Le Bon, Gustave, “La Luminescence invisible”, Revue Scientifique, 28 January 1899; “De la transparence des corps opaques pour les radiations lumineuses de grande longueur d’onde”, Revue Scientifique, 11 February 1899; “La Rayonnement électrique et la transparence des corps pour les ondes hertziennes”, Revue Scientifique, 29 April 1899. In L’Évolution de la Matière (Paris 1905); The Evolution of Matter, trans. F. Legge, London 1907, 2, Le Bon points out that due to these factors “they reveal that, between the world of the ponderable and imponderable, till now considered widely separate, there exists an intermediate world”. Le Bon’s book on atomic energy, L’Évolution des Forces, was published in Paris in 1907. 6 Baraduc, Dr. H., La Force Vitale. Notre Corps Vital Fluidique, Sa Formule Biométrique, Paris 1897. Amongst many references by Durville to “la force vitale”, refer Magnétisme Personnel ou Psychique : Éducation de la Pensée, développement de la volonté. pour être heureuse, fort, bien portant et réussir en tout, Paris 1890. So prevalent did this theory become that even Louis Pasteur’s discovery of microbes was enlisted as an example of “la force vitale”. 7 Bergson, Henri, L’Évolution créatrice, Paris 1907; 1941, 90.

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Buoyed by this new science and medicine, Hector Durville, assisted by his sons, Henri and Gaston, embarked upon a series of what he called “scientific experiments” at their School of Magnetism to unleash “la force vitale”.8 Defining magnetism as a “science” and an “agent lumineux”, Hector Durville plumbed all eight levels of deep magnetism in his subjects after which he described not just the emergence of the Etheric and Astral body, as defined by Annie Besant, but photographed their emanation in the form of luminous phantoms.9 Conceiving of these phantasms as having a special effect upon the photographic plate, he photographed them performing like a shadow of the physical body and exuding the phosphorescent radiation of “Rayons N”.10 This research appeared to be reinforced by that of Baraduc, particularly his photographs to capture “l’homme fluidique” and “la force vitale”.11 It also seemed to be reinforced by the experiments and photography deployed by parapsychologist Albert de Rochas to reveal how magnetized subjects performing art were able to unleash phantasmatic forms of energy which he also likened to “la force vitale”.12 Amidst this fervour of experimentation and interdiscursivity, Duchamp embarked upon research into these new sciences, occultist vitalism and scientistic magnetism, albeit not without what he called a “meta-irony” in his quest for “metarealism”.13 By focusing upon the uncanny affinities between the occulture hauntol-

|| 8 Durville, Hector, Traité expérimental de magnétisme. Cours professé à l'École pratique de magnétisme et de massage, Paris 1895; Durville, Hector, Le Magnétisme humain considéré comme agent physique, mémoire lu au congrès magnétique international, Paris 1890; Durville, Hector, Lois physiques du magnétisme. Polarité humaine. Traité expérimental et thérapeutique de magnétisme. Cours professé à la clinique du magnétisme en 1885‒1886, Paris 1896. 9 Durville, Hector, Le Magnétisme considéré comme agent lumineux. Extrait du “Traité expérimental de magnétisme”, Paris 1896; Durville, Hector, Le Fantôme des Vivants, anatomie et physiologie de l’âme. Recherches expérimentales sur le dédoublement des corps de l’homme, Paris 1909. A few years later Hector Durville maintained that Magnetism had been established as a science; see: Durville, Hector/Jagot, Paul C., Histoire raisonnée du Magnétisme et du Psychisme pratique, Paris 1915. 10 So long sustained was public interest in Durville’s explorations of “living phantoms” that in 1922, he delivered a series of lectures on it; see: Durville, Hector, Le Magnétisme. C’est un agent physique, Paris 1919. To this day, his books are published. 11 Baraduc, Hippolyte, L’Âme humaine, ses mouvements, ses lumières et l’iconographie de l’invisible fluidique, Paris 1896. 12 de Rochas, Albert, Les États profonds d’hypnose, Paris 1892; L’Extériorisation de la Sensibilité, étude expérimentale et historique, Paris 1895; Les Sentiments, la musique et la geste, Grenoble 1900. 13 “Irony is a playful way of accepting something. Mine is the irony of indifference: It’s a Meta-irony”. Quoted in: Cook, Albert, “The ‘Meta-Irony’ of Marcel Duchamp”, in: The Journal of Aesthetics and Criticism, 44, 1986, no. 3 (Spring), 263‒270, here 263. “La signe de mes préoccu-

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ogy of Duchamp and Durville, this essay will explore how this interdisciplinary metarealist modernist and this scientistic magnetist endeavoured to negotiate, if not illuminate, through diverse mediums but analogous ways, luminous emanations, transmutations and phantasmatic doubles.

Le Fantôme des Vivants: Henri Durville’s, Albert de Rochas’ and Paul Nadar’s Magnetic Photography at the Société Magnétique de France With the strong support of Baraduc, de Rochas, Sâr Joséphin Péladan, Madame Blavatsky, Gérard Encausse “Papus”, and other well-established Occultists, in 1887 Hector Durville launched the Société Magnétique de France. Following the success in 1889 of the Spirit and Spiritualist Congress alongside the International Congress of Magnetism in Paris, in 1893, Hector and Henri Durville also opened the École pratique du Massage et de Magnétisme on Avenue Mozart in Paris, with a branch in Lyon.14 At the same time they established the spiritual society, l’Ordre Eudiaque, launched the Journal du magnétisme et psychisme expérimental and established their own publishing house, Librairie du Magnétisme, able to publish Hector’s many treatises and others addressing “la force psychique”, hallucinations, ailments and the human soul.15 In his treatise, Histoire Raisonée du Magnétisme et du Psychisme Pratique, Hector Durville demonstrated how the magnetic poles punctuated every part of the human body, as signified by the positive and negative signs inscribed on anatomy correlating to the attraction and repulsion of horse-shoe magnets.16 Likened to a flickering flame that could project as far as five metres either horizontally or vertically, || pations subconscientes vers un métaréalisme”. Quoted in: Moffitt, John F., Alchemist of the Avant-Garde. The Case of Marcel Duchamp, New York 2003, 111. 14 Congrès international sur le magnétisme, 21‒26 October 1889, was followed by a Rapport Générale, Paris, Carré, 1890; the Congrès Spirite et Spiritualiste international was held in Paris, 9‒16 September 1889, followed by another in 1902; the Congrès International de Hypnotisme expérimental et thérapeutique was also held in Paris in 1889. 15 Durville, Hector, L’Enseignement du magnétisme. École pratique de magnétisme et de massage, Paris 1895; Durville, Le Magnétisme considéré comme agent lumineux. 16 Durville/Jagot, Histoire Raisonée du Magnétisme. For more on Durville’s publications and practices, see: Brauer, Fae, “Magnetic Modernism. František Kupka's Mesmeric Abstraction and Anarcho-Cosmic Utopia”, in: David Ayers et al. (eds.), Utopia. The Avant-Garde, Modernism and (Im)possible Life, Berlin, Boston 2015, 135‒163.

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Durville considered magnetic energy constituted “la force vitale”.17 When emanating from such key sensory points as eyes, nose, ears and mouth, as well as from the hands and fingertips, on the right side, de Rochas showed how the colour of this vital force became a brilliant blue but when emanating from the negative left side, it turned a fiery red although its intensity depended upon individual energy.18 Conceiving of the human body as both a receptor and transmitter, Durville commissioned drawings to illuminate how magnetic energies were not just attracted by the body but generated from it. So powerful were these magnetic energies that Durville likened them to rays and electrical sparks able to energize the body physically and psychically. Since these magnetic energies seemed to circulate and radiate as an invisible vital force field clearly perceptible to clairvoyants, spiritists, mediums, magnetizers, radiographers, and also the camera, Durville likened them to magnetic phantoms.19 The radiating auras that they generated from magnetized subjects were likened to magnetic waves connected to the phantasmatic etheric and astral body double, as theosophized by Annie Besant in Man and his Bodies, first published in 1896, cited extensively by Durville in Le Fantôme des Vivants, as well as Magnétisme personnel ou psychique.20 So interpenetrated were the etheric and astral body that Durville posited them as both occupying the Astral Plane of Evolution.21 Conceiving of photography as having a unique receptivity to their energies, Durville and de Rochas commissioned photographs from Paul Nadar onto magnesium plates to reveal how magnetism was able to mediate a phantasmatic

|| 17 Durville, Hector, Magnétisme personnel. Éducation de la pensée. Développement de la Volonté. Pour être Heureuse, Fort, Bien Portant et Réussir en tout, Paris 1899; see especially his illustrations, “Le Rayonnement psychique d’échange”. 18 Durville, Magnétisme personnel, 27. 19 Durville, Le Fantôme des Vivants, 275. 20 Besant, Annie, L’Homme et ses Corps, Paris 1902; Durville, Le Fantôme des Vivants, 27‒36; Durville, Hector, Magnétisme Personnel ou Psychique, Paris 1905; Durville, Hector, Pour combattre les maladies par suggestion et auto-suggestion, Paris 1907. 21 Durville, Le Fantôme des Vivants, 27‒36; Besant, Annie, L’Homme et ses Corps, Paris 190: The first plane in the invisible energy field, the etheric body was perceived by Besant as larger than the physical body and able to act as a conduit to the higher astral body, on the Astral Plane of Evolution. Composed of four ethers interpenetrating the solid, liquid and gaseous constituents of the physical body like an etheric envelope, Besant described the colour of the etheric double as luminous white or clear grey. Only when the physical body died did the etheric body leave it, according to Besant, while the astral body remained. As Durville reflected, the manifestation of the etheric body phantom became “extraordinarily prevalent at this moment”.

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doubling of the physical body. That the etheric and astral bodies could form alongside the physical body as phantoms was initially captured by Nadar. The son of Félix Nadar, he had achieved such renown for his experimental photography that he become Eastman Kodak’s agent in France and the photographer most commissioned by Durville and de Rochas to capture phantasmatic doubles.22 His first photographs of de Rochas in his study captured his phantasmatic ethereal body as both taller and wider than him and able to echo his stance. Aware of the phantasmatic ramifications of this phenomena, Durville and de Rochas explored, with the aid of Nadar, how these luminous emanations took the form of phantoms after magnetism. As early as 1882, de Rochas had been photographed with a medium and a phantom. Ten years later, he pointed out that while dédoublement was extremely common, the visibility of the phantom was not necessarily and took a different form, as had been illustrated by Nadar’s photographs of him in his study. Following the phantom’s powerful vibratory energy, which Durville likened to “la force vitale”, he stipulated that their appearance followed a choreography of distinct stages invariably reflecting the state and gender of the physical body. Initially the visual realisation of this metamorphosis had occurred to him on receiving photos taken in 1905 of a young girl with her etheric or astral double.23 Yet when Durville magnetised three women, Nénette, Edmée and Jane, he recorded how once their magnetic states had reached deeper levels, phantoms began to emerge as fluid light columns about 40 to 50 centimetres away from them.24 “At this moment”, Durville pointed out, “this fluid mass still did not resemble a human being: It was an indecisive mass, a vaporous column higher and larger than the magnetised subject.”25 (See Fig. 1) Only with more magnetisation of Jane did this vaporous mass appear “smaller, more luminous taking, little by little, a human form” until Durville observed it took the form of her female body.26 It then repeated, according to Durville, “like a shadow, all her movements and gestures”.27 Whenever she raised and lowered her arms, so did

|| 22 The youngest son of Félix Gaspard Tournachon, aka Nadar, Paul Nadar (1856‒1939) successfully ran his father’s third studio, 52 rue d’Anjou, and achieved renown for his aerial photography from hot-air balloons, use of artificial lighting, animation of still pictures and photo reportage. 23 Durville, Le Fantôme des Vivants, 92, Fig. 11 – Jeunes filles dédoublées. 24 Durville, Le Fantôme des Vivants, 155‒160. 25 Durville, Le Fantôme des Vivants, 175. 26 Durville, Le Fantôme des Vivants, 179‒180. 27 Durville, Le Fantôme des Vivants, 180.

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her phantom.28 “This is her double, her phantom”, Durville concluded, “who is always on her left and sometimes just in front of her […]. The contours are more or less clear and precise [with] above all, the superior part being much more active than the inferior one.”29 While Durville explored this phenomenon with a range of other women – Marthe, Léontine, Madame François, Madame Vix and Mlle Thérèse – it appeared to be most clearly captured by Nadar’s photographs of Mme Lambert’s phantasmatic double from February 1908.30 A medium who Durville and de Rochas frequently magnetised, Lambert had long studied with de Rochas but had rejected Spiritism and spurned the séances of Eusapia Palladino.31 Once she was magnetized by Durville, Lambert found that throughout the day and night a phantom would visit her. Initially the phantom appeared as a fluid vaporous mass of light, accompanied by spots of light floating in darkness. Yet gradually Lambert found that it transformed into the form of a luminous, white pillar or column, taller and larger than herself (see Fig. 1). After further magnetism, she watched it become increasingly luminous until it condensed into a human form taking the shape of a woman, with a body and face uncannily like her own (see Fig. 2). By no means did it shy away but continually visited Lambert until 1913 as subsequent photos reveal. Situating itself about twenty centimetres from Lambert’s left side, “it repeated”, according to Durville, “like a shadow, all her movements and gestures”.32 Whenever she raised or lowered her arms, so did her phantom.33 Rather than walking beside her, the phantom glided by her.34 So closely did it shadow Lambert that even when she went to bed, the phantom lay beside her. Animated by intense vibratory movements, Lambert found her phantasmatic double knocked loudly on tables, banged doors, and created such intense energy and heat that it could be measured with a thermometer.35 The power of the phantom to glide through || 28 Durville, Le Fantôme des Vivants, 180: Durville quotes from his magnetised subject: “Je lève le bras gauche du sujet; celui-ci dit aussitôt que le double lève le bras gauche. Je baisse ce bras et lève le droit; il s’écrie aussitôt que le double lève le bras droit.” 29 Durville, Le Fantôme des Vivants, 180. All translations of quotations in this essay are by the author, unless noted otherwise. 30 Durville, Le Fantôme des Vivants, 167‒169. Wilfried-René Chettéoui also points out Charles Lancelin’s participation in these experiments and how “diverses phases d’extériorisation du ‘double’ ont été décrites par les sujets eux-mêmes” (La nouvelle parapsychologie. Une expérience métaphysique, Paris 1993, 50). 31 Durville, Le Fantôme des Vivants, 167‒169. 32 Durville, Le Fantôme des Vivants, 180. 33 Durville, Le Fantôme des Vivants, 183. 34 Durville, Le Fantôme des Vivants, 184. 35 Durville, Le Fantôme des Vivants, 195.

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walls and doors in front of the physical body or vertically behind it, covering a kilometre in fifteen seconds, appeared to be matched by its power to radiate white light in different forms.36 During Durville’s subsequent experiments with the phantom of Léontine in 1908, he found that her phantom was able to generate a brilliant white light through the luminous ball floating by the head of the phantom, which he captured in a close-up. Not only did Durville’s photographs reveal its jets of light beaming in different directions but also, in an effluviograph, its flaming luminosity – sufficiently dazzling, as Mme Lambert recalled, to light up a dark room.37 Believing that the phantom emanated N-rays, the phosphorescent radiation discovered by René Blondlot, Durville endeavoured to register this light at night on screens covered with calcium sulphide, a substance believed to produce brightness in contact with N-rays.38 “I took the small screen […] and placed it on the abdomen of the magnetized subject for two or three minutes without obtaining the slightest trace of luminosity”, Durville recalled. “I then placed it by the phantom, and it became so strongly illuminated [that it gave] enough light to enable [us] to tell the time by a watch”39. Yet what appeared most striking to Durville was that “this invisible body carried with it the very principle of life, as well as will, intelligence, memory, consciousness, psychic sensibilities while the visible body does not possess any [of these] faculties”.40 In proving that humans, once magnetized, were able to perpetually double with their etheric and astral bodies, these photographs then demonstrated that their power was not confined to their physical body. This doubling seemed even more profound when magnetism was fused with art, as revealed by de Rochas. In his experiments, de Rochas explored how the magnetic force radiating in and from the physical body could charge the human nervous system and its fluid energies into unleashing a “superior form of being” with heightened sight,

|| 36 Léon Lefranc, “Le Corps Astral du Vivant. Forme – Matière – Couleur”, in: Le Monde Psychique, 1911, 70‒81. 37 Durville, Le Fantôme des Vivants, 197‒202. 38 Investigated in the first decade of the twentieth century, N-rays were subsequently dismissed by the scientific community as arising from artefactual observations. Durville also used screens covered with sulphur, zinc and magnesium. 39 Durville, Hector, “Experimental Researches Concerning Phantoms of the Living”. Quoted in: Annals of Psychical Science, 7, 1908, 335–343, here 341: “These experiments, repeated about ten times with seven or eight different subjects, always gave similar results, which were very intense when the screens had been well exposed to the sun, less so when the exposure had been insufficient.” 40 Durville, Le Fantôme des Vivants, 353.

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taste, hearing and touch.41 In this superconscious state, de Rochas discovered that magnetized subjects were able to feel musical vibrations and perform to them, perceive places they had never seen and respond to art that they had never known. This was realized when de Rochas magnetized the artist’s model, Lina (Maria Mayo) and commissioned Nadar to photograph her. Without any training in mime, theatre performance or dance, the mesmerized Lina was able to perform in highly innovative ways to Wagner’s music, Verlaine’s poetry, Ravel’s waltzes and national allegories with dramatic expressions comparable to those of experienced actors.42 Since music heightened the vibratory force of magnetism, a phenomenon de Rochas had observed affecting animals as much as humans, he captured how musical vibrations seemed to “jolt” Lina’s nerve fibres and sensibilities, penetrating her unconscious sensibilities directly. Once deeply magnetized, with the aid of music and Nadar’s photography de Rochas was able to reveal how Lina achieved a doubling within her physical body, as if both her etheric and astral bodies had fused with it to achieve a state of superconscious. This appeared acutely evident to de Rochas, in the last photographs taken of Lina dancing the Habanera from George Bizet’s Carmen.43 This happened only after de Rochas had given Lina prolonged passes to take her from the fifth to the eighth phase of magnetism where her sensibilities became so exteriorized that they could form a phantom. The more the music vibrated, according to de Rochas, the more vibrantly Lina danced and exorcised her body of effluvia, as can be seen in the left photo. The more luminous forms seemed to gather around her, the more they gradually condensed and stratified into brilliant white light forms and rays a metre in front of her.44 (See Fig. 3) These luminous rays then seemed to join her body, as signified by white lines intersecting with her head, arms and hands. “This column then took the form of her [gyrating] carnal body”, de Rochas explained, “both visible and palpable to all present and proven by these instantaneous photographs taken with a Kodak. This phantom exteriorized from the interior of her body, is known”, he concluded, “by the names astral or etheric body. It represents”, he concluded, “the vital force”.45 Drawing up a table of octaves and vibrations showing how sixteen || 41 Lt.-Colonel de Rochas d’Aiglun, Les Fluides des Magnétiseurs précis des expériences du Bon de Reichenbach sur ses propriétés physiques et physiologiques, classées et annotées par le lieutenant-colonel de Rochas d’Aiglun, Paris 1891, 53. 42 Lt.-Colonel de Rochas d’Aiglun, Les Sentiments, La Musique et Le Geste, Grenoble 1900, 204‒227. 43 De Rochas d’Aiglun, Les Sentiments, La Musique et Le Geste, 265‒267. 44 De Rochas d’Aiglun, Les Sentiments, La Musique et Le Geste, 267. 45 De Rochas d’Aiglun, Les Sentiments, La Musique et Le Geste, 271.

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octaves corresponded to 38,000 vibrations per second, de Rochas then deduced that the energies produced by music and dance had the power to exteriorize not just the etheric and the astral body but “the vital force”.46 Exteriorised by the energies of dance and music, the astral body was then able, de Rochas concluded, to have an effect upon the photographic plate which, he claimed, “has a sensibility to capture, as one knows, thousands of stars invisible to our eyes”.47 Once the magnetic “vital force” became fused with art, according to de Rochas and Durville, its power could become so enhanced that the physical body could be transported into the superconscious state of the astral plane.48 While de Rochas illuminated how this transpired in the creative performances of his mesmerized subjects, Duchamp explored it through his metarealism.

Le fantasme de “la grande machine de précision”: Magnetism, Occultism and Duchamp’s Metarealism With this extraordinary burgeoning of research, experiments and publications on electricity, magnetism and electromagnetism from 1890 until 1910, Jean Clair surmizes that these new energies proved “as powerful as they were invisible”.49 Clair also stresses the fluidity with which the experiments with spiritism, magnetism and the occult were engaged by the new scientists, the inventor of the cathode ray tube, Sir William Crookes, being one of the most ardent supporters of Spiritism while the pioneering astronomer, Camille Flammarion, was theorizing the transmigration of souls on distant planets and documenting apparitions and telepathy. At the same time as the Nobel-prize-winning physiologist Charles Richet founded the Société française de métapsychisme while monitoring séances, as Clair points out, the Administrator of the École Polytechnique, de Rochas continued the work of “Mesmer and Puységur by studying Baron Reichenbach’s phenomena of ‘odic’ radiation”.50 Even Duchamp’s brother, DuchampVillon had trained as an intern in Radiology at the side of Albert Londe and

|| 46 De Rochas d’Aiglun, Les Sentiments, La Musique et Le Geste, 271. See also: de Rochas d’Aiglun, Les États profonds de l’hypnose, 31‒32. 47 De Rochas d’Aiglun, Les Sentiments, La Musique et Le Geste, 269. 48 Durville, Le Fantôme des Vivants, 7‒8. 49 Clair, Jean, Sur Duchamp et la fin de l’art, Paris 2000, 26. 50 Clair, Sur Duchamp et la fin de l’art, 26.

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Jean-Martin Charcot at Salpêtrière.51 While Clair perceives Duchamp’s trip to Munich in 1912, due to its renown as the European capital of occultism, as a testimony to Duchamp’s enthrallment, he points out that even in 1922, Duchamp had written from New York to his brother, Jacques Villon, on Christmas Day: “I know a photographer here who takes photographs of ectoplasms around a male medium – I had promised to help him in one of the séances and then got lazy but it would have amused me a lot.”52 Duchamp’s enthrallment was well nourished. When Pierre Camille Revel’s 1890 treatise on the transmigration of souls and physiological magnetism was republished in 1905, it was done so not just by the Bibliothèque Chacornac’s Librairie Générale des Sciences Occultes but by Hector and Henri Durville’s publishing house, Librairie Générale du Magnétisme. Entitled Le Hasard, sa Loi et ses conséquences dans les sciences et en philosophie, suivi d’un Essai sur la Métempsycose considérée au point de vue de la Biologie et du Magnétisme physiologique, this edition by Revel was owned by Duchamp.53 That its references may throw fresh light on Duchamp’s interdisciplinary investigations into the experimental research and practices within the occult sciences and scientistic magnetism is indicated by the telling inscription written in ink on its cover by English Surrealist David Gascoyne, to whom Duchamp had entrusted it some 40 years later: “One of the sources of the originality of Marcel Duchamp”.54 Particularly prominent in this 458 page tome is the magnetism component, its second part being devoted entirely to Des Sciences magnétiques, with its relationship to science stressed by Revel: Considering the analogy that exists between the phenomena of attraction and repulsion and physical magnetism and physiological magnetism, the term magnetism should be used as the general scientific term.55

|| 51 Clair, Sur Duchamp et la fin de l’art, 26. 52 Clair, Sur Duchamp et la fin de l’art, 33; Engl. trans.: “L’Iconographie de l’invisible fluidique”, Tout-fait, 1, 2000, no. 3 (December) 2000; https://www.toutfait.com/issues/issue_3/ News/clair/clair2.html. This was communicated by Hector Obalk, and quoted by Clair. To boost his argument, Clair points out that the annual Theosophy Society conference was held in Munich in 1907. 53 Moffitt, Alchemist of the Avant-Garde, 101. 54 Clair, Jean, “Duchamp at the Turn of the Centuries”, in: TOUT-FAIT. The Marcel Duchamp Studies Online Journal, 1, 2000, no. 3 (December), note 63. 55 Revel, P. Camille, Le Hasard, sa loi et ses conséquences dans les sciences et en philosophie, suivi d’un essai sur la métempsycose basée sur les principes de la biologie et du magnétisme physiologique, Paris 1909, 321.

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To allay any skepticism about magnetism, Revel recommended the treatise by Durville, “one of the most complete of the works”, he wrote, able to explain “the viable practice of magnetism” and the way its passes could unleash effluvia from the human body and release the ethereal and astral bodies.56 Revel also commended the ways in which the magnetic polarities of the human body and the effluvia radiating from it were demonstrated by Commandant Darget’s 85 photographs of human effluvia projected onto plates and illustrated by de Rochas’ photography in his books, Les Forces non définies and L’Extériorisation de la Sensibilité. Revel highlights the ways in which de Rochas revealed the connections between mesmerism and creativity in Sur les états superficiels et sur les états profonds de l’hypnose.57 Upon analyzing Baraduc’s experiments published in La Force vitale. Notre corps vital fluidique, sa formule biométrique, Revel defends the concept of metempsychosis and the phenomenon of apparitions, “les fluides humains”.58 He also defends “the vibrations of human vitality amongst the sensitive and the neurotic”, concluding that “it permits us to deduce the existence of a living reality belonging to the invisible.”59 Despite objections, Revel considered that all who studied these psychophysiological phenomena, designated within the category of the occult, were inevitably led to admit the existence of what he called “une force neurique rayonnante”, equivalent to a magnetic force field enveloping every human.60 As Revel significantly concluded: On considering the enormous progress made by the magnetic sciences, since Mesmer, one has to ask oneself if in the near future, the propositions rejected by our academicians, will not be accepted. On re-examining the history of physiological magnetism, one observes the following march [in progress in which] the invisible world will be fully accepted.61

Published four years before Le Fantôme des Vivants, no mention is made of Durville’s impending research. Yet from the time that Durville’s treatise was published in 1909, it attracted the attention of some of the major Parisian newspapers (les quotidiens), as well as the occultist press, as exemplified by its review in October 1909 in Le Progrès Spirite. Philosophie kardéciste, Psychologie

|| 56 Revel, Le Hasard, sa loi et ses conséquences, 322. Presumably he was referring to Durville’s Traité expérimental de magnétisme. 57 Revel, Le Hasard, sa loi et ses conséquences, 435‒437. 58 Revel, Le Hasard, sa loi et ses conséquences, 361. 59 Revel, Le Hasard, sa loi et ses conséquences, 431‒434. 60 Revel, Le Hasard, sa loi et ses conséquences, 438. 61 Revel, Le Hasard, sa loi et ses conséquences, 463.

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expérimentale.62 Early in 1911, Durville’s research for Le Fantôme des Vivants had also been closely analysed in the publishing organ for the Institute of Psychic Research in France, Le Monde Psychique, with de Rochas as its President of Honour. From its first issue, this journal proudly claimed to have studied decomposition of the human form into physical, spiritual and phantasmatic bodies, to have revealed the magnetic procedure to extract the phantom from the living body, and to have confirmed the reality of its external existence.63 It promised to continue to address the issue of phantoms: “Death is not alone in having a phantom; the living have one too, a different one”, it explained, “[t]heir study forms a very different chapter of occultism”.64 This article was accompanied by two black and white photographs of the phantom of Mme Lambert (see Figs. 1 and 2). Within months of these publications the 22-year old Duchamp had embarked upon portraying his close school-friend who he had known since the Lycée Corneille, Raymond Dumouchel (see Fig. 4).65 Having just graduated in medicine, Dumouchel had embarked upon a special study of medical radiology, particularly X-rays of the human body, which proved integral to Duchamp’s conception. Far from Dumouchel’s clothing and ambience being rendered in the local grays and greens of Albert Gleizes’ Cubistic portrait of Jacques Nayral, Dumouchel’s jacket appears as an acidic turquoise while the phantasmatic shadow or double hugging his body is coloured as a strident magenta amidst vaporous zinc white highlights tinged with cerulean greens and mustard yellows. So amorphous is this puce phantasmatic shadow that it may be also read as an irradiating and vibrating aura. Not the only time that this has been observed, Lawrence Steefel pointed out the “uncanny aura” emanating from Dumouchel’s body, “as if in a punning parody of a hallucinatory spiritualistic il-

|| 62 “Les Fantômes de Vivants peuvent communiquer”, in: Le Progrès Spirite. Philosophie kardéciste, Psychologie expérimentale, October 1909, 157‒158. 63 “Nous vous avons montré la décomposition de l’être humain en ces trois parties fondamentales: esprit, fantôme, corps physique. Nous vous avons montré le procédé magnétique à l’aide duquel on extrait le fantôme de l’homme vivant. Nous avons fait constater la réalité de l’existence du fantôme vivant extérioré.” Le Monde Psychique, organe mensuel de l’institut de Recherches Psychique de France, 1911, no. 5 (July), 131. 64 Le Monde Psychique, 1911, 131. 65 Born in Auffay, 40 kilometres from Rouen, Raymond Jacques-Émile Dumouchel (1882‒ 1974) was the second son of Marie Juliette and of Jacques Edmond Dumouchel, a notaire like Duchamp’s father. They befriended one another at the Lycée Pierre Corneille in Rouen in 1897.

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lumination”.66 Yet rather than appearing to be drawn from spiritualism, Duchamp’s representation of this aura seems comparable to illustrations of magnetic fluids and N-Rays, including those in the “Rayons N” book that Duchamp owned by Revel.67 “Magnetizers and Occultists must feel triumph as they see the existence of N-rays now admitted to by science”, Revel had written: “This new discovery, which seems so to interest non-believers and scientists alike, did not at all surprise those given over to the close study of Occult Science. The latter have long since known about the existence of human radiations, and these now appear to include N-rays.”68 Inscribing the back of the painting, “à propos de ta ‘figure’, mon cher Dumouchel”, with the word figure in inverted commas, Duchamp signals, with characteristic irony, that this portrayal of his friend’s “figure” is not straightforward. As indicated by Duchamp’s retrospective reflections on this painting to the Arensbergs, his ironically playful explorations of an occultist light and iridescent colour to portray his old school friend’s relationship to the invisible energies of radiology and magnetism, seemed to have proved instrumental to his abandonment of “retinal painting”.69 As Duchamp explained to Pierre Cabanne: Since Courbet, it’s been believed that painting is addressed to the retina. That was everyone’s error. The retinal shudder! Before, painting had other functions: it could be religious, philosophical, moral. If I had the chance to take an antiretinal attitude, it unfortunately hasn’t changed much; our whole century is completely retinal, except for the Surrealists, who tried to go outside it somewhat. And still, they didn’t go so far!70

Even the sexual anatomy of Dumouchel seems to dissolve into the phantasmatic luminosity of an “etheric envelope”. Following the research of Durville and de Rochas, as well as the treatise on auras as etheric forces spawned by Léon Den|| 66 Steefel Jr., Lawrence D., “Marcel Duchamp and the Machine”, in: Anne d’Harnoncourt/Kynaston McShine (eds.), Marcel Duchamp, New York 1973, 69‒80. 67 Duchamp, Marcel, Le Buisson, 1911; Paradise, 1910‒1911 (in which Dumouchel also appears in the role of Adam). 68 Revel, P. Camille, Le Hasard, sa loi et ses conséquences, 1905 edition, 348‒349; as translated and quoted by Moffitt, Alchemist of the Avant-Garde, 103. 69 In a letter dated 28 January 1951 to Louise and Walter Arensberg, Duchamp wrote: “The portrait is very colorful (red and green) and has a note of humor which indicated my future direction to abandon mere retinal painting.” Archives of the Francis Bacon Foundation, Claremont, California, as quoted by: Schwarz, Arturo, Marcel Duchamp, New York 1975, iii; see also: Henderson, Dalrymple, “X Rays and the Quest for Invisible Reality”. 70 Cabanne, Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp, 43; see also: Cabanne, Pierre, Entretiens avec Marcel Duchamp, Paris 1967.

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is, Duchamp’s “figure” may comprise Dumouchel’s “psychic effluvia” in colours signifying, following Besant’s and Leadbeater’s Thought-Forms, “Noble Ideals” and “Love of Humanity”.71 Consistent with Durville’s and de Rochas’ illustrations of magnetic waves emanating from men’s and women’s bodies, Dumouchel’s “psychic effluvia” also appears comparable to the magnetic energy and N-rays that Duchamp considered could be radiating from Dumouchel’s body, particularly in what Duchamp called “le halo de la main”.72 Like the N-rays and magnetic emanations drawn and photographed by Durville and de Rochas, this light does not just seem to radiate from the hand but to light up the surrounding space. Conjuring the healing power of this physician with what Léon Denis calls “the curative power of magnetizers”, transmitted by hand, it is significantly Dumouchel’s left, not right hand.73 It is also conveyed like Roentgen’s pioneering X-ray of the lefthand of the Swiss physiologist who had also trained as a physician, Albert von Kölliker. Given how its physiognomy is represented as an X-ray, as is Dumouchel’s head, Duchamp’s portrayal may then be decoded as a physician able to fuse the science of radiology piercing human flesh with the science of occultism unleashing magnetic energies and the phantasmatic double. That it represented metarealism for Duchamp is demonstrated by his declaration: “le halo autour de la main [du Docteur Dumouchel] est un signe de mes préoccupations subconscientes vers un métaréalisme.”74 Subsequently and significantly, he compared the practice of an artist to that of a medium. “To all appearances”, he stated in English, “the artist acts like a mediumistic being who, from the labyrinth beyond time and space, seeks his way out to a clearing”.75

|| 71 L. Lefranc, “Les États du Sommeil Magnétique du Fantôme du Vivant ou Corps Ethérique”, in: Le Monde Psychique, Organe Mensuel de “l’Institut des Recherches Psychiques de France pour l’étude expérimentale des phénomènes spirites, 1, 1911, no. 2 (April), 3‒7; Besant, Annie/Leadbeater, C. W., Thought-Forms, London 1901; Fig. 1, Key to the Meaning of the Colours, nos. 3. and 1. 72 Moffitt, Alchemist of the Avant-Garde, 113. 73 Denis, Léon, Dans l’Invisible. Spiritisme et Médiumnité. Traité de spiritualisme expérimentale. Les Fantômes des vivants et les Esprits des morts, Paris 1906, 251. 74 Moffitt, Alchemist of the Avant-Garde, 111. Apparently when Walter Arensberg questioned Duchamp about the relationship of “the halo”, Duchamp responded that “the halo around the hand […] is a sign of my sub-conscious preoccupations directed towards something beyond realism”. Duchamp added “the halo around the head indicates my deliberate intention to add a touch of wilful distortion”. 75 Duchamp, Marcel, “The Creative Act”, in: Session on the Creative Act, Convention of the American Federation of Arts, Houston 1957; Apsen, 5 & 6, The Minimalism Issue, 1957. This is

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Despite the specificity of Duchamp’s title for his following painting, Le Buisson (see Fig. 5), he insisted that it was “without a definite plot”, as if he was trying to find “his way out to a clearing”, as he explained to Mary Ann Adler: I was looking for a raison d’être in a painting otherwise than the visual experience […] the Bush and the two nudes in relation to one another seemed at that time to satisfy the desire I had to introduce some anecdote without being anecdotal. In other words, I did not in that painting illustrate a definite theme, but the disposition of three elements evoked for me the possibility to invent a theme for it afterwards.76

Drawing upon Édouard Schuré’s Les Grands Initiés, particularly his analysis of the importance of initiation in the ancient age and his passage on the seduction of Eurydice by Aglaonice, John F. Moffitt deduces that its iconography represents a Dionysian initiation into Eros, specifically Lesbianism.77 Convincing as this argument may seem, particularly in relation to Duchamp’s reflection upon eroticism as “the basis of everything I was doing”,78 it overlooks the azure aura enveloping both figures in nature and their interrelationship with such seminal sources as “le théâtre d’âme” of Schuré, particularly captured by his play, Les Mystères d’Éleusis.79 Published in 1890, regularly performed in Paris and in 1909 at the Theosophical Congress in Munich through the mediation of Rudolf Steiner, Schuré’s play seems to have coincided with the publication in English of

|| the same year as André Breton’s L’Art Magique, which appeared on 25 May 1957; see: Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques Doucet, Paris: BRT 117. 76 Marcel Duchamp, letter to Mary Ann Adler, April 1951, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Arensberg Archive. Quoted in: d’Harnoncourt/McShine (eds.), Marcel Duchamp, 244. 77 Moffitt, Alchemist of the Avant-Garde, 114‒117. Moffitt also cites Annie Besant’s and C. W. Leadbeater’s Les Formes-Pensées and Édouard Schuré’s Les Grands Initiés. Esquisse de l’histoire secrète des religions (Paris 1889). Although Moffitt does not mention Schuré’s close relationship with Rudolf Steiner from 1906, Schuré identifies Steiner as one of “the great initiators”. 78 Cabanne, Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp, 88. On the subject of Duchamp’s exploration of eroticism during the sexual repression of the French Radical Republic, see: Brauer, Fae, “De la rationalisation d’Éros. Le fléau d’Onan, l’impératif de procréation et les automates sexuels de Duchamp”, in: Marc Décimo (ed.), Marcel Duchamp et l’érotisme, Dijon 2008, 139‒163; Brauer, Fae, “Rationalizing Eros. The ‘Plague of Onan’, the Procreative Imperative and Duchamp’s Sexual Automatons”, Marcel Duchamp and Eroticism, Newcastle upon Tyne 2007, 126‒148. 79 Le Drame sacré d’Éleusis was first published in 1890. “Le Théâtre de l’âme” by Schuré comprised six of his plays, including Rêve Éleusinien à Taormina, preceding Léonard da Vinci, a play in five acts. See: Schuré, Édouard, Léonard da Vinci précédé du Rêve Éleusinien à Taormina, Paris 1905. As Schuré indicates in his 1926 book, Le Théâtre initiateur. La Genèse de la tragédie. Le Drame d’Éleusis, a collation of five lectures he delivered in 1925, he regarded Les Mystères d’Éleusis as the origin of drama.

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Durville’s book, The Mysteries of Eleusis, in which Durville connected Eleusian trances with ancient Greek practices of magnetism.80 If Duchamp’s figures are identified with The Mysteries of Eleusis as Demeter and Persephone, then Le Buisson would seem an appropriate signifier for the sanctuary of Eleusis and for this Goddess of Fertility, wife of Zeus and mother of both Dionysus and the virginal Persephone. With Demeter’s eyes closed and her right hand outstretched just above and behind her kneeling daughter’s head, this Goddess appears to be making “magnetic passes” in order to initiate the golden-haired Persephone into the Eleusian mysteries of birth, death, rebirth and eroticism. In a trance, Persephone may have fixed her inner gaze upon a vision of her descent into an inferno of eroticism amidst the souls of the dead, followed by her rebirth on earth each Spring – a cycle that would become all too imminent after Hades’ abduction of her into the underworld. On her descent in performances of Schuré’s play, a priest would appear to fumigate the stage to make the demonic creatures in the underworld appear like phantasmagorical beings.81 The brilliant blue aura Duchamp chose to envelop her magnetized body and that of her mother as the magnetizer, and which tints Persephone’s kneeling flesh, may signify the colour of their magnetic field and its relationship to “the vital force”, including what Léon Denis also called “les radiations de la force psychique”, which seem to be projecting from the right side of Demeter’s reddish body.82 Given the increasing research and publications on magnetism and “les fantômes des vivants”, as well as on doubles following Schuré’s book on the phantasmatic double of the young painter, Marrias, first published in 1890, these two women appear to personify the two magnetic poles. They could also signify what Durville defined as dédoublement – one woman’s body appearing to be split into different magnetized parts.83 || 80 Steiner, Rudolf, Le Mystère Chrétien et les Mystères Antiques, with an introduction by Édouard Schuré, Paris 1908. Schuré’s Les Mystères d’Éleusis has more recently been republished as Le Drame Sacré d’Éleusis (Paris 1993). 81 Schuré, Édouard, Le Drame Sacré d’Éleusis (Paris 1993); Pierre-Louis Besombes, “Les Mystères d’Éleusis, du mythe de Déméter et Perséphone aux Persephone aux mystères des Wisigoths”, 10 September 2017; plbesombes-et-le-templier.com 82 Denis, Dans l’Invisible, 37. The full subtitle to the 1911 edition reads “Traité de Spiritualisme Expérimental, Les Faits et Les Lois; Phénomènes Spontanés – Typtologie et Psychographie, Les Fantômes des Vivants et Les Esprits des Morts; Incorporation et Matérialisation des Defunts; Méthodes d’expérimentation – Formation et Direction des Groupes; Identité des Esprits; La Médiumnité à Travers les Âges”. It includes “the phantoms of the living”, which is addressed at length in the second part of this treatise (from page 77). 83 Schuré, Édouard, Le Double, Paris 1890. Each night, the phantom which looks identical to the main character, Marrias, haunts him until replaced by Madame Alford. While this prospect

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From Joseph Delboeuf’s 1879 essay, Sur le dédoublement du moi dans les rêves, the concept of dédoublement had not just been explored through magnetism by Durville and de Rochas, but had been increasingly diagnosed in the neurological sciences, particularly the concept of dissociative disorder and split persona by Jean-Martin Charcot, Gilles de la Tourette, Charles Richet, and most notoriously by Pierre Janet. After hypnosis of his patient, Lucie, when Janet discovered her multiple persona, he called it “le dédoublement de la personnalité”.84 First using the term in 1886, Janet identified its manifestations, including those he called “l’automatisme psychologique”, not just in hysterics but also in mediums and magnetized subjects.85 Conterminously dédoublement was being explored in dreams and in occultist magnetism, as demonstrated in the first part of this essay focusing upon the experiments conducted by Hector Durville.86 Just as Janet had observed how his patients suffering from traumatic hysteria would change their persona under hypnosis, so Durville had recorded how his magnetized subjects would begin to lose and then exteriorize their sensibility. Rather than take the form of another persona, Durville observed vaporous fluid light forms emanating around his magnetized subjects, as he explained: Their sensibility which had disappeared at the beginning of somnambulism […] radiates now around them, up to a distance that may reach a distance of 2 m. 50 and even 3 meters. At some moment […] such sensibility, which all the subjects see in the form of vapour, a whitish fluid, gray or grayish, sometimes with light iridescent shades, is condensed and localized on each side of them, at a distance that may vary from 20 centimetres […] to 80 centimetres.87

Acknowledging that this exteriorization of sensibility and doubling were similar, Durville pointed out that the first was a state in which the sensibility was || is mentioned in Dalia Judovitz, Unpacking Duchamp. Art in Transit (Berkeley 1995), the doubling of artistic identity following Duchamp’s observation that artists seemed to come in pairs in the twentieth century, as exemplified by “Picabia-Duchamp”, is explored in: Judovitz, Dalia, “Une sorte de pédérastie artistique. Accouplement créatif chez Duchamp et Picabia”, in: Itinéraires. Littéraire, Texte, Cultures, 1, 2012, 79‒91. 84 Janet, P., “Les Actes inconscients et le dédoublement de la personnalité pendant le somnambulisme provoqué”, in: Revue Philosophique, 22, 1886, no. 3, 577‒592. 85 Janet, P., “Les Phases intermédiaires de l'hypnotisme”, in: Revue Scientifique (Revue Rose) 1, 1886, no. 23, 577‒587; Janet, P., “L’anesthésie systématisée et la dissociation des phénomènes psychologiques”, in: Revue Philosophique, 23, 1887, no. 1, 449‒472. 86 Delboeuf, Joseph, “Sur le dédoublement du moi dans les rêves”, in: Revue Philosophique de la France et de l’Étranger, 8, 1879 (July‒December), 616‒618. 87 Durville, Le Fantôme des Vivants, 178 (my translation).

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believed to radiate around the person, while the second was a state in which the sensibility became contained in the phantom, as realized by his photographs of Madame Lambert (see Figs. 1 and 2) as well as those of Léontine, Marthe and Nénette.88 That very year Duchamp embarked upon two studies of the female nude in which their bodies are surrounded by a white aura appearing as, to use Durville’s term, a “form of vapour, a whitish fluid” that seems to radiate from their bodies “at a distance of 2 m. 50 and even 3 meters”.89 This vaporous whitish floating substance, rather than fluid, re-emerges in the watercolour and oil painting that followed in January‒October 1911, begun at Duchamp’s family home in Rouen. In the watercolour entitled Sonata (see Fig. 6), the women playing this music have been identified as Duchamp’s sisters watched by their mother. While Yvonne is pictured playing the piano, Magdeleine is playing the violin with Suzanne depicted reading in the foreground amidst a dominant vaporous white substance. This vaporous white substance reemerges in the oil painting, Apropos of Little Sister (see Fig. 7). Appearing to dominate and activate the space surrounding Duchamp’s Cubistic portrait of his thirteen-year old sister, Magdeleine, the open facets of her X-ray stick-like body seem to flow into these pulsating white planes. As she becomes increasingly absorbed in reading by candlelight, they in turn seem to reverberate with her S-shaped posture and ethereal vibrations as her “force vital”, if not her “élan vital” in terms of Bergson’s concept of the creative impulse.90 While the vaporous white substance in Sonata plays a different compositional role, it performs a comparable occult vitalist one. Since none of the sisters in this musical ensemble are depicted touching, the open faceting with which their bodies are rendered permits them to appear absorbed in and unified by the vaporous white substances emanating most intensely from the music being played. Like Lina’s interaction with music while dancing the Habanera (see Fig. 3), the more the music may have reached a crescendo, the more intensely may these luminous auras seem to cluster around Yvonne at the piano and Magdeleine at the violin (see Figs. 6 and 7).

|| 88 Durville, Le Fantôme des Vivants,189. 89 Schwarz, Arturo, The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp, New York 1997, vol. 1, no. 178 (Nude Standing) and no. 179 (Standing Nude, Neuilly). 90 The entry for this painting on the Centre Pompidou website for their 2015 exhibition, Marcel Duchamp, La Peinture, même, refers to these white shapes as “des halos blancs et ocres [qui] évoquent un autre monde”.

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Not only do these vaporous white substances reappear in Portrait (Dulcinea) (see Fig. 8), they also seem to punctuate the body and the intervening spaces in Duchamp’s rendering of this woman, fashionably attired, who he had apparently spied walking her dog in Neuilly.91 Likening the rendering of Dulcinea’s body to X-rays, Linda Dalrymple Henderson deduces that they progressively and ironically denude her as she moves through the painting. Simultaneously the Cubistic X-ray rendering of her body in angular but opened facets permits it to merge with the vaporous whitish substances until they seem to take over, as indicated by their dominance on the left-side of the composition. Like Mme Lambert’s phantom (see Figs. 1 and 2), this white vapour seems to be trailing and accompanying Dulcinea until at the end of her walk, it seems to have moved one step ahead. While this repetition of the body moving through space appears consistent with chronophotography, particularly that of Jules-Étienne Marey and Albert Londe, it is also equivalent to dédoublement. One of the few to consider “the phantasm of doubling” in Duchamp’s art, Thierry du Duve points to Duchamp’s position as an “oculist witness” and performer, before The Passage from the Virgin to the Bride.92 Even in his shift to the mechanomorphic automaton, Duchamp did not necessarily abandon the phantasmatic double but seemed to intertwine the two to generate what may be called, following Herman Parret, “le fantasme de la grande machine de précision”.93 A term commonly used to promote new machines, by 1910 “la grande machine de haute précision et grande Vitesse” figured prominently in Longine’s advertisements for its instruments to measure speed and time, its first electromechanical Chronométrage being used at the 1912 Fête Fédérale Gymnastique at Bâle. This term also figured prominently in promotions by Renault, particularly after its introduction of Frederick Winslow Taylor’s system of scientific management to accelerate production of its fast moving, precision-made cars – not necessarily to the satisfaction of its workers at its Paris Factory at Billaincourt who, in November 1912, went on strike with

|| 91 Cabanne, Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp, 33. 92 De Duve, Thierry, Pictorial Nominalism. On Marcel Duchamp’s Passage from Painting to the Readymade, Minneapolis and Oxford 2005, 39; see also 40. For another iteration of this quote, see: De Duve, Thierry, “Resonances of Duchamp’s Visit to Munich”, in: Rudolf E. Kuenzli/Francis M. Naumann (eds.), Marcel Duchamp. Artist of the Century, Cambridge and London 1991, 41‒63, here 58. 93 Parret, Herman, “Préface”, in: Jean-François Lyotard, Les Transformateurs Duchamp / Duchamps TRANS/formers, Leuven 2010, 11; see also: Parret, Herman, “Le Corps selon Duchamp”, Protée, 28, 2000, no. 3, 88‒100, here 90.

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the support of many, including Duchamp’s brothers.94 This dissension may well have dovetailed with antipathy to the ergonometry of Jules Amar through which, as I have argued elsewhere, the worker was perceived as being meticulously moulded into an anonymous, identity-less, subordinated pinion of a machine – nothing more than, in Amar’s words, le moteur humain.95 Corporeality denied, this “human motor” became, according to Anson Rabinbach, “an exemplar of that universal process by which energy was converted into mechanical work, a variant of the great engines and dynamos spawned by the industrial age.”96 Seeming to travesty Taylorism, ergonometry, precisionism and accelerationism, Duchamp’s incongruous fusion of the mechanomorphic with the phantasmatic seems comparable to Gilbert Ryle’s hauntological concept of “the ghost in the machine” and what Herman Parret calls Duchamp’s engagement, from 1912, with “le fantasme de la ‘grande machine’”.97 Initially demonstrated by Duchamp’s white phantasmatic double derived from a white chess piece, possibly the Knight, this “ghost” seems to hover amidst the browns, yellows and ochres in Sad Young Man (see Fig. 9). Appearing in a “state of anaesthesia” and possibly painted in one by Duchamp, according to Steefel, the “ominous” tone that he discerns in this painting appears to be reinforced by the phantoms he glimpses behind the young man, “about to strike a blow at his head”.98

|| 94 See: Archives Nationales, F7 1 3931. After the first strike was quelled on 4 December, 1912, the next strike broke out on 12 February 1913. Lionised by C.G.T. spokespersons and lobbyists, the strikers were heroized by the Socialist press and Anarcho-Syndicalist journals imaging how Taylorism would place the worker in the palm of the capitalist’s hand. They were championed by the Puteaux Modernists, including Duchamp’s brothers, Jacques Villon and Raymond Duchamp-Villon. See: Brauer, Fae, “Representing ‘Le Moteur Humain’: Chronometry, Chronophotography, ‘The Art of Work’ and the ‘Taylored Body’”, in Visual Resources. An International Journal of Documentation, 19, 2003, no. 2 (June), 83‒106. 95 Amar, Jules, Le Rendement de la machine humaine. Recherches sur le travail, Paris 1910; Le Moteur Humain et les Bases Scientifiques du Travail Professionel, Paris 1914; see also: Brauer, Fae, “The Sado-Masochism of Invention. Marcel Duchamp’s Ironic Inversions of Jules Amar’s Human Motor”, in: Janus Magazine, 2008, no. 14 (Fall-Winter); no pagination. 96 Rabinbach, Anson, The Human Motor. Energy, Fatigue, and the Origins of Modernity, Berkeley 1992, 4. 97 Ryle, Gilbert, The Concept of Mind, London 1949; Parret, Herman, “Le Corps selon Duchamp”, Mélancolie entre les arts, vol. 28, no. 3, 2000, 88‒100, here 90; see also: Exposition Marcel Duchamp à Beaubourg: La Peinture, même, 30 September 2014 ; http://www.centrepompidou.fr/cpv/ressource.action?param.id=FR_R-ec3e28755f5. 98 Steefel, “Marcel Duchamp and the Machine”, 72.

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The white phantasmatic double in Duchamp’s Nu descendant un escalier (No. 1) seems to seep out from the jumble of fragments in desaturated coloured facets of browns, blacks and greens. Stripped not just of clothing but flesh and blood, without any distinctly humanoid signifiers or corporeal identity, let alone any erotogenic signs of a naked body, Duchamp confounds the descender’s identity as a human nude. More like a mechanical, metallic automaton haunting the worker’s body, it appears “locked into a corset of a suit of armour”, according to Octavia Paz, which “is inviolable”.99 Once the distinct directional lines and transparent X-ray planes in Nu descendant un escalier (No. 2) (see Fig. 10) seem to concert into a chronophotographic articulation of swift movement, this pulsating, phantasmatic, mechanomorphic carcass seems to plummet down the stairs. “Descending out of a multiple reverberation of swinging phantom states”, Steefel perceptively concludes, “the nude careens and coalesces in a complex, jostling sweep toward an unknown step we cannot see”.100 In Duchamp’s final rendering of this painting from its black-and-white photograph in 1916, commissioned by the Arensbergs, the blanching of every fragment of this “nu” and the ways in which its open facets seem to skim through space at great speed, just like the phantoms that Durville observed gliding through walls and doors at one kilometre every fifteen seconds, makes it appear like the phantasmatic automaton of “la grande machine de précision”. This was the very term used by the French armament industry during the First World War to describe the machines best able to produce “artillerie lourde à grande puissance” and “au grande Vitesse”, epitomized by Amar’s ergonometric inventions, particularly his econometric shovel designed to accelerate the digging of trenches.101 This blanching is also demonstrated by The Bride in Duchamp’s Large Glass, hovering like a phantom above the bachelors and who, as David Hopkins points out, seems to have been conceived as undergoing “three definite psychic or psychosexual states”.102 The ubiquity of the phantom amidst this increasingly mechanized economic sphere is even demonstrated by the large white form hovering by the “mechanized” woman photographed sitting at her Underwood typewriter in the 1910 advertisement – one of the promotions regarded as a reference for Duchamp’s Readymade, Underwood.103 Hence no || 99 Octavia Paz, quoted in: Cook, “The ‘Meta-Irony’ of Marcel Duchamp”, 263. 100 Steefel, “Marcel Duchamp and the Machine”, 72. 101 Laparra, Jean-Claude, La Machine à vaincre, de l'espoir à la désillusion. Histoire de l'armée allemande, 1914‒1918, Saint-Cloud 2006. 102 Hopkins, David, Marcel Duchamp and Max Ernst. The Bride Shared, Oxford 1998, 42. 103 Marcel Duchamp. L’Art à l’ère de la reproduction mécanisée, Paris 1999/2004; illustration 54, 55: “Machine à écrire Underwood”; Catalogue, Underwood Victories, 1910, page 15; Santa

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matter how automatist the human body becomes in Duchamp’s mechanomorphic configurations, it always appears to be shadowed, if not overshadowed, by its phantasmatic double.104 While the X-ray transparency of planes seems to be continued in Duchamp’s “swift nudes”, as Duchamp denudes matter, despite his deceptive title, all signifiers of a human body seem to dissolve into speeding electrons beyond human perception. Rather than descending, they represent a different kind of speed and movement that Duchamp called “a flowing [of energy] around and between the central figures”, which are the king and queen of electrons, “large atoms wearing a cloak of positive electricity”.105 Appearing as light and transparent as Durville’s phantoms, the so-called “swift nudes” or electrons seemingly glide across the space – to use Durville’s term for the movement of the phantasmatic double – leaving vapour “trails”, as Duchamp points out, which “crisscross the painting”.106 As he explained to Arturo Schwarz: “I expected to render the idea of a strong king, or a male king and a feminine queen, a female queen. And the nudes were not anatomical nudes, rather things floating around the King and Queen without being hampered by their materiality”.107 Aspiring to go beyond the invisible realm of X-rays and N-rays, Duchamp’s “Swift Nudes” series then evoke the ultimate decomposition of form — what Le Bon called, in his 1905 book L’Évolution de la matière, “the dematerialization of matter”.108 Amongst the 62 illustrations of dematerialization in Le Bon’s book was a photograph of effluvia proving the dematerialisation of matter during their ‘passage’ across a material object, together with two photographs capturing the transparency of bodies amidst spectres.109 This dematerialization entailed cathode rays

|| Barbara, University of California, University Library, Romaine Trade Catalogue, Special Collections. 104 For a comparable argument, see: Parret, Herman, “Le Corps selon Duchamp”, 90. 105 “The title King and Queen was once again taken from chess but the players of 1911 (my two brothers) have been eliminated and replaced by the chess figures of the king and queen.” Cabanne, Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp, 33. 106 “Obviously the difference was the introduction of the strong nude and the swift nude”, he explained. “There was the strong nude who was the king; as for the swift nudes, they were the trails which crisscross the painting, which have no anatomical detail, no more than before”. Cabanne, Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp, 35. 107 Schwarz, The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp, 116. 108 Le Bon, L’Évolution de la Matière, 5‒31. 109 Le Bon, L’Évolution de la Matière, Fig. 26: Photographie des effluves provenant de la dématerialisation de la matière pendant leur passage à travers un obstacle matérial : lamme de verre ou d’ébonite. Also refer Figs. 41 and 42 : Détermination au moyen de la photographie de la transparence des corps pour les diverses régions du spectre.

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with radioactive beta emissions and electrons whizzing at enormous velocities – over 10,000 kilometers per second.110 As Duchamp’s contemporary, the scientist Georges Matisse observed: “matter dematerializes little by little; it disincarnates itself, as a spiritist would say. An atom becomes an ion, an ion becomes an electron, then an X-ray, and, finally, electromagnetic energy.”111 Matisse’s reference to Spiritism and magnetism was apt, particularly as the flamelike stream of electrons with a hint of spiralling circles suggests a reciprocal relationship between them and electromagnetic currents in a magnetic force field, particularly the earth’s magnetic force field. It also evokes the flamelike energy and rays that Durville described as emanating from “magnetic man”, as well as the transparency and interpenetration of phantasmatic doubles in attaining “la force vitale” and achieving Bergson’s concept of “l’élan vital”. In this case, the bodies represented by both Durville and Duchamp never appear autonomous but perpetually haunted.

Hauntological Metarealism and Spectres of Immortality: Phantasmatic Doubles and “Ghosts in the Machine” In his essay, Spectres of Marx, Jacques Derrida refers to influences and forces that operate remotely and partially, without being genuinely present in a work, but not entirely absent.112 Neither substance nor essence, these spectres that haunt like ghosts signify the loss of a secure, stable and unified human identity within a controllable environment. As Derrida points out, “a spectre does not only cause séance tables to turn, but sets heads spinning”.113 In the series of comparisons in this essay, the uncanny ways in which Durville and Duchamp

|| 110 This dominated popular discussions of cathode rays from 1896 onwards. Thomson’s experiments determined that the speed of the electron was over 10,000 kilometers per second and it was subsequently determined that radioactive beta emissions travelled even faster, figures as high as 100,000 miles (160,000 kilometers) per second and more were regularly cited as electron velocities. 111 Matisse, Georges, “La Théorie moléculaire et la science contemporaine”, in: Mercure de France, 1 June 1913, 520–525. 112 Derrida, Jacques, Specters of Marx. The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New International, trans. Peggy Kamuf, New York and London 1994, 38. 113 Derrida, Specters of Marx, 127.

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set heads spinning is illuminated from the irradiating and vibrating aura in Duchamp’s portrait of Dumouchel to the phantasmatic luminosity of the etheric envelope captured by Durville and de Rochas, comparable to the N-Rays captured by Blondlot and described by Durville. While the figure of Demeter may appear to be in the process of magnetizing Persephone in Duchamp’s Le Buisson, these two figures appear to be enveloped within an azure aura comparable to those described by Durville, de Rochas and Besant, pertaining to the etheric and astral spheres. While white vaporous substances appear in Apropos of Little Sister and seem to be enveloping Duchamp’s two sisters as they play the piano and the violin in Sonata, intensifying around their musical instruments, they are also captured in Durville’s photographs of Madame Lambert’s phantasmatic double and de Rochas’ photographs of the psychic effluvia unleashed during the climax of Lina’s dance. Just as the phantasmatic double seems to pursue Madame Lambert, so it appears to follow and accompany Duchamp’s Dulcinea, until it seems to pass her. While the phantasmatic double seems to fuse with the mechanomorphic automatons in Duchamp’s series of Nudes Descending a Staircase, it seems to skim through space in Duchamp’s Swift Nudes as swiftly as Durville’s phantasms seem to glide through walls and doors. Hence in all these photographs and artworks, the phantasmatic double remains omnipresent, equivalent to a hauntological metarealism. Yet for all the analogies that may be drawn between the phantasmatic bodies of Durville and Duchamp and their endeavours to visualize the invisible forces of occultist vitalism, especially “la force vitale” and its relationship to “l’élan vital”, there were fundamental differences in their hauntologies. So popular did Durville’s book and his title become that le fantôme des vivants was coined by psychical researchers to describe the phenomenon of the haunting of the present in the face of a Godless world constantly being affirmed by Neo-Lamarckian evolutionary scientists and ergonomists like Amar in France.114 If this hauntological metarealism may be regarded as arising from the trauma of loss, then for Durville and many other Scientistic Magnetists, it may be specifically diagnosed in relation to the increasing laicization of the Third Republic launched by Léon Gambetta from 1881 culminating in the traumatic Separation of Church and State in 1905 in the Radical Republic, the loss of God

|| 114 In Manifestations du Fantôme des Vivants: Pour dédoubler le corps humain (Paris: Bibliothèque Eudiaque, 1910) 10, Hector Durville acknowledges the precedent set for this title by Frederic William Henry Myers and Frank Podmore’s Phantoms of the Living (London: Society for Psychical Research, 1886), but laments what he calls its French mistranslation by Mariller as Les Hallucinations télépathiques.

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and particularly, the loss of the concept of the soul and immortality. As Durville openly acknowledged, his photographically documented experiments with magnetic energies and phantoms of living bodies had been designed to prove that “la force vitale” existed, independent of matter, and that it revealed the anatomy and physiology of the soul. As Durville stated in capital letters at the end of his treatise: Le dédoublement du corps humain est un fait certain qui se démontre par expérimentation direct. Cette dualité prouve en même temps que la Force est indépendante de la Matière et que notre individualité se compose d’un Corps brut et d’une Âme intelligente.115

To reinforce the empirical nature of his evidence and its function as scientific proof, Durville subsequently declared “the dedoubling of the human body is a rigorous scientific fact … especially since publication of […] my Living Phantoms with its photographs showing the universality of this phenomenon and its realization through magnetism”.116 Durville had then dramatically concluded that ultimately his photography of magnetic energies had scientifically proven with empirical evidence that “la force vitale” was not only independent of matter, with equivalent attributes to the theological concept of the soul.117 He also reasoned that “while the phantom functioned freely outside the body, the Soul which directs it … must continue after death” in which case, “immortality is a fact which may be demonstrated scientifically”.118 As Alex Owen succinctly surmizes, “some psychical researchers undoubtedly were seeking proof of the immortality of the soul, and possibly all were searching for either consolation or meaning in an otherwise bleakly materialistic world”.119 This search for an independent spirit and the ubiquity of “la force vitale” may then be also viewed as a quest for freedom from the bounded trap of technologized capitalism, commodity consumerism, ergonometry, and the increasing mechanization of the human

|| 115 Durville, Le Fantôme des Vivants, 354. 116 Durville, quoted in: Lefranc, “Les États du Sommeil Magnétique”, 7. 117 The tests reported by Durville represent an historically important attempt to empirically document the topic through the induction of experiences. While his book, Le Fantôme des Vivants, was repeatedly cited by later writers on the topic, some aspects of his research were replicated and extended, but the reports have fewer methodological details than those of Durville; see for example: Lefranc, “Les États du sommeil magnétique”. 118 Durville, Le Fantôme des Vivants, 354: Puisque le fantôme fonctionne librement en dehors du corps, l’Âme qui le dirige peut et doit subsister après la mort. Si’il en est ainsi, L’IMMORTALITÉ est un fait qui peut être démontré scientifiquement. 119 Owen, Alex, The Place of Enchantment. British Occultism and the Culture of the Modern, Chicago 2015, 26‒27.

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body turning it, following Amar’s ergonometry, into nothing more than a “human motor”. While Duchamp conceived of art as a means of exploring hauntological metarealism, “non-retinal” reality and paranormal phenomena in conjunction with “la force vitale” – not without meta-irony – he also conceived of the artist as “a mediumistic being”. Yet anticlerical and atheistic Duchamp was not at all concerned with what he called “all this twaddle” about “the existence of God” and the soul.120 As his Nude Descending a Staircase and his ready-mades reveal, Duchamp also did not shy away from exposing temporality as materialistic and mechanistic with irony, if not meta-irony – a characteristic conspicuous by its absence in the work of Durville. In his exposure of the ways in which a human body can function as if it were a machine, as Steefel points out, Duchamp also signalled how it can operate without a soul.121 Hence even though Duchamp, like Durville, explored how the diverse dimensions of light waves, magnetic and electromagnetic waves, radium, X-rays and N-rays interpenetrated one another in the vitalist force field to generate an extraordinarily powerful fusion of energies, his phantasmatic doubles signified neither the hauntology of the soul nor immortality. Instead they seemed to signal the possibility of Bergson’s concept of “l’élan vital” in relation to the evolutionary concept of spontaneous morphogenesis as a creative impulse within what Bergson called a “métapsychique” reality, analogous to Duchamp’s concept of metareality, without the intervention of God.122 As Bergson explained to the British Society for Psychical Research in his 1913 presidential speech, “Phantasms of the Living” and “Psychical Research”: “There is, present and invisible a certain metaphysic unconscious of itself – unconscious and therefore inconsistent, unconscious and therefore incapable of continually remodelling itself on observation and experience as every philosophy worthy of the name must do”.123 To emphasise the resonance

|| 120 Clair, Sur Duchamp et la fin de l’art, 33. Nevertheless Clair points out that “to consider Duchamp as opposed to the supernatural, is to forget that Duchamp had not ceased to interest himself, between the ages of ten and twenty, and perhaps beyond, in paranormal phenomena. Even after the war, he would speak, of art as a means of accessing “non-retinal” reality and of the artist as a “medium”. 121 Steefel Jr., “Marcel Duchamp and the Machine”, 74 and 79, note 32, citing Bruno Bettelheim, “Joey : A Mechanical Boy”, Scientific American, Vol. 200, No. 3, March 1959, 117. 122 Kolb, Sarah, “‘There is no progress, change is all we know.’ Notes on Duchamp’s Concept of Plastic Duration”, in: The Nordic Journal of Aesthetics, 28, 2019, no. 57‒58, 87‒108. 123 Bergson, Henri, “Phantasms of the Living” and “Psychical Research”: Presidential Address to the Society for Psychical Research, London, 23 May 1913, Mind-Energy, trans. H. Wildon Carr, ed. Keith Ansell Pearson and Michael Kolkman, Basingstoke 2007, 77.

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and sustenance of “l’élan vital” within this “métapsychique” reality, Bergson succinctly concluded, “it’s organisms that die, not life,”124 a dictum subsequently explored in Paris at the Institut Métapsychique International from its inception in 1919 by Bergson and his close friend, the Noble Prize-winning physiologist, Charles Richet.125 Hence at a time of Taylorism, ergonometry and precisionism, Duchamp’s phantasmatic doubles may have also signalled, with his “tongue in his cheek”, the uncanny disruption to modern materialism and technological order that could be unleashed by chance spectres in hauntological metareality, particularly “ghosts in the machine”, if not “le fantasme de la ‘grande machine’”.

|| 124 Saussman, J., ““It’s organisms that die, not life”; Henri Bergson, Psychical Research and the Contemporary uses of Vitalism”: Chapter 1 in The Machine and the Ghost: Technology and spiritualism in nineteenth- to twenty-first-century art and culture, S. Mays and N. Matheson (eds.), Manchester 2013, 16–36. 125 Hong Xiang, Jesse, The Outline of Parapsychology, London 2009, 42.

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Fig. 1: Photographie prise dans l’état de dédoublement. Le sujet est invisible et à gauche se présente une vague forme humain, qui doit être le corps étherique de celui-ci, Mme Lambert; Hector Durville, Le Fantôme des Vivants: Anatomie et Physiologie de l’Âme. Recherches Expérimentales sur le Dédoublement des Corps de l’Homme (Paris: Librairie de Magnétisme, 1909).

Fig. 2: Le Fantôme de Mme Lambert ; Hector Durville, Le Fantôme des Vivants: Anatomie et Physiologie de l’Âme. Recherches Expérimentales sur le Dédoublement des Corps de l’Homme (Paris: Librairie de Magnétisme, 1909) Fig. 24.

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Fig. 3: Lina dancing the Habanera, as sung by Mlle Calvé and M. Gailhard with piano music by Paul Vidal; Kodak photograph; “Action de la Musique sur le Corps Astral”, Chapître IV, Albert de Rochas, Les Sentiments, la musique et le geste (Grenoble: H. Falque and F. Perrin,1900): 265.

Fig. 4: Marcel Duchamp, Portrait of Dr. Dumouchel, 1910, oil on canvas, 100.3 x 65.7 cm, The Louise and Water Arensberg Collection, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia.

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Fig. 5: Marcel Duchamp, Le Buisson, 1910–1911, oil on canvas, 127.3 × 91.9 cm, The Louise and Water Arensberg Collection, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia.

Fig. 6: Marcel Duchamp, La Sonate, 1911; oil on canvas, 145.1 x 113.3 cm, The Louise and Water Arensberg Collection, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia.

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Fig. 7: Marcel Duchamp, À propos de jeune sœur, 1911; oil on canvas, 72.4 x 59.7 cm, Guggenheim Museum of Art, New York; 71.1944; © 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris/Succession Marcel Duchamp.

Fig. 8: Marcel Duchamp, Portrait (Dulcinea), 1911; oil on canvas, 146.4 × 114 cm, The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Accession Number: 1950-134-54; ADAGP, Paris / Succession Marcel Duchamp.

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Fig. 9: Marcel Duchamp, Nu esquisse : jeune homme triste dans un train, 1911–12, oil on cardboard mounted on Masonite, 100 x 73 cm., The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice.

Fig. 10: Marcel Duchamp, Nu descendant un escalier (No. 2), 1912, oil on canvas, 147 x 89.2 cm, The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia.

Roann Barris

Conditional-Realistic Constructivism or Constructivist New Realism By 1930, at a debate about Vsevolod Meierkhol’d’s “creative methods”,1 sponsored by the official State Academy of Artistic Sciences (GAKhN), speakers were beginning to comment positively on changes in his work.2 These changes were described as a move away from the abstraction of the first period of Meierkhol’d’s productions toward an increasingly realistic approach in his second and third periods in which elements were taken from the real world and the actors wore real clothing and make-up. Yet they remained unconvinced by the collision of mechanistic, idealistic and naturalistic qualities in his productions and did not believe that he had produced an acceptable image of the “new man”. By 1930, they would have known his production of Earth in Turmoil (Zemlya dybom) and its use of military equipment and uniforms, but they would not have known, because it was unproduced, Meierkhol’d’s plans for a production of Sergei Tret’yakov’s 1926 play, I Want a Child (Khochu rebënka).3 Although I argue that this production embodied Meierkhol’d’s transition to the new realism, it is unlikely that it would have satisfied the demand for an image of the new man. Nonetheless, I believe it played a formative role in the evolution of constructivist theater into a new form of constructivism. Borrowing a phrase

|| 1 Unless otherwise noted, translations from the Russian are my own. I use the abbreviation RGALI to refer to the Russian State Archives of Literature and Art (formerly TsGali). Research for this paper was supported in part by a Fulbright grant and university sabbatical. 2 Robert Pel’she and other speakers, “O tvorcheskom metode Teatra im. Meierkhol’da”, typed transcript of speeches made at a debate in Nov.-Dec. 1930 in the GAKhN fond 941–4–53, 59/3, in RGALI. My focus here is on a small piece of this transcript. 3 The most complete discussion of this play is Robert Leach’s analysis of a production in the 1990s in his introduction to Sergei Mikhailovich Tret’yakov: I Want a Baby [depending on the source, the title is translated as Child or as Baby], trans. Stephen Holland, ed. Robert Leach, Birmingham 1995. For alternative discussions, see also: Christina Kiaer’s discussions in chapter 6 of her book, Imagine No Possessions: The Socialist Object of Russian Constructivism (Cambridge 2005), and “Delivered from Capitalism: Nostalgia, Alienation, and the Future of Reproduction in Tret’yakov’s I Want a Child!”, in: Christina Kiaer/Eric Naiman (eds.), Everyday Life in Early Soviet Russia, Bloomington 2005, 183–216; Naiman, Eric, Sex in Public: The Incarnation of Soviet Ideology, Princeton 1997, 109–115. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-005

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used by one of the conference speakers, I will call it “conditional-realistic constructivism”.4 Alternatively, my preference is for “constructivist new realism”. Here I want to note that central to my thesis is an understanding of theatrical constructivism that does not limit itself to the stage construction (if one exists) or decor. In keeping with the constructivist critic Boris Arvatov’s definition of factory work as the “constructive formulation of the real dynamics of materials in accord with each posed problem”,5 theatrical constructivism is a network in which the actor, stage objects, and dramatic text become a changing montage or mobile construction comprising all of the performances in the production. Montage will be the key to both the new realism and the evolution of theatrical constructivism. The new realism affected all the arts in the 1920s. Whether we turn to literary texts, cinema, practical manuals for making posters, or theater, we find a widespread attraction to the documentary approach6 coupled with the belief that the rejection of bourgeois art implied a rejection of naturalism but not a rejection of realism. The ambiguous distinction between these two categories ultimately lies not only in subject matter but in technology, technique and the non-art models frequently used for creating the new realism. It is those models, ranging from advertisements to newspapers and court trials, which inevitably create the most problems for the practitioners of the new realism as well as its critics. Although Meierkhol’d’s earliest forays into realism preceded his constructivist years (I am thinking of his 1920 production of Dawn [Zori]), for this essay I will limit my focus to his constructivist period.

|| 4 Following a lengthy discussion by several speakers of Meierkhol’d’ creative methods (see note 2), Pel’she tries to summarize by observing that whereas his theater is always conditional, initially it is also abstract but in its second and third phase, it becomes more realistic, called by Pel’she “conditional-realistic constructivism” (59). 5 Quoted in Sidorina, Elena V., “Kontseptsiya proizvostvennogo iskusstva i ‘Teatral’nyi Oktiabr”, Tekhnicheskaya estetika, 1979, no. 21, 13–29, here 25. 6 Papazian, Elizabeth A., Manufacturing Truth. The Documentary Moment in Early Soviet Culture, DeKalb 2009, 18. See the introduction for her overview and definition of the documentary moment. Although Benjamin D. Buchloh’s discussion is not identical to Papazian’s, in many respects they are discussing a similar development. See his article “From Faktura to Factography”, October, 30, Autumn 1984, 82–119.

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Meierkhol’d as a Constructivist In Meierkhol’d’s self-identification as a constructivist, he refers to the productions of Magnanimous Cuckold (Velikodushnyi Rogonosets), Death of Tarelkin (Smert Tarelkina), and Earth in Turmoil (1923–1924).7 Although he never used specifically constructivist terminology in writing about his productions, each of these plays appears to centralize one of the three constructivist principles or tenets. Thus, in Magnanimous Cuckold we find the beginning of the theatrical evolution of konstruktsiya, in Tarelkin he explores the meaning of faktura, and in Earth in Turmoil we arrive at the first real appearance of tektonika in Meierkhol’d’s work. At the risk of oversimplification, we might understand konstruktsiya as a term which emphasized the process of construction as the nonrepresentational organization of materials for the purpose of demonstrating an idea or principle, as opposed to the architectural scaffolding the word seems to suggest, and faktura as a term which empowered both the worker and the materials as ingredients and forces of construction.8 Tektonika, a geological term that has long been the least understood term of the three, centralizes the form as being inextricably connected to the demands of the new life and therefore perpetually changing. It insists on the imbrication of form, content and technique.9 The term’s reference to extracting metals from the earth, melting them, and creating something new provided the basis for situating the work of the constructivists in the industrialization of daily life. Thus, tektonika anchors the process of constructing the new world in the Communist revolution, literalizing

|| 7 See Meierkhol’d’s 1936 essay, “O Nekotorykh voprosakh prostranstvennoi kompozitsii spektaklia” in: V.E. Meierkhol’d (ed.), Stati, pisma, rechi, besedy. vol. 2: 1917–1939, eds. O.N. Rossikhina and E.G. Ivanova, Moskwa 1968, 496–500. 8 All three terms need to be understood in two ways: first, as the constructivists defined them in the 1921 debates of the First Working Group of Constructivists, and second, as they were manifested in theater. For the first approach, see Gough, Maria, The Artist as Producer: Russian Constructivism in Revolution (Berkeley 2005) and her earlier article “Faktura: The Making of the Russian Avant-Garde” (Res, 36, Autumn 1999, 32–59). Finally, for their application to constructivist theatre, see Barris, Roann, “The Life of the Constructivist Theatrical Object”, Theatre Journal, 65, 2013, 57–76. 9 Gan, Aleksei, Konstruktivism, Tver 1922, 61. Italics added. The complete passage in translation reads as follows: “Tektonika or a tektonic style is one which is organically extracted from and formed by communism, on one hand, and the goal-oriented use of industrial materials, on the other. The word ‘tektonik’ is taken from geology where it refers to violent eruptions from the heart of the earth.... Tektonika, as a constructivist discipline, must lead to the practice and synthesis of a new subject in a new form”.

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the eruptive or revolutionary nature of both the 1917 revolution and the constructivist engagement with this revolution, and also connects constructivism to the new realism.10 Whereas content was variable, there was only one form which had the potential to meet these conditions: the photomontage. Benjamin D. Buchloh’s seminal article on faktura and factography focuses on the montage as the essential step in changing from a paradigm which tolerates variability in audience responses to one which depends on “simultaneous collective reception”.11 In his formulation, the photomontage initiates the transition to factography by replacing the image as a representational sign of something else with the image as icon – an act of self-presentation. Because any montage is predicated on juxtapositions of images which may not typically co-exist in real life, the lie of the montage is the production of a new reality, believable in its parts, but unreal as a whole – hence, the “crisis” of reception, as Buchloh describes it. For Buchloh, the photomontage embodies faktura because it is a constructed organization of materials and ideas.12 I would go further and suggest that the photomontage unites faktura and tektonika, provided we understand it as El Lisitskii and Gustav Klutsis understood it – as an organizational system and not simply an assemblage of images. Whereas one does not customarily think of the theater as a photomontage, it is precisely that, if we allow the montage to contain living humans. This is not a big leap in Meierkhol’d’s case, given that an interest in cinema was already part of his theatrical vision,13 and more generally, both cinema and photomontage were the media of the new realism. The first production in which konstruktsiya, faktura, and tektonika come together as a dynamic montage was Earth in Turmoil. Hugely successful, the production was cinematic and agitational. When performed indoors, Meierkhol’d

|| 10 Both Christina Lodder and Catherine Cooke emphasize this in their discussions of the term. See Cooke, Catherine, Russian Avant-Garde, London 1995, 105, in particular, for her discussion of tektonika; Ch. Lodder, Russian Constructivism, New Haven 1983, 98–99. 11 Buchloh, “From Faktura to Factography”, 94–95. 12 Buchloh, “From Faktura to Factography”, 90–91. 13 Aleksandr V. Fevralskii devotes a long essay (and book) to Meierkhol’d’s interest in the synthesis of theater and cinema: “Kinofikatsya teatra”, in Puti k sintezu. Meierkhol’d i kino, Moscow 1978, 108–146. He also notes that Meierkhol’d had some actual involvement in making movies prior to the Russian revolution. His work on a movie of the Picture of Dorian Gray in 1915 is also discussed by Braun, Edward, Meyerhold: A Revolution in Theatre, Iowa 1995, 137. Meierkhol’d himself discussed film in his small pamphlet, Rekonstruktsia Teatra, published in 1930 and reprinted in Stati, pisma, rechi, besedy, 192–213.

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used the lighting to emphasize cinematic sequences of movements. Whether indoors or outdoors, slogans that commented on real life were projected on a large screen above the actors. In both their visual style and the nature of the phrases, the slogans enhanced the vivid perception of the play as being real life and more like a documentary movie than a theatrical event. This, of course, was not due entirely to the slogans and lighting – this was the production where Meierkhol’d, along with Tret’yakov and Lyubov’ Popova, the artist for this production, dispensed almost entirely with theatricality.14

From Montage to Factography Just as the mock trials of the early 1920s were changing from entertainment to scripted tools of political education,151 by the middle of the 1920s fiction was increasingly dominated by a type of realism or “factualized fiction”16 that would soon become the basis for socialist realism. As the differences between fact and fiction diminished, the differences between advertisements, propaganda and newspapers diminished as well.17 Whether image or text, they all used a language of recognizable types and forms: as suggested by the debate over Meierkhol’d’s creative work, regardless of medium, this was an increasing commitment to content or information, rather than style. Yet, without rejecting a commitment to information, a writer such as Tret’yakov was less interested in the creation and use of recognizable types than in their subversion.18 Thus, Tret’yakov did not see his role as simply that of a reporter or documentarian of

|| 14 This production is the focus of Barris, “Constructivist Theatrical Object”. 15 Wood, Elizabeth A., Performing Justice: Agitation Trials in Early Soviet Russia, Ithaca 2005, 76–84. 16 Gregory Carleton uses this phrase in Sexual Revolution in Bolshevik Russia (Pittsburgh 2005, 141), discussing the development of two forms of realism – a realism which had some basis in reality but used formulaic techniques and eventually underlies socialist realist literature, and a realism of the “living person” (146). 17 On changes in advertising, see: Cox, Randi, “‘NEP without NEPmen!’ Soviet Advertising and the Transition to Socialism”, in Christina Kiaer/Eric Naiman, Everyday Life, 119–152. Cox cites a study asking people to identify two advertisements; more than a quarter of the respondents named political posters (134). 18 Benjamin, Walter, “The Author as Producer”, in: Reflections. Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings, trans. Edmund Jephcott, New York, London 1978, 220–238, here especially 231.

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fact. As he put it, “to discover an important theme is reportage; to contribute constructively to an important theme is operativism”.19 Factography, then, might be more than the collection of facts – it is the creation of those facts by an “operating” artist. In 1934, when Walter Benjamin used Tret’yakov as an example of a new type of writer, the “operating” writer, he was referring to the latter’s decision to join a collective farm in order to write about it.20 This decision meant that the writer did not just observe and report but actively produced the content he documented. Benjamin’s point, that new forms of art emerge not from new content but from active intervention in the content, raises several questions, among them the degree to which this reflects constructivist principles. The constructivists had not stipulated that the artist should produce new content. The belief that content should erupt or arise from the conditions of life is a different expectation, and with the exception of Karl Ioganson, we find few examples (if any) of constructivists who followed the path described by Benjamin.21 If, however, there is an intermediate position which can be identified, then constructivist theater may have fulfilled the tenets of “factographic-operativism”. Benjamin does provide this intermediate point, turning not to Tret’yakov, whose last play before his putative “exit” from art remained censored and unproduced, but to Bertolt Brecht’s epic theater as an example of an art which does not “reproduce situations; rather”, he notes, it “discovers them”.22 The epic theater did not centralize narrative or tell stories. Instead, it created an environment in which the expected sequence of events was interrupted or derailed in some way, much like a montage in which a “superimposed element disrupts the context in which it was inserted”, forcing both actor and audience to revise their expectations in light of newly discovered evidence.23 The operating writer and the factographic impulse together make the spectator, as much as the author, into the producer. To be sure, the use of montage does not guarantee a producing reader. As used in posters, newspapers, and government materials produced for the public, the montage created the illusion, but not the reality, of an active and complicit spectator. The failure to attain simultaneous reception could be avoided if operativism was an illusion. When, for example, a women’s magazine published stories with moral dilemmas, and followed them with readers’ letters

|| 19 Tret’yakov, quoted in Papazian, Manufacturing Truth, 62. 20 Benjamin, “The Author as Producer”, 220–238. 21 For an in-depth study of Ioganson, see Gough, The Artist as Producer. 22 Benjamin, “The Author as Producer”, 232. 23 Benjamin, “The Author as Producer”, 234.

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expressing their opinions, the magazine also published a “correct” interpretation to accompany the readers’ letters.24 Likewise, instead of providing plot summaries to help viewers follow the narratives of silent films (as had been done in the 1910s), during the Soviet years, viewers were given guidelines telling them what to look for in the movie.25 Even an activity that might generally be associated with spectator activism – responding to ads in order to make a purchase – adopted a didacticism comparable to that of the propaganda posters which eventually replaced them.26 It is interesting to note, however, that the wall newspapers made specifically to report the accomplishments of individual communities during the five-year plan were also influenced by the montage technique used in the advertising posters of the 1920s. In fact, as the propaganda poster began to replace the advertisement in prevalence and familiarity, it changed the format from predominantly single-image posters created by multiple smaller images to newspaper style posters with multiple columns of images and text in which drawings and bar graphs replaced the photographs. The iconography, if new, quickly became familiar, as they all used a new vocabulary invented for the purpose of communicating agricultural, industrial and cultural achievements.27 Thus, although we continue to find a commitment to the montage idea in a range of media, the goal of creating a mobile viewpoint and an active spectator was not uniform. When the operating producer was the government, the spectator resumed the role of a passive recipient. Because technique is available to many and does not guarantee or predict an outcome, we now confront the question of Meierkhol’d’s presumed complicity with the passive spectator in I Want a Child. Meierkhol’d’s plan to produce this play reveals an attraction to plays in which deception is a key theme. The iconic, constructivist production of Magnanimous Cuckold (in 1923) was based on a play by the Belgian author Fernand Crommelynck (Le Cocu magnifique, 1921), about a miller who believed that his

|| 24 Attwood, Lynne, Creating the New Soviet Woman: Women’s Magazines as Engineers of Female Identity, 1922–1953, New York 1999, 56. 25 Youngblood, Denise, “Early Russian and Soviet Film”, presentation at the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute on Russian and Soviet Visual Cultures, at the New York Public Library, 1 July, 2008. 26 See Cox, Randi Barnes, “The Creation of the Socialist Consumer: Advertising, Citizenship and NEP”, Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University 1999. 27 The Rabinovich collection of Russian and Ukrainian wall newspapers from the 1920s in the New York Public Library is of unique interest in that few of these are available in reproductions. They had not been catalogued or digitized when I was given access to them although plans existed to do so.

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wife was cuckolding him. Child, in contrast, was a contemporary Russian play about Milda, a female Latvian worker in Moscow, who, as the title suggests, wants to have a baby. What the title doesn’t say is that she does not want a husband.28 Both plays are about con-artists who disguise themselves to perpetrate their fraud. The miller plans a masquerade in order to catch his wife in an act of deception; Milda wants to seduce a man in order to become pregnant. In her case, she ultimately deludes herself into thinking she is not jealous of Yakov, her chosen, proletarian sperm donor’s engagement to another woman and that her only motive for having a child is that of being a good socialist woman. What might be considered a bigger deception falls into the realm of both the narrative and social contexts. The final scene in the play is noted in the text as a dream set four years in the future. Staged as a “healthy baby” contest, the firstplace winners are the two babies fathered by Yakov, one with Milda and one with his wife. Second prize goes to the baby of a drug addict, throwing into question not only the contribution of the mother to the “healthy baby” but even the contribution of the father. Contests like these were real events and the outcome in the play’s contest was supported by popular belief. Newspaper stories about the real versions of these propaganda events confirmed that fathers and even mothers were less likely to be cited as factors in producing winners than were living conditions, doctors’ prescriptions for healthy rearing practices, and other social factors.29 But how can we forget that the contest in Tret’yakov’s play was a dream? This dream sequence was necessary to reinforce the idea that Milda is ultimately an anti-heroine, whatever we might think of eugenics as a reproductive solution. It is in this respect that Tret’yakov demonstrates both his dissatisfaction with the idea that any text, whether play or novel, can have a single hero, and his assertion, in response to criticism from Glavrepertkom (committee for the oversight of entertainment and repertory) that Milda was discredited.30 By the end of the play, Milda has become a deceptive advertise-

|| 28 In addition to the 1988 publication in Russian, Tret’yakov’s play was translated and published in: Robert Leach (ed.), Sergei Mikhailovich Tret’yakov: I Want a Baby, trans. Stephen Holland, Birmingham 1995. My discussion of the text is generally based on Holland’s translation. 29 Starks, Tricia, The Body Soviet. Propaganda, Hygiene, and the Revolutionary State, Madison 2008, 150. 30 In 1928, Tret’yakov wrote an article in which he rejected the idea that a single character could embody all aspects of a hero, and called instead for a “collective” hero. Although Child does not seem to fulfill this goal, it may be the case that Milda’s failure as a hero was a reflection of Tret’yakov’s belief in the need for an anti-heroic novel. See his “The Biography of the Object”, reprinted and translated by Devin Fore in: October, Fall 2006, no. 118, 57–62.

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ment for both eugenics and the new socialist woman. (The cuckold’s wife, for the record, leaves the miller. Perhaps she was a better advertisement for the new woman.) Although difficult to interpret, the dream sequence demonstrates Tret’yakov’s commitment to the idea of the “problem play” and its elision with factography. Child was an intermediate stage for Tret’yakov in the arc of his factographic work. As Papazian has observed, Tret’yakov himself called this a “problem” play, undoubtedly for different reasons than the repertory committee cited. In his words, a problem play was one in which the “conclusion emerges in the thick of the audience”.31 Nonetheless, prior to staging, this play remained within the realm of a narrative-driven text by an author who stands outside the events – with one exception. In light of the play’s structure, which includes several scenes revolving around ongoing rehearsals for a workers’ club play, we might see Tret’yakov as having staged the idea of a factographic play within the larger factographic intervention of the complete play. And then, we might begin to understand the circular glass floor and the equally false illusion of transparency in the play’s staging as a form of disorientation and obfuscation, another false facade, rather than as the prevailing metaphor of the operating theater (to which the set does, indeed, make a visual allusion). Recall that to be factographic, the play must establish a direct connection to the audience, presumably producing the same response in all members. The plans for a discussion approach to the production thus become part of another deception. To understand this, we must first turn to the transcripts of the Glavrepertkom debate and then to Lisitskii’s model. The debate opens with strong condemnation of the play’s subject matter and language, including assertions that the play was crude, that families would be unable to attend a play like this for fear of polluting the values of their children, and that the end of the play was hypocritical. Tret’yakov speaks after several denunciatory speeches, at which time he indicates that he would like Meierkhol’d to present his plans for production before he fully responds. Meierkhol’d begins by agreeing with some of the statements made in the debate: that the play should be considered a “discussion” play, that the author “made mistakes”, and that the text should be thought of as a sketch or outline.32 It is not clear that Meierkhol’d’s meaning of “sketch” is identical to the committee’s since he goes on to say that no play can be visualized completely until it is in the theater. It should not be surprising, he

|| 31 Quoted in Papazian, Manufacturing Truth, 36. 32 The quotations and description of the comments are from the 15 December 1928 meeting of Glavrepertkom as recorded and reprinted in Sovremennaya Dramaturgiya.

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says, that the author sketched the solutions to the problems posed by the play; they cannot be resolved in any fashion until it is produced. Meierkhol’d goes on to describe his own process of working with this play, noting that he had already prepared several variants but it was only now that he understood how to stage it. Taking literally the idea of the play as a discussion, Meierkhol’d says he wants to include seats on the stage and have individuals (whom he calls “orators”) seated in the apparent audience area but prepared to participate in the discussion. Here he notes that it would be similar to the way anatomy students share in the dissection of a human body in the anatomy theater. As Meierkhol’d further develops his plan, he indicates that there will be no right or wrong answers to any of the author’s questions, that the author himself might participate in the discussion, and that no two performances – or repetitions, as he calls them – would be identical. It is this aspect of his plan that opens up a possible interpretation of Meierkhol’d’s contentious statement that the “author made mistakes”. Rather than taking this at face value to mean that Meierkhol’d affirms the denunciations made by the commission, we might consider that for a producer who was committed to theatrical conditions of the grotesque and of characters as masks, the “author” in this formulation was another mask who was called upon, like the orators, to take wrong positions as a means of stimulating debate. We might also note that the accusation of mistakes, followed by an explanation of how those mistakes will be corrected, was both a popular demographic device in the theater – the play has problems but the performance will “clean” it up33 – and a device used at the many organizational meetings and debates whose minutes have been preserved in stenograms. Think, for example, of the pending 1930 debate we opened with. Whereas some of the speakers were ready to adjust their views of Meierkhol’d’s work, what they could not accept was his unwillingness to engage in self-criticism. Not the first of those debates, in his statement about the author’s mistakes, Meierkhol’d may have simply been following a protocol to which he was no stranger at that time. Finally, we might begin to see the plan for unpredictably changing repetitions as the foundation of a montage of performances with a mobile viewpoint despite the presence of “orators”. Just as Meierkhol’d’s interest in a round theater was not unique, we might note that neither was this interest in overcoming the boundaries between audi-

|| 33 Vadim Shcherbakov, a professor of theatre at the Moscow Institute for the Study of Art and Meierkhol’d specialist, suggested this to me in discussion in Moscow, November 2010.

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ence and performance.34 What appears to be different, however, is the deliberate attempt to script the actors into the audience, confusing the boundaries not from the perspective of the performance on stage but from the perspective of the audience, which becomes another or counter-performance. Seated in the audience and performing as though they were natural audience members spontaneously responding to the debates generated by the play, the orators would have breached the audience/performer divide. The implication of this breach is that truly unscripted spectators might have contributed to the debate. Had the audience been able to recognize this deception as a demonstration of theatrical conditionality or uslovnost, they would have been able to engage in the production of deception. In 1927, Meierkhol’d met with Lisitskii to discuss his plans for a new theater. At that time, Meierkhol’d told him that the new theater should flow from the conditions of society. Asking what this new theater and stage should look like, he answered himself by saying that the new theater should contain a unified stage and hall space, and it should facilitate the perception of action in vertical and horizontal planes at the same time.35 It seems clear that Child was not intended to be a production in which the construction would compete with the overarching structure of the performance: theater and construction in this case were one and the same. In so doing, Meierkhol’d would now be centralizing the new aesthetic truth of a theater that takes its subject matter, materials, and even its lighting from real life. If Tret’yakov had made a factographic play about factography, Meierkhol’d would have made a “tektonic” play about tektonika. To go one step further, we might say that whereas the biomechanical movements of the actors had mirrored and occasionally intruded on the wooden construction of Cuckold, in this production the actors and audience became the construction. Although he did not abandon stage constructions and material formulations in his later work, writers at the time did notice a change in Meierkhol’d’s work. In his 1931 discussion of Meierkhol’d’s career, the theater critic Boris Alpers identified two periods in the director’s evolution, describing the second || 34 Before Meierkhol’d, writers such as Georg Fuchs and Vyacheslav Ivanov had likewise called for the elimination of illusion and its replacement with a unified theater of spectators and actors. Their work was published in the early twentieth century; Meierkhol’d was familiar with their theories and commented on them in his own writing. 35 “Proekt teatralnogo zdaniya”, protocol of a conversation between Meierkhol’d and Lisitskii, in the Meierkhol’d fond in the Bakhrushin Museum, no. 305776/1034. Some of this material is also available in summary in Pogadaeva, S.I., “Nekotorye printsipy stroitelstva teatralnykh zdanii”, in: V.G. Babenko/Ia.S. Tubin/ N.B. Kirillova, Iskusstvo teatra Sverdlosk, 1987, 160–161.

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one as a period in which Meierkhol’d moved away from the dynamism of his earlier productions toward an increasingly static or immobile theater. Rather than a dynamic spectacle in which everything was in movement, he noted that Meierkhol’d had begun to focus on exaggerated elements of daily life, as if to place them under a microscope and fix a memory of the past in the present. Alpers conjectured that for Meierkhol’d, the death of theater had become his subject.36 It is an intriguing hypothesis, but Meierkhol’d’s theatrical writing in the late 1920s about his goals emphasized a vision in which he reformulated his much earlier goals of taking the theater outside into a vision of the unity of film and theater. In fact, his 1929 pamphlet on the reconstruction of the theater had less to do with the physical structure of the building than with a goal of “silencing” the actors’ speeches as the entire production became more symphonic and more like a silent film. Not literally wanting to silence the theater, he wrote that in order to create an arena for discussion, the theater should not be filled with rhetoric. Each production must involve the entire auditorium (the building), while the skeleton of the play must be treated as just that. The entire performance, involving actors and spectators, must be kinetic, with multidirectional movement. It seems likely that at this point Meierkhol’d was thinking of both filmed movement and movement created by optical illusions as he included store windows in his list of influential experiments in theatricality.37 Thus, what Alpers saw as a “tragic stillness” may have facilitated a focus on movement of another sort. Just as the new realism manifested its presence in the discussional structure and the typographic banner of text surrounding the stage, tektonika drove the nature of the construction. This production, one which would have seduced the viewer into believing that illusion had been eliminated, could not have asserted more convincingly its direct connection to the social conditions of the late 1920s and it would have done so in a different way each night as each performance became another eruptive and disruptive event in the larger construction of the play. But this construction was one in which spectators have seemingly been invited to critique the play as it transpires before their eyes while, unknown to them, the critique had been staged. Although the orator-actors, like puppets, might have been easily controlled, the || 36 Alpers, Boris, Teatr sotsial’noi maski, Moskwa, Leningrad 1931, 61–65. Several copies of an English translation, Theater of the Social Mask, by Mark Schmidt, were published in 1934 by the Group Theater of Staten Island. 37 Meierkhol’d, “Rekonstruktsiya teatra.” It is also interesting to know that Tret’yakov himself wrote an article in 1931 in which he said that Berlin’s display windows could be used for exhibitions. See: Lungstrum, Janet Ward, “The Display Window: Designs and Desires of Weimar Consumerism”, New German Critique, Winter 1999, no. 76, 115–160, here 142.

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real audience would have remained an unknown. Unlike a 1923 manual that instructed the director to include a pre-planned audience discussion at the end of every performance (the manual even provided the specific questions to be used),38 the audience repetitions in this case would not have been predictable. The production of Child, had it taken place, would not have advertised the new man – whether a woman or a baby created by eugenics – and Meierkhol’d would not have satisfied Robert Pel’she’s desire for an acceptable image. Through its discussion format, this play would have advertised a lifestyle that was even less available than the disappearing commodities. By declaring that his production of Child would be a discussion-play, Meierkhol’d embraced the new realism. But by subverting the discussion through a montage of repetitions, he would have subverted the new realism. In its place, he would have staged the idea of the engaged spectator and created a producing audience. In this, he came close to the contradictory conditions of both the epic theater acclaimed by Benjamin and the type of theater called for by Boris Arvatov: a theater in which materials were real and autonomous and in which the subject no longer existed because the subject was real life.39 Whereas the constructivist emphasis on process, like theatrical uslovnost, meant revealing or making bare that process, the carnivalesque harlequinade, like the ethos of the Soviet con-man, relied on deception.40 With this production, we would have had both: free will – and seemingly the new realism – is shown for the deception that it is in the operating theater of Stalin. It was not the new “man” but the new realism which was laid bare on the operating table and held up to ridicule. Had it been produced, this play would have been both an apotheosis and a requiem for constructivism, or, as I earlier suggested, “constructivist new realism”.

|| 38 Veprinskii, M., Teatr v derevne, Moscow 1923, gives detailed directions for structuring conversations after a performance. 39 These were the characteristics of the “factory-theater” as Boris Arvatov described it in two articles: "Teatr kak proizvodstvo”, O teatre, Moscow 1922, 113–122; “Otrazhat’, podrazhat’ ili stroit’”, Gorn, 1, 1922, No. 6, 107–110. 40 Sheila Fitzpatrick has devoted a complete book to the phenomenon of the Soviet con-man. See Tear off the Masks! Identity and Imposture in Twentieth-Century Russia, Princeton 2005.

Klaus H. Kiefer

„Eine Verteidigung des Wirklichen“ Kunst und Realität im Spätwerk Carl Einsteins

Mehrfrontenkrieg Jeder Einstein-Forscher kennt die beiden Titelseiten der Fabrikation der Fiktionen (Fig 11 u. 12) sowie ‒ möglicherweise ‒ die seit kurzem im Netz zugänglichen verschiedenen Fassungen

Fig. 11: CEA, 131.

Fig. 12: CEA, 167.

des Werks1 und fragt sich: Was ist die authentischste?2 Doch gibt es diese überhaupt, hat nicht jede Fassung ihre zeitweilige Berechtigung und ist dabei die || 1 Es handelt sich um zwei maschinenschriftliche Fassungen, die erste in drei nahezu identischen Abschriften (A, B, C), die zweite (D) mit handschriftlichen Überarbeitungen und Ergänzungen sowie Unterstreichungen mit breitem Rotstift. Die einzige Streichung mit blauen Stift betrifft den Untertitel. Alle Fassungen (Carl-Einstein-Archiv, Akademie der Künste, Berlin, 129– 183. Nachfolgend: CEA) https://archiv.adk.de (Stand 15.04.2019). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-006

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Streichung eines Untertitels aussagekräftig? 1935 gilt die Avenue de Champaubert noch als Einsteins Adresse, 1936 nicht mehr. Das Buch sollte erst ins Französische übersetzt werden: „ich habe gerade ein neues Buch beendet – eine ausführliche Kritik des Geist [sic] von heute und Kunst’. im Französischen heißt es ‒ la fabrication des fictions“3, so an Fritz Saxl Mai 1935.4 Das und auch ein Seitenhieb auf Hitlers Machtergreifung5 sprechen für eine Erstfassung nach 1933 und für deren Abschluss vor dem Aufbruch nach Spanien Sommer 1936.6 Dass Einstein dort noch an der Fabrikation der Fiktionen arbeitet ‒ an Kahnweiler schreibt er Herbst 1938: „je veux voir si je pourrais un peu revoir un livre que j’ai écris“7 ‒, ist aber durchaus möglich.8 Einem Interview mit Sebastià Gasch zufolge bereitet Einstein eine „Sociologia de l’art o ficció i realitat“ vor.9 Handelt es

|| 2 Sind Attacken und Grobinanismen, die er später tilgt, nicht typischer für Einstein als die stilistische Dämpfung in D, die aber auch nicht durchgehend ist? Henckmann, Wolfhart, „Zur Argumentationsweise in Einsteins Fabrikation der Fiktionen“, in: Klaus H. Kiefer (Hrsg.), CarlEinstein-Kolloquium 1994, Frankfurt u.a. 1996, 135–161; Berning, Matthias, Carl Einstein und das neue Sehen. Entwurf einer Erkenntnistheorie und politischen Moral in Carl Einsteins Werk, Würzburg 2011, 239ff. 3 Carl Einstein Briefwechsel 1904–1940, Hrsg. Klaus H. Kiefer/Liliane Meffre, Stuttgart 2020, 406. Nachfolgend: Br. 4 Der Ausdruck „Fabrikation“ könnte von Sigmund Freud inspiriert sein. Wohl wegen eines Beitrags von Eckart v. Sydow, „Die Wiedererweckung der primitiven Kunst“, wo Worringer und Einstein „mit ihren jeweiligen Interpretationen der naturvölkischen Kunst als Ausdruck der Verängstigung, des Willens zum Unbedingten“ erwähnt werden (188), hat Einstein den Almanach für das Jahr 1927 des Psychoanalytischen Verlags (Hrsg. Adolf Josef Storfer, Wien) gekannt und darin (189; Freud, Sigmund, Studienausgabe, Hrsg. Alexander Mitscherlich u.a., Bd. 6, Frankfurt 71989, 241. Nachfolgend: STA) möglicherweise Freuds ‒ kritisch gemeinten ‒ Ausdruck „Fabrikation von Weltanschauungen“ registriert. 5 Einstein, Carl, Die Fabrikation der Fiktionen. Gesammelte Werke in Einzelausgaben, Hrsg. Sibylle Penkert, Reinbek 1973, 103, 249. Nachfolgend: FF. 6 1931–1932 schreibt Einstein noch an Georges Braque; er zieht allerdings für die Fabrikation Materialien aus einem mit dem Braque-Buch ‒ das ja bekanntlich „kein buch ueber braque“ (Br. 372) ist ‒ gemeinsamen „Pool“ heran. Möglicherweise gehört zu den „2 andere[n] Bücher[n]“, an denen er laut Br. 381 an Paul Klee, 5. Januar 1933, arbeitet, auch schon die Fabrikation der Fiktionen. 7 Br. 411. 8 Aus gesundheitlichen Gründen (chronische Magenprobleme) musste sich Einstein Sommer 1938 (Br. 411) vom Kampfgeschehen zurückziehen, war „militaire en retraite“ (Br. 417). 9 Gasch, Sebastià, „Unes declarations sensacionals de Carl Einstein. Miró i Dalí ‒ L’art revolicionari ‒ El rol dels intellectuals“, in: Meridià. Setmanari de literatura, art i política. Tribuna del Front intellectual antifeixista, Barcelona, 6. Mai 1938, 4.

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sich dabei um die von Penkert edierte 2. Fassung?10 Aber wie erklärte sich gegebenenfalls die Streichung des Verteidigungsmotivs gerade in Spanien? Dass sich Einstein in Spanien in einer Verteidigungsposition befand, betont er zwar mehrfach in den Briefen der Jahre 1938 und 39 aus Barcelona an Kahnweiler und Picasso. An letzteren schreibt er: „je savais toujours que je défendai en Espagne mon travail, la possibilité de penser et de sentir librement comme individu“.11 Die „liberale“ Wirklichkeit, die er damit affirmativ benennt12, wohl auch eingedenk des sensiblen Adressaten ‒ der dank dieses „Liberalismus“ (sprich: Kapitalismus) ja Karriere gemacht hatte ‒, ist jedoch nicht ganz die, die er in der Fabrikation der Fiktionen kritisiert, auch nicht die, von der er im Lichte des spanischen Anarcho-Syndikalismus eine Vorstellung zu gewinnen meint. Seine Spanien-Erfahrung, die zwischen anfänglicher Begeisterung, Zweckoptimismus13 und Desillusionierung14 schwankt, kann den Wegfall des Untertitels jedenfalls nicht motivieren. Es ist komplexer anzusetzen. || 10 Einstein hätte das Manuskript mit sich führen müssen, was seine Äußerung gegenüber Kahnweiler voraussetzt; entsprechende Gebrauchsspuren sind jedoch nicht bemerkbar. Einlageblätter in D, zu Beginn wenige: „Ministère des Colonies Salon de la France d’Outre Mer“, dann zahlreiche mit Wasserzeichen „Est Paper Bank“, schließlich ab CEA, 180 kleinere karierte Zettel, die sich mit der (undatierten) Pariser Notiz zu BEB II verknüpfen lassen: „um Papier zu kaufen, verkaufte ich sie [meine Uhr]“ (CEA, 26) sowie die gegen Ende des Manuskripts nachlassende, aber ansonsten konsistente Korrektur deuten auf die Zeit unmittelbar vor dem Aufbruch nach Spanien. Eine Bearbeitung nach der Rückkehr Februar 1939 und vor seiner Deportation ins Lager nach Bassens Mai 1940 ist angesichts der prekären Lage Einsteins unwahrscheinlich. 11 Br. 417. 12 „Die liberale Kultur ist durch die Überzüchtung der individuellen Tendenzen gekennzeichnet“ (FF, 44). Das Urteil schließt zweifelsohne auch Picassos Starallüren ein (Br. 73f.). 13 6. Januar 1939, Br. 416 an Kahnweiler: „nous battrons les Germano-Italiens“ mit Beilage Br. 417 an Picasso: „on battra Franco“. Im September dieses Jahres versuchte Einstein noch, aber vergebens, sich in der Légion Garibaldienne zu engagieren, Meffre, Liliane, „A propos de quelques documents inconnus concernant Carl Einstein dans la période 1936–1940“, in: Marianne Kröger/Hubert Roland (Hrsg.), Carl Einstein im Exil. Kunst und Politik in den 1930er Jahren, München 2007, 113–121, 119. 14 Es ist unklar, wann diese Desillusionierung einsetzt; Rudolf Michaelis an Helmut Rüdiger, 6. April 1937: „Er schien in der letzten Zeit stark enttäuscht und entmutigt“ u. Rudolf Berner an Helmut u. Dora Rüdiger, 26. September 1938: „er macht sonst weiter nichts ‒ außer über alles herziehen“, zit. Kröger, „Carl Einstein und die ‘Grupo Internacional’ der Kolonne Durruti ‒ Ein Beitrag zur Auseinandersetzung Carl Einsteins mit der Realität des spanischen Bürgerkriegs“, in: Klaus H. Kiefer (Hrsg.), Carl-Einstein-Kolloquium 1986, Frankfurt u.a. 1988, 261–271, 268 bzw. „Carl Einstein im Spanischen Bürgerkrieg: Gratwanderung zwischen Engagement und Desillusionierung“, in: Archiv für die Geschichte des Widerstands und der Arbeit, 12, 1992, 79– 96, 90.

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Die Fabrikation der Fiktionen entsprang einer doppelten Bedrohung, wie sie sich in der ersten Hälfte der 30er Jahre abzeichnete: (a) durch die mythische Ästhetik des Surrealismus – die zum Teil Einsteins eigene war, die dann aber seines Erachtens gesellschaftlich stark, aber politisch falsch wirkte15 – und (b) durch den Faschismus, für den ‒ jedenfalls in Deutschland ‒ die Avantgarde als „entartet“ galt und der eine politische Dominanz in Europa anstrebte. Unter diesen Umständen erschien Einstein eine „ästhetische Erziehung“, wie sie die Avantgarde trotz ihres Antiidealismus verfolgte, je länger je mehr als sinnlos. Mochte gegen den Surrealismus zunächst noch (c) „una labor […] critica intensísima“16, als das geeignete Mittel erscheinen, d.h. wohl die Fabrikation der Fiktionen in erster (A, B, C) und zweiter Fassung (D), so wurde Einstein angesichts der Verschärfung der politischen Lage klar ‒ und er behauptet, dass er mit dieser Einsicht der einzige seiner Bekannten gewesen sei17 ‒ (d) nur der bewaffnete Kampf nütze noch „contre monsieur Hitler“18: „Les metralladores es burlen dels poemes i dels quadres. Les paràfrasis s’han d’acabar“, um nochmals das Interview vom 6. Mai 1938 zu zitieren, oder den Brief an Kahnweiler vom 6. Januar 1939: „[…] dans les temps qui courent le fusil est nécessaire pour compenser la lâcheté du stylo“.19 Ob die bei Einstein in Auftrag gegebenen „100–120 Seiten über den spanischen Anarchosyndikalismus“20 noch eine ästhetische Dimension besessen hätten ‒ eine solche findet sich ja durchaus noch in der Totenrede auf Durruti21 ‒, man weiß es nicht, da Einstein den Vertrag nicht einhielt. Ohne Zweifel enthält die „Fabrikation der Fiktionen“ in allen Fassungen eine tiefgründige Kritik der modernen Kunst, insbesondere in deren letzter surrealistischen Ausprägung, aber diese Kritik, selbst wenn sie Einstein „soziologisch“

|| 15 Kiefer, „Carl Einsteins Surrealismus ‒ ‘Wort von verkrachtem Idealismus übersonnt’“, in: Isabel Fischer/Karina Schuller (Hrsg.), Der Surrealismus in Deutschland (?), Münster 2016, 49– 83. Aber hat Einstein mit seiner Kritik nicht wider Willen die bis heute andauernde Erfolgsgeschichte der Avantgarde geschrieben? 16 „Carl Einstein habla de la guerra atomizada y los planes bélicos del nazifascismo“, in: La Vanguardia. Diario al servicio de la democracia, 57, 24. Mai 1938, 5. 17 Br. 416. 18 Br. 412. 19 Br. 416. 20 Helmut Rüdiger an Egon Illfeld, 27. Mai 1938, zit. Kröger, „Carl Einstein im Spanischen Bürgerkrieg“, 82. 21 Einstein, Carl, Werke. Berliner Ausgabe, Hrsg. Hermann Haarmann/Klaus Siebenhaar, Bd. 3, Berlin 1994–1996, 520. Nachfolgend: BA 1, 2, 3.

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nennt, ist nicht total.22 Auch wenn er sein eigenes Schaffen in die Kritik mit einbezieht, so steht man doch nicht an einem Nullpunkt, schon gar nicht an einem Neubeginn, am Beginn einer „materialistischen Kunstauffassung“, wie das Heidemarie Oehm noch sah.23 Kunstgeschichtliche Arbeiten werden parallel zur Fabrikation der Fiktionen weiterverfolgt. Dementsprechend betont sein letzter Brief, 1940, an die American Guild for German Cultural Freedom: „je veux continuer mes recherches à tout prix“.24 Diese Gleichzeitigkeit konträrer Diskurse empfindet Einstein selber als komisch. März 1936 schreibt er an Vincenc Kramář: „jetzt habe ich drei komische bücher in arbeit: eine kritik und sociologie der moderne. dann eine kunstgeschichte in einem band, und noch anderes“.25 Bei all dem gedenkt er mitnichten, Kunst und Literatur aufzugeben: „quand je rentrerai je ferai des bouquins solides, loin de tous les penchants des modernes et des bien pensants de tous les avant-gardes. des livres durs et comiques“26, so an Kahnweiler am 6. Januar 1939, wohl auch mit Blick auf BEB II.27 Einsteins Dilemma zwischen literarischem Schreiben und rentablen „bildenden Kunstschmarren“28 besteht offenkundig fort…

|| 22 Nicht nur, weil es „Totalität“ nicht geben kann. In einer undatierten (späten) Notiz spricht Einstein selber von „Totalitätsschwindel“ (Einstein, Carl, Werke, Hrsg. Rolf-Peter Baacke u.a., Berlin/Wien 1980–1992, 171. Nachfolgend: W 1, 4). 23 Ohne Zweifel hat Einstein seit seinem Engagement beim Berliner Spartakus 1919 seinem Diskurs marxistische Elemente beigemischt, aber es fehlt die Bezugnahme auf zentrale Theoreme des Marxismus, etwa Widerspiegelung, Verdinglichung, Entfremdung. Vermutlich hat er Anfang der 30er Jahre aus marxistischen Schriften den Begriff des Typus extrahiert (Oehm, Heidemarie, Die Kunsttheorie Carl Einsteins, München 1976, 193f., 198). Zur Bezeichnung der neuen Diskursmischung dient ihm im Kontext der Fabrikation der Fiktionen vor allem der Begriff „Soziologie“, den Einstein zuvor sehr selten und recht unspezifisch gebraucht (Br. 39, BA 2, 452, BA 3, 256, nicht K 3). Der Gebrauch lässt sich nicht bis zu einer bestimmten Inspirationsquelle zurückverfolgen. Dank der vielen psychoanalytischen Denkmuster könnte man eher von einer Art kritischer „Sozialpsychologie“ sprechen. 24 Br. 420. 25 Br. 409. 26 Br. 415. 27 Zum Projekt einer Bebuquin-Fortsetzung Kiefer, „Bebuquins Kindheit und Jugend ‒ Carl Einsteins regressive Utopie“, in: Michael Baumgartner u.a. (Hrsg.), Historiographie der Moderne ‒ Carl Einstein, Paul Klee, Robert Walser und die wechselseitige Erhellung der Künste, Paderborn 2016, 105–120. 28 Br. 150, 411

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Realismus? Doch geht es bei Einsteins „Verteidigung des Wirklichen“ wirklich um „Realismus“, mit Georg Lukács zu sprechen?29 Die Philosopheme der Expressionismusdebatte30 sind heute obsolet. Niemand will mehr eine „objektive Wirklichkeit“ „zerfällen“31, aber wie die meisten Ismen ist auch „Realismus“ zunächst ein Kampfbegriff; es geht um die Durchsetzung einer Wirklichkeitskonstruktion.32 So kann Einstein 1915 schreiben: „Die Negerplastik wird sich im formalen Sinn als stärkster Realismus erweisen“33, aber er deutet mit dieser „schrägen“ Formulierung auch an, dass es ihm zwar auf Darstellung ‒ letztlich Form und Stil34 ‒, dabei aber nicht um Nachahmung einer vorgegebenen Wirklichkeit geht.35 Gegenüber dem kollektiven „Negerkunstwerk“ erscheint es nur konsequent, wenn er die Arbeiten der Picasso, Braque und anderer 1926 als „subjektiven Realismus“36 definiert. Diese Opposition prägt auch noch die Fabrikation der Fiktionen, denn Künstler und Intellektuelle hätten die „kollektiven Chancen

|| 29 Lukács, Georg: „Es geht um den Realismus“, in: Hans-Jürgen Schmitt (Hrsg.), Die Expressionismusdebatte. Materialien zu einer marxistischen Realismuskonzeption, Frankfurt am Main 1973, 192–230. 30 Bemerkenswerterweise bezieht Lukács den Surrealismus mit ein, zu dem er aber vor allem James Joyce zählt. Eine der deutschen Expressionismusdebatte vergleichbare Surrealismusdebatte fand in Frankreich nicht statt; erst Jean Clair (Du surréalisme considéré dans ses rapports au totalitarisme et aux tables tournantes. Contribution à une histoire de l’insensé, Paris 2003) holt dies nach ‒ und zwar dank seiner Einstein-Lektüre, zumindest insofern Meffre in ihrer Dissertation (Carl Einstein et la problématique des avant-gardes dans les arts plastiques, Bern u.a. 1989) die Fabrikation der Fiktionen zitierte und ins Französische übersetzte. 31 Ich kombiniere hier Lukács’ und Ernst Blochs Worte. 32 In einer Notiz wohl der 30er Jahre hält Einstein fest: „Wirklichkeit eine Machtfrage der sozialen Gruppen“ (W 4, 363). Im Handbuch der Kunst und in der Fabrikation der Fiktionen verfolgt er diesen Gedanken mit sowohl kritischen als auch affirmativen Konnotationen weiter: „Stil heißt Bindung und verpflichtende Wertsetzung. Er wird durch eine gesellschaftliche Ordnung unterbaut“ (FF, 50). 33 BA 1, 240. 34 Es würde den Rahmen dieser Studie sprengen, den Beziehungen zwischen makro- und mikrostilistischer Ebene, d.h. Einsteins Kunsttheorie, und seinen Stilanalysen einerseits, seiner eignen Stilpraxis andererseits nachzugehen. 35 Bis es ihm möglich wird, ein übergreifendes Modell (Transvisualität) zu konzipieren, ist diese anti-mimetische Opposition in verschiedenen Begriffspaaren virulent: Sehen vs. Schauen, Form vs. Gestalt etc. 36 Einstein, Carl, Die Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts. Propyläen Kunstgeschichte, 16, Berlin 1926, 1928, 1931, 63. Nachfolgend: K 1, 2, 3.

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einer Wirklichkeitsbildung“37 versäumt. Offenbar vermochten sie nicht Einsteins Erwartungen eines integralen Mythos, wie Georges Braque 1932 noch euphorisch ausklingt,38 zu erfüllen. Allerdings ist Einstein von seiner frühen „negroiden“ Konzeption denkbar weit abgerückt, ja die „verneinende Terminologie“,39 gegen die die Negerplastik protestiert, feiert in der Fabrikation der Fiktionen fröhliche Urständ: „Die Primitiven hatten ihre sexuellen Erlebnisse mythisch durchdichtet. Da coitierten Götter und Berge, Dämonen und Bäume umarmten einander. Ein Bordell von Spirits lärmte, wenn Bumbo sich vergnügte“.40 Anlass zu dieser Persiflage gibt freilich die surrealistische Ästhetik: „Der sexuelle Choc wird in den Gedichten auf sämtliche Sensationen ausgedehnt“.41 Ich kann dieses Thema hier nicht weiter ausbreiten, genug: Einstein jedenfalls urteilt: „Eine negerhafte, magische Atmosphäre überwölbte diese Moderne“.42 Man zögert freilich, Realismus und Mythos zu assoziieren. In seiner surrealistischen Hochphase mochte sich Einstein allerdings vorstellen, dass der Künstler an der (mythischen) Realität mitwirkt wie der primitive Maskenbildner oder -tänzer. Doch was soll dieser epochale „Hunger nach Mythos“43 überhaupt? Die Moderne des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts hatte die Dekadenz, so wie sie Nietzsche u.a. definierten, noch verstärkt; „was Gesetz war, wird Hypothese“,44 schreibt Einstein in der ersten Auflage seiner Kunstgeschichte („Vorbedingungen“) durchaus mit religiösen Konnotationen (Gesetz = Torah).45 Im Europa Almanach 1925 wiederholt er, nachdrücklich also, die Frage, die er schon 1918 aufgeworfen hatte: „Wo wäre unsere Zentralidee, wo unser Gesetz (anerkennenswert), wo

|| 37 FF, 39. 38 BA 3, 409. 39 BA 1, 234; FF, 167. 40 Solche Szenarien finden sich allerdings nicht in den Afrikanischen Legenden, die Einstein 1925 herausgegeben hat; Kiefer, Klaus H., „Missing links – Carl Einstein et Blaise Cendrars“, in: Constellation Cendrars, 2019. Es wäre zu überlegen, ob Michel Leiris’ Erfahrungsbericht von der Mission Dakar-Djibouti 1931–1933 (L’Afrique fantôme, Paris 1934) Einstein ‒ der Leiris gut kannte ‒ erreicht und zu dessen völliger Desillusionierung beigetragen hat. 41 FF, 169. 42 FF, 138. 43 Ziolkowski, Theodore, „Der Hunger nach dem Mythos. Zur seelischen Gastronomie der Deutschen in den zwanziger Jahren“, in: Reinhold Grimm/Jost Hermand (Hrsg.), Die sogenannten Zwanziger Jahre, Bad Homburg, u.a. 1970, 169–202; Kiefer, Klaus H., „Carl Einstein und der Mythos“, in: Cahiers d’études germaniques, 76, 2019, 95–108. 44 K 1, 13. 45 Die Aussage ist in der 2. und 3. Auflage etwas abgeschwächt (K 2, 13, K 3, 15; CEA, 115).

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unser Mythus?“46 Fragt man sich jedoch, was „Mythos“ bei Einstein konkret bedeutet, so kommt man über einige Banalitäten kaum hinaus: Bindung, Kollektivität, Regression. Wie bei den Surrealisten ist der Begriff ansonsten eine Leerformel. Das ist schon peinlich bei all dieser Wichtigtuerei. Auf jeden Fall ist der erträumte Mythos kein judäo-christlicher ‒ gleichwohl ist er hochprozentig „Religionsersatz“.47 Neokatholische Anwandlungen seiner Frühzeit und auch religiöse Formeln, wie sie in den Vier Legenden und auch noch im Bebuquin vorkamen, hat er mit G.F.R.G. hinter sich gelassen. Aber er empfindet den „Tod Gottes“48 als Verlust; er vermisst das „Wunder“.49 Carl Einstein war Autodidakt. Systematik war nicht seine Stärke,50 sie widersprach seinem Avantgardismus. Trotz seiner ‒ stets überschießenden51 ‒ kritischen Kompetenz hat Einstein zahllose Anregungen in seinen Diskurs eingeschmolzen, versuchte aber erst Anfang der 30er Jahre in seinem Vokabular, seinen Ansichten ein wenig Ordnung zu schaffen. Diese Anstrengung erscheint genauso immens ‒ man denke an das geplante Handbuch der Kunst, das Diktionnair der Kunstterminologie u.a. ‒, wie sein Versuch, das BEB II-Projekt zum Abschluss zu bringen, in dem das Don Quichote-Motiv freilich alle anderen theoretischen Arbeiten konterkariert. Zwar hat Einstein schon früh versucht, den begriffsfixierten Kantianismus abzuschütteln,52 einen tieferen Einblick in das Funktionieren von Sprache und Zeichen gewinnt er aber erst Ende der 20er/Anfang der 30er Jahre53 und er nimmt dabei auch sein „ut pictura poesis“-Postulat zurück54, das freilich nicht von Horaz inspiriert war, vielmehr vom freieren Umgang der Avantgarde-Kunst mit ihrem Material55. Zugleich hat sich Einstein einen Begriff erarbeitet, den des

|| 46 BA 1, 372; Europa-Almanach. Malerei, Literatur, Musik, Architektur, Plastik, Bühne, Film, Mode, Hrsg. Carl Einstein/Paul Westheim, Potsdam 1925, 116. Nachfolgend: EA. 47 K 3, 161. 48 CEA, 8. 49 BA 1, 93; Br. 127; K 1, 117. 50 Gegenüber Tony Simon-Wolfskehl gesteht er am 25. Januar 1923 seinen Fragmentarismus ein (Br. 166). 51 Seine Kritik absorbiert gewissermaßen den Aufbau einer eigenen Konzeption, man könnte auch sagen: frisst sie auf. 52 BA 1, 99f; W 4, 434. 53 Kiefer, Klaus H., „‘Lingua’ ‒ Signe, mythe, grammaire et style dans l’œuvre de Carl Einstein“, in: http://melusine-surrealisme.fr/wp/?p=2287 (19.03.2019). 54 Br. 127 an Kahnweiler vom Juni 1923: Mit Blick auf die unsicheren und zaghaften Versuche des Bebuquin waren ihm die „Arbeiten der ‚Kubisten‘“ eine Bestätigung. 55 Nachdem Einstein das poetische (fiktionale) Potential von Sprache erkannt hat, dreht er den Spieß um und Malen soll nun ein Dichten sein (BA 3, 326).

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Transvisuellen, der ihm erlaubt, bildnerische Verfahren differenzierter zu fassen als bisher, jenseits von Parteinahme und Polemik. Auf der Ebene ästhetischer Wahrnehmung verortet, transzendiert das Transvisuelle den eindimensionalen Surrealismus,56 dem Einstein einen gewissen Autismus vorwirft.57 In einem Brief an Kahnweiler Anfang 1939 aus Spanien belustigt sich Einstein über „tous ces Sur sous réalistes“,58 weil er sein Realismus-Konzept für überlegen hält.59 Wie ein Brief an Saxl Mai 1935 bezeugt, schreibt er parallel zur Fabrikation der Fiktionen einen „langen Essay“60 über die Pariser Exposition de l’art italien de Cimabue à Tiepolo.61 Seine verhaltene Kritik an der Propaganda-Wirkung der Ausstellung für den italienischen Faschismus interessiert dabei weniger als seine Begeisterung für eine Kunst, die er bislang als mimetisch außer Betracht gelassen, ja diskriminiert hatte. Signifikanterweise bleibt der Passus der ersten Auflage der Kunstgeschichte zur „Auflehnung gegen antike Auffassung, welche die Renaissance beherrscht“,62 in den beiden folgenden Auflagen weg. Offenbar schlug das Konzept des Transvisuellen eine Brücke zwischen der bislang favorisierten primitiven Kunst und der Renaissance, die das Verhältnis von Sehen und höheren Bedeutungsebenen eben anders gestaltet als die Primitive.63 Einstein hätte ohne diesen Diskurswandel keine Kunstgeschichte von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart in Angriff nehmen können.

|| 56 W 4, 172. 57 BA 3, 276. 58 Br. 415. 59 Zur überragenden Bedeutung Einsteins im europäischen Surrealismus (er war nicht „Dissident“ – denn wer bestimmte, wer „insider“ oder „outsider“ sei? Sicher nicht André Breton, sondern die Forschung!) s. Kiefer, Klaus H., „Carl Einstein et le surréalisme ‒ entre les fronts et au-dessus de la mêlée (Bataille, Breton, Joyce)“, in: http://melusine-surrealisme.fr/wp/?p= 2069 (19.03.2019). 60 Br. 406. 61 Petit Palais, 16. Mai – 21. Juli 1935, Ricci, Seymour (Hrsg.), Ausstellungskatalog, Vorwort u.a. Paul Valéry. Gewiss konnte Einsteins auf Deutsch verfasster Artikel nicht mehr in Deutschland publiziert werden und hätte wie die Fabrikation der Fiktionen erst ins Französische übersetzt werden müssen: Meffre, Liliane, „Carl Einstein et l’Italie. Des primitifs aux futuristes italiens“, in: Annali. Università degli studi di Firenze. Dipartimento di Storia delle Arti e dello Spettacolo, NS, 11, 2010, 317–327. 62 K 1, 58. 63 Es ist nur konsequent, wenn Antonius Weixler (Poetik des Transvisuellen. Carl Einsteins „écriture visionnaire“ und die ästhetische Moderne, Berlin, Boston 2016, 141ff.) den spät geprägten Begriff retrospektiv auch auf Bebuquin anwendet, denn Einstein versteht ihn als universell.

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Wie kam nun der Wandel vom Agitator der Moderne zum Historiker zustande? Ein Blick in die Einstein’sche „black box“ ‒ oder sollte man nicht besser sagen: seine „silberne Hirnschale“64? ‒ ist uns hier wie so oft verwehrt. Cassirers und Panofskys Arbeiten zur „symbolischen Form“ in Sprache, Mythos und Bildender Kunst, die Einstein kennt, könnten eine Vermittlerrolle gespielt haben. Cassirers Philosophie hat Einstein, der Cassirer noch von dessen Berliner Privatdozentur her in Erinnerung hat,65 sicher nicht übersehen, zumal Cassirer dann in Hamburg in der Kulturwissenschaftlichen Bibliothek Aby Warburgs aktiv war, deren Wirken Einstein mit Interesse verfolgt.66 Warburgs Mitarbeiter und Nachfolger Saxl schickt ihm am 2. Februar 1929 Panofskys Idea zu.67 Zwischen Einstein und Panofsky sowie zwischen Einstein und dem Renaissance-Forscher Berenson gibt es eine Korrespondenz.68 Symptomatisch ist überhaupt das späte Auftauchen des Symbol-Begriffs bei Einstein: „Sehen heißt jetzt Visionieren, ein Symbol für ein transoptisches Erlebnis finden“.69 Es muss nicht immer ein Erlebnis sein, es kann sich auch um einen Sachverhalt, eine Ideologie, eine Idee o.ä. handeln, die nicht unmittelbar sichtbar sind, aber gewissermaßen sinnlich vermittelt „durchscheinen“. Hegels Ästhetik hatte dieses Denkmuster der deutschen Sprache abgewonnen. Damit hat Einstein die komplexe Semiose ästhetischer Wahrnehmung aber kaum weiter rationalisiert als Goethe, an dem er 1932 kein gutes Haar lässt; man braucht nur das „Unaussprechliche“70 des Goethe-Symbols durch die „alten Tabus“71 zu ersetzen, aus denen die modernen Symbole nach Einsteins Auffassung erwachsen sind; Goethes Weltsicht schien Einstein freilich zu „optimis-

|| 64 BA 1, 93. 65 Br. 312. 66 Keiner der Warburg’schen Leitbegriffe findet sich jedoch bei Einstein; Warburg, Aby, Werke in einem Band, Hrsg. Martin Treml u.a., Berlin 2018, 610. Man sollte den Einstein’schen Diskurs bei all seinen Wandlungen als einen „eigenmächtigen“, „starken“ begreifen, statt nach Einflüssen seitens der jeweiligen Favoriten des Zeitgeistes und des Suhrkamp Verlags wie eben Warburg oder Walter Benjamin Ausschau zu halten. 67 Haxthausen, Charles W., „Renaissance Reconsidered: Carl Einstein on De Cimabue à Tiepolo 1935“, in: Michael Baumgartner u.a. (Hrsg.), Historiographie der Moderne, 120–133, 128: Haxthausen stellt in Frage, dass Einstein Panofsky gelesen habe; es geschieht aber sehr selten, dass Einstein seine Sekundärliteratur kenntlich macht. 68 Br. 321f. 69 W 4, 353. 70 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, Sämtliche Werke nach Epochen seines Schaffens. Münchner Ausgabe, Hrsg. Karl Richter u.a., Bd. 17, München, Wien 1985–2014, 904,767. Nachfolgend: MA. 71 BA 3, 216.

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tisch“. Weil seiner Ansicht nach die Tabus inmitten der „kollektiv geglaubten mythischen Welt“72, eben der Realität, verankert waren, konnten verbindliche Typen dargestellt und konnten die primitiven Künstler „Realisten“ genannt werden. Für den frühen Einstein sind die afrikanischen Skulpturen und Masken keine symbolischen Darstellungen, sondern „abgeschlossene [autonome] mythische Realität“, sie sind „Gott“,73 und von daher sind ihre für europäische Augen bizarren ‒ man könnte sagen: „geisterhaften“, „animistischen“, in Einsteins Sinne aber: „absoluten“ ‒ Formen zu verstehen. Diese „Unmittelbarkeit zu Gott“, in die sich Einstein gedanklich hineinkatapultiert, kennzeichnet die historistische Hermeneutik seit Gottfried Herder und Leopold von Ranke74 und ist von der „projektiven“ Geschichtsauffassung Einsteins75 selber sehr verschieden. Diese zeigt sich sehr früh76 und wirkt auch bei der Entdeckung der afrikanischen Kunst mit,77 sie ist aber nur Mittel und Weg; jedenfalls: die Verabsolutierung der primitiven Kunst setzt sich bei Einstein fest. Einstein denkt nun nicht mehr projektiv vom Jetzt aus, sondern kulturgeschichtlich, ethnologisch vom Anfang her. Er kann diese Sinnstruktur nicht abschütteln. Zu sehr ist sie in abendländischen Vorstellungen von Religion befangen: […] bei den Primitiven waren noch mythische Kulturen zu finden. Hierarchie der in Europa unterdrückten Instinkte; Tyrannis von Traum und ekstatischem Ritus. Nicht überheblicher Individualismus, typisierende Gemeinschaft, kein psychologisierender Personalismus. Kein Fragen nach korrekter Ursache, sondern Wunder galt als drastischer, stärkster allgemeiner Grund. Man fand Religionsersatz, gelebte Mystik, die in Zeremoniell, Farbe, Totem, Tanz und Maske sichtbar lebt. Solch fremde Existenz gewährt Abstand zu eigenfatalem Wirklichen […].78

Wie aber kann dann Einstein den „späten Epigonen der Primitiven“,79 den Modernen, den Vorwurf machen, in ihrer völlig anders gearteten Realität keine Typen zu bilden, dazu noch Typen mit Vorbild- oder sollte man gar sagen: Pro|| 72 FF, 115. 73 BA 1, 242. 74 Ranke, Leopold von, Über die Epochen der neueren Geschichte. Vorträge dem Könige Maximilian II. von Bayern im Herbst 1854 zu Berchtesgaden gehalten, Hrsg. Alfred Dore, Leipzig 1888. 75 BA 3, 611. 76 Br. 15. 77 BA 1, 235, 239f. Zum abduktiven Schluss, den Einstein unwissentlich, eher ekstatisch als exakt, durchführt, Kiefer, Diskurswandel im Werk Carl Einsteins. Ein Beitrag zur Theorie und Geschichte der europäischen Avantgarde, Tübingen 1994, 172ff. 78 K 1, 117f. 79 FF, 260.

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pagandacharakter? Im Dritten Reich sowie in der Sowjetunion wurden mit großem Aufwand „Typen“ propagiert, positive Typen, sogar primitive Typen, in die Professor Heidegger in einem Vortrag vor der Tübinger Studentenschaft am 30. November 1933 auch den „neuen Studenten“ einzuordnen sich bemühte80 ‒ wusste das Einstein nicht?81 Der Preis der Modernität war Innovation, ständige Erfindung. Einstein sagt ja selber: „Wahrer Realismus heißt: nicht Gegenstände abbilden, sondern solche erschaffen.“82 Können das Typen sein, denen eine gewisse Konstanz ja eigen ist? Verteidigung und Typenbildung haben ihren diskursiven Ort in einer Willens- bzw. Pflichtethik,83 deren Absenz Einstein beklagt,84 was die Fabrikation der Fiktionen jedoch nicht zu einer politischen Ethik macht.85 Jede Kritik, ja jeder Text, jedes Wort setzt Wertakzente. Ambivalent, aber keineswegs zufällig ist die Forderung am Ende des Textes: „Die entfremdeten Intellektuellen müssen gesellschaftlich wieder eingeordnet werden“.86 Das vertrackte Wort findet sich auch eingangs seines o.g. Ausstellungsberichts: „Jetzt faengt die Gesellschaft die Kuenstler wieder ein und fordert von ihnen Einordnung in bestimmte politische Systeme“.87 Der Begriff der „Gemeinschaft“ überstrahlt auch Einsteins Trauerrede über den Tod Durrutis: „In der Kolonne Durruti kennt man nur die kollektive Syntax. Die Kameraden werden die Literaten lehren, die Grammatik im kollektiven Sinn zu erneuern“.88 Einstein trägt Sorge, dass die Führerpersönlichkeit Durrutis nicht zu sehr in den Vordergrund tritt: „Durruti, dieser außergewöhnlich sachliche Mann, sprach nie von sich, von seiner Person. Er hatte das vorgeschichtliche Wort ‘ich’ aus der Grammatik verbannt“.89

|| 80 Heidegger, Martin, „Die Universität im nationalsozialistischen Staat (30. November 1933)“, in: Gesamtausgabe, I/16: Veröffentlichte Schriften 1910–1976, Hrsg. Hermann Heidegger, Frankfurt 2000, 765–773, 768. 81 1932 schreibt er Ewald Wasmuth: „ist eigentlich Heidecker gut? ich weiss von nichts mehr, lese nichts ausser Kriminalromanen“ (Br. 327). 82 BA 3, 326; Einstein, Carl, Georges Braque, Übers. M. E. Zipruth, Paris u.a. 1934, 72. 83 Das ist nota bene nicht dasselbe. Der Voluntarismus ist subjektiv, die Deontologie sozial orientiert. 84 FF, 191. 85 Dagegen Berning, Matthias, Carl Einstein und das neue Sehen. Entwurf einer Erkenntnistheorie und politischen Moral in Carl Einsteins Werk, Würzburg 2001, 254ff. 86 FF, 326. 87 CEA, 192. 88 BA 3, 520. 89 BA 3, 520.

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Disproportion der Begabung mit dem Interesse ‒ Einstein selber hat nur negative Typen mit übergroßem ‒ teils vitalem, teils schwachem90 ‒ Ego gestaltet: Schulze in der Bourgeoisie91 bzw. Bebuquin in der Intelligenzia.92 Das proletarische Milieu kennt er nicht. Bis 1933 propagiert Einstein jedoch den Mythos des künstlerischen Genies: „Picasso est le signal de tout ce que notre temps possède de liberté“93. Später wendet er sich gegen eine „Historie der Monstren“, eine Geschichte der „seltenen Ausnahmen“94. Der „Romantiker Beb“, der in der „Primitive des Arbeiters“ sein Ich loswerden und eine „Realität“ bekommen will, scheitert im „rationalen Kommunismus“95, der für Einstein trotz gegenteiliger Erfahrungen96 mythische Qualitäten behält: „Fundament der Kolonne [Durruti] sind Kameraderie und freiwillige Selbstzucht. Ziel ihrer Aktion ist der Kommunismus, nichts anderes“.97 Für den kritischen Interpreten bleibt nur, Einsteins Widersprüche zu konstatieren.98 Diese werden nicht nur durch einen mehrmaligen Diskurswandel erzeugt ‒ auch durch „Diskursmischungen“99 ‒, gewisse Überzeugungen setzen sich auch früh fest, wie gesagt: Tendenzen zum Primitivismus oder zum Kommunismus100 ‒ ein Begriff von „Gemeinschaft“ verbindet beide ‒, und werden in verschiedenen Situationen und Kontexten, quasi bei Bedarf, wieder hervorgerufen, schemenhaft anzitiert, aber nicht zu Ende gedacht. Einstein hat vermutlich erst, als es zu spät war, verstanden, wohin die totale Umsetzung eines Mythos || 90 FF, 111. 91 BA 2, 48ff. ; FF, 97. 92 Schon: BA 1, 92. 93 BA 3, 118. 94 W 4, 308. 95 CEA, 45 96 Br. 170. 97 BA 3, 521. Dieser anarchistische Kommunismus ist ein anderer als der der von Stalin gesteuerten „Internationalen Brigaden“, die zahllose von der sowjetischen Doktrin abweichenden linke Gruppierungen liquidierten. 98 Man mag Einstein vorwerfen, auch an der „Zerstörung der Vernunft“, wie es Lukács ausdrückt (Die Zerstörung der Vernunft. Der Weg des Irrationalismus von Schelling zu Hitler, Berlin/Weimar 1955), seinen Anteil zu haben, aber seine Vernunft ist (a) eine andere Vernunft als die Lukács’sche, und (b): Dank seiner Betonung der Tektonik, wie er ihn vor allem in Georges Braque und in der dritten Auflage der Kunstgeschichte entwickelt, ist Einstein alles andere als ein Irrationalist. Es geht ihm keineswegs darum, wie es Walter Benjamin postuliert, „die Kräfte des Rausches für die Revolution zu gewinnen“ (Benjamin, „Der Sürrealismus. Die letzte Momentaufnahme der europäischen Intelligenz“ [1929], in: Gesammelte Schriften, II/1, Hrsg. Rolf Tiedemann/Hermann Schweppenhäuser, Frankfurt 1991, 295–310, 307). 99 „Man ist dies, jenes und einiges in Querung“ (K 1, 69), so Einstein über Picasso. 100 BA 1, 27.

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tatsächlich führt.101 Einstein sieht die nationalsozialistische Revolution Anfang der 30er Jahre nur unter dem Aspekt des „Spießertums“.102 Von Alfred Rosenbergs Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts103 fokussiert er lediglich die rassenfanatische Geschichtsschreibung.104 Spät registriert er die Gefahr der Archaismen.105 Das Unvorstellbare jedoch wird Ereignis. Deutsche Dichter und Denker, Einstein und sein Freund Benn,106 Heidegger u.a., aber auch die französischen Surrealisten bei ihrer vergeblichen Suche nach dem „mythe collectif“,107 vermochten auf der Abstraktionshöhe ihrer Reflexionen nicht, Wunschbild und Schreckbild, utopische Barbarei und realen Faschismus scharf auseinander zu halten, was vermutlich daran liegt, dass die Gegensätze in einer Universalie von Kollektivität zu einem einzigen mythischen Brei verschmelzen… Einsteins Perspektivismus im Für und Wider, wie ihn schon Nietzsche begreift,108 mag, wie bemerkt, widersprüchlich erscheinen. Weil ihm schon früh die Einsicht entsetzlich schien, „daß alles nur Perspektive ist“109, verfällt er einem „Absolutismus“, der in der Negerplastik seine erste Erfüllung findet. Schon Bebuquin, Sprachrohr des „wildgewordnen Privatdozenten“110 ‒ ohne Universitätsabschluss ‒, empfindet aber auch das Einheitspostulat als „Gemeinheit“.111 „Einheitlichkeitsmuffel“112 war Einstein in der Tat nicht, aber sein Begriff mythischer oder ideologischer Gemeinschaft entbehrt schlicht der Diffe-

|| 101 Goebbels, Joseph, „Die deutsche Kultur vor neuen Aufgaben“ [15. November 1933], in: Reden 1932–1945, Hrsg. Helmut Heiber, Bindlach 1991, 131–141, 131: „Die Revolution, die wir gemacht haben, ist eine totale“. 102 FF, 103, CEA, 41, 52. 103 Rosenbergs Untertitel: Eine Wertung der seelisch-geistigen Gestaltenkämpfe unserer Zeit (München 1930). 104 CEA, 192. 105 FF, 141. 106 Kiefer, Klaus H., „Primitivismus und Avantgarde ‒ Carl Einstein und Gottfried Benn“, in: Colloquium Helveticum, 44, 2015, 131–168. Die Befangenheit in metaphysischen Denkformen hinderte auch viele Zeitgenossen der Aufklärung, Fakten und Fiktionen auseinander zu halten, Kiefer, Klaus H., „Die famose Hexen-Epoche“ – Sichtbares und Unsichtbares in der Aufklärung, München 2004. 107 Breton, André, Œuvres complètes, Hrsg. Marguerite Bonnet u.a., Bd. 2, Paris 1988–2008, 439. 108 Nietzsche, Friedrich, Sämtliche Werke. Kritische Studienausgabe, Hrsg. Giorgio Colli/Mazzino Montinari, Bd.2, München u.a. 1980, 20. 109 BA 1, 33. 110 W 1, 501. 111 BA 1, 104. 112 K 1, 69.

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renzierung. Darf und kann aber der Interpret ein Jenseits aller Perspektiven annehmen? Er kann die Widersprüche zumindest zur Erscheinung bringen.

Eva Wiegmann

Fremde Formen – neue Sprache Zum innovativen Potential afrikanischer Kunst in Carl Einsteins Negerplastik Der kulturelle Umbruch zur technischen Moderne wurde begleitet von einer signifikanten Wahrnehmungsverschiebung und dem damit zusammenhängenden Phänomen der „Unaussprechlichkeit“.1 Im Hinblick auf eine vollkommen verändert erscheinende Welt verloren kulturelle Semantiken ihre Tragfähigkeit. Mit Peter Sloterdijk lässt sich von einer „offenkundige[n] Überlastung[ ] der alten ‚Sprachen‘ durch die neuen Ereignisse und Verhältnisse“ sprechen, in Folge derer es zu einer „Krise der Beschreibbarkeit der Welt“2 kam. Der Epochenumbruch zur Moderne erzeugte eine „Umwandlung der Sehweise“,3 die andere, neue Aspekte der Welt beleuchtete, die zuvor vielleicht nicht nur anders, sondern auch gar nicht gesehen wurden. Die literarische Avantgarde der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts reagierte darauf in besonderer Weise. Sie begnügte sich nicht mit sprachkritischen bzw. -skeptischen Ansätzen, sondern begab sich auf die intensive Suche nach neuen „Möglichkeiten, etwas ‚zur Sprache‘ zu bringen‘“.4 Angesichts der Unmöglichkeit, die hyperkomplexe Moderne sprachlich abbilden zu können, entpuppt sich die von Theodor Fontane geforderte „Widerspiegelung alles wirklichen Lebens, aller wahren Kräfte und Interessen im Elemente der Kunst“5 als unzeitgemäßes ästhetisches Paradigma. Im Zentrum avantgardistischer Bestrebungen steht insofern weniger die Abbildung des Wirklichen als vielmehr das Sehen und Wahrnehmen der Welt der Erscheinungen. An die Stelle eines inadäquat gewordenen bürgerlichen Realismus rückt u.a. bei Carl Einstein ein neuartiger Realismus der Form, in dem über die Kon-

|| 1 Blumenberg, Hans, Aspekte der Epochenschwelle: Cusaner und Nolaner, Frankfurt, 1976, 20. 2 Sloterdijk, Peter, „Weltanschauungsessayistik und Zeitdiagnostik“, in: Bernhard Weyergraf (Hrsg.), Literatur der Weimarer Republik 1918–1933 (Hansers Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur vom 16. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart, Bd. 8), München, Wien 1995, 309–339, 310, 317. 3 Kuhn, Thomas S., Die Struktur wissenschaftlicher Revolutionen, 24. Aufl., Frankfurt 2014, 130. 4 Kuhn, Die Struktur wissenschaftlicher Revolutionen, 130. 5 Fontane, Theodor, Literarische Essays und Studien, Bd. 1, Kurt Schreinert (Hrsg.), München 1963, 13. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-007

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zentration auf das rein Formale, die „Welt […] durch eine neue Art der Anschauung bereichert” 6 werden sollte.

Exotische Sehweisen Auf der Suche nach etwas Neuem, nach einer Alternative bietet sich ganz grundsätzlich immer ein Blick in die Fremde oder auf das Fremde an. Im Gegensatz zu der gängigen „Unterstellung eines Strebens nach ästhetischer Autonomie“ besteht insofern gerade in Bezug auf die Inspirationslehren der modernen Avantgarden die Notwendigkeit einer literaturwissenschaftlichen Untersuchung dessen, was man sich von „ästhetische[r] Heteronomie“ versprach.7 Im Kontext eines Epochenumbruchs, wie man ihn zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts konstatieren kann, bietet die Übernahme von kulturellen Praktiken bzw. symbolischen Denk-, Wahrnehmungs- und Handlungsmustern anderer Kulturen die Möglichkeit einer maßgeblichen Transformation des „Kanon[s] symbolischer Ausdrucksformen einer Kultur“8 sowie neue „Möglichkeiten, etwas ‚zur Sprache‘ zu bringen‘“.9 Wenn also – wie Konrad Fiedler schreibt – „neue gewaltige Erkenntnisse das Spiegelbild der Welt in den Köpfen der Menschen umgestalten“,10 ist ein starkes Interesse am Fremden nicht verwunderlich und kann im spezifischen Avantgarde-Kontext nicht allein mit einem Willen zum Traditionsbruch erklärt werden. Neben einem starken weltanschaulich geprägten Interesse für Kunst und Philosophie aus dem asiatischen Raum ist – insbesondere, aber nicht ausschließlich in der bildenden Kunst – die Begeisterung für ozeanische und afrikanische Kunst und Kultur besonders hervorzuheben. Die Beschäftigung mit der sogenannten ‚primitiven‘ Kunst bei den Fauvisten, Kubisten und Expressionisten erwuchs vor allem aus einem „Interesse an unverbrauchten und als ur-

|| 6 Fiedler, Konrad, Schriften zur Kunst, Bd. II, Gottfried Boehm (Hrsg.), 2. verbesserte und erweiterte Aufl., München 1991, 43. 7 Schüttpelz, Erhard, „Zur Definition des literarischen Primitivismus“, in: Nicola Gess (Hrsg.), Literarischer Primitivismus, Berlin, Boston 2013, 13–27, 25. 8 Gutjahr, Ortrud, „Interkulturalität als Forschungsparadigma der Literaturwissenschaft. Von den Theoriedebatten zur Analyse kultureller Tiefensemantiken“, in: Dieter Heimböckel u.a. (Hrsg.), Zwischen Provokation und Usurpation. Interkulturalität als (un)vollendetes Projekt der Literatur- und Sprachwissenschaften, München 2010, 17–39, 36. 9 Blumenberg, Aspekte der Epochenschwelle, 20. 10 Fiedler, Schriften zur Kunst, Bd. II, 42.

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sprünglich empfundenen Sichtweisen“.11 Die „Künste der […] traditionellen Kulturen Afrikas mit ihrer Unmittelbarkeit, Formvereinfachung und ihrem Purismus“ boten ihnen „neue Möglichkeiten der Wirklichkeitserfahrung und Ausdrucksteigerung“.12 Ethnographische Museen wie das Musée d’Ethnographie du Trocadéro wurden für zahlreiche Künstler zum „Ort der Inspiration“.13 Das bekannteste Beispiel ist hier sicherlich Picasso, der sich von der sogenannten art nègre 1907 zur kubistischen Gründungsikone Les Demoiselles d’Avignon inspirieren ließ. Für Carl Einstein, der 1904/05 in Berlin Kunstgeschichte studierte und dort unter anderem Vorlesungen von Heinrich Wölfflin besuchte, lieferte die Begegnung mit den von afrikanischer Kunst inspirierten innovativen Darstellungsformen der kubistischen Malerei, insbesondere in den Werken Picassos und Braques, entscheidende Reflexions- und Produktionsimpulse.14 Im Kubismus „sah er“ – so Sibylle Penkert – „Möglichkeiten zur Entwicklung einer neuen totalen […] Weltinterpretation aus ästhetischen Gesetzen, die aus der Dimension des Archaischen neue Formen des Utopischen hervorgehen ließ“.15 Das 1915 erschienene epochemachenden Werk Negerplastik, das sich nicht eindeutig fixierbar zwischen literarischem und theoretischem Text bewegt, fokussiert sich ausgehend vom Kubismus auf die afrikanische Kunst, da – wie es im Text heißt – „kaum irgendwo bestimmte Raumprobleme und eine besondere Weise des Kunstschaffens in dieser Reinheit gebildet waren, wie bei den Negern“.16 Schon in seiner Berliner Studienzeit interessierte sich Einstein nicht nur für neuere europäische, sondern auch für ägyptische und griechische Kunstgeschichte.17 Insbesondere seine Freundschaft mit Hedwig Fechheimer, der Autorin der Plastik der Ägypter (1914), hatte hier im Hinblick auf die Negerplastik prägenden Charakter. Denn Fechheimer betont im Gegensatz zu anderen orientalistischen Studien in ihrem Werk gerade nicht den historischen Wert ägyptischer Kunst, sondern deren unmittelbare Wirksamkeit in der Gegenwart, da sie

|| 11 Schmidt-Möbus, Friederike, „Nachwort“, in: Carl Einstein, Negerplastik, Stuttgart 2012, Friederike Schmidt-Möbus (Hrsg.), 150–177, 156. 12 Schmidt-Möbus, „Nachwort“, 156. 13 Öhlschläger, Claudia, „Abstraktion im Licht der Faszination. Wilhelm Worringer am Ort des Primitivismus“, in: Nicola Gess (Hrsg.), Literarischer Primitivismus, Berlin, Boston 2013, 59–73, hier: 71. 14 Vgl. Penkert, Sibylle, Carl Einstein. Beiträge zu einer Monographie, Göttingen 1969, 53f. 15 Penkert, Einstein, 56. 16 Einstein, Carl, Werke (Berliner Ausgabe), Bd. I: 1907–1918, Hermann Haarmann/Klaus Siebenhaar (Hrsg.), Berlin 1994, 235. 17 Vgl. Penkert, Einstein, 53.

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„das lang vergessenen Elementare der Erscheinung und des Sehens“ sowie eine „Einheit der Kunstschöpfung“ zur Anschauung bringe, die von überzeitlichem Wert sei. Gerade im Hinblick auf das „moderne Kunstempfinden“18 legt sie besonderen Wert auf die formalen Elemente der ägyptischen Plastiken, die vollkommen zeitlos seien: Die Meinung, als habe die bildende Kunst im großen sich in 5000 Jahren weiter entwickelt, ist ganz und gar trügerisch. Es gibt nicht Entwicklungen oder Stufen des Künstlerischen – nur Formen. […] Form ist nicht willkürlich und wird nicht erlernt, sie ist Spiegelung des Geistigen, sein endgültiger Ausdruck. Ein Genie ist gerade dadurch Künstler, daß es die Form besitzt.19

Fechheimer betont, dass im zeitgenössischen „Ringen“20 um neue Ausdrucksformen gerade der Rückgriff auf die Formsprache der ägyptischen Plastiken eine hohe Potentialität habe. Dabei wird die Konzentration auf das Formale nicht im Sinne einer lebensfernen Abstraktion verstanden, sondern im Gegenteil der „Glaube an die lebenwirkende Kraft der ‚Form‘“ im alten Ägypten mit dem „Prozeß des Sprachbildens“21 in Verbindung gebracht. Im avantgardistischen Sinne etabliert die Autorin das Ägyptische als ein alternatives Formideal, das mit der klassizistischen Traditionslinie bricht22 und mit der „kräftige[n] Schönheit einer ursprünglichen Kunst“23 zugleich eine „reinere Kunstauffassung“24 schult und dadurch der gegenwärtigen Kunst neue Ausdrucksmöglichkeiten eröffnet. Dabei sieht sie den Erneuerungswert ägyptischer Plastiken durchaus nicht auf die bildende Kunst beschränkt, sondern schlägt vielmehr – für Einstein richtungsweisend – von hier aus eine Brücke zu einem dichterischeren Realismus der Form, der jenseits eines „genaue[n], den Naturwissenschaften entlehnte Beschreiben[s] von Vorgängen und Situationen“ zu verorten ist und auf „spannende Erfindung, die psychologische Analyse, jedes Beiwerk“ verzichtet.25

|| 18 Fechheimer, Hedwig, Die Plastik der Ägypter, 4. Aufl., Berlin 1920, 1. 19 Fechheimer, Ägypter, 2. 20 Fechheimer, Ägypter, 1. 21 Fechheimer, Ägypter, 13. 22 Das „orientalische Altertum“ bietet bei Fechheimer analog zum humanistischen Ideal des Griechentums nicht nur „gereinigte Vorstellung vom Plastischen, sondern einen gesteigerten Begriff menschlicher Größe“. (Fechheimer, Ägypter, 3) 23 Fechheimer, Ägypter, 8. 24 Fechheimer, Ägypter, 1. 25 Fechheimer, Ägypter, 1.

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Während aber bei den Zeugnissen der von Fechheimer idealisierten ägyptischen Hochkultur, wie etwa der Büste der Nofretete oder dem Bildnis von Amenophis IV., der Kunstcharakter kaum in Frage stand, wurde afrikanischen Artefakten dem kolonialen Kontext entsprechend im Allgemeinen allenfalls ethnographischer Wert zuerkannt. Einstein hingegen behandelt die afrikanischen Plastiken explizit als ‚Kunst‘ und es scheint ihm, wie er schreibt, „dubios“ zu sein, „Kunst als ein Mittel zu anthropologischen oder ethnographischen Einsichten anzusehen“.26 Man dürfe nicht von „einem unterschobenen Surrogat ausgehen“, sondern müsse den Fokus der Betrachtung auf das Formale legen. Eine formale Analyse, die sich auf die „eigentümliche[n] Einheiten des Raumschaffens und Schauens“ konzentriere, erweise, dass es sich bei den „gegebenen Gebilde[n]“ zweifelfrei um „Kunst“ handle.27 Mit der Umwertung ethnographischer Ausstellungsstücke zur ‚Kunst‘ geht bei Einstein das Postulat einer ‚afrikanischen Antike‘ einher, das den Kunstwerken im 111 Seiten langen Abbildungsteil der Negerplastik einen ähnlichen formal-normativen Status zuerkennt wie Winckelmann den griechischen Plastiken. Das „plastische[ ] System[ ]“28 der afrikanischen Antike hat Einstein zufolge für die moderne Kunst eine vergleichbare Relevanz wie die griechische Antike für die Weimarer Klassik. Im Kontext der Avantgarde bildet die afrikanische Kunst nicht nur eine Parallele, sondern auch einen deutlichen Kontrast zur antikenbasierten Traditionslinie der Klassik und erhebt den Anspruch, diese abzulösen. Dabei visualisieren die in ihrer Farbgebung durchweg ‚dunklen‘ und für das europäische Auge verzerrt wirkenden afrikanischen Plastiken die Gegenposition zu den vermeintlich ‚weißen‘ und harmonisch geformten Plastiken der Griechen.29 Der als Bedingung literarisch-künstlerischer Innovation gesetzte klare Traditionsbruch wird hier über kulturelle Alterität verhandelt. Die afrikanische Kunst als das ‚radikal Fremde‘30 bricht mit den europäischen Sehge-

|| 26 Einstein, Werke, Bd. I, 236. 27 Einstein, Werke, Bd. I, 236. 28 Einstein, Werke, Bd. I, 249. 29 Neuere Forschungen belegen, dass griechische Plastiken durchaus nicht rein ‚weiß‘ waren. Zur Polychromie antiker Plastiken vgl. etwa Brinkmann, Vinzenz/Scholl, Andreas (Hrsg.), Bunte Götter: Die Farbigkeit antiker Skulptur. Katalog zur Ausstellung in Berlin, Pergamonmuseum, München 2010; Blume, Clarissa, Polychromie hellenistischer Skulptur: Ausführung, Instandhaltung und Botschaften, Petersberg 2015. 30 Fremdheit in „einer radikalen Form“ konfrontiert uns – laut Waldenfels – „mit Ereignissen, die nicht eine bestimmte Interpretation, sondern die bloße ‚Interpretationsmöglichkeit‘ in Frage stellen“. (Waldenfels, Bernhard, Topographien des Fremden. Studien zur Phänomenologie des Fremden 1, Frankfurt 1997, 36f.).

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wohnheiten und zeigt – im Sinne Konrad Fiedlers – „einen neuen, bisher nie beachteten Aspekt der Welt“, der sich „von vertrauten Darstellungskonventionen unterscheidet“.31 Der Bruch mit tradierten ästhetischen Normen ist dabei zugleich eine radikale Abkehr von kulturell präfigurierten Deutungsmustern, welche die Rezeption von Kunst sowie die Wahrnehmung der Wirklichkeit lenken und ihr enge Grenzen setzen. Die von Einstein im Abbildungsteil präsentierten afrikanischen Plastiken widersprechen der ästhetischen Norm bzw. dem europäischen Begriff von ‚Kunst‘ und sind gerade deshalb für Einstein so interessant. Sie können nicht in die (europäische) Kunstgeschichte eingeordnet oder mit deren Begrifflichkeiten beschrieben werden und eröffnen damit der Sprache einen neuen Möglichkeitsraum. Das Interesse am Fremden zielt hier nicht auf ein Verstehen des Anderen, vielmehr wird das exotisch Fremde ganz im Sinne des Eigenen funktionalisiert, das bestimmt ist von der Suche nach neuen Ausdrucksformen bzw. nach neuen Möglichkeiten, etwas zur Sprache zu bringen. Dieses auch für Sammler exotischer Kunstobjekte charakteristische Interesse an „Oberflächen“ ist jedoch selbst „nicht ‚oberflächlich‘“.32 Einstein sucht in der Konzentration auf die „formale Dimension“33 afrikanischer Kunstobjekte „eine reine und gültige Lösung“34 für das Darstellungsproblem und die „offenkundige Überlastung der alten ‚Sprachen‘ durch die neuen Ereignisse und Verhältnisse“35 im Kontext „der Moderne als einer spezifischen Erkenntnissituation“.36 Die afrikanischen Plastiken werden von ihm nicht dem gängigen Primitivismus-Paradigma entsprechend verortet, das Wildheit und naturhafte Ursprünglichkeit auf alles Afrikanische appliziert und in diesem kultur- und zivilisationsfernen Sinne als Gegenmodell zur technischen Moderne postuliert. Ganz im Gegenteil stellen die afrikanischen Plastiken für Einstein erkenntnisfördernde Anschauungsobjekte von hochkulturellem Wert dar. Eine aus eurozentrischer Zivilisationskritik entspringende gegendiskursive Überschreibung fremder Kultur vermeidet er und

|| 31 Majetschak, Stefan, „Kunst, Erkenntnis, Wahrheit“, in: Ders.: Ästhetik zur Einführung, Hamburg 2007, 111–132, 113f. 32 Schmitz-Emans, Monika, „Interkulturelle Geschichten. Über das narrative Potential fremdkultureller Sammelobjekte und Edmund de Waals Geschichte einer Sammlung“, in: Eva Wiegmann (Hrsg.), Diachrone Interkulturalität, Heidelberg 2018, 317–338, 325. 33 Einstein, Werke, Bd. I, 245. 34 Einstein, Werke, Bd. I, 245. 35 Sloterdijk, „Weltanschauungsessayistik“, 310. 36 Vietta, Silvio, Die literarische Moderne. Eine problemgeschichtliche Darstellung der deutschsprachigen Literatur von Hölderlin bis Thomas Bernhard, Stuttgart 1992, 9.

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reflektiert die „implizite[ ] Gefahr“ einer „psychologischen Deutung“.37 Im expliziten Rekurs auf das Formale sucht er eine intellektuelle Besitzergreifung38 zu vermeiden, die „dem fremden Artefakt eine Ausdruckswert“ anheftet, „den es nicht besitzt“.39 Er wendet sich gegen ein im exotistischen Kunstschaffen sich fortsetzendes kolonial geprägtes Deutungsmuster, das den – wie es bei Einstein heißt – „Neger […] von Beginn an als de[n] inferiore[n] Teil“ interpretiert, „der rücksichtslos zu bearbeiten ist, und das Gebotene […] apriori als Manko verurteilt“.40 Dennoch decken sich seine kunsttheoretischen Interessen, wie Klaus H. Kiefer gezeigt hat, nicht mit postkolonialen Bestrebungen. „Der ideologisch brisante Vermittlungszusammenhang ‚Kolonialismus‘ wird nicht reflektiert“ und im Zuge der avantgardistischen Bestrebungen schlichtweg ignoriert.41 „Trotz der Aufwertung der afrikanischen Kultur und der Kritik an einer eurozentrischen Perspektive, ist“ – wie auch Michael Hofmann betont, „nicht zu verkennen, dass die Inanspruchnahme der afrikanischen Kunst aus dem europäischen Kontext erfolgt und diese in diesem Sinne instrumentalisiert wird“.42 Was ihn reizt ist die exotische Fremdartigkeit afrikanischer Darstellungsformen, von deren diverser Ästhetik er sich eine Steigerung der Wahrnehmungsfähigkeit verspricht.43 Diese ästhetische Funktionalisierung des Exotischen „impliziert nicht notwendigerweise eine Hochschätzung der Länder und der Menschen, auch wenn e[s] sie nicht ausschließt“.44 Einsteins Interesse an afrikanischer Kunst erwächst rein aus der Darstellungs- und Sprachkrise der Moderne und nicht aus dem Wunsch

|| 37 Neundorfer, German, „Kritik an Anschauung“. Bildbeschreibung im kunstkritischen Werk Carl Einsteins, Würzburg 2003, 34f. 38 Eine gegensätzliche Position vertritt Nana Badenberg („Art nègre. Picasso, Einstein und der Primitivismus“, in: Alexander Honold/Klaus R. Scherpe [Hrsg.], Das Fremde. Reiseerfahrungen, Schreibformen und kulturelles Wissen, Bern u.a. 1999, 219–247). 39 Neundorfer, Kritik an Anschauung, 34f. 40 Einstein, Werke, Bd. I, 234. 41 Kiefer, Klaus H., „Carl Einsteins Negerplastik. Kubismus und Kolonialismus-Kritik“, in: Wolfgang Bader/János Riesz (Hrsg.), Literatur und Kolonialismus I: Die Verarbeitung Der Kolonialen Expansion in der Europäischen Literatur, Frankfurt, Bern 1983, 233–249, 235. 42 Hofmann, Michael, „Avantgarde, Kulturkritik und Interkulturalität: Carl Einsteins Analyse der afrikanischen Kunst und Döblins Romanpoetik“, in: Ders., Interkulturelle Literaturwissenschaft: eine Einführung, Paderborn 2006, 96–120, 97f. 43 Auch in Victor Segals Ästhetik des Diversen (1908) verbürgt eine „Wahrnehmung des Diversen“ die „Fähigkeit, anders aufzufassen“. (Segalen, Victor, Die Ästhetik des Diversen. Versuch über den Exotismus, aus dem Französischen von Uli Wittmann, Frankfurt 1994) 44 Simo, David, Interkulturalität und Ästhetische Erfahrung. Untersuchungen zum Werk Hubert Fichtes, Stuttgart, Weimar 1993, 33.

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nach einer – wie Max Herman-Neiße meint – „‚glänzende[n] Ehrenrettung‘ des Negers und seiner Kunst“.45

Sprache jenseits des Begrifflichen Die von Peter Sloterdijk sogenannte „Krise der Beschreibbarkeit der Welt“, zu der es angesichts der vollkommen veränderten Erlebniswelt in der technischen Moderne kommt, spiegelt sich vielfach in der zeitgenössischen Literatur – etwa in sprachskeptischen Reflexionen bei Rilke, Hofmannsthal46 oder Musil. Auch Einstein bezeichnet im sog. Kahnweilerbrief die Sprache explizit als „unzureichend“,47 und zwar insbesondere im Hinblick auf die Beschreibung von Erlebnissen. Mit einem Blick auf die erkenntnistheoretischen Essays aus dem entstehungszeitlichen Umfeld der Negerplastik lässt sich seine Sprachskepsis als Kritik an einer in unzeitgemäßer Begrifflichkeit erstarrten Sprache konkretisieren, welche die unmittelbare Wahrnehmung beeinträchtige und Erlebnisse „letzten Endes […] irgend einer Vernunft unter[ ]ordnen […] und […] die konventionellen Schemen der Gegenstände angenehm wiederholen müsse“.48 Eine in diesem Sinne begriffliche, d.h. auch kulturgeschichtlich präfigurierte Wahrnehmung, die sich über die Erlebnisse stülpe, statt sich diesen anpassen,49 verhindert seiner – durch die Kunsttheorie Konrad Fiedlers geprägten – Ansicht nach jede echte Erkenntnis, da sie ein differenziertes Erfassen von im geschichtlichen Verlauf „immer neue[n] Konstellationen“ in ihrer „qualitativen Verschiedenheit“ nicht erlaube.50 Dementsprechend sucht er in der Negerplastik eine unmittelbare Wahrnehmung dessen was ist51 möglich zu machen, indem er im

|| 45 Herman-Neiße, Max, „Carl Einstein“, zit. n. Kraft, Herbert, Kunst und Wirklichkeit im Expressionismus, mit einer Dokumentation zu Carl Einstein, Bebenhausen 1972, 45. 46 Auch Penkert sieht Parallelen zwischen Einsteins Überlegungen und Hofmannsthals Brief des Lord Chandos (vgl. Penkert, Einstein, 49). 47 Einstein, Carl, Werke (Berliner Ausgabe), Bd. IV: Aus dem Nachlaß 1, Hermann Haarmann/Klaus Siebenhaar (Hrsg.), Berlin 1992, 156. 48 Einstein, Werke, Bd. IV, 149. In Anlehnung an den erkenntnistheoretischen Paradigmenwechsel bei Erst Mach betont Einstein, dass Wahrnehmung ein pluralistisches Phänomen ist, das „in vielfältiger Art gleichzeitig möglich sei und keine einfache Funktion bedeutet“. (Einstein, Carl, Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts, Leipzig 1988, 90) 49 Vgl. Einstein, Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts, 90. 50 Einstein, Werke, Bd. I, 221. 51 Das was ist, ist die reine ‚Form‘ im Gegensatz zum ‚Begriff‘ (vgl. Schmidt-Möbus, „Nachwort“, 174)

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Abbildungsteil eine Fülle von Plastiken präsentiert, die sich bislang kunsthistorischer Kategorisierung entziehen konnten. Diese werden dementsprechend nicht nur ohne ethnographische Ein- und geographische Zuordnung, sondern auch völlig ohne kunstgeschichtlichen Kommentar und selbst ohne jede Ekphrasis präsentiert. In den Anmerkungen zur Methode der Negerplastik heißt es entsprechend: Ich glaube sicherer, als alle mögliche Kenntnis ethnographischer usw. Art gilt die Tatsache: die afrikanischen Skulpturen! Man wird das Gegenständliche, respektive die Gegenstände der Umgebungsassoziationen ausschalten und diese Bildungen als Gebilde analysieren.52

Von entscheidender Wichtigkeit ist hier nicht nur, dass sich die afrikanische Kunst radikal „von vertrauten Darstellungskonventionen unterscheidet“53 und mit den europäischen Sehgewohnheiten bricht, sondern vor allem auch, dass – wie es heißt – „die Kenntnisse von afrikanischer Kunst im ganzen gering und unbestimmt“ 54 sind und „weder die geschichtlichen noch geographische Kenntnisse […] vorläufig auch nicht die bescheidenste Kunstbestimmung“ erlauben.55 Ähnlich heißt es auch im Text der 1921 erschienen Afrikanischen Plastik: „Vor alten afrikanischen Dingen müssen wir […] antworten, […]: wir wissen nicht. Afrika […] entzieht sich mit glatter Haut europäischer Wißbegier“.56 Was sich vordergründig als Manko ausnimmt, ist für Einsteins Argumentation essentiell, denn gerade das „Nichtwissen“57 über den kultur- und kunstgeschichtlichen Kontext ermöglicht hier die unmittelbare, nicht begrifflich präfigurierte Anschauung, die zu einer selbstständigen, innovativen Begriffsbildung anregt. Im Sinne Kants fungiert die ästhetische Erfahrung hier gewissermaßen als Rückversicherung der eigenen Erkenntnisfähigkeit angesichts der Hyper-

|| 52 Einstein, Werke, Bd. I, 221. 53 Majetschak, Kunst, Erkenntnis, Wahrheit, 113f. 54 Einstein, Werke, Bd. I, 235. 55 Ebd., 236. Die Signifikanz dieser Unbestimmtheit verkennt Liliane Meffre, wenn sie als Herausgeberin ihrer französischen Übersetzung der Negerplastik die vermeintliche Nachlässigkeit Einsteins korrigiert und die Abbildungen von Jean-Louis Paudrat identifizieren und kunstgeschichtlich einordnen lässt (vgl. Einstein, Carl, Les arts de l’Afrique, présentation et traduction par Liliane Meffre. Légendes des oeuvres et notes établies par Jean-Louis Paudrat, Arles 2015). 56 Einstein, Carl, Werke (Berliner Ausgabe), Bd. II: 1919–1928, Hermann Haarmann/Klaus Siebenhaar (Hrsg.), Berlin 1996, 64. 57 Einstein, Werke, Bd. I, 235.

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komplexität der Moderne, die sich über tradierte Semantiken nicht mehr erschließen lässt. Da im Deutschen scheinbar keine Begriffe zur Beschreibung der fremden Formsprache existieren, eröffnet sich zudem im konkreten Text der Negerplastik ein sprachkünstlerischer Möglichkeitsraum.58 Die vermeintlich dezidierte Beschreibung einer afrikanischen Formsprache entpuppt sich bei genauerem Hinsehen als experimentelle Prosa, welche dieselbe Totalität und „formale Klärung der Anschauung“59 zu generieren sucht wie die Plastiken im Bildteil. Das Buch Negerplastik selbst verweigert jede eindeutige Zuordnung und bewegt sich insofern nicht ohne Grund im Zwischenbereich von Schrift und Abbildung, Kunsttheorie und Literatur. Aber auch im sprachlichen Mikrobereich setzt sich Einstein hier „über die Konventionen der Sprache hinweg und negiert ihre Regeln“.60 Das prägnanteste Beispiel ist der bereits zitierte Satz: „Ich glaube, sicherer als alle mögliche Kenntnis ethnographischer usw. Art gilt die Tatsache: die afrikanischen Skulpturen!“61 Hier wird im Objektsatz zusammenfassend die Ablehnung einer wie auch immer gearteten Subsumtion afrikanischer Plastiken unter Kategorien jeglicher Art formuliert. Dabei steht das ‚usw.‘ hier nicht nur für aktuelle Wissensordnungen, sondern auch für jede überhaupt nur denkbare Möglichkeit der Kategorisierung. Diese wird aber nicht nur inhaltlich negiert, sondern über die gezielte Irritation einer kunstgeschichtlichen Lektüreerwartung auch auf rezeptionsästhetischer Ebene gestützt. Die Stellung des Partikels ‚usw.‘ zwischen Adjektiv und Substantiv ist grammatikalisch unüblich. Korrekterweise müsste es ‚ethnologischer Art usw.‘ heißen. Einen ähnlichen, die inhaltliche Argumentation auf der sprachformalen Ebene wiederholenden Effekt hat die Verweigerung des Genitivs, die – wie Moritz Baßler gezeigt hat – über die Konstruktion mit dem die Interdependenz der Satzteile auflösenden Doppelpunkt ermöglicht wird und „die afrikanischen Skulpturen!“ mit dem ab-

|| 58 Die Anlehnung an die afrikanische Formsprache als Fremdsprache, anstelle der unreflektierten Fortführung europäischer Traditionslinien, ermöglicht maximale künstlerische Freiheit. So schreibt Kahnweiler in Der Welt zum Kubismus: „Eine unerhörte Freiheit schenkte diese neue Sprache der Malerei“. (Kahnweiler, Daniel-Henry, Der Weg zum Kubismus, München 1920, 34) 59 Einstein, Werke, Bd. I, 234. 60 Schmidt-Möbus, „Nachwort“, 165. 61 Einstein, Werke, Bd. I, 236.

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schließenden Ausrufezeichen zu einer aus den Ordnungszusammenhängen befreiten „emphatische[n] und apodiktische[n] Setzung“62 werden lässt. In der Reduktion der Wahrnehmung auf die reine Form der Plastiken vollzieht Einstein in Vorwegnahme ideologiekritischer Positionen des Poststrukturalismus einen Bruch mit genealogischen Denkformen. In der Negerplastik wendet er sich gegen eine künstlerische Wiederholung des Immergleichen – als „Kopie“, die im Sinne von Deleuze und Guattari „immer nur ‚auf das Gleiche‘ hinausläuft“.63 Insofern geht es Einstein nicht nur um einen avantgardistischen Traditionsbruch, der in der Setzung eines afrikanischen Kunstideals radikalisiert wird, sondern eben auch um einen Bruch mit tradierten Rezeptionsmustern, die u.a. kulturelle Hierarchisierungen transportieren, so automatisch zu einer Deklassifizierung afrikanischer Kunst führen und damit die unvoreingenommene Wahrnehmung ihrer tatsächlichen ästhetischen Qualität verunmöglichen. Die Verschiebung des ästhetischen Ideals aus der griechisch-römischen Antike in eine nicht zu konkretisierende, ‚unbekannte‘ afrikanische Antike ist insofern nicht nur von der Suche neuer künstlerischer Darstellungsmöglichkeiten geprägt, sondern beinhaltet zugleich eine fundamentale Kritik an Wahrnehmungsmustern und Denkstrukturen, die den hyperkomplexen Realitäten der Moderne nicht mehr entsprechen und diese in ihrer Dynamik in keiner Weise erfassen können. Der unendlich vielschichtig gewordenen Wirklichkeit vermögen sie nur noch ein erstarrtes Deutungsmuster überzustülpen, das diese bis zur Unkenntlichkeit verzerrt.64 Insofern sind die gesetzten Begrifflichkeiten – im Sinne von Roland Barthes’ – zu einer „leere[n], parasitäre[n] Form“65 geworden, die einen Sinn supponieren, der das Tatsächliche – wie Einstein schreibt – „als sekundäres suggerierendes Modélé verschleiert“.66 Einstein verhandelt seine fundamentale wahrnehmungstheoretische Kritik über ästhetische Idealformen. Der in Kunst- und Literaturgeschichte immer und immer wieder bemühte Bezugspunkt der klassischen Antike, an dem sich die Negerplastik implizit abarbeitet, „postuliert“ – im Sinne von Roland Barthes

|| 62 Baßler, Moritz, „Das Bild, die Schrift und die Differenz: Zu Carl Einsteins Negerplastik“, in: Christoph Brecht/Wolfgang Fink (Hrsg.), Unvollständig, krank und halb: Zur Archäologie moderner Identität, Bielefeld 1996, 137–153, 144. 63 Deleuze, Gilles/Guattari, Félix, Tausend Plateaus. Kapitalismus und Schizophrenie, 6. Aufl., Berlin 2005, 24. 64 Von hier aus erweist sich der Bezug auf die aus europäischer Optik ‚verzerrt‘ wirkende Ästhetik der afrikanischen Plastiken in der Negerplastik als literarische Groteske. 65 Barthes, Roland, Mythen des Alltags, aus dem Französischen von Horst Brühmann, 4. Auf., Frankfurt 2016, 262. 66 Einstein, Werke, Bd. I, 246.

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Mythos-Begriff – „ein Wissen, eine Vergangenheit, ein Gedächtnis, eine geordnete Reihe von Tatsachen, Ideen, Entscheidungen“ und enthält „ein ganzes Wertsystem: eine Geschichte, eine Geographie, eine Moral, […], eine Literatur“, was den künstlerischen Spielraum (und überhaupt die Möglichkeiten etwas zur Sprache zu bringen) massiv einschränkt. „Man muß“ das alles, wie Barthes schreibt, „weit zurücktreten lassen, um Platz für das grammatische Beispiel zu schaffen, […] wenn man das Bild freisetzen und für die Aufnahme seines Signifikats vorbereiten will“.67 Gegen das antike Formideal als ‚zur Form geronnenem Sinn‘68 setzt Einstein die fremde Form, die aufgrund ihrer Fremdartigkeit ein leeres Zeichen, ein reiner, „bloßer Signifikant“69 ist und im übertragenen Sinne ein vollkommen leeres Blatt darstellt. Die afrikanische Plastik „schreibt“ in ihrer radikalen Andersartigkeit nichts „vor“70 und eröffnet somit neue Möglichkeiten, Erfahrungsgehalte zur Sprache zu bringen, die jenseits dessen liegen, was der klassizistische Mythos als ewige Wahrheit fasst. In der Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts spricht Einstein rückblickend von der Entdeckung „eine[r] neue[n] Sprache […], deren dynamische Syntax ungemein elastisch war“.71 Von der afrikanischen Kunst inspiriert findet Einstein in der Negerplastik zur Beschreibung der „Kubischen Raumschauung“ eine eigene Formsprache mit Bezeichnungen, die „semantisch (noch) nicht gedeckt sind“72 und deren Bedeutung sich dem Leser auch nicht aus dem Kontext erschließt: etwa den sich der geometrischen Logik widersetzenden „dreidimensionale[n] Punkt“73 oder die „Richtungsresultante“. Die Kombination mathematischer Sprache mit afrikanischer Formsprache ist dabei nicht zufällig, denn auch diese zeigt sich wie die afrikanischen Plastiken besonders widerständig gegen eine begriffliche Überformbarkeit. Die „mathematische[ ] Sprache [langage]“ ist laut Roland Barthes „eine undeformierbare Sprache, die jede erdenkliche Vorsorge gegen Interpreta-

|| 67 Barthes, Mythen, 263. 68 Vgl. Barthes, Mythen, 261. 69 Barthes, Mythen, 256. Vgl. dazu auch Baßler, „Das Bild, die Schrift und die Differenz“. 70 Barthes, Mythen, 261. 71 Einstein, Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts, 109. 72 Baßler, „Das Bild, die Schrift und die Differenz“, 151. 73 Einstein, Werke, Bd. I, 245. Schmidt-Möbus schreibt zum ‚dreidimensionalen Punkt‘: „Ein Punkt hat per Definitionem keine Ausdehnung oder Dimensionen. Seine kurios wirkende Einführung des ‚dreidimensionale[n] Punkt[s]‘ braucht er als Negativbeispiel für die von ihm abgelehnte naturalistisch-illusionistische Kunst. Hierbei ist der Punkt eher eine Kugel, auf die von unendlich vielen Richtungen geschaut werden kann und die dadurch ‚unendlich deutbar‘ ist“. (Schmidt-Möbus, „Nachwort“, 174)

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tion getroffen hat. In sie kann sich keine parasitäre Bedeutung einschleichen“.74 Insofern ergibt sich aus der Kombination des Mathematischen mit den nicht durch Begrifflichkeiten der europäischen Kunstgeschichte zu kategorisierenden afrikanischen Plastiken eine Konzentration auf das objektiv Wahrnehmbare jenseits kulturell präfigurierter Wahrnehmungsmuster. Diese Widerständigkeit gegen eingeschliffene Deutungsmuster zeigt sich auch am Text der Negerplastik selbst, der wie die textinhärent aus kunstgeschichtlichen und ethnographischen Zusammenhängen gelöste afrikanische Plastik formal nicht eindeutig kategorisiert werden kann und in dem eine poetische Sprache entwickelt wird, die grammatikalischen Regeln und semantischer Normativität widerspricht. Einstein geht es hier erklärtermaßen darum, die „Richtungswerte umzukehren“,75 d.h. nicht das Kunstwerk in einen genealogischen Zusammenhang einzuordnen oder unter spezifische Diskurse zu subsummieren, sondern jenseits begrifflicher Subsumption in der Kunst dem Denken einen unbeschränkten Möglichkeitsraum – oder mit Heidegger gesprochen: eine Lichtung76– zu öffnen. Abschließend ist anzumerken, dass trotz der Idealisierung afrikanischer Kunst und fundamentaler Kritik an hierarchisierenden Wahrnehmungsstrukturen, gerade in der Extraktion der afrikanischen Plastiken aus ihren historischen Kontexten sowie durch deren Assoziierung mit vorbegrifflichem Denken, mit gängigen primitivistischen Deutungsmustern nicht gebrochen wird. Vielmehr werden hier – wenngleich ungewollt – implizit kolonialistisch geprägte Zuschreibungen von Geschichtslosigkeit und unterentwickelten Denkstrukturen transportiert. Im Bezugsrahmen eines eurozentrischen Ästhetik-Diskurses verbleibend, gelingt es Einstein insofern letztlich nicht, die von ihm kritisierte genealogische Denkart vollständig zu durchbrechen. Aber das ist vermutlich eine unumgängliche Aporie, denn auch im Rahmen einer interkulturellen Hermeneutik ist dem kulturell präfigurierten Deutungshorizont nicht zu entkommen. Das Eigene bildet immer die Folie der Auslegung, auf der das Fremde interpretiert wird. Im Hinblick auf das von Juri Lotman konstatierte „Unvermögen[ ] jeder einzelnen Sprache, die Welt auszudrücken,“ besteht gerade im Kontext von Sprachbildungsprozessen dennoch die „Notwendigkeit

|| 74 Barthes, Mythen, 282. 75 Einstein, Werke, Bd. I, 249. 76 Das Wort ‚Lichtung‘ taucht bei Heidegger erstmals an verschiedenen Stellen in Sein und Zeit auf.

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eines Anderen“,77 das als irritierendes Moment eine Transformation des semantischen Systems in Gang zu setzen vermag. Dieses Moment irritierender Fremdartigkeit macht die Negerplastik im Sinne einer dezidiert europäischen Avantgarde literarisch produktiv.

|| 77 Lotman, Juri M., Kultur und Explosion, aus dem Russischen von Dorothea Trottenberg, Susi K. Frank/Cornelia Ruhe/Alexander Schmitz (Hrsg.), Frankfurt 2010, 9.

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Surpassing Realism?

Sara Bangert

Ähnlichkeit als Konzept des SurRealismus Avantgarden und Realismus wurden oft gegeneinander abgegrenzt.1 Offensichtlich zielt auch der Surrealismus nicht auf eine ‚realistische‘ Wiedergabe ‚des Wirklichen‘; vielmehr setzt er sich davon in einer Geste der Überbietung ab und schließt an die moderne und besonders romantische Bevorzugung des kreativen Schöpfungsakts vor der Nachahmung an, wie Paul Klee formuliert: „Kunst gibt nicht das Sichtbare wieder, sondern macht sichtbar“.2 So scheint mit Mimesis und Realismus auch das Prinzip, demzufolge Kunst der Wirklichkeit ähnelt, aus der surrealistischen Ästhetik ausgetrieben. Dass der Surrealismus jedoch an den Realismus komplex gebunden bleibt, betont etwa Michel Leiris: „Damit es Surrealismus gibt, muss es Realismus geben: es bedarf einer Realität, die man bearbeitet“.3 Dies eröffnet eine ästhetische Reflexion und Produktion, die sowohl die Relation von Kunst und Wirklichkeit betrifft als auch deren epistemologische Erfassung und ästhetisch-politische Gestaltung. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit wird Ähnlichkeit von Mimesis und Referenz, Repräsentation und Realismus entkoppelt; denn sie geht nicht in der Nachahmungsrelation oder einem naiven Realismusbegriff auf. Vielmehr erlaubt gerade der Rückgriff auf Ähnlichkeitskonzepte eine alternative ästhetische Modellierung des Wirklichen und eine Kritik nicht nur an Repräsentation, sondern auch an moderner Rationalität und Identitätslogik. Nach kursorischen Bemerkungen zum ‚SurRealismus‘ und zum Konnex von Ähnlichkeit und Realismus wird anhand André Bretons Konzept des Sprachbildes und Max Ernsts Frottagen angedeutet, wie Ähnlichkeit als Instrument der kritischen Arbeit am Realen und dessen Repräsentation eingesetzt und in Konzepten eines surrealistisch erweiterten Weltverhältnisses rekonzeptualisiert wird.

|| 1 Vgl. im Blick auf die Neue Sachlichkeit oder die Kunsttheorie des Sozialistischen Realismus etwa Barck, Karlheinz, „Avantgarde“, in: Ders. et al. (Hrsg.), Ästhetische Grundbegriffe, Bd. 1, Stuttgart 2000, S. 544–577, 567; Koschorke, Albrecht, „Das Mysterium des Realen in der Moderne“, in: Ders./Helmut Lethen/Ludwig Jäger (Hrsg.), Auf die Wirklichkeit zeigen. Zum Problem der Evidenz in den Kulturwissenschaften. Ein Reader, Frankfurt, New York 2015, 13–38, stellt der „avantgardistischen Kunst“ das „Paradigma des Realismus“ gegenüber (ebd., 34). 2 Klee, Paul, „Schöpferische Konfession“, in: Kasimir Edschmid (Hrsg.), Schöpferische Konfession, Berlin 1920, 28–40, 28. 3 Zit. n. Moebius, Stephan, Die Zauberlehrlinge. Soziologiegeschichte des Collège de sociologie (1937–1939), Konstanz 2006, 230. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-008

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SurRealismus Der Surrealismus, der die Überbietung des Realismus im Titel führt,4 steht dazu in einem Spannungsverhältnis, das die Konzeption von Wirklichkeit ebenso problematisiert wie die Relation zwischen Kunst und Wirklichkeit. So beschreibt ihn Karl-Heinz Bohrer 1969 als „die einzige bisher bedeutende Literaturtheorie“, „in der das Verhältnis zwischen Realität und Kunst […] als Herausforderung wirklich angenommen wird“.5 Dass die metareflexive Arbeit an der Konzeption von Wirklichkeit mit der Rekonzeptualisierung von Realismus, Repräsentation und Mimesis einhergeht, verdeutlichen programmatische Stellungnahmen. So kritisiert Breton den realistischen Roman6 ebenso wie den „sehr enge[n] Begriff von Nachahmung, die als Ziel der Kunst hingestellt wurde“: Der ‚Reproduktion‘ „der äußeren Welt“ stellt er eine imaginative Tiefendimension gegenüber,7 die zugleich gegen die rational zugerichtete Wirklichkeitsauffassung der Moderne opponiert, die Bretons Polemik gegen das peu de realité attackiert.8

|| 4 Dass das Präfix ‚sur‘ und der Begriff ‚Surrealismus‘, die Breton reklamiert („Manifest des Surrealismus“, 26f.), und dessen Verhältnis zur Realität heterogen konzeptualisiert werden, zeigen etwa die Charakterisierungen dieser Konzeption René Magrittes – „Der Traum (das Absurde) das ist eine Sous-Realität. Nun, was wir als höchsten Wert lieben, das ist das Surreale, wo nichts Absurdes Platz hat. Zwischen diesen beiden ‚Welten‘ befindet sich die ‚Realität‘, auf die man sich nicht beziehen kann (nicht mehr als auf die Sous-Realität), um die SurRealität zu beurteilen, zu ‚verstehen‘, zu definieren“ (Magritte, René, Sämtliche Schriften, André Blavier [Hrsg.], Frankfurt 1985, 410) – und Batailles, der Bretons ‚Ästhetizismus‘ den Realismus der Zeitschrift Documents entgegensetzt; zu deren Bildregie der ‚formlosen Ähnlichkeit‘ vgl. Didi-Hubermann, Georges, Formlose Ähnlichkeit oder die fröhliche Wissenschaft des Visuellen nach Georges Bataille, München 2010. 5 Magerski, Christine, Theorien der Avantgarde. Gehlen – Bürger – Bourdieu – Luhmann, Wiesbaden 2011, 21; vgl. Bohrer, Karl-Heinz, „Surrealismus und Terror“, in: Merkur 23/10, 1969, 921– 940. 6 Breton, André, „Erstes Manifest des Surrealismus“, in: Ders., Die Manifeste des Surrealismus, Reinbek 112004, 9–43, 12f. 7 Breton, André, Der Surrealismus und die Malerei, Berlin 1967, 9: „Die Werte des Wirklichen müssen einer grundlegenden Prüfung unterzogen werden […]; und um dieser Notwendigkeit zu gehorchen, muß sich das bildnerische Werk einem rein inneren Vor-Bild zuwenden“ (ebd.). 8 Vgl. Breton, André, Introduction au discours sur le peu de réalité, Paris 1927. Bretons Introduction zeige, „wie der philosophische Realismus des Mittelalters der poetischen Erfahrung“ zugrunde liege, so Benjamin, Walter, „Der Sürrealismus“, in: Ders.: Gesammelte Schriften, Bd. II.1, Rolf Tiedemann/Hermann Schweppenhäuser (Hrsg.), Frankfurt 1977, 295–310, 302.

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Das ethisch-ästhetische Interesse an einer vertieften Erfahrungsdimension, das nicht zuletzt auf den Deutungskampf um das ‚Wirkliche‘ verweist, in dessen soziale Aushandlung sich der Surrealismus explizit politisch einschaltet, formuliert Roger Caillois so: [M]an konnte annehmen, daß er [der Surrealismus, S. B.] daran arbeite, die Realität in Verruf zu bringen oder, genauer gesagt, alles objektiv fest Umrissene […] in Zweifel zu ziehen. Die Behauptung ist nur dialektisch richtig, wenn man also gleichzeitig auch den antithetischen Aspekt dieser Bemühungen in Betracht zieht: alles anzuerkennen, was der industrielle und rationale Pragmatismus von der Wirklichkeit abzustreichen versucht hatte, ohne jemals die anmaßende Absurdität einer solchen Streichung wahrzunehmen.9

Dieser Verkürzung begegnet der Surrealismus mit dem Wahrnehmung und Denken entautomatisierenden Bruch mit konventionalisierten Bedeutungsgefügen, der Kritik der sprachlich fixierten Wirklichkeitsauffassung und der ästhetischen Integration der „erkannte[n] Surrealität der Realität“10: „In der Wirklichkeit selbst sind die überraschenden Begegnungen angelegt […]. Insofern ist die Surrealität auch eine Frage der Wahrnehmung einer erweiterten Realität“.11 Diese umfasst in Bretons Konzeption die Imagination, das Unbewusste, den Traum, den Rausch, den Zufall und das Wunderbare – nach Carl Einstein „die durchdringendste, schärfste Realität, die es gibt“12 –, aber auch transversale Ähnlichkeitsphänomene der Natur in Caillois’ Untersuchungen der Mimikry oder das Reale eines ‚niederen Materialismus‘ in Georges Batailles dissidentsurrealistischer Konzeption. So arbeitet der Surrealismus an der Realitätskonzeption mittels der Transformation eines zugleich konstruktivistischen wie „revelatorischen“13 Wirklichkeitsverständnisses in die ästhetische Praxis. Einstein skizziert die Erschütterung der „Übereinstimmung von Vorstellung und Wirklichkeit und ihr[es] gegenseitige[n] Gleichgewicht[s]“ durch die Erfahrung einer konstruktivveränderlichen Realität.14 Mit der resultierenden „Diskrepanz zwischen seelischem Ablauf und rationaler Normung, respektive überkommenem Bild von

|| 9 Caillois, Roger, „Zur näheren Bestimmung der Dichtkunst“, in: Günter Metken (Hrsg.), Als die Surrealisten noch recht hatten. Texte und Dokumente, Stuttgart 1976, 251–253, 253. 10 Schneede, Uwe, Die Kunst des Surrealismus. Malerei, Skulptur, Dichtung, Fotografie, Film, München 2006, 142. 11 Schneede, Die Kunst des Surrealismus, 53. 12 Einstein, Carl, „Collagen“, in: Hubertus Gaßner (Hrsg.), Élan Vital oder das Auge des Eros, München 1994, 481–482, 481. 13 Koschorke, „Mysterium des Realen“, 34. 14 Einstein, Carl, Die Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts, Leipzig 1988, 163.

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Wirklichem“, sei „die nachahmende Tendenz der Kunst erledigt, da sie wichtige seelische Kräfte ausschloß“.15 Um deren Ausdruck willen folge man nun „dem inneren Automatismus in freien Analogien“.16 Einstein konstatiert: „Wir betrachten diese Künstler als Realisten des Immanenten“.17 Sein in Documents veröffentlichter Essay über André Masson betont den politischen Aspekt dieser Programmatik: „Die Beziehungen zu Geschichte und Realität sind nun negativ betont. Das geschieht unter dem Zeichen der Revolte“.18 Denn „gerade in der Unvereinbarkeit von Halluzinatorischem und Objektstruktur“ bestehe „eine winzige Chance der Freiheit: eine Möglichkeit, die Ordnung der Dinge zu ändern“ und „das, was man Realität nennt, mit Hilfe nicht angepaßter Halluzinationen zu erschüttern, um so die Werthierarchien des Wirklichen zu verändern. Halluzinatorische Kräfte schlagen eine Bresche in die Ordnung mechanischer Abläufe; sie schieben ‚a-kausale‘ Blöcke in diese Realität, die man absurderweise für die einzig bestehende hält“.19 Das „gleichmäßige Gewebe der Realität“20 zu zerreißen, ist Ziel der surrealistischen Epistemologie, die – dies mag vor dem Hintergrund der ‚antimimetischen‘ Tendenz der Avantgarden zunächst überraschen – auf Konzepten nichtimitativer und unähnlicher Ähnlichkeit beruht: Sie dienen der ästhetischen Verarbeitung des ‚entzogenen‘ Realen als „Mysterium eines direkten, nicht durch die Konventionen mimetischer Abbildlichkeit gefilterten BerührtWerdens durch das Wirkliche“, das Albrecht Koschorke als positive Seite der avantgardistischen „Abkehr vom klassischen Repräsentationismus zugunsten einer meta-ästhetischen Selbstreflexion als Kunstwerke“ beschreibt.21

|| 15 Einstein, Die Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts, 163. 16 Einstein, Die Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts, 164. 17 Einstein, Die Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts, 168. Vgl. Breton: „Alles […] lässt mich zu einer bestimmten Philosophie der Immanenz neigen, der zufolge die Surrealität in der Realität selbst beschlossen läge und ihr weder überlegen noch äußerlich wäre“. (Breton, André, Dictionnaire abrégé du surréalisme, in: Ders., Œuvres complètes, Bd. II, Marguerite Bonnet [Hrsg.], Paris 1992, 786–862, 832; Übers.: S. B.). 18 Einstein, Carl, „André Masson. Eine ethnologische Untersuchung“, in: Gaßner, Élan Vital, 492–494, 493. 19 Einstein, „André Masson“, 492. 20 Einstein, „André Masson“, 492. 21 Koschorke, „Mysterium des Realen“, 29.

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Ähnlichkeit ≉ Realismus Ähnlichkeit ist ein intuitiv zentrales, aber vages und nicht zuletzt deshalb unterreflektiertes Paradigma der Ästhetik.22 Als Grundprinzip der Repräsentation wird sie oft mit der Relation zwischen (zumal bildender) Kunst und Wirklichkeit identifiziert: In der Kunsttheorie wurde in unzähligen Traktaten viele Jahrhunderte lang gelehrt, Kunst sei Nachahmung (mimesis, imitatio) der Natur […]. Der Nachahmungsbegriff war und ist selbst klärungsbedürftig. Traditionell wurde er unter Rückgriff auf die Begriffe der Teilhabe (methexis, participio) und der Ähnlichkeit (homoiosis, similitudo) expliziert. In neuerer Zeit haben zahlreiche Kunsttheoretiker […] den Bildbegriff direkt durch Ähnlichkeit zu explizieren versucht.23

Nelson Goodman hat dagegen nicht nur die Vagheit der Ähnlichkeit für den wissenschaftlichen Gebrauch problematisiert,24 sondern auch betont, dass „Ähnlichkeit weder eine notwendige noch eine hinreichende Bedingung für Bildlichkeit“25 ist; entgegen seiner These der Konventionalität bildlicher Referenz26 bleibt Ähnlichkeit bis heute für die „Kopie-Theorie der Repräsentation“

|| 22 Vgl. Funk, Gerald/Mattenklott, Gert/Pauen, Michael (Hrsg.), Ästhetik des Ähnlichen. Zur Poetik und Kunstphilosophie der Moderne, Frankfurt 2001; Gaier, Martin/Kohl, Jeanette/Saviello, Alberto, „Ähnlichkeit als Kategorie der Porträtgeschichte“, in: Dies. (Hrsg.), Similitudo. Konzepte der Ähnlichkeit in Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit, München 2012, 11–29. Diese Überlegungen entstammen der im Kontext der Tübinger Forschung zu Ähnlichkeit stehenden Dissertation der Verf.; vgl. Bhatti, Anil/Kimmich, Dorothee (Hrsg.), Ähnlichkeit. Ein kulturtheoretisches Paradigma, Konstanz 2015; Kimmich, Dorothee, Ins Ungefähre. Ähnlichkeit und Moderne, Konstanz 2017. 23 Scholz, Oliver R., Bild, Darstellung, Zeichen. Philosophische Theorien bildlicher Darstellung, Frankfurt 2004, 17f.; vgl. zu der Intuition, Ähnlichkeit bedinge bildliche Signifikation Sakamoto, Gabriela, „Representation: Resemblance“, in: Michael Kelly (Hrsg.), Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, New York u. a. 1998, 142–158, 143. 24 Vgl. Goodman, Nelson, „Seven strictures on similarity“, in: Ders., Problems and Projects, Indianapolis, New York 1972, 437–446. 25 Sachs-Hombach, Klaus, „Zur Revision des Bildbegriffs“, in: Julian Nida-Rümelin (Hrsg.), Rationalität, Realismus, Revision. Vorträge des 3. internationalen Kongresses der Gesellschaft für Analytische Philosophie vom 15. –18. September 1997 in München, Berlin 2000, 778–787; 778; vgl. Goodman, Nelson, Sprachen der Kunst. Ansatz zu einer Symboltheorie, übers. v. Jürgen Schlaeger, Frankfurt 1973, 17: „Denotation ist der Kern der Repräsentation und ist von Ähnlichkeiten unabhängig.“ 26 Der Konventionalitätsthese zufolge unterscheiden sich Bildsymbole nicht qua Ähnlichkeit von anderen Zeichen, sondern durch ihre syntaktische Organisation (vgl. Sachs-Hombach,

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relevant: „Ähnlichkeit wird als natürliche Relation zwischen einem Bild und seinem Referenten aufgefasst, wobei der Referent ‚die Realität‘ oder das ‚Sosein‘ oder ‚So-Aussehen‘ der Dinge ist. […] Bilder können als mehr oder weniger ‚realistisch‘ im Verhältnis zur Vollständigkeit der Ähnlichkeitsrelation beschrieben werden“.27 Jenseits solch starker Ähnlichkeitstheorien werden Spezifizierungen im Blick auf die Frage vorgeschlagen, „in welcher Hinsicht Ähnlichkeit vorliegt“28: Eingeschränkten Ähnlichkeitstheorien zufolge unterscheidet die Ähnlichkeitsbeziehung Bilder von sprachlicher Repräsentation oder gibt es für bestimmte Bilder „einen nicht-konventionellen Aspekt der semantischen Interpretation […]. Diesen Kernbereich bilden vor allem die sogenannten ‚realistischen‘ Darstellungen“.29 Ähnlichkeitstheorien – nicht nur des Bildes30 – beanspruchen also (systematischer Kritik unbeschadet) historisch variabel Ähnlichkeit für den privilegierten, wahren, natürlichen, unmittelbaren, primären oder motivierten Zugang zu Wirklichkeit: „Ähnlichkeit fungiert somit als eine Art Standard für Realismen“.31 Dieses Theorem begleitet die Ästhetik, seit Platon und Aristoteles Ähnlichkeit mit „der Theorie der Nachahmung (mimesis) und des Realismus, […] der Theorie des Bildes bzw. des ikonischen Zeichens, und […] der Theorie der Illusion“32 verknüpften. Bis in die Moderne bleibt Ähnlichkeit für die Ästhetik zentral; sie fungiert als normativer Imperativ, wenn etwa Alberti das Bild als ‚offenes Fenster‘ zur Wirklichkeit konzipiert oder das mimesistheoretische „Diktat des

|| „Revision des Bildbegriffs“, 783; vgl. Blanc-Benon, Laure, La question du réalisme en peinture. Approches contemporaines, Paris 2009). 27 Sakamoto, „Representation“, 143 (Übers.: S. B.). 28 Sachs-Hombach, „Revision des Bildbegriffs“, 786; vgl. bspw. Seel, Martin, Ästhetik des Erscheinens, Frankfurt 2003, der „Grade der Ähnlichkeit“ realistischer Bilder als ‚sortale Zerlegbarkeit‘ der Bildgegenstände beschreibt (278). 29 Sachs-Hombach, „Revision des Bildbegriffs“, 786. 30 Ähnlichkeit spielt auch in sprachphilosophischen, etymologischen, mimologischen und sprachmagischen Überlegungen eine Rolle, für die modern Benjamin Pate steht, dem zufolge die Sprache als Archiv einer „unsinnlichen Ähnlichkeit“ mimetische Bezüge bewahrt (Benjamin, Walter, „Über das mimetische Vermögen“, in: Gesammelte Schriften, Bd. II.1, 210–213, 211; vgl. ders., „Lehre vom Ähnlichen“, Gesammelte Schriften, Bd. II.1, 204–210). 31 Sakamoto, „Representation“, 145 (Übers.: S. B.). Dieser Standard sei „weder simpel noch univok“, vielmehr seien verschiedene Aspekte von „Ähnlichkeit und Differenz“ abzuwägen, so Walton, Kendall L., Mimesis as Make-Believe. On the Foundations of the Representational Arts, Cambridge, London 1993, 328 (Übers.: S. B.). 32 Andree, Martin, Archäologie der Medienwirkung: Faszinationstypen von der Antike bis heute (Simulation, Spannung, Fiktionalität, Authentizität, Unmittelbarkeit, Geheimnis, Ursprung), München 2005, 33.

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Ähnlichen“33 Poesie auf Nachahmung verpflichtet: „Keine Dichtung darf sich als vollendet rühmen, die nicht der Natur ähnelt“.34 Dass Ähnlichkeit jedoch nicht nur ein Maßstab für Imitation ist, zeigt etwa das Theorem des Ähnlichkeitssehens.35 Die Verknüpfung von Ähnlichkeit und als Imitation aufgefasster Mimesis lässt sich auf eine verkürzte Rezeption des platonischen Mimesisbegriffs als Kopie des Wirklichen zurückführen, deren Kritik bereits antike Vorläufer hat.36 Dabei ist an dem relationalen Mimesisbegriff nicht nur die Ähnlichkeitsrelation klärungsbedürftig, sondern auch der Pol ‚der‘ Wirklichkeit:37 Je nachdem, ob sie abgeschlossen oder unabgeschlossen, einzig oder plural, als äußere oder tiefere, geschaffene oder schöpferische, als „subjektunabhängige […] Wirklichkeit“38 oder perspektivierte Möglichkeitswelt gedacht ist, wird die Relation historisch variabel unterschiedlich modelliert. „Ähnlichkeit garantiert Wirklichkeits- bzw. Naturnähe, […] und sie gibt zugleich, als Instrument der Interpretation von Kunst und Realität, in ihrer jeweiligen Verfasstheit und Aufgefasstheit Auskunft über historische Vorstellungen und Wahrnehmungsmuster von ‚Wirklichkeit‘“.39 Die moderne Pluralisierung des Wirklichen pluralisiert auch die ‚Realismen‘ und Realismusbegriffe; gerade die avantgardistische Reflexion „erzwingt die Entwertung bis dahin fest etablierter Realitätsbestände“40 und entkoppelt Ähn-

|| 33 Welchman, John C., „Nach der Wagnerianischen Bouillabaisse. Theorie und Praxis des Wort-Bildes in Dada und Surrealismus“, in: Judi Freeman (Hrsg.), Das Wort-Bild in Dada und Surrealismus, München 1990, 56–95, 75. 34 Pierre de Ronsard, „Vorwort zu den Oden“ (1550) zit. n. Władysław Tatarkiewicz, Geschichte der sechs Begriffe Kunst, Schönheit, Form, Kreativität, Mimesis, Ästhetisches Erleben, Dieter Bingen (Hrsg.), Frankfurt 2003, 386 (Übers.: S. B.). 35 Vgl. Scholz: Bild, Darstellung, Zeichen, 50. Leonardos Trattato della pittura würdigt kunsttheoretisch das Verstärken zufälliger Ähnlichkeitseffekte. 36 Vgl. Tatarkiewicz, Geschichte der sechs Begriffe, 391–392. Von einem „im Sinne des üblichen Vorurteils halbierten Platon“ spricht Birgit Recki, „Mimesis: Nachahmung der Natur. Kleine Apologie eines mißverstandenen Leitbegriffs“, in: Kunstforum International 114, 1991, 116–126, die den Nachahmungsbegriff als „Reflexionskategorie“ zu öffnen sucht (116). 37 Vgl. Blumenberg, Hans, „‚Nachahmung der Natur‘. Zur Vorgeschichte der Idee des schöpferischen Menschen“, in: Studium Generale 10, 1957, Nr. 5, 266–283; Constanze Peres, „Nachahmung der Natur. Herkunft und Implikationen eines Topos“, in: Hans Körner et al. (Hrsg.), Die Trauben des Zeuxis. Formen künstlerischer Wirklichkeitsaneignung, Hildesheim, Zürich, New York 1990, 3–39. 38 Nida-Rümelin, Julian, „Begrüßungsrede“, in: Ders, Rationalität, Realismus, Revision, VII–X, VIII. 39 Gaier/Kohl/Saviello, „Ähnlichkeit als Kategorie der Porträtgeschichte“, 15. 40 Koschorke, „Mysterium des Realen“, 16; sie thematisiere zugleich das „Reale“, das sich nie „in vollem Umfang in […] Repräsentationen bannen“ lasse (ebd.)

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lichkeit und das die ‚Kopietheorie‘ begründende Mimesistheorem. Daraus folgt weniger ein Ende der Mimesis als ihre „Entgrenzung“41 und die Entwicklung nichtimitativer Ähnlichkeitskonzepte. Ähnlichkeit bewahrt hier eine zentrale Funktion der Modellierung des Wirklichen und der Relation von Kunst und Wirklichkeit jenseits eines „naiven Abbildrealismus“42, aber auch jenseits der Logik von Identität und Differenz. Diese Funktion befördert ihr zugleich metareflexiver und basaler, universeller Charakter: Die Schwierigkeit, Ähnlichkeit näher zu fassen, besteht nicht erst im Blick auf ihre begriffliche oder mimesistheoretische Konkretisierung, sondern bereits „auf der fundamentaleren Ebene […], wenn wir verschiedene, nicht als Zeichen verwendete Dinge, als ähnlich klassifizieren“.43 So begleitet die Ähnlichkeitsreflexion seit der Antike neben bild- und sprachphilosophischen auch epistemologische und ontologische Überlegungen. Noch in Mittelalter und Renaissance, so Michel Foucault, ist Ähnlichkeit das prägende epistemologische Ordnungsprinzip,44 um mit der Aufklärung von der Logik der Identität und Differenz verdrängt zu werden. Doch wirkt sie in wissenschaftlicher Heuristik, Klassifikation und Begriffsbildung ebenso weiter wie in ästhetischen Konzepten: An einer ästhetisch-epistemologischen Tradition des Ähnlichkeitsdenkens, in der besonders Aristoteles’ Bemerkungen über die Metapher in Poetik und Rhetorik nachwirken, die das Erkennen des Ähnlichen zum zentralen poetischen Mittel und philosophischen Erkenntniswerkzeug erklären,45 partizipieren v. a. Manierismus und Romantik, deren kombinatorischer Einsatz des entfernten, unähnlichen Ähnlichen befragt, ob Ähnlichkeiten nicht eher erfunden als gefunden werden, also weniger ontologisch gegeben als poetisch geschaffen sind.46 Dies ist ein zentraler Aspekt, durch den Ähnlichkeit zwischen einem || 41 Eidelpes, Rosa, Entgrenzung der Mimesis. Georges Bataille – Roger Caillois – Michel Leiris, Berlin 2018. 42 Koschorke, „Mysterium des Realen“, 18. 43 Sachs-Hombach, „Revision des Bildbegriffs“, 786. 44 Foucault, Michel, Die Ordnung der Dinge. Eine Archäologie der Humanwissenschaften, Frankfurt 1971. 45 Vgl. Aristoteles: Poetik, Stuttgart 2001, 77; Ricœur, Paul, Die lebendige Metapher, Richard Grathoff/Bernhard Waldenfels (Hrsg.), München 1986; Knörer, Ekkehard: Entfernte Ähnlichkeiten. Zur Geschichte von Witz und ingenium, München 2007. 46 Vgl. u. a. Lachmann, Renate, „Die ‚problematische Ähnlichkeit‘. Zu Sarbiewskis Traktat ‚De acuto et arguto‘ im Kontext concettistischer Theorien des 17. Jahrhunderts“, in: Dies. (Hrsg.), Slavische Barockliteratur II. Gedenkschrift für Dmitrij Tschižewskij (1894–1977), München 1983, 87–114; Fromm, Waldemar, „Die Sympathie des Zeichens mit dem Bezeichneten. Ähnlichkeit in Literatur und Sprachästhetik um 1800“, in: Funk/Mattenklott/Pauen, Ästhetik des Ähnlichen, 35–67.

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konstruktivistischen und einem realistischen bzw. mimetischen Pol des Weltbezugs zu vermitteln vermag:47 „Die Feststellung von Ähnlichkeit impliziert daher nicht nur eine Erkenntnisleistung bezüglich der Wirklichkeit, sondern ist auch mit einer Gestaltung derselben verbunden – eine Konsequenz, die wesentlich für die Prominenz der Ähnlichkeit im ästhetischen Diskurs verantwortlich ist, der es ebenfalls mit Prozessen der Formierung von Wirklichkeit und deren Reflexion zu tun hat“.48 Foucaults Periodisierung korrespondiert der Einschätzung, dass Ähnlichkeit in der Moderne nicht nur in epistemologischer49, sondern gerade auch in ästhetischer Hinsicht an Bedeutung verliert, scheint sie doch, auf ein vages Nachahmungsideal verpflichtet, aus einer an subjektive Seh- und Ausdrucksweisen gebundenen Kunstpraxis ausgetrieben zu werden und etwa aus der Metaphorik zu verschwinden.50 Mit Jacques Rancière hat jedoch „die antimimetische Revolution […] noch nie das Ende der Ähnlichkeit bedeutet, denn die Mimesis war nicht das Prinzip der Ähnlichkeit, sondern das Prinzip einer bestimmten Kodifizierung und Verteilung der Ähnlichkeiten.“51 So arbeitet die ‚antimimetische‘ Ähnlichkeitsreflexion und -produktion des Surrealismus52 an einer alternativen Kodifizierung von Ähnlichkeit:53 In bestimmten Aspekten der ästhetisch-epistemologischen Tradition der Ästhetik des Ähnlichen, wie seines Perspektivismus, sehen die Herausgeber des gleichnamigen Bandes die Möglichkeit, Ähnlichkeit „gegen das Nachahmungsprinzip ins Spiel“ zu bringen, –

|| 47 Zu dieser die aktuelle Kulturwissenschaft beschäftigenden Spaltung der Perspektiven als auf Kants Transzendentalismus zurückzuführende „condition moderne“ vgl. Koschorke, „Mysterium des Realen“, 19. 48 Endreß, Johannes, „Unähnliche Ähnlichkeit. Zu Analogie, Metapher und Verwandtschaft“, in: Gaier/Kohl/Saviello, Similitudo, 31. 49 „In epistemologischer Hinsicht gilt insbesondere das Analogiedenken als das, was die Moderne hinter sich gelassen hat.“ (Johach, Eva/Mersmann, Jasmin/Rulffes, Evke, „Try to blend in!“, in: Ilinx, 2, 2011, VII–XVIII, XII). 50 Vgl. im Blick auf die surrealistische Metapher Willer, Stefan, „Metapher/metaphorisch“, in: Barck, Karlheinz/Fontius, Martin/Schlenstedt, Dieter (Hrsg.), Ästhetische Grundbegriffe. Historisches Wörterbuch in sieben Bänden, Bd. 7, Stuttgart, Weimar 2005, 89–148, 127f. 51 Rancière, Jacques, Politik der Bilder, Zürich 2006, 121. 52 Von „antimimetischer Ähnlichkeit“ spricht Bauer, Markus, „Ähnlichkeit als Provokation. Zur Funktion der Bildwelten im Surrealismus“, in: Funk/Mattenklott/Pauen, Ästhetik des Ähnlichen, 111–135, 113. 53 Camille, Michael, „Simulacrum“, in: Nelson, Robert S./Shiff, Richard (Hrsg.), Critical terms for art history, Chicago, London 21996, 31–44, 45f. beurteilt den Surrealismus gerade aufgrund der Ähnlichkeitsreflexion als innovativste Tendenz der modernen Kunst.

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„insbesondere gegen jene monistische Beziehung von Abbild und Gegenstand, wie sie sich aus einer realistischen Ästhetik ergibt“.54

Zur unähnlichen Ähnlichkeit des Surrealismus An die Ästhetik des Ähnlichen schließt der Surrealismus mittels einer entgrenzten, die kreative (Er-)Findung entfernter Ähnlichkeiten zu einer Überbietung realistischer Positionen einsetzenden Ähnlichkeitsproduktion und mittels einer Epistemologie des Ähnlichen an, die transversale, transdisziplinäre, transmediale und transgenerische Bezüge etabliert: Die programmatische Bedeutung der Ähnlichkeit zeigt sich in metaphorischen, metamorphotischen und simulacralen Konzeptionen; zwei davon werden abschließend skizziert.55 Bretons Manifeste du surréalisme präsentiert „Surrealität“56 als „andere und nicht weniger wirkliche Welt aus Vorstellung, Phantasie und tieferer Ahnung“, die der Surrealismus als „‚Forschungsmethode‘ zur bildnerischen Definition dieser neu sich figurierenden Wirklichkeit“ erschließt.57 Deren wichtigstes Werkzeug ist das ‚Sprachbild‘, das dem Ausdruck „gewisser, bis dahin vernachlässigter Assoziationsformen“58 dient. Besonders Sigmund Freuds ‚Entdeckung‘ des Unbewussten habe die „Quellen der dichterischen Imagination“59 erschlossenen. Diese setzt, durch eine „metaphorische Aktivität des Geistes“60 geprägt, Dinge und Wörter in analogische Bezüge, die dem ‚inneren Automatismus‘61 ebenso wie einem relationalen Wirklichkeitsverständnis entsprechen: „Meta-

|| 54 Vgl. Funk, Gerald/Mattenklott, Gert/Pauen, Michael, „Symbole und Signaturen. Charakteristik und Geschichte des Ähnlichkeitsdenkens“, in: Dies., Ästhetik des Ähnlichen, 7–34, 30. 55 Ein drittes, aufgrund gebotener Kürze nicht diskutiertes Beispiel wäre das Ähnlichkeitskonzept Magrittes, dessen Bilder eine metarealistische Überbietung ausstellen. 56 Breton, „Manifest des Surrealismus“, 18. 57 Haftmann, Werner, „Das Ding und seine Verwandlung, Zur Vorgeschichte der zeitgenössischen Auffassung vom Gegenstand“, in: Neuer Berliner Kunstverein e.V. (Hrsg.), Metamorphose des Dinges. Kunst und Antikunst 1910–1970, Brüssel 1971, 11–32, 30 [Übers.: S. B.]. 58 Breton, André, „Manifest des Surrealismus“, 27. 59 Breton, André, „Manifest des Surrealismus“, 17. 60 Hölz, Karl, Destruktion und Konstruktion. Studien zum Sinnverstehen in der modernen französischen Literatur, Frankfurt 1980, 81 [Übers.: S. B.]. 61 Vgl. Anm. 16. Bereits romantische Metaphern beanspruchen, der „freien Bildwelt der Empfindungen analog“ zu folgen (Kleinschmidt, Erich, „Umschreibungen – Umschreibungen. Sprachphilosophische Selbstreflexivität im 18. Jahrhundert“, in: DVJS, 71, 1997, 70–91, 74).

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pher und Analogie […] gereichen […] dem System der ‚Korrespondenzen‘ zur Ehre“.62 Während in klassischen Metapherntheorien Ähnlichkeit die Substitution eines gewöhnlichen Wortes motiviert und die metaphorisch vereinten Bildbereiche in einem gemeinsamen Dritten ähnlich oder vergleichbar sind, definiert Breton mit Pierre Reverdy, das Bild könne „nicht aus einem Vergleich entstehen, vielmehr aus der Annäherung von zwei mehr oder weniger voneinander entfernten Wirklichkeiten. Je entfernter und genauer die Beziehungen der einander angenäherten Wirklichkeiten sind, umso stärker ist das Bild – umso mehr emotionale Wirkung und poetische Realität besitzt es.“63 Dies betont, dass „‚die in der Metapher situierte Ähnlichkeit aus der Unähnlichkeit entsteht und sich gegen sie behaupten muß‘“.64 Breton suggeriert, dass nicht die ingeniöse Begabung der aristotelischen oder manieristischen Metapherntheorien das Bild erzeugt, sondern der ‚Geistesblitz‘, der aus der kombinatorischen Annäherung des Entfernten entsteht.65 Metaphorische Übertragung stellt somit Ähnlichkeiten im Unähnlichen her, indem sie ‚unvordenkliche‘ Beziehungen realisiert: Das Sprachbild dient „nicht als Beschreibung einer bloßen Ähnlichkeitsrelation“,66 sondern erschließt vieldeutige, rätselhafte Verbindungen im „Zerstören alter Ähnlichkeiten durch das Provisorium neuer Verähnlichung“.67 Dabei quert es begriffliche und klassifikatorische Ordnungen und stiftet „Ähnlichkeiten zwischen eigentlich unähnlichen Dingen und […] so eine hypothetische Gattungsbeziehung, die weder biologischer noch kategorialer Natur ist“; diese ästhetische Antilogik

|| 62 Breton, André, „Was der Surrealismus will“, in: Ders., Die Manifeste des Surrealismus, 125– 132, 131. 63 Breton, „Manifest des Surrealismus“, 22–23. 64 Ricœur, zit. n. Strub, Christian, Kalkulierte Absurditäten. Versuch einer historisch reflektierten sprachanalytischen Metaphorologie, Freiburg, München 1991, 454. So widerstrebt das Sprachbild der rationalen Umformulierung in einen Vergleich (vgl. 480): „Das schönste Bild […] ist für mich das, das von einem höchsten Grad von Willkür gekennzeichnet ist, für das man am längsten braucht, um es in die Alltagssprache zu übersetzen“ (Breton, „Manifest des Surrealismus“, 36). 65 Breton notiert, „dass die beiden Begriffe […] vom Geist nicht etwa mit Absicht auf den zu produzierenden Funken voneinander abgeleitet wurden, sondern […] das Ergebnis eines Vorgangs sind, den ich surrealistisch nenne“ („Manifest des Surrealismus“, 35). 66 Strub, Kalkulierte Absurditäten, 453. 67 Strub, Kalkulierte Absurditäten, 123. Diese Überbietung der Assoziationstheorie stört die im „sprachlich verfassten Weltbild festgelegten Ähnlichkeitsrelationen“ durch Diaphorizität und steht „dem Paradox viel näher als dem Vergleich“ (123). Zur Rekonzeptualisierung der Ähnlichkeit in einer Spannungstheorie vgl. Ricœur, Die lebendige Metapher, bes. Kap. 4.

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wird „gegen logische und kategoriale Zugehörigkeiten“ gesetzt.68 Ausdruck dieser ‚surrationalistischen‘69 Epistemologie, überträgt die Metapher das ‚System der Korrespondenzen‘ in ein Netz unkonventioneller Ähnlichkeitsbezüge und ist weniger als Struktur eines „Vergleichs ohne Ähnlichkeit“70 zu interpretieren denn als Verteidigung der Ähnlichkeit gegen logische Operationen der Identifizierung und Differenzierung. Surrealistische Schreibweisen wie die écriture automatique als metamorphotische Prozessualisierung des Sprachbildes suggerieren, an einen präsignifikativen Moment „hinter dem Spiegel“ zu gelangen, an dem die ‚Aufzeichnung‘ innerer Bilder beginnt, um „die Instanzen zu umgehen, die in der Literatur die Unterscheidung zwischen realistischer Nachahmung und absurder Phantastik aufrechterhielten“.71 Die Konzeption auch der Bildgenese als imaginative ‚Kopulation‘ und Metamorphose zeigt Ernsts Inanspruchnahme des von den Surrealisten zum Leitmotiv erhobenen Gleichnisses Lautréamonts – „schön […] wie die unvermutete Begegnung einer Nähmaschine und eines Regenschirms auf dem Seziertisch!“72 – für die Collage. Es komme dabei zu einer „völlige[n] Transmutation als Folge [der] Vereinigung zweier scheinbar unvereinbarer Wirklichkeiten auf einer Ebene, die ihnen scheinbar nicht entspricht“.73 Dass imaginative ‚Verlebendigung‘ auf dem Grund des Bildes wirkt, zeigt auch Ernsts Bildverfahren der Frottage, das eine präfigurative Dimension er|| 68 Endreß, „Unähnliche Ähnlichkeit“, 45; vgl. 42. 69 Zum „Surrationalisme“ vgl. Breton, Dictionnaire abrégé du surréalisme, 846. 70 Willer, „Metapher/metaphorisch“, 127. 71 Bauer, „Ähnlichkeit als Provokation“, 123; vgl. Bretons gegen das ingeniöse Autorschaftskonzept gerichteten Begriff der „Registriermaschinen“ („Manifest des Surrealismus“, S. 28). Zum ‚ikonischen Sinn‘ instituierenden „Einbruch des Vorprädikativen und Vorkategorialen“ vgl. (n. Ricœur) Strub, Kalkulierte Absurditäten, 460, Anm. 68. 72 Lautréamont, „Die Gesänge des Maldoror“, in: ders., Das Gesamtwerk, Reinbek 32009, 9– 256, 223. 73 Ernst, Max, „An einem Regentag in Köln oder die Entstehung der Collage“, in: Ders: Schnabelmax und Nachtigall. Texte und Bilder, Pierre Gallissaires (Hrsg.), Hamburg 22006, 86–93, 89. „Allein dadurch, dass eine fest umrissene Realität […] sich unvermittelt neben einer zweiten, weit entfernten und nicht weniger absurden Realität […] findet, […], tritt sie aus ihrer natürlichen Bestimmung und ihrer Identität heraus“ und „geht […] über in eine neue, wahre und poetische Absolutheit: Regenschirm und Nähmaschine begatten sich“. (88) Diese Formulierung betont, dass dekontextualisierte Dinge ganze Bedeutungsgefüge (de)konstruieren: So lassen die Avantgarden, um „die Barriere zwischen Kunst und Leben niederzureißen, das Reale von Alltagsobjekten […] für sich selbst sprechen“, um „den Illusionismus der herkömmlichen Bildkunst sowohl zu unterlaufen (durch Zerstörung des Abbildprinzips) als auch zu überbieten (durch Ausstellung der ‚Dinge selbst‘)“. (Koschorke, „Mysterium des Realen“, 29f.)

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schließt, indem es die Transformation von Abdrücken in Zeichnungen nachvollziehen lässt. Oberflächen, auf denen das Papier platziert wird, erscheinen durch den Abrieb von Bleistift oder Kohle, wobei durch Ähnlichkeitssehen74 entstehende Bildassoziationen gestaltet werden – ein Beispiel für die ArchiÄhnlichkeit, die mit Rancière in der Moderne an die Stelle des ‚Regimes der Repräsentation‘ tritt, „eine Ähnlichkeit, die das Spiegelbild gegen einen direkten Bezug des Erzeugers zum Erzeugten eintauscht“, wie „die Spuren des Dinges selber. […] Die Archi-Ähnlichkeit ist die ursprüngliche Ähnlichkeit, jene, die kein Abbild der Wirklichkeit liefert, sondern unmittelbar von dem Anderswo, aus dem sie kommt, zeugt“.75 Indexikalität markiert hier einen „unhintergehbaren Weltbezug“, ohne in eine „realistische Position“ überzugehen76: Die Spuren werden dem Material in dem Maße unähnlich, in dem der Prozess ikonischer Verähnlichung sie gestaltet, der nicht abbildlich entsteht, sondern über die ‚blinde‘, taktile Aufzeichnung des Realen,77 an dem sich die Imagination entzündet. Die Reflexion ästhetischer und epistemologischer Ähnlichkeitsmodelle zeigt die Frottageserie Histoire Naturelle, deren Titel auf die Ordnung des Sichtbaren in enzyklopädischer Systematik anspielt. Deren Überschreitung durch die ästhetische Neuordnung der Dinge inszeniert diese alternative Schöpfungsgeschichte, indem sie eine „Ikonographie der Metamorphose“ etabliert, die die Grenzen der Naturreiche und Klassifikationen querende Mischwesen zeigt und ambige und analogische Bezüge und Korrespondenzen stiftet. Aspekte der Mimesis-Reflexion zeigt „Das Idol“ in der Allusion auf die in Plinius’ Naturalis historia tradierte Anekdote eines Malerwettstreits: Die Trauben des Zeuxis, nach denen Vögel picken, und der scheinbar transparente, gemalte Schleier, den Zeuxis vor Parrhasios’ Bild wegzuziehen sucht, symbolisieren das Ideal ikonischer Ähnlichkeit. Die Frottage setzt dem Illusionismus des Trompe-l’œil ein neues ‚Idol‘ entgegen, indem sie den strukturmimetischen Abdruck gegen die abbildlich-realistische Repräsentation ausspielt: So verweisen die angedeuteten Trauben und das scheinbar durchgeriebene Weinlaubblatt nicht nur auf reale

|| 74 Ernst beruft sich auf Leonardos Rat zur Anregung der Einbildungskraft durch den amorphen „Klecks“ (Ernst, Max, „Geschichte einer Naturgeschichte“, in: Ders., Schnabelmax und Nachtigall, 101–106, 101). 75 Rancière, Politik der Bilder, 15f.; vgl. zur „mimetischen Ähnlichkeit des Typos“ DidiHuberman, Georges, Ähnlichkeit und Berührung. Archäologie, Anachronismus und Modernität des Abdrucks, Köln 1999, 25: Der Abdruck könne „Index und Ikon in einem“ sein (ebd., 27). 76 Geimer, Peter, Theorien der Fotografie zur Einführung, Hamburg 2009, 24. 77 Vgl. Derrida, Jacques, Aufzeichnungen eines Blinden. Das Selbstporträt und andere Ruinen, Hrsg. Michael Wetzel, München 1997.

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Referenten und die durch den Abdruck angeregte Imagination, sondern auch auf das überbietende Spiel mit dem ‚Realitätsgehalt‘ der Referenz und die Aussage, „daß nichts im strengeren Sinne Mimesis genannt werden kann als der Anschein einer direkten Durchreibung“.78

Fig. 13: Max Ernst: Das Idol (L’Idole) (1925), aus: Histoire naturelle (1926), 42,8 x 26 cm (Blatt: 49,8 x 32.3 cm). © Max Ernst Museum Brühl des LVR / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019.

So reflektiert die Frottage Bildgenese als im Realen verankerte imaginative Neuschöpfung vor jeder Zeichen-Codierung, deren doppelte Aufzeichnung das Ineinandergreifen von Wahrnehmung und Imagination, Unähnlichkeit und Ähnlichkeit in der Übersetzung surrealer Wirklichkeit in Figuration verbildlicht.

|| 78 Zimmermann, Jörg, „Philosophische Horizonte der Histoire Naturelle von Max Ernst“, in: Karin Orchard/ders. (Hrsg.), Die Erfindung der Natur – Max Ernst, Paul Klee, Wols und das surreale Universum, Freiburg 1994, 15–24, 20.

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Fazit Der Surrealismus rekonzeptualisiert in einer kritischen Überbietung naiver Realismuskonzepte Ähnlichkeit als Ausdruck eines mimetischepistemologischen und zugleich aktiv gestaltenden Weltverhältnisses und als Agent einer – allein im Blick auf die überkommene Verkürzung mimetischer Ähnlichkeit auf Imitation als abbildliche Kopie ‚antimimetischen‘ – Arbeit am Realen und dessen Repräsentation. So erheben surrealistische Sprachbilder und Bilder Anspruch auf einen poetisch und ästhetisch vertieften Weltzugang, indem sie unähnliche, entfernte, latente, wahrgenommene, imaginierte oder ‚unsinnliche‘ Ähnlichkeitsrelationen weniger abbilden als realisieren. „Realismus gewinnt hier einen tieferen Sinn, nämlich nicht mehr den des Nach- oder Abbildens, sondern des Neubildens eines konkret Wirklichen“.79 Dabei zeigt sich, dass Ähnlichkeit in ihrer „Funktion als selbstreflexive Kategorie […], die zugleich kunstimmanente, ästhetische und theoretische Diskurse auf ihr ‚Davor‘ hin öffnen kann, […] größere und differenziertere Aufmerksamkeit“ zukommt, um zu untersuchen, wie „weit Konzepte von Ähnlichkeit Realitätsbezüge und Kunsttheorie neu in Beziehung setzen können und welche Rolle Ähnlichkeit im Rahmen des ‚repräsentativen Apparates‘ eines Kunstwerkes sowie als Darstellungsmechanismus und -mittel einnimmt“.80 Der Fokus auf die surrealistische Ästhetik und Epistemologie des Ähnlichen als relationales Paradigma auch der Avantgarden, das aufgrund seiner Vagheit und der simplifizierenden Identifikation mit Imitation lange ein Schattendasein geführt hat, trägt so zu einer Differenzierung des Realismusbegriffs bei, die die Realismen der Avantgarde zu erhellen vermag.

|| 79 Einstein, Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts, 302. 80 Kohl/Gaier/Saviello: „Ähnlichkeit als Kategorie der Porträtgeschichte“, 15.

Charis Charalampous, Thalia Trigoni

Surreal Science and Scientific Surrealism Dalí and the Fundamental Building Blocks of Reality

Introduction As is well known, the artistic movement of surrealism was informed by scientific notions of physical reality in a period when Einstein’s theories and the rise of quantum mechanics came to shake at its core our understanding of the nature of reality. Modernism primarily seems to take a counter-position against realism, broadly defined as the attempt to portray how things appear to the eye, often depicting everyday subjects of all social classes and situations in contemporary settings. However, this relation is much more complex. With a particular focus on Dalí’s conception of the fundamental building blocks of physical reality, in this chapter we draw attention to this complex relation. Our aim is to show how the reality emerging from contemporary physics is essentially surreal and that in many respects Dalí’s surrealism is fundamentally scientific. The chapter consists of four sections. In the first one, we provide a brief account of the connections between contemporary advances in physics regarding the nature of reality and the movement of surrealism. In the second, we turn to Dalí’s place in this context. We concentrate particularly on his interest in quantum theory and in the ontology of the fundamental particles that make up physical reality. With a primary focus on Galatea of the Spheres (1952), in the third section we turn to Dalí’s representation of this reality during the period he labeled “Nuclear Mysticism.” In the fourth section, we provide a summary of the chapter’s main findings and a brief critical evaluation of Dalí’s application of principles drawn from physics to represent a reality in his art characterised by precision and clarity.

The Surreal and the Scientifically Real The surrealist movement coincided with a period of arguably unparalleled breakthroughs in theoretical and experimental physics that cut right through the heart of our understanding of the nature of reality. Τhe speed of light within vacuum remains the same regardless of the speed of the observer while space https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-009

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and time now comprised a new, fourth and single dimension, the plasticity of which challenged hitherto intuitive notions of linear time and space. Mass translates into energy and vice versa, and gravity is no longer describable in terms of Newtonian mass forces that somehow exert a pull on distant bodies. Rather, gravity is the effect of the geometrical configurations of spacetime’s malleable fabric, the shapes of which are choreographed by mass centres. In the micro-mechanical world of (sub)atomic objects, particles obey a host of new laws that are describable only in multidimensional complex Hilbert space. These include Heisenberg’s indeterminacy relations, according to which the more accurately one is able to know a travelling object’s speed, the less accurately they can know its position (and vice versa), rendering the formulation of the familiar trajectories and images of classical mechanics obsolete when it comes to quantum objects, not because of the necessary interference between a physicist’s experimental apparatus and the system under observation, as Heisenberg himself appears to have originally thought, but because of the quantum particles’ dual nature as both waves and corpuscles. Particles cannot decide their nature until a form of measurement or spontaneous interaction intervenes to force their decision, thereby giving rise to the notion that there exist two realities, the one potential, taking place prior to the particle’s wave function collapse, and the other actual and experimentally observable, taking place after the particle’s wave function has reduced to a single eigenstate due to interaction. Pauli’s exclusion principle showed that whereas fermions cannot occupy the same state, bosons can actually interpenetrate, which makes it theoretically possible for an indefinite number of them to congregate at a single point in space. Dirac’s pair production suggested that for any kind of particle there exists its antiparticle counterpart. And, according to Bohr’s complementarity principle, to quote Einstein and Leopold Infeld’s famous words: “we must use sometimes the one theory [i.e., corpuscular] and sometimes the other [i.e., wave], while at times we may use either. We are faced with a new kind of difficulty. We have two contradictory pictures of reality; separately neither of them fully explains the phenomena of light, but together they do!”1 These are some of the developments that caused a tectonic shift in the way scientists, artists and laymen understood, depicted and spoke about reality. For Bohr, who believed in the objective reality of quantum objects even though it is impossible to represent them truthfully, quantum mechanics can offer only a description of our knowledge of the behaviour of quantum objects rather than a description of their behaviour per se. For Heisenberg, the mathematical terms || 1 Einstein, Albert/Infeld, Leopold, The Evolution of Physics, Cambridge 1938, 278.

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that describe the fundamental particles are poor representations of an actual, objective, nonsensible and intelligible reality of the world as it would be according to a set of natural norms or universal principles (symmetries) that are independent of the observer and separated from or outside of the elementary particles themselves. And although Schrödinger initially argued against Heisenberg’s counter-intuitive mechanics, he would later describe the fundamental particles of physical reality in a way that is more congenial to Heisenberg’s view, viz., particles are un-representable in any straightforward and intuitive way. Quite characteristically, Schrödinger, who eventually stroke out the corpuscular nature of particles altogether, proclaimed that we need to conceive of them as pure shapes: “when you come to the ultimate particles constituting matter, there seems to be no point in thinking of them again as consisting of some material. They are, as it were, pure shape, nothing but shape; what turns up again and again in successive observations is this shape, not an individual speck of material.”2 These shapes are empirically unobservable. We may only study them as single events in the form of resonances, which tell us nothing neither about the geometry of these shapes nor about a substance in which they may supposedly consist. Conjuring up a geometrical shape may be a legitimate thinking aid, but “the geometrical shapes displayed in these pictures are not anything that could be directly observed in the real atoms. The pictures are only a mental help, a tool of thought, an intermediary means, from which to deduce, out of the results of experiments that have been made, a reasonable expectation about the results of new experiments that we are planning.”3 Quantum particles are the continuous creation and annihilation of the fluctuations of pure shapes, confronting bizarre entities with no counterparts in our own world that are nevertheless real in their own world. Despite their disagreements, the prevailing sentiment of the period’s quantum theorists was that providing a visual, intuitive description of the fundamental particles of physical reality would steer us into misleading inaccuracies. That said, the challenge of transferring onto the canvas the new un-representable physical reality was taken up by the period’s painters. With the exception of Gavin Parkinson’s Surrealism, Art, and Modern Science, the connections between the artistic movement of surrealism and the realism of contemporary physics have not received sustained scholarly attention. Parkinson has found that the surrealists demonstrated their interest in modern physics at many lev-

|| 2 Schrödinger, Erwin, “Science and Humanism”, in: Erwin Schrödinger, Nature and the Greeks and Science and Humanism, Cambridge 1996, 125. 3 Schrödinger, “Science and Humanism”, 126.

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els of theory and practice. He has observed that it was mainly, although by no means solely, through Gaston Bachelard’s writings on epistemology that the monumental claims made by quantum mechanics were filtered into Surrealist theory in the 1930s.4 Nevertheless, a central question that grows naturally out of these connections is how a painter can represent the objectively real in a context where the eye is unable to see the geometrical fabric of spacetime, the duality that characterises the very nature of the particles in which all physical matter consists, or the ubiquitous antimatter. These findings naturally raise the question of what it means to be a “realist” to begin with, as the photographic eye and our intuitive mode of understanding the world can no longer serve as an impartial guide of the artist’s paintbrush.

Dalí’s (Sur-)Realism Dalí was one of the most outspoken artists of the surrealist movement who incorporated into their work the findings of contemporary physics in a way that challenged the divide between the surreal and the real. His writings contain a wealth of references to contemporary advances in physics. He noted, for one, that “Einstein, with relativity, uncovering to us the fourth dimension of time, gave us the means to a delirium in which we could meet God. Rationalism went right back to its place.”5 Rationalism was no longer defined by entrenched, classical notions of the workings of nature, but entered a state of “delirium,” making surrealism its natural home. It is therefore no surprise to read that, “Ever since the theory of relativity substituted the substratum of the universe for the ether, thus dethroning and reducing time to its relative role, […] Dalí too painted his famous ‘soft watches’.”6 Inspired by Heisenberg’s indeterminacy principle and possibly Dirac’s pair production, in 1958 he wrote the “Anti-Matter Manifesto,” where he proclaimed that “My father today is Dr. Heisenberg.”7 He was fascinated by the fact that “every quarter of an hour and of a second, matter is in a constant and accelerated process of dematerialization, of disintegration,

|| 4 Parkinson, Garvin, Surrealism, Art, and Modern Science: Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Epistemology, New Haven 2008. 5 Dalí, Salvador, Maniac Eyeball: The Unspeakable Confessions of Salvador Dalí, trans. André Parinaud, London 2004, 240. 6 Dalí, Salvador, “Mystical Manifesto”, in: The Collected Writings of Salvador Dalí, ed. Haim N. Finkelstein, Cambridge 1998, 365. 7 Dalí, “Anti-Matter Manifesto”, in: The Collected Writings, 366.

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slipping out of the hands of scientists and thus proving to us the spirituality of all substance, for the physical light of Dalí’s Paranoiac-Critical Activity, this too, is ‘wave and corpuscle’ at one and the same time.”8 Given quantum theorists’ insistence that it is impossible to represent in any pictorial way the nature of the elementary particles, we may note a rather arrogant stance in Dalí’s proclamation that “I have managed to imagine visually the main elements that make up modern physics, revealing their shapes and particular structural features with a precision unprecedented in my realistic work […] Dalí, for the first time in the world, has just drawn an electron, a proton, a meson, a pi meson.”9 Dalí’s excessive self-confidence notwithstanding, he conceived of his representation of the fundamental particles to be realistic, as per the findings of contemporary physicists, calling his approach “quantum realism”: “I decided to turn my attention to the pictorial solution of quantum theory, and invented quantum realism.”10 At the same time, if one of the tasks of the realist painter is to portray the everyday life of the modern world, it seems natural to find that Dalí conceived of himself as a kind of a realist by this token as well. The artist, he told a journalist in 1952, must express the reality of the epoch in which he lives, and “Since we now live in the atomic age […] it is up to artists to work out a way of putting across an up-to-date message.”11 As late as in 1964, he would still claim that “What distinguishes our age from the Renaissance is that now for the first time we realise that matter, instead of being something continuous, is discontinuous. […] If one wanted to give an accurate representation of a table, instead of being compact the table should resemble something like a swarm of flies.”12 As Elliott H. King has observed here, Dalí’s undisclosed source for this analogy was Sir Arthur Eddington’s 1928 popular science book The Nature of the Physical World, which compares the sensible and scientific perceptions of a table: “‘The plank has no solidity of substance. To step on it is like stepping on a swarm of flies. Shall I not slip through? No, if I make the venture one of the flies hits me and gives a boost up again; I fall again and am knocked upwards by another fly; and so on’.”13

|| 8 Dalí, “Mystical Manifesto”, 365. 9 Quoted in Ruiz, Carme, “Salvador Dalí and Science, Beyond Mere Curiosity”, in: Pasaje a la Ciencia, 3, 2010, 6–7. 10 Descharnes, Robert/Néret, Gilles, Salvador Dalí, Köln 1989, 164. 11 Wiley, Clete, “Dalí, Showman of Art, Tells of His Nuclear Mysticism”, in: Waterloo Daily Courier, 6 February 1952, 3. 12 Lake, Carlton, In Quest of Dalí, New York 1969, 48. 13 King, Elliott H., Salvador Dalí: The Late Work, Atlanta 2010, 54.

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As some of the passages quoted above may have indicated, Dalí did not seek to provide mere pictorial depictions of quantum (sur)realism that would serve only as an unpreceded thinking aid for the scientifically minded viewer. He injected these depictions with his own thought. He saw a metaphysical connection between physics and the nature of reality, so much that he declared that “it is up to the metaphysicians to work precisely on the question of matter.”14 The spirituality he discerned in matter drove him into a period of artistic creativity he labelled “nuclear mysticism.” It was especially from quantum theory that he derived his metaphysical inspirations. As he confessed in his mystical manifesto, “The paroxysmal crisis of Dalínian mysticism mainly relies on the progress of the particular sciences of our times, especially on the metaphysical spirituality of the substantiality of quantum physics.”15 The catalyst for Dalí’s turn towards nuclear physics was the bombing of Hiroshima: “The atomic explosion of August 6, 1945, shook me seismically. Thenceforth, the atom was my favourite food for thought.”16 He wanted to “see and understand the forces and hidden laws of things, obviously so as to master them,”17 and he felt that he had a potent gift at his disposal that enabled him to see more clearly: an arcane, transcendental or divine kind of intuition more powerful than the results that any particle accelerator or information processing technology can yield: “To penetrate to the heart of things, I know by intuitive genius that I have an exceptional means: mysticism, that is to say deeper intuition of what is, immediate communication with the all, absolute vision by grace of truth, by grace of God. Stronger than cyclotrons and cybernetic computers, in a moment I get through to the secrets of the real.”18 He sought to bring on his canvas heaven and earth together, to unlock the mysteries and spiritual essence of matter: “I, Dalí, shall use my work to demonstrate the unity of the universe, by showing the spirituality of all substance.”19 To do so, he dematerialised matter and then spiritualised it in order to depict energy: “I visually dematerialized matter; then I spiritualized it in order to be able to create energy. The object is a living being, thanks to the energy that it contains and radiates, thanks to the density of the matter it consists of.”20 It is the type of substance in which angels consist, and which Dalí often associated with the heavens and God. As Dalí declared, “It is with pi|| 14 Dalí, “Mystical Manifesto”, 365. 15 Dalí, “Mystical Manifesto”, 363. 16 Dalí, Maniac Eyeball, 229. 17 Dalí, Maniac Eyeball, 229. 18 Dalí, Maniac Eyeball, 229. 19 Descharnes/Néret, Salvador Dalí, 158. 20 Descharnes/Néret, Salvador Dalí, 164.

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mesons and the more gelatinous and determinate neutrinos that I want to paint the beauty of the angels and of reality.”21 And as Dalí's friend and advisor Father Bruno Froissart wrote: “Salvador Dalí has told me that nothing has as stimulating an effect on him as the idea of the angel. Dalí wanted to paint heaven, to penetrate the heavens in order to communicate with God. For him, God is an intangible idea, impossible to render in concrete terms. Dalí is of the opinion that He is perhaps the substance being sought by nuclear physics.”22 In July 1964, Dalí told Playboy magazine, “painting is but one single small mode of expressing my own cosmology, which enables me, through my genius and paranoia, to create a synthesis of nature impossible even for the scientist, because the scientist is too much involved in his specialization.”23 Dalí believed that it took a perverse polymath like himself, through his mystic reveries and restless imagination, to come up with a paranoiac-critical interpretation of the “creation, destruction, and re-integration of the Universe.”24 This verbal synthesis of realism, science and mysticism finds its pictorial counterpart in the symbolic evocation of scientific concepts concerning the nature of matter and quantum mechanics.

Quantum-Mystical Realism Painted It comes as a surprise that although Galatea of the Spheres (Fig. 16) is one of the most representative works from Dalí’s nuclear mysticism period, and one of the most significant homages to his wife Gala, it has nevertheless received little interpretive attention. “For her,” Dalí wrote, “I painted Galatéa Aux Spheres (Galatea of the Spheres), synthesizing all of my new mystical science of painting and my technique of quantified realism, in which each element of the picture exists by itself but contributes to creating a cosmogonic whole that transcends it.” In it, Dalí saw “the sacred image of the divine.”25 Gala consists of suspended, non-contiguous spherical particles. Some of her hair appear as waves inside these spheres. At the bottom of the painting, we may also observe the sea, the natural home of the Galatea of ancient Greek mythology, the milk-white nereid

|| 21 Dalí, “Anti-Matter Manifesto”, 366. 22 Descharnes/Néret, Salvador Dalí, 164. 23 Dalí, Salvador, “a candid conversation with the flamboyantly eccentric grand vizier of surrealism”, in: Playboy Magazine, July 1964, 46, 48. 24 Camelon, David “Dalí’s ‘exploding angel’”, in: The American Weekly, New York 1952, 15. 25 Dalí, Maniac Eyeball, 232.

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who is described as the fairest and most beloved of the fifty sea-nymphs. Like Gala’s hair, sea water fuses with the spheres, and together they evoke the notion of the wave-corpuscle duality of quantum physics, according to which, as we have seen, a particle remains unactualised and inherently indeterminate until it is forced, by means of interaction, to concretize into a recognisable object with definable features and properties. Dalí is employing this notion at the service of suspending Gala between existence and non-existence. We know she is there, but she is ontologically indeterminable. She is pure energy, the substance which Dalí associated with the angels and God. She exists in a realm that is not subject to any (known) laws of physics, where she does not decay and remains incorruptible. The individual articles of hair that hover outside the spheres are presented as seminal fluid in the process of entering and fertilizing the Galatean ova. This is a moment of creation, Gala being conceived and born into immateriality, spirituality and immortality. It is the portrait of Gala the angel, the divine, the quantum-mystical Madonna. At the centre of the painting, the viewer may also notice a singularity point, which expands outward into a star-shaped geometrical structure. Inversely, it is star that stretches deep inside the centre of the painting and collapses into a singularity point, creating the sense of an infinity that figures as the source out of which Gala springs and assumes her indeterminable presence. On one level, we may perceive Gala as partaking in the creation of a quantum-mystical reality. She partakes in the cosmically macrophysical and largescale universe, viz., the heavens, the sea, the spheres and the planets, the stars and the human. She is part of the quantum world, viz., of the fundamental particles prior to their wave function collapse and actualisation. She partakes in the divine, as she is immaterialised, immortalised and sanctified. She enfolds, indeed, a “cosmogonic whole” that transcends the materiality and individuality of each of her constituent components. On another complementary level, we should note that it is her own features (i.e., hair, eyebrows, ears, nose, eyelids, skin colour, liquid nature as a nereid) that animate an otherwise stale universe, both at the macrophysical and quantum levels. She does not merely partake in Dalí’s quantum-mystical reality. She is it. She is a singularity point that expands into the whole we admire. Without her physical features, there is only a geometrical arrangement of billiard-shaped balls floating in the vacuum, as concrete and sensibly real as trees and stones. She is the divine energy that makes universal unity possible, bringing heaven and earth, the human and the angel, the female and God, the sexual and the chaste, the quantum and the large, together into a harmonious, mystical unity.

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Towards the left corner at the bottom of the painting, the energy debris that the spheres leave behind them as they travel delineate the forms of a triangle and a rhinoceros’s horn, both of which were important symbols for Dalí:

Fig. 14: Galatea of the Spheres Detail.

As Michael Candelaria put it, “One cannot overestimate the significance of the rhinoceros’ horn for Dalí.”26 Dalí was fascinated by the mathematical perfection of the rhinos’ horns, which were “the only ones in the animal kingdom constructed in accordance with a perfect logarithmic spiral.”27 The rhino’s horns carried a sacred signification for Dalí. Commenting on his painting Corpus Hypercubus (1954), for instance, he writes: “Today that statement is beginning to come true. Painting my Christ, I notice that he is composed of rhinoceros horns. Like a man possessed, I paint every fragment of the anatomy as if were the horn of a rhinoceros.”28 For Dalí, it was a symbol of chastity.29 The presence of the horns as a means to draw attention to the sacred nature and chastity of his displayed object(s) is repeated in various of his paintings, such as, The Ascension of Saint Cecilia (1955), Leda Atomica (1949), Madonna of Port Lligat (1949–1950), Raphaelesque Head Exploding (1951) and Saint Surrounded by Three Pi-Mesons (1956). It is nevertheless a symbol injected with sexual undertones too via its phallic appearance. This is perhaps best illustrated in Young Virgin AutoSodomized by the Horns of Her Own Chastity (1954) where, Eric Shanes observes, “despite such theoretical and titular diversion, the image itself gives the lie to Dalí’s assertion that the form of a rhino horn is not phallic, for the picture is

|| 26 Candelaria, Michael R., The Latino Christ in Art, Literature, and Liberation Theology, Albuquerque 2018, 47. 27 Quoted in Ades, Dawn/Andreae, Stepha/Bronfen, Elisabeth/Dichter, Claudia/Ruhrdanz, Karin, The Endless Enigma: Dalí and the Magicians of Multiple Meaning, Düsseldorf 2003, 47. 28 Dalí, Salvador, Diary of a Genius, trans. Richard Howard, Washington 2006, 42. 29 Descharnes, Robert, Dalí de Gala, Lausanne 1962, 186. Also c.f. Morse, Albert Reynolds, Dalí, A study of his life and work, Greenwich 1958, 78. For more on the symbol of the rhino’s horn and Dalí see King, Elliott H., Dalí, Surrealism and Cinema, Harpenden 2007, 119–133.

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quite evidently one of his most sexually charged creations […] The ‘Young Virgin’ leans over the rail of a sunlit balcony, apparently gazing longingly at an infinite expanse of ocean and perhaps dreaming of throwing off the shackles of her virginity by being penetrated from behind.”30 Shanes is probably overemphasizing the lustful aspects of Dalí’s symbolism, as the artist’s primary purpose was to purify the phallic symbol of the profanity with which it may be customarily associated. After all, in Dalí’s mind, this was his “most chaste [work] of all” despite its erogenous content.31 The logarithmic curve of the horn is present in Galatea of the Spheres through Gala’s horn-shaped hair as well:

Fig. 15: Galatea of the Spheres Detail.

The rhino’s horns inseminate the spheres with chastity and immortality. Their phallic signification reinforces the symbolism of the hair-semen-waves impregnating the egg-sphere-particles with a mystical-scientific indeterminacy that thrusts Gala into the realm of quantum transcendentalism and spirituality. The triangle, too, had in Dalí’s mind metaphysical significations. At the bottom of his studies for the Christ, Dalí wrote: In the first place, in 1950, I had a ‘cosmic dream’ in which I saw this image in color and which in my dream represented the ‘nucleus of the atom’. This nucleus later took on a metaphysical sense; I considered it ‘the very unity of the universe’, the Christ! In the second place, when, thanks to the instructions of Father Bruno, a Carmelite, I saw the Christ drawn by Saint John of the Cross, I worked out geometrically a triangle and a circle, which aesthetically summarized all my previous experiments, and I inscribed my Christ in this triangle.32

Arguably the most popular of all Dalí’s religious works, St John of the Cross (1951) presents us with an inverted triangle, the upper side of which is formed by Christ’s arms or, alternatively, by the horizontal axis of the cross itself. The || 30 Shanes, Eric, The Life and Masterworks of Salvador Dalí, London 2015, 227. 31 Morse, Dalí, 81. 32 Descharnes/Néret, Salvador Dalí, 168–169.

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triangle’s left- and right-hand sides meet either at Christ’s head (the circle to which Dalí refers) or at his feet, which would suspend the circle somewhere between the centre and the bottom of the inverted triangle. Alternatively, the triangle’s two sides could meet at the bottom of the cross’s vertical axis. Depending on the ends from which one chooses to draw the triangle, we may end up with an isosceles, an orthogonal or a scalene. The injection of these geometrical possibilities into the painting is no coincidence. In his 1950–1951 rudimentary gouache study for the painting, for instance, we may see Dalí toying with two of the forms that the triangle can take (Fig. 17). The figure on the left evokes the image of a womb in the form of the holy trinity, at the centre of which lies Christ’s head radiating energy. Our swing between doubt and revelation as we experiment with the alternative views and their symbolic signification is meant to steer us away from our own egocentredness. In Charles Edward Gauss’s words, As Breton has said, one may look at a tomato and see a child’s balloon. Knowledge for one who does this is not knowledge of things as they are in the world, but knowledge of things as viewed through one’s individual desires. The world of such a one is ego-centered, and however much anyone may claim the objective and subjective are telescoped, it is the subjective element which is in the ascendency.33

In Galatea we may observe a similar pattern, as a sphere, closely followed by a rhino’s horn, is travelling toward the area of a lopsided triangle, hovering between the centre and the bottom of the triangle, the sides of which converge at yet another sphere/circle. This is another symbolically injected ploy that Dalí is utilising in order to spiritualise and sanctify Gala, and to depict the cosmic unity between the spiritual and the organic, the female and the male, the Madonna and the Christ.

Concluding Remarks Dalí found that contemporary advances in physics, particularly in the field of quantum theory, testified to the idea that the metaphysical and the transcendental are inherent aspects of the very nature of the constituent components of matter. For Dalí, this meant that science facilitated the reconstitution of ration-

|| 33 Gauss, Charles Edward, The Aesthetic Theories of French Artists: 1855 to the Present, Baltimore 1963, 86.

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alism back to its rightful place: the delirious, surreal mode of expression, representation and understanding. This gave rise to a period of artistic creativity he labelled “nuclear mysticism,” where he attempted to paint reality in all its beauty, mysticism and indeterminacy. Dalí’s bold statements, such as, “I have managed to imagine visually the main elements that make up modern physics, revealing their shapes and particular structural features,”34 might strike the ears of physicists and/or philosophers of science as the tantrums of an eccentric if not frenzied artist whose lack of mathematical and technical knowledge led him to delusions of grandiosity. It could be argued, for one, that Galatea’s wavespheres amount to nothing more than an extremely simplistic and naïve depiction of the wave-corpuscle duality. But if we concentrate on the literal level of the representation, we strip the painting off of all its symbolic import. What Dalí knew very well is that, in Parkinson’s words, “Heisenberg and others state flatly that events in space-time and at the subatomic level could not be conveyed in either ordinary language or imagery because their effects are not perceived by our senses.”35 Heisenberg adopted a philosophy of language whereby what we mean by objective reality, and therefore what we mean by potentiality (prior to a particle’s wave-function collapse) is shaped by our language of space and time, which are not universal and necessary in a strictly Kantian sense.36 Language does not merely describe behaviours that lay outside cognition, it is actually involved in their emergence because it both erects its object of study and defines its own workings. Genuine extension of knowledge cannot be obtained otherwise than by a switch to a different language, not by an extension of an existing one claiming universal validity. For Heisenberg, this language is mathematics, which can yield universal principles that lay outside the object of description itself. Recall that for Dalí, too, “form is a reaction of matter under inquisitorial coercion on all sides by hard space. Freedom is what is shapeless.”37 As in Schrödinger’s interpretation of quantum theory, Dalí’s shapes might serve as helpful thinking aids, but this is all that they are. The literal is the shape we may empirically witness on the artist’s canvas, but if our interpretive faculties remain fixed on this surface reality of empirical observation, we remain captives of a sensible, positivistic and subjective reality that we erroneously believe to be

|| 34 Quoted in Carme, 6–7. 35 Parkinson, Surrealism, Art, and Modern Science, 40. 36 See Camilleri, Kristian, “Heisenberg and the Transformation of Kantian Philosophy”, in: International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 19, 2005, Nr. 3, 271–287, and Camilleri, Kristian, Heisenberg and the Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, Cambridge 2009, 133–171. 37 Dalí, “Mystical Manifesto”, 363.

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objective. Galatea’s spheres are not meant to determine the wave-corpuscle duality visually. On the contrary, they are meant to thrust it into the realm of indeterminacy, which is connected in Dalí’s painting, as we have seen, to chastity, spirituality, divinity, incorruptibility and immortality. They represent a deeper reality, one that is characterised by nonsensible albeit intelligible precision and clarity, which both Heisenberg and Schrödinger, among other physicists during the period, sought to express in a mathematical form. Dalí, to recall his own words, “decided to turn [his] attention to the pictorial solution of quantum theory, and invented quantum realism.”38

|| 38 Descharnes/Néret, Salvador Dalí, 164.

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Fig. 16: Salvador Dalí. Galatea of the Spheres, 1952. Oil on canvas. Dalí Theatre-Museum, Figueres, Spain.

Fig. 17: Salvador Dalí. Christ of St. John of the Cross, 1950–1951. Gouache and watercolor on card. Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, Scotland.

Victoria Ferentinou

Toward the Conquest of (Another) Reality The Sur/realist Image in Nicolas Calas’ Art Theoretical Discourse We have represented reality for so long; now it is time to change it.1

The twentieth century witnessed the proliferation of artistic groups that put forward divergent concepts of realism reflecting different perceptions of reality. These discourses revealed “a constant process of struggle against [mainstream] definitions”, at a time when realism “could not be reduced to the naturalistic achievement of figuration”.2 Surrealism openly challenged the ways we perceive and represent reality, offering a theory of the image as a medium by which to challenge the model of external mimesis and transform the everyday. For example, in Surréalisme et la peinture (Surrealism and Painting, 1928), André Breton criticized “the very narrow conception of imitation which art has been given as an aim” and introduced his concept of the “purely interior model”.3 In 1941 he further defined the Surrealist artwork as that which encompasses “the whole psychophysical field” in which “psychic reality obeying the pleasure principle” replaces external reality.4 This perspective was discussed by Greek intellectuals in the interwar and postwar years, with diverse positions ranging from an outright rejection of realism and naturalism as ‘copies of life’ to an embrace of the irrational as key component of the Surrealist image.5 This article will focus on the theoretical work of the Greek poet, theorist and critic Nicolas Calas (1907–1988) and his conceptualisation of the sur/realist image. Calas was actively engaged with Surrealist developments in Greece in the 1930s, but also became acquainted with the Parisian Surrealist group in 1935 and contributed to Surrealist activities in New York in the early 1940s. Calas proved to be one of the most vocal critics of international Surrealism, writing essays on the movement, its aesthetics and poetics, often responding to Breton’s theories. The article will specifically consider his critical texts on the con|| 1 Calas, Nicolas, “A Perspective”, in: Artforum, 5, 1966, no. 1, 78. 2 Wood, Paul, “Realisms and Realities”, in: Briony Fer/David Batchelor/Paul Wood (eds.), Realism, Rationalism, Surrealism: Art Between the Wars, Yale 1993, 254. 3 Breton, André, Surrealism and Painting, transl. Simon Watson Taylor, New York 1972, 4. 4 Breton, Surrealism and Painting, 68. 5 See Valaoritis, Nanos, Για μια Θεωρία της Γραφής (Toward a Theory of Writing), Αθήνα 1990. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-010

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cept of the image from the 1930s to the 1960s. The central focus will be his theoretical text Foyers d’incendie (Hearths of Arson, 1938), positively received by Breton and his circle, as well as essays from his anthology Art in the Age of Risk (1968). The article will sketch out Calas’ theory of imagery to elucidate his initial dismissal of (socialist) realism and his re-theorisation of Surrealism as an alternative form of realism that transcends traditional boundaries to convey marginalised aspects of reality. Calas’ art theoretical oeuvre will be explored as a historically localized, discursive and intertextual practice that betrays his various political and cultural influences, an outcome of his mobility among divergent intellectual environments (Athens, Paris, New York).

The concept of the image in Foyers d’incendie (1938) Nicolas Calas was one of the first Greek poets and critics to embrace Surrealism alongside poet and psychoanalyst Andreas Embiricos. A group of intellectuals gathered around them from 1935 onward and continued their meetings into the early 1940s.6 Calas had been familiar with Surrealism since the early 1930s and from 1933 showed a more consistent interest in the movement. In 1935 he travelled to Paris and met Breton and the French Surrealists.7 In 1938 he published his first book of essays Foyers d’incendie in Paris, and continued his collaboration with his Greek colleagues until 1939. In 1940 he moved to the United States and supported Surrealism with essays in View and New Directions of Prose and Poetry, while he collaborated with Breton on several projects. It is not therefore coincidental that in “Prolégomènes à une troisième manifeste du surréalisme ou non” (Prolegomena to a Third Surrealist Manifesto or Not, 1942), Breton included Calas in the list of the “most lucid and daring” minds of his era.8 Calas became a Marxist before he even became a Surrealist, yet he was constantly modifying his viewpoint on the social function of art from the 1930s to the 1970s. In his early essays from the 1930s, Calas fiercely declared that the artist should be politically committed, and that “Modern Art must be fought with Proletarian Art”, thereby rejecting the dictum ‘art for art’s sake’ and en-

|| 6 Stabakis, Nikos, Surrealism in Greece: An Anthology, Austin 2008, 7–13. 7 See Hoff, Lena, Nicolas Calas and the Challenge of Surrealism, København 2014, 123–125. 8 Breton, André, “Prolegomena to a Third Surrealist Manifesto or Not” (1942), in: Manifestoes of Surrealism, transl. Richard Seaver and Helen R. Lane, Ann Arbor 1969, 287.

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dorsing socialist realism.9 Calas gradually shifted from a communist perspective to a viewpoint that weaved together Marxism, psychoanalysis and social anthropology. From this position, he theorised that the artwork is an outward manifestation of unconscious desires usually repressed in everyday reality.10 Adopting a psychoanalytical view, he further argued that the objective of art is to substitute the principle of reality and that we should explore the ways this substitution can become feasible.11 He was also critical of the Greek Left that uncritically identified proletarian art with socialist realism and dismissed avantgardist experimentation. Calas believed that realism was inappropriate for revolutionary art. He argued: “Realism, naturalism which constitute copies of life are ‘easy’ forms […]. Realism destroys symbols, artistic sublimation, escape. Without symbolic potential, the artistic element is missing. On the other hand, there is a lot to recommend today in certain efforts by expressionists and Surrealists”.12 Calas obviously responded to a debate current in the Soviet Union and Communist parties of the Third International in the 1930s that cast avant-garde art as apolitical and bourgeois. In his 1932 article “Προβλήματα Προλεταριακής Τέχνης” (Problems of Proletarian Art), Calas leaned toward the Trotskyist conceptualisation of art as an aesthetic realm closely linked with political life as was articulated in Leon Trotsky’s Literature and Revolution (1924). Calas’ conviction that art is a coherent system with its own internal laws was also indebted to the German Communists and Marxist intellectuals such as Walter Benjamin, Bertolt Brecht and Ernst Bloch.13 Brecht noted, for example, in 1938: “Realism is not a mere question of form […]. Reality changes; in order to represent it, modes of representation must also change”.14 Seeking to fuse a social and ethical revolution Calas gradually but steadily came to value the radicalised politics and aesthetics of the avant-garde and in particular Surrealism. Admittedly, Surrealism provided Calas with the means to probe the revolutionary potentialities of artistic practice. Revisiting his political affiliations, after 1935 the critic “formulated a new cultural politics of the Left, inspired by Freud,

|| 9 Calas, Nicolas, Κείμενα Ποιητικής και Αισθητικής (Texts of Poetics and Aesthetics), Alexnadros Argyriou (ed.), Αθήνα 1982, 42. All translations from the Greek by the author of this essay, unless otherwise indicated. 10 Calas, Nicolas “Problems of Proletariat Art” (1932) in: Stabakis, Surrealism in Greece, 60. 11 Calas, Κείμενα Ποιητικής, 48–98. 12 Calas, “Problems of Proletarian Art”, 58–61. 13 Xatzinikolaou, Nikos, “Απορίες για την υποδοχή του Nicolas Calas” (Questions on the reception of Nicolas Calas), Το Βήμα (26 April 1998). 14 Bertolt Brecht quoted in Wood, “Realisms and Realities”, 263.

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Trotsky and Surrealism, which can be characterised as a Freudo-Marxist critical theory of the arts”.15 It is within this framework that we should approach his theorisation of the image in Foyers d’incendie. Calas wrote the book in Paris, an intellectual product of his dialogues with the French Surrealist circle, his Trotskyist friends, and his engagement with psychoanalysis, anthropology, sociology, political science, and poetry throughout the 1930s. The book is divided into two sections: the first is concerned with aesthetics and artistic practices of objectification, and the second with politics, ethics, love and revolutionary objectification.16 Calas’ objective is twofold: to posit an artistic and political vision that is encapsulated in his theory of “new objectivism” as an alternative to “subjectivism in the arts” and of “revolutionary sadism” as a critical response to “homosexual fascism”. In his theorising art is to play a seminal part as a medium of protest, rebellion and unrest that is inextricably associated with “new objectivity” as articulated in interwar Surrealism.17 Calas’ efforts to configure the return of the object is in line with Breton’s discussion on the concretisation of psychosexual forces in his “Crisis of the Object” (1936), a materialist attitude that runs counter the, in his view, subjectivist aesthetics of modernism. Breton writes for example: The real, confused for too long with given data, splinters in every direction possible and tends to become a component of the possible. By applying Hegel’s dictum that ‘everything real is rational, and everything rational is real’, one may well expect to see the rational follow precisely in the footsteps of the real, and it is certainly true that, today, reason goes so far as to propose the continuous assimilation of the irrational, a process during which the rational is required to remould its own image constantly.18

The main inspiration for both intellectuals was Gaston Bachelard’s Le Nouvel Esprit scientifique (The New Scientific Spirit, 1934) and Le Surrationalisme (Surrationalism, 1936).19 Bachelard’s non-Cartesian epistemology sought to denounce positivist methodologies and propose new modes of thought triggered by the will to objectify subjective material that is the use of the imagination to overcome empirical models of analysis. For Calas, the reconciliation of external and psychic realities is inscribed in the Surrealist object that epitomises the recuperation of the real and a novel aesthetic paradigm. The latter is also articu|| 15 Hoff, Nicolas Calas, 14. 16 Calas, Nicolas, Εστίες Πυρκαγιάς, Αθήνα 1997. First published as Foyers d’incendie, Paris, Denöel, 1938. 17 See Parkinson, Gavin, Surrealism, Art and Modern Science, Yale 2008, 89–116. 18 Breton, Surrealism and Painting, 276. 19 See Parkinson, Surrealism, Art and Modern Science, 58–69.

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lated in the Surrealist notion of objective chance that is construed as “the desire that becomes revolt because it constitutes the meeting of external causality with internal reality”.20 Calas continues: “Surrealism, by revealing the object, revealed the significance of the objective world”.21 It is through the very emphasis on the externalisation of the unconscious that Calas responds to Surrealism’s critics and highlights one of the core tenets of the movement: its relation to reality that is not to be annihilated but reconfigured. Setting as his goal this reconfiguration Calas formulates his ‘objectivist’ theory of art in which the image plays a seminal role. For Calas the artwork should be seen separately from its creator so that the subject and the object, ethics and aesthetics are no longer confused.22 An objectivist analysis should shed light on the unconscious that is not “non-thought or non-meaning” but constitutes “a web of images”.23 It is the obligation of the critic to mobilise these webs outside dream, laying the groundwork for their refashioning by consciousness. But how do images become perceptible? For Calas it is not merely our senses “as a synthesis of flavors, colors, temperature, sounds” that define our relationship with the object, but also memory through which form survives. The image serves as the medium by which the object reappears, as it is reconstructed through memory, to offer a glimpse into the viewer’s aesthetic encounter with the object.24 For Calas, images are the primary component of thought, yet “thought is neither image nor form, but judgement […] it is in thought that movement and object, image and desire are inextricably connected”.25 In other words, the image is reconceptualised as the dialectical site in which antithetical forces clash forming new associations and psychic content finds its concrete, yet radicalised form. In this light, Calas maintains that “the image is always a symbol”26 of psychic responses related to libidinal desire. Calas distinguishes between fixed symbols that refer to “the realities of the external world” and have a sexual origin, and mutable symbols that change according to “the constantly renewed relationship of individuals with the environment”.27 For Calas, the construction of symbols is a social process in which two opposing trajectories are discerned: || 20 Calas, Εστίες Πυρκαγιάς, 107. 21 Calas, Εστίες Πυρκαγιάς, 107. 22 Calas, Εστίες Πυρκαγιάς, 11. 23 Deligiorgi, Alexandra, “Πρόλογος (Preface)”, in Calas, Εστίες Πυρκαγιάς, ιγ–ιδ. 24 Calas, Εστίες Πυρκαγιάς, 38–39. 25 Calas, Εστίες Πυρκαγιάς, 42. 26 Calas, Εστίες Πυρκαγιάς, 44. 27 Calas, Εστίες Πυρκαγιάς, 45.

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in the first case, the individual unwillingly conforms to his/her environment by repressing his/her instinctual life; in the second case, the individual transgresses external obstacles and is liberated through the expression of his/her libidinal urges. He concludes that these trajectories point to two symbolic categories: that which represents the reality principle and that which embodies the pleasure principle. In-between lies language as the social manifestation of human activity that should be understood as the dialectical movement between desire and reality, symbol and utility, poetry and prose.28 It is reality that provides the primal matter for “the poetic sublimation of language”.29 Yet for Calas, “desire cannot ignore reality, it can solely transform it”,30 and it is through language that desire transforms reality into poetry that in turn can effect change on society. Calas values the political potential embedded in the artistic symbol since it can constitute a social phenomenon by producing emotional shock.31 The eruption of desire within the real is for Calas allied with a revolutionary ethic that is not only associated with erotic pleasure but also with the sadistic attitude, an idea he might have borrowed from Wilhelm Reich’s The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933).32 Calas interprets fascism as a behavioural pattern grounded in “a sadomasochistic dependence between the leader and his followers”,33 and daringly proposes that the solution is a revolutionary sadism that entails hate, violence and transgression to counter the existing social order. Notwithstanding how controversial this last argument may be, Calas aligns himself with the French Surrealists, positing eros and revolution as complementary, if not identical, forces, capable of overthrowing authoritarian regimes, anticipating, in a sense, Herbert Marcuse’s Eros and Civilisation (1955). Calas’ book interweaves an impressive number of diverse sources from Johan Georg Hamann’s art philosophy to Édouard Monod-Herzen’s comparative anatomy and morphology, but is primarily based on the psychoanalytical method in a Marxist and Trotskyist reworking of Freud’s theories placing them at the service of the revolution.34 Although he devotes half of the book to his alternative aesthetics, for Calas social transformation should be accomplished before a synthesis of the pleasure and reality principles can be feasible. It is however the || 28 Calas, Εστίες Πυρκαγιάς, 45–46. 29 Calas, Εστίες Πυρκαγιάς, 47. 30 Calas, Εστίες Πυρκαγιάς, 46–47. 31 Calas, Εστίες Πυρκαγιάς, 50. 32 Hoff, Nicolas Calas, 141–142. 33 Hoff, Nicolas Calas, 141. 34 Hoff, Nicolas Calas, 134.

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duty of the artist/poet to face reality and to attempt not to evade it but to confront and change it: “the revolutionary spirit […] grows in a perpetual struggle to understand and transform reality. Science, art, these are the only means by which to enrich our potential, means by which to coordinate our lives. We must tear down the obstacles which lie in our path”.35 In a typical avant-garde tone, Calas further proclaims that the individual who struggles to transform reality is always an artist, thus expanding the very definition of art to encompass politics, science and ethics.36 According to Alexandra Deligiorgi, Calas’ perspective echoes a “surrationalist” theory, that is, a shift from the limitations of rationalist philosophies to an approach that embraces both reason and instincts through the dialectical method underpinning the thought of Ernst Cassirer, Susan Langer, Cornelius Castoriadis and others.37 It is also identified with “new objectivism” as an aesthetics that expands the limits of knowledge, wedding together the principles of pleasure and reality and premised on the experiences encoded in the unconscious and, in retrospect, embodied in the artistic object. This paradoxical interweaving permeates Calas’ art theory that is both Surrealist and poetic in its sensibility, negotiating a new role for the Surrealist theorist as a transformed poet and a revolutionary. Thus, despite its occasionally superficial analyses, Foyers d’incendie proved an invaluable theoretical contribution that sought to politicise the very creation and reiteration of images, annulling their idealist leanings in philosophical discourse to refashion them as political tools. This line of thought would inform Calas’ post-war art theory that would however intervene in totally different theoretical discussions.

Postwar Politics and the “New Images of our Desires” In the introduction of his anthology, Art in the Age of Risk (1968), Calas proclaims: “Let’s change the past. Let’s transform the future. Let’s infuse in them

|| 35 Calas quoted in Hoff, Nicolas Calas, 136–137. 36 Calas, Εστίες Πυρκαγιάς, 119–120. 37 Deligiorgi, “Πρόλογος (Prologue)”, in Calas, Εστίες Πυρκαγιάς, ιγ–ιδ.

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the new images of our desires!”38 Calas’ words reveal his revived interest in Surrealism after his disillusionment with the movement in the 1950s, mainly because of its recourse to myth and utopia. Inspired by the rise of the New Left and the repercussions this might have had for the avant-garde, in the 1960s Calas wrote a number of essays that reviewed Surrealism in its current political context.39 It was in this decade that he worked as an associate professor of art at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey, a position which gave him an insight into contemporary artistic developments, such as Pop art. Yet, Surrealism remained a stable reference point in his critical essays, rendering Calas a critic thinking always surrealistically. This is manifest when Calas challenges formalist genealogies, from Alfred Barr’s formalist art history to Clement Greenberg’s and Michael Fried’s aesthetic formalism, and suggests an alternative perspective grounded in the exploration of art as both form and message. Through this lens Calas reviews Surrealism not as a formalist experiment in the history of modern art, but as an intermedial system of communication that should constantly re-invigorate itself. His revision could be seen in relation to the growing scholarly attention to Surrealism in the 1960s, most notably the republication of Maurice Nadeau’s History of Surrealism (1965) as well as the publication of Breton’s Manifestoes (1969) and Nadja (1960) in English, and of Anna Balakian’s Surrealism: The Road to the Absolute (1959). To this revival of interest further contributed the exhibition Dada, Surrealism and their Heritage organised by the new curator of the Museum of Modern Art, William Rubin, in 1968, which Calas considered “bad” and “anti-surrealist”.40 The exhibition provoked negative reactions among many critics and Surrealists. As Sandra Zalman notes, Rubin’s goal was “to shape the recent history of American art by subsuming Dada and Surrealism into a history of Abstract Expressionism, while also affirming Dada and Surrealism as precedents for Pop art”.41 By silencing their political dimension, Rubin reduced all the revolutionary impact of Dada and Surrealism in order to include

|| 38 Calas, Nicolas, Η Τέχνη την Εποχή της Διακύβευσης και άλλα δοκίμια (Art in the Age of Risk and other essays), Αθήνα 1997, 19. Originally published in English by E. P. Dutton. Here I use the Greek translation. 39 Hoff, Nicolas Calas, 228–238. 40 Calas, Nicolas, Βίος και Πολιτεία: Η Συνέντευξη για τα Αρχεία της Αμερικανικής Τέχνης το 1977 (The Interview for the Archives of American Art, 1977), transl. Spilios Argyropoulos and Vasiliki Kolocotroni, Αθήνα 2012, 82–83. 41 Zalman, Sandra, “The canonisation of Surrealism in the United States”, in: Journal of Art Historiography 9, 2018, 9.

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them in the aesthetic canon of modernism, a controversial position for politically motivated artists and critics. Calas was hostile toward the aesthetisation and institutionalisation of Surrealism. He responded with his essays “Surrealist Heritage?” and “Surrealism hits back”, both published in Arts Magazine in 1968, in which he offered a glimpse of Surrealism as a vibrant, active movement and a revolutionary philosophy of living. Exemplary of Calas’ approach is also the collection of essays he published the same year, Art in the Age of Risk, referring to the risk that the artists should take in terms of social subversion within a challenging decade. In this anthology Calas included several of his art critical texts, but also theoretical pieces dating from 1950 to 1968, in which he celebrates the primacy of the image not as an instrument for the duplication of reality but as a means for its transgression and metamorphosis. For Calas, the overcoming of the model of external mimesis is central to modern art in which representation and interpretation become commingled.42 In particular, Calas expounds the Bretonian concept of the Surrealist image as the locus in which reality and desire are intersected, thus creating a super-reality that is not positioned above or beyond reality but is located simultaneously at the heart of and in opposition to reality. A highly significant essay is “The perspective”, initially published in Artforum’s special issue of Surrealism in 1966.43 In his essay, Calas distinguishes between Impressionism, Cubism and Expressionism, which integrated processes of art production within the artwork; and Surrealism, which transgressed the physical limits of reality by incorporating magical elements into the everyday. What the Surrealists offered us, Calas argues, is an alternative lens through which to envision the world. Calas has recourse to Breton’s concept of the “interior model” to suggest that it is works by Yves Tanguy, Max Ernst and Hans Arp that opened up the viewer’s eyes. Of course he is not referring to physical vision but what he calls “the mind’s eye”, a visionary perspective that embraces the conceptual dimension of art.44 For Calas, the manifestation of desire through the image could be a tool in combating hegemonic ideologies to prevent society’s assimilation into consumerist culture. Calas concludes his essay by pinpointing: “Surrealism is the cult of the enigma adapted to a civilization that has overcome the rituals and mysteries of official religions, heresies or metaphysical religious

|| 42 Calas, Η Τέχνη την Εποχή της Διακύβευσης, 55–65. 43 Calas, Η Τέχνη την Εποχή της Διακύβευσης, 179–186. 44 Deligiorgi, Alexandra, Ο Μοντερνιστής Κριτικός Νικόλας Κάλας (The Modernist Nicolas Calas), Αθήνα 2018, 165–180.

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groups”.45 In several essays from the same anthology Calas further juxtaposes the ‘enigmatic art’ of Surrealism to the abstract, formalist art of the 1960s, and interlinks abstraction with non-figurative thought and its Protestant affiliations.46 He writes: “for the sake of a subconscious fertilised by images, the Surrealist [as a prodigal son] undertook the task of defending … [himself] in front of the socialist court. Surrealism challenged Marxist iconoclasm, grounded upon the protestant animosity toward images and their wealthy owners: churches and the aristocrats”.47 ‘Iconolatry’ rather than ‘iconoclasm’ becomes therefore Calas’ criterion for evaluating art as a rebellious externalisation of interior life, since it is the image that could ultimately mobilise personal and social change. Calas explores the function of the image more rigorously in “Image and Poetry” (1965). 48 He argues that painting creates its own reality that is homologous to the external world, yet it never imitates that world. Poetry, on the other hand, does not produce its own images, but rather inserts images into the primordial structure that is language. Calas gives us a history of the image in painting and poetry from prehistoric civilisations to Surrealism, identifying similarities and differences in these two artistic media, but also exposing his belief that an imagistic structure underpins all artistic forms. Explicitly critical of nonrepresentation, he values the image as a poetic tool in the hands of artists aspiring to transform reality to a super-reality that signals a topos of endless becoming. Calas’ endorsement of Breton’s philosophy of immanence is eloquently articulated in “The Point of the Mind: Andre Breton” which he wrote after the former’s death in 1966. 49 This essay focuses on the Bretonian supreme point as the mental point at which all antinomies are resolved. For example, he writes: “Breton felt that the poet’s vocation is to invoke emotional states in which the conjunction of opposites becomes a lived experience of reality”.50 Calas is quick to criticise contemporary critics who interpret Surrealism as an aesthetic current that sought to distance itself from reality. On the contrary, Calas argues, Breton and the Surrealists despised aesthetics and sought the supreme point within reality, not beyond it. Objective chance is the means by which the Surrealist can create art that always corresponds to reality either in symbolic or figurative terms, while non-figuration is incompatible with art.51 || 45 Calas, Η Τέχνη την Εποχή της Διακύβευσης, 186. 46 Calas, Η Τέχνη την Εποχή της Διακύβευσης, 91–100. 47 Calas, Η Τέχνη την Εποχή της Διακύβευσης, 98. 48 Calas, Η Τέχνη την Εποχή της Διακύβευσης, 111–133. 49 Calas, Η Τέχνη την Εποχή της Διακύβευσης, 134–138. 50 Calas, Η Τέχνη την Εποχή της Διακύβευσης, 134–135. 51 Calas, Η Τέχνη την Εποχή της Διακύβευσης, 136–137.

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Calas’ texts seem programmatic but should be viewed as a response to Greenberg’s formalist criticism and the dominance of Abstract Expressionism in postwar New York. It is not coincidental that he supported both Surrealism and Pop art as subversive art currents, dismissing pure abstraction as spirituallyinclined or apolitical. It was Greenberg’s anti-communist stance in line with McCarthyism and his endorsement of a key monolithic concept of modernism, bound up with abstraction, ruling out socially generated anti-art forms that led Calas to dismiss the former’s art criticism.52 Calas’ critique was levelled against Greenberg on several occasions. The beginning of their rivalry is traced back to the 1940s when Greenberg attacked Surrealism in “Towards a Newer Laokoon”, arguing that the Surrealists “reacted against abstract purity and turned back to a confusion of literature with painting”.53 Calas responded with various essays throughout the 1940s.54 In the 1960s his critique became more personal: “Greenberg’s talent for descriptive criticism might well be an outcome of his service at Customs where it is essential to check the correctness of invoice”.55 Calas saw formalist descriptions as oppositional to the task of interpretation.56 He further suggested: “art is the expression of psychic reality; a significant artwork is an indecipherable revelation […] and resists description”.57 On another occasion, responding to Greenberg’s essay “Modernist Painting” published in Art and Literature (1965), he challenged the critic’s formalist aesthetics and also what he considered as a pseudo-Kantian approach of self-criticism.58 For Calas the problem is that Greenberg deceived his readers, mainly for political reasons, when he referenced Kant instead of Hegel for the fabrication of his theory of self-critical modernism; he also confused art with criticism only to put forward the idea of the autonomy and self-reflection of painting, depoliticizing the creative endeavor. Art in the Age of Risk should be thus read as an active contribution to contemporary art critical discourses in the US, and a systematic counter-response to what Calas perceived as the annihilation of the communicative function of art. It does not however constitute a coherent art theoretical text but reiterates ra-

|| 52 See Calas, Βίος και Πολιτεία, 42, 66–67. 53 Greenberg, Clement, The Collected Essays and Criticism, vol. 1, John O’ Brian (ed.), Chicago and London 1986, 36. 54 Most notably Calas, Nicolas, “On Clement Greenberg’s A New Laokoon: Partisan Review, as an attack on Surrealism” in: View 1, 1940, no. 2, 1–5. 55 Calas, Η Τέχνη την Εποχή της Διακύβευσης, 169. 56 Calas, Η Τέχνη την Εποχή της Διακύβευσης, 169. 57 Calas, Η Τέχνη την Εποχή της Διακύβευσης,169. 58 Calas, Η Τέχνη την Εποχή της Διακύβευσης, 175–178.

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ther than revises Calas’ theorising of the image as was propounded in Foyers d’incendie. Crucial, again, is Calas’ reading of Breton’s surrealité as a philosophy of immanence and of the surrealist image as a potent strategy to shatter and reconfigure the real, thus opening up to a multitude of possibilities. Inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein’s provocative oeuvre on art as play, and in contradistinction to Greenbergian aesthetics, he further defines the artist as homo symbolicus who resorts to both poetry and painting as communicating vessels and vehicles of image-making in an avant-gardist refashioning of ‘ut pictura poesis’. Painting and poetry are construed as forms of language that consist of images used by the artist to decode the hidden aspects of the interrelationship between the creative self and the world. Calas perceives the image as a means of communication and play between the creator and the spectator-receiver, placing more emphasis on this dialogue rather than the artwork itself and its autonomy. It is however the role of the critic to expose this dialogue but also shed light on his/her own relationship with the artist, the artwork and the spectator.

In Conclusion: Nicolas Calas as a Theorist of the Image From the 1930s to the 1960s realism proved to be a site of contestation in which alternative conceptualisations reverberated. If we accept that the term suggests a rather direct connection with reality, it can be argued that through Calas’s writings Surrealism was construed as a form of alternative realism that transcends traditional boundaries to envision a radically other, expanded and enlarged reality. In this reformulation it is the Surrealist image that could potentially transform the real by challenging the ways we represent and therefore perceive it. Calas’ criticism was involved in the debate concerning the political relevance of modernist experimentations in France in the 1930s. This discussion remained a thorny issue in the US where criticism became an arena for the negotiation of cultural politics and political agendas in the Cold War period. In this volatile political climate and in a period spanning from the late 1930s to the 1960s Calas retained his faith in the Surrealist image as the concretisation of the confluence of radicalised poetics and political action that could effect material change. As a politically motivated critic Calas produced a theory based on the concept of art as a medium of communication rather than aesthetic pleasure. Within this paradigm artworks were interpreted as the vehicle by means of which

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messages, emotional states, or the unconscious of the artist are conveyed to the spectator to transmute his/her own consciousness. His theory could be seen as a visually-informed discursive practice that prizes processes of image construction, and substantiates the vital role of the critic not only to unlock the artistic enigma, but also “to imbue […] prose with acid”59 to use it as a springboard for poetic thought, activism and revolt. By interweaving different but interlinked modes of praxis, Calas provided an alternative example of art writing that is encapsulated in his intellectual signature as “poet, diagnostician and polemicist”.60 Remaining for decades in the shadows of Surrealist historiography, Calas’ contribution to what can be termed as ‘Surrealist art theory’ should be acknowledged to extend our knowledge not only of Surrealism but of the ways it negotiated the theoretical enterprise as a form of poetical and critical thinking about art.

|| 59 Calas, Η Τέχνη την Εποχή της Διακύβευσης, 276. 60 See Sarris, Kyrillos “Πρόλογος (Preface)”, in Calas, Η Τέχνη την Εποχή της Διακύβευσης, 17.

Émile Bordeleau-Pitre

D’un réalisme indiciaire : la revue Documents (1929–1930) Il est des œuvres péniblement classables, difficilement réductibles à une catégorie ou à une autre de par l’inhérente ambiguïté de leur construction, leur ambivalence, leur côté Janus ; des œuvres qui tournent l’une de leur face « vers les hautes sphères de la culture » tandis que l’autre a le regard tourné vers « une zone sauvage où l'on s'aventure sans carte géographique ni passeport d'aucune espèce1 ». C’est peut-être le cas de beaucoup d’objets d’avant-garde (sinon de tous) mais peu nombreuses sont les œuvres qui, si l’on en croit ses différents lecteurs, atteignent le degré d’indétermination de Documents, revue composée de quinze numéros publiés entre 1929 et 1930 et pour laquelle Georges Bataille a assumé le rôle de secrétaire général. Un seul aperçu des tensions critiques sur la nature de son réalisme suffirait à mettre en lumière cette difficulté particulière. Peter Brooker, commentant ce débat d’interprétations, va même jusqu’à se demander : est-ce que la revue Documents « régénère ou met un terme au projet surréaliste2 » ? Ainsi, pour les uns, la publication serait l’héritière (presque) légitime du surréalisme, manifestant ce qui pourrait être qualifié de « surréalisme clandestin3 » ; alors que pour d’autres, au contraire, elle serait « agressivement réaliste », faisant usage de matériaux qui « restitu[eraient] le réel en facsimilé4 », tournant le dos aux techniques et méthodes surréalistes. Dans ce chapitre, je tenterai de réconcilier ces deux positions apparemment antagonistes en m’intéressant aux différents discours sur le réel qu’expriment plusieurs auteurs de la revue Documents. Nous verrons que ces derniers établissent systématiquement deux manières opposées de concevoir ce réel – et réfléchissent en somme deux manières antagonistes de le représenter, deux « réalismes ». Si les contributeurs à Documents sont très critiques d’une de ces formes de réalisme (le réalisme hégémonique, dominant), déployant en cela un

|| 1 Leiris, Michel, « De Bataille l’impossible à l’impossible Documents », in: Brisée, Paris 1992, 292. 2 Brooker, Peter, « General Introduction. Modernity, Modernisms, Magazines », in: Peter Brooker/Sascha Bru/Andrew Thacker/Chistian Weikop (éd.), The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines, vol. III, Oxford 2016, 17. 3 Ades, Dawn/Baker, Simon (éd.), Undercover Surrealism. Georges Bataille and Documents, Cambridge 2006. 4 Hollier, Denis, « La valeur d’usage de l’impossible », in: Documents, vol. 1, Paris 1991, XX– XXI. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-011

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discours oppositionnel fort, je montrerai qu’ils ne se revendiquent pas moins explicitement d’une autre forme de réalisme (qu’ils considèrent, elle, plus authentique, plus « réelle » pour ainsi dire). Ce double jeu – d’une part antiréaliste, d’autre part agressivement réaliste – je le qualifierai de réalisme indiciaire. Le réel, dans Documents, n’est jamais ce que nos sociétés occidentales vous dit qu’il est ; toujours se cache-t-il dans les coins sombres des discours et des représentations. Le réel est un gros orteil ou le sexe d’une fleur, pour reprendre les célèbres analogies de Georges Bataille ; et le réalisme constitue le processus qui vise à mettre en lumière cette réalité particulière, apparemment impensable à partir des schèmes de pensée dominants. Mais à ce titre, est-il juste d’affirmer que Documents ne manifeste qu’un discours oppositionnel, antihégémonique ? La dernière partie de mon texte se penchera sur les limites épistémologiques du réalisme anti-réaliste de Documents, de même que sur ses échanges et partages avec les structures sociales dominantes contemporaines.

« Pénétrer pour la première fois une réalité » Dans son article pour Documents consacré au peintre Giorgio de Chirico, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, l’un des initiateurs à Paris du mouvement dada, s’intéresse à la notion de réalisme. Son article a pour argument de fond qu’après avoir eu des « difficultés mystérieuses » avec le réalisme, il est finalement parvenu à cette conclusion que toutes les œuvres picturales – incluant au premier plan celles de Giorgio de Chirico – seraient au fond des œuvres réalistes ; qu’il n’existerait pas d’art qui ne soit une fidèle représentation du réel. « Je pense que Sainte Thérèse de Lisieux est aussi réaliste que les malins transformant ses extases en papier-monnaie. Et cela dit, tournant un commutateur, j’ajoute : un peintre est toujours un réaliste. Je n’en connais point qui ne le soit pas5 ». S’attaquant directement aux surréalistes et divergeant des lectures qu’on fait habituellement des œuvres dites d’avant-garde, Ribemont-Dessaignes insiste pour identifier dans la peinture une translation qui s’opère du réel à la toile : « [Les peintres] ont exprimé, en chair et en os, un monde réel, qui aujourd’hui, si l’on veut bien le considérer sans sourire, semble une création de l’esprit, comme si une création de l’esprit dès qu’elle est réalisée n’était point au même titre que toute autre constatation, une réalité6 ». L’auteur associe à ce titre le

|| 5 Ribemont-Dessaignes, Georges « Giorgio de Chirico », in: Documents, vol. 2, 1930, 337–338. 6 Ribemont-Dessaignes, « Giorgio de Chirico », 338.

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« réalisme » de Giorgio de Chirico à une opération singulière qui non seulement n’est pas traditionnellement associée aux avant-gardes, mais s’en veut à certains égards le contrepied. Ribemont-Dessaignes, se contredisant du même souffle sur l’universalité du réalisme en peinture, suppose en effet l’abrogation du doute dans l’œuvre de Chirico en particulier, et dans l’œuvre d’avant-garde de manière générale : Il n’y a pourtant pas à douter. Il s’agit bien là de réalité. La métaphysique y est absente. Mais quelle réalité indéniable ! Comment douter de l’existence physique de ce palais, de cette colonnade, de ces fenêtres de prison, de cette ombre d’un objet qu’on ne voit pas, de ce livre étendu sur une table près d’un œuf et d’une couronne, tandis qu’une main au doigt étendu est inscrite sur un mur ? Le ciel n’est point un artifice du peintre pour simuler l’azur ou l’étincellement de la lumière, mais un ciel. Vous savez ce qu’est un ciel ? Le ridicule des peintres qui, sous prétexte qu’ils peignent un paysage, se croient obligés à des prodiges de gymnastique pour imiter l’air céleste, simplement parce que dans la nature au-dessus de toute chose il y a un ciel, alors que dans leur tableau il n’en est pas question du tout ! On voit leur œuvre, et personne n’y songe au ciel. C’est touchant. Mais je vous prie, doutez-vous devant Chirico ? Vous ne doutez de rien, plus que du ciel. Je disais bien : c’est un réaliste.7

Cette abrogation du doute par les œuvres d’avant-garde trouve écho dans un autre texte de Documents. Michel Leiris, commentant certaines toiles de Picasso, associe le travail de l’artiste à l’exploration acharnée de la réalité : « Pour [Picasso] il s’agit beaucoup moins, me semble-t-il, de refaire la réalité dans le seul but de la refaire, que dans celui, incomparablement plus important, d’en exprimer toutes les possibilités, toutes les ramifications imaginables, de manière à la serrer d’un peu plus près8 ». Par cette opération, le réel se trouverait chez Picasso plus authentiquement représentée, voire même représenté « pour la première fois » : « Au lieu d’être un rapport vague, un panorama lointain de phénomènes, le réel est alors éclairé par tous ses pores, on le pénètre, il devient alors pour la première fois et réellement une RÉALITÉ9 ». Se positionnant également comme une attaque contre le surréalisme, l’interprétation des toiles de Picasso rend leur sujet « terre à terre », sujet qui n’est « jamais emprunté au monde fumeux du rêve, ni susceptible immédiatement d’être converti en symbole10 ». L’auteur considère que la « véritable liberté » de l’artiste « ne consiste en rien à nier le réel », qu’elle implique plutôt

|| 7 Ribemont-Dessaignes, « Giorgio de Chirico », 339. 8 Leiris, Michel, « Toiles récentes de Picasso », in: Documents, vol. 2, 1930, 64. 9 Leiris, « Toiles récentes de Picasso », 64. 10 Leiris, « Toiles récentes de Picasso », 64.

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la reconnaissance nécessaire du réel, qu’il faut alors de plus en plus creuser et miner, pousser en quelque sorte jusqu’à ses ultimes retranchements : et c’est en ce dernier sens surtout qu’on a le droit de dire que Picasso est libre – le peintre le plus libre qui ait existé – lui qui connaît mieux que quiconque le poids exact des choses, l’échelle de leur valeur, leur matérialité…11

Sur cette position singulière où les avant-gardes sont tirées du côté du réalisme (alors que leur projet est le plus souvent lu comme une réaction à la représentation classique du réel tel qu’elle se conçoit au 19e siècle), il faut citer également le texte que Robert Desnos consacre à La Femme 100 têtes de Max Ernst. « Pour le poète », écrit Desnos, « il n’y a pas d’hallucinations. Il y a le réel. Et c’est bien au spectacle d’une réalité plus étendue que celle communément reconnue telle que nous convie l’inventeur des collages12 ». Le projet de Max Ernst, dont l’œuvre se rattache traditionnellement aux mouvements dadaïste et surréaliste, est donc ramené par Desnos sur le même terrain réaliste que décrivent Ribemont-Dessaignes et Leiris lorsqu’ils traitent de Chirico et de Picasso : « soumis au destin même de tout poète Max Ernst arrache ainsi un lambeau au merveilleux et le restitue à la robe déchirée du réel13 ». Il ne serait pas tout à fait juste cependant de faire de Documents, seulement à partir de ces articles sur différentes œuvres dites d’avant-garde, une revue « agressivement réaliste14 ». Transformant Chirico, Picasso et Ernst en chantres du réalisme, les auteurs de Documents développent ce faisant une conception du réel sensiblement étrangère à celle que nous admettons conventionnellement. Et cette conception dépasse le simple affront réitéré au surréalisme. Pour mieux la comprendre, il faut chercher à voir ce que partagent les arguments de Ribemont-Dessaignes, Leiris et Desnos. Dans les trois cas, le réalisme n’est pas quelque chose d’éminemment partagée. Il n’est pas question, chez Chirico, Picasso ou Ernst, de bâtir une œuvre à partir de codes récupérés dans les représentations partagées de la réalité ; il s’agit au contraire de rendre signifiants les codes d’une réalité – de rendre partageable une représentation du réel qui, avant eux, ne l’aurait pas été. Le réalisme ne serait donc jamais un donné (malgré quelques indications chez Ribemont-Dessaignes qui semblent aller dans ce sens), parce que le réel n’apparaîtrait jamais tel quel dans le monde. À cet égard, le réalisme des artistes d’avant-garde ne s’assimilerait pas à une entreprise mimétique, projet avoué

|| 11 Leiris, « Toiles récentes de Picasso », 64. 12 Desnos, Robert, « La Femme 100 têtes, par Max Ernst », in: Documents, vol. 2, 1930, 238. 13 Desnos, « La Femme 100 têtes », 239. 14 Hollier, « La valeur d’usage de l’impossible », XXI.

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de l’entreprise réaliste traditionnelle, mais serait plutôt chez ceux-ci le fruit d’un travail : les toiles de Chirico – en tant que peintre réaliste – sont des « créations de l’esprit » qui deviennent réalité ; Picasso « creuse », « mine » le réel ; Ernst « arrache » un lambeau au merveilleux pour le « restituer » à la réalité. De quel travail au fond est-il question ici ? Paradoxalement, le réalisme tel que théorisé par Ribemont-Dessaignes, Leiris et Desnos constitue une entreprise de démolition du « réel » en tant qu’il est souverain et tyrannique ; une entreprise faisant advenir, à travers l’exposition d’« indices », une réalité qui elle serait plus véritable, plus authentique que celle conventionnellement partagée. Un rapport dialectique se joue donc dans le réalisme que conçoivent les auteurs de Documents. Sur un premier plan existerait effectivement un réel hégémonique, un réel partagé par la doxa occidentale. Ce réel aurait pour assises théoriques la philosophie, associée au fameux « idéalisme » auquel s’attaque continuellement la revue, « un centre absolu où la métaphysique occidentale, d’Aristote à Hegel, se rencontrerait ou se ramasserait „tout entière”15 ». Si elle constitue une « réalité », c’est dans la mesure où cette définition du réel est efficace dans son hégémonie, qu’elle est une mise en ordre qui fonctionne tant et si bien qu’elle semble être vraie et donc qu’elle se trouve partagée par un grand nombre. Mais celle-ci n’aurait une validité de façade. Le travail des « véritables » réalistes est de faire advenir, sous le vernis idéaliste, un réel matérialiste à même de mettre à mal la réalité dominante.

Disqualifier la réalité en présentant un réel Pour Georges Bataille dans Documents, la « philosophie entière » n’aurait pas eu d’autre but que « de donner une redingote à ce qui est, une redingote mathématique16 ». Relevant de cette philosophie-redingote, il existerait donc pour Ribemont-Dessaignes, Leiris et Desnos un premier réalisme, hégémonique et dominant. La manière de ce réalisme de représenter le réel aurait plutôt pour effet de le voiler, détournant l’attention des objets véritables pour l’attirer vers des objets factices de sublimation. À cet effet, le travail des artistes d’avant-garde commenté dans la revue a pour première fonction d’exposer le caractère trompeur du voile conçu comme réel. Par exemple, Joan Miró selon Bataille serait

|| 15 Didi-Huberman, Georges, La Ressemblance informe ou le gai savoir visuel selon Georges Bataille, Paris 1995, 24. 16 Bataille, Georges, « Informe », in: Documents, vol. 1, 1929, 382.

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« parti d’une représentation des objets si minutieuse qu’elle mettait jusqu’à un certain point la réalité en poussière, une sorte de poussière ensoleillée17 ». Les œuvres d’art produites par les sociétés dites primitives partageraient avec celles d’avant-garde cette fonction de mettre en lumière une réalité véritable sous la réalité factice. « Il existe une sorte de réalisme métaphysique dans l’art exotique et archaïque », explique Carl Einstein lorsqu’il traite de la représentation du mort en arts. « [O]n ne veut pas représenter le mort même, mais son Kâ ou son âme d’ombre18 ». Exposant ce qui voile, les auteurs de Documents mettent en lumière l’opération d’obscurcissement qu’opère le réalisme traditionnel – qui dans la revue est principalement pensé dans son rapport idéaliste à la matière. Ils rendent compte, du même coup, de ce qu’il n’est qu’une construction. Ridiculisant le réalisme traditionnel, cherchant à le discréditer discursivement, les auteurs témoignent de son caractère non naturel, non essentiel – et donc attaquable en ce qu’il témoigne d’une position peut-être dominante mais contingente. Ce processus simultané (de destruction de la réalité d’un côté et de mise en lumière d’un réel de l’autre) que lisent les auteurs de Documents au sein des œuvres d’avant-garde opèrent dans deux champs : esthétique et politique. Cette position double fait écho à celle des avant-gardes historiques. En effet, deux raisons principales justifient habituellement leur attaque contre le réalisme. Celle-ci constitue d’abord une réponse faite à une évolution technologique : l’invention de la photographie, puis celle du cinéma. À une époque où les progrès techniques de reproduction avancent rapidement, les artistes de l’avantgarde tentent de trouver une façon de légitimer la tâche de la peinture. Ils s’engagent alors dans des expérimentations qui se veulent des alternatives à l’imagerie photographique et à la fonction traditionnellement imitative de l’art19, mettant en valeur les différentes « couches perceptuelles » (l’aspect formel, le déplacement par rapport aux attentes mimétiques, la présence du canevas, etc.) dont est fait tout travail artistique20. Pour ce faire, ils procèdent à la liquidation des conceptions réalistes, naturalistes et impressionnistes de l’art21.

|| 17 Bataille, Georges, « Joan Miró : peintures récentes », in: Documents, vol. 2, 1930, 399. 18 Einstein, Carl, « Aphorismes méthodiques », in: Documents, vol. 1, 1929, 32. 19 Scheunemann, Dietrich, « On Photography and Painting. Prolegomena to a New Theory of the Avant-Garde », in: Dietrich Scheunemann (éd.), European Avant-Garde. New Perspectives, Amsterdam 2008, 19. 20 Macrae, David, « Painterly Concepts and Filmic Objects: the Interaction of Expression and Re-Production in Early Avant-Garde Film », in: Dietrich Scheunemann (éd.), European AvantGarde. New Perspectives, Amsterdam 2008, 140. 21 Macrae, « Painterly Concepts and Filmic Objects », 140.

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Les autres médiums, dont la littérature, partageant traditionnellement avec la peinture la tâche de l’imitatio naturae, opèrent en même temps des changements très similaires22. Cependant, l’attaque contre le réalisme par les avant-gardes n’est pas qu’affaire de technique et ne s’assimile pas à la simple réponse des artistes à l’émergence et au développement de la photographie et du cinéma. Des raisons politiques et idéologiques l’expliquent également. La mise à bas du réalisme traditionnel est effectivement une caractéristique fondamentale du discours oppositionnel des avant-gardes. En procédant à l’examen minutieux des techniques représentationnelles, en « humiliant et en disqualifiant la réalité », en pointant du doigt « l’absence de réalité dans le réel », les avant-gardes sapent les discours dominants, institutionnalisés socialement, qui revendiquent et travaillent à faire croire à l’existence d’une certaine réalité23. L’objectif est bel et bien d’exposer, à travers leurs œuvres, le caractère construit d’un réalisme qui, jusqu’à la fin du XIXe siècle, semble aller de soi et qui exerce avec d’autant plus d’efficacité son emprise idéologique, façonnant ce qui est dicible et visible dans la réalité. Dans Documents, l’attaque contre le réalisme semble trouver sa justification dans ces mêmes deux raisons principales. L’utilisation si singulière de la photographie par la revue rend compte d’une critique de sa fonction mimétique traditionnelle. Gros plans (notamment ceux, célèbres, reproduits pour les articles « Gros orteil » et « Le langage des fleurs » de Georges Bataille) et montages rapprochent Documents du Kinostil théorisé par l’expressionniste Alfred Döblin qui, adoptant en littérature le langage cinématographique, désire mettre à mal son côté proprement « objectif »24. La façon dont les auteurs de la revue conçoivent le réalisme traditionnel ne laisse pas non plus de doute quant à la perception qu’ils se font de son caractère hégémonique et à la mission qu’ils se donnent d’en exposer les rouages et les faiblesses. Pour Georges Bataille, la représentation constitue un déplacement produit et naturalisé par la culture. Aussi, l’objectif avoué de Documents est de détruire la naturalité de la représentation en l’opposant au bas matériel qu’elle a déplacé25.

|| 22 Scheunemann, « On Photography and Painting », 17. 23 Murphy, Richard, Theorizing the Avant-Garde. Modernism, Expressionism, and the Problem of Postmodernity, Cambridge 1999, 270. 24 Murphy, Theorizing the Avant-Garde, 138–139. 25 Gennaro, Mara de, « The World ‘Outside of Fiction’: Georges Bataille and Surrealist Photography Sculpture », in: Dietrich Scheunemann (éd.), European Avant-Garde. New Perspectives, Amsterdam 2008, 173.

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Problèmes épistémologiques d’un réalisme anti-réaliste « L’anti-réalisme » de Documents ne manque cependant pas d’être ambigu, et c’est notamment dans sa manière singulière de concevoir la notion de réel qu’on remarque toute l’ambivalence de son discours oppositionnel supposé. Pour chercher à comprendre la singularité de cette réflexion autour de la notion de réalité, il est intéressant de se pencher sur un genre émergeant durant les années Documents, qui connaît alors un succès populaire déjà considérable : le genre policier (ce dernier a d’ailleurs une place dans la revue à travers l’intérêt de Robert Desnos pour Fantômas26). Selon le sociologue Luc Boltanski, l’émergence du genre policier au début du XXe siècle s’explique par la naissance conjointe de la psychiatrie, de la science politique et de la sociologie27. Une triple naissance qui tisse autour de la paranoïa la coexistence de deux plans de réalité : la réalité sociale (médiée par l’État-nation) et la réalité cachée (dans laquelle se meuvent des choses, des actes, des acteurs, des plans, des liens et des pouvoirs insoupçonnés)28. Documents, influencée par la psychanalyse de Freud mais surtout par les recherches ethnographiques contemporaines, distingue également, comme nous l’avons vu, deux plans de réalité. L’enjeu n’est cependant pour ses auteurs la paranoïa ou le complot qui justifient le genre policier. Il est plutôt question ici de l’hypocrisie humaine qui, dans les sociétés occidentales modernes, nierait ce qui cherche à contredire l’inhérente noblesse de l’Homme – cette conception idéale que l’être humain se fait de lui-même et de sa valeur intrinsèque29. || 26 Desnos, Robert, « Imagerie modern », in: Documents, vol. 2, 1930, 377–378. 27 Boltanski, Luc, Énigmes et complots. Une enquête à propos d’enquêtes, Paris 2013, 14. 28 Boltanski, Énigmes et complots, 36. 29 Il est possible de pousser plus loin encore les rapports qu’entretiennent le genre policier émergent et la revue Documents. Pour Luc Boltanski, dans le genre policier, c’est « le fait d’être tourné vers le travail de la contradiction affectant des espèces catégorielles incompatibles mais néanmoins toutes nécessaires à la réalisation d’un certain ordre qui confère à ces œuvres un caractère métaphysique plutôt que littéraire » (Boltanski, Énigmes et complots, 74). À cet effet, les romans policiers – comme les mythes – « constituent des opérateurs visant à retourner une contradiction dans tous les sens possibles de façons non à la dépasser dialectiquement, mais simplement à l’acclimater » (Boltanski, Énigmes et complots, 74). Yve-Alain Bois fait une lecture similaire de « l’informe », tel qu’il se déploie au sein de Documents. L’informe délite « en l’insultant l’opposition de la forme et du contenu, la déclarant formelle elle-même, de par son binarisme propret, et donc nulle et non avenue » (Bois, Yve-Alain, « La valeur d’usage de l’informe », in: Yve-Alain Bois/Rosalind E. Krauss [éd.], L’informe mode d’emploi, Paris 1996,

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À cet égard, il existerait, pour Documents, une réalité construite à détruire (non pas médiée par l’État-nation mais bien par la philosophie idéaliste, la « philosophie-redingote ») et une réalité matérielle à mettre en lumière (qui ne se manifesterait qu’« indiciairement », dans nos sociétés modernes, à travers ce que Georges Didi-Huberman qualifie de « symptôme30 »). Et c’est donc autour de la mise à mal de la réalité construite et de l’exposition de la réalité matérielle que se forge le réalisme de Documents – ce qu’on a souvent qualifié de réalisme agressif. Être réaliste selon Documents, être authentiquement réaliste, est une opération qui se joue simultanément sur ces deux plans : mise à mal et exposition. Elle consiste, par exemple, à montrer que lorsqu’un personnage porte son regard « sur un monument témoignant de la grandeur de son pays, [il] est arrêté dans son élan par une atroce douleur à l’orteil parce que, le plus noble des animaux, il a cependant des cors aux pieds, c’est-à-dire qu’il a des pieds et que ces pieds mènent, indépendamment de lui, une existence ignoble31 ». Être authentiquement réaliste consiste, également, à montrer l’ignominie que cache en son sein toute fleur32, contre toutes les conceptions romantiques qui imposent traditionnellement leur lecture. Dans la revue Documents, les mythes nationaux tout comme les fleurs doivent à présent conjuguer avec leur propre bas matériel, leur propre côté informe, et ne peuvent plus être classées en fonction de la dyade qui sépare le beau du laid, l’idéal de l’ignoble, tel qu’il s’exprime si communément chez les artistes romantiques. « La nature est impitoyable », écrivait par exemple Victor Hugo : « elle ne consent pas à retirer ses fleurs, ses musiques, ses parfums et ses rayons devant l’abomination humaine ; elle accable l’homme du contraste de la beauté divine avec la laideur sociale33 ». Les différents articles de la revue exposent la partialité d’un tel réalisme romantique qui se construit sur des binarités essentialisantes (encore bien prégnant dans les arts et la culture contemporains, selon ce que disent les auteurs de la revue – et tout particulièrement dans le surréalisme). Mais ce faisant, leurs auteurs ne manquent pas de construire l’impartialité d’apparence objective d’un autre réalisme – de celui qui expose la réalité indiciaire, de celui qui met en lumière la réalité matérielle. Et c’est dans cette construction d’un nouveau réalisme que les limites du discours oppositi|| 11) ; il « n’est rien en soi, n’a d’autre existence qu’opératoire » (Bois, « La valeur d’usage de l’informe », 15) ; « performatif », l’informe « est une opération » (Bois, « La valeur d’usage de l’informe », 15). 30 Didi-Huberman, La ressemblance informe, 336. 31 Bataille, Georges, « Le gros orteil », in: Documents, vol. 1, 1929, 300. 32 Bataille, Georges, « Le langage des fleurs », in: Documents, vol. 1, 1929, 160–164. 33 Hugo, Victor, Quatre-vingt-treize, Paris 1892, 599.

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onnel de Documents se lisent. En effet, les auteurs de la revue réinvestissent discursivement, à travers l’établissement de ce nouveau réalisme, la position de domination tant critiquée chez les tenants du réalisme idéaliste. Si Documents s’évertue à mettre en doute ce dernier, elle ne le fait pas qu’à travers sa critique de la réalité hégémonique, mais également (et peut-être surtout) à travers l’établissement d’une nouvelle instance de naturalisation du réel face à laquelle il n’y a plus à douter, pour reprendre les mots de Ribemont-Dessaignes. Cette instance de naturalisation est le reflet indéniable de structures sociales de domination contemporaines. Réinvestissant la naturalité dont témoignait l’ancien réalisme, elle en reproduit, souvent malgré elle, les hiérarchies (de classe, de sexe et de race). La définition du matérialisme que prône Georges Bataille, matérialisme qui comme nous l’avons vu sous-tend le réalisme si singulier de Documents, le démontre efficacement. Se basant sur l’« expérience vécue », le matérialisme de la revue s’oppose à une posture dite idéaliste, comme en témoigne la critique que fait Marcel Griaule des « archéologues » et des « esthètes » : « On admirera la forme d’une anse, mais on se gardera bien d’étudier la position de l’homme qui boit34 ». Or, chez Bataille et les autres auteurs du périodique, il est important de se demander : de quelle expérience vécue s’agit-il ici ? La réponse devient explicite dans les prolongements que prendra la réflexion bataillienne au sein d’un texte suivant de peu la fin de l’aventure Documents, « La critique des fondements de la dialectique hégélienne ». Pour Bataille, le problème de la dialectique hégélienne se pose sur la même ligne de partage qui sépare la philosophie idéaliste des surréalistes du matérialisme de Documents. Abstraite, la dialectique hégélienne se doit désormais de s’inscrire « dans l’expérience et non dans les nuées aprioriques des conceptions universelles35 ». Pour exposer par l’exemple son point de vue, Bataille envisage le « développement psychologique » de l’homme « du point de vue psychanalytique », et décrit la dialectique à l’œuvre au sein du complexe d’Œdipe. Parlant du rapport entre le fils et le père, il conclut : « L’expérience de ce thème résulte du fait qu’il constitue une expérience vécue par chaque être humain. Par lui, les termes du développement dialectique deviennent des éléments de l’existence réelle36 ». La réalité est donc une expérience essentiellement faite par des hommes (l’homologie entre « homme » et « être humain » devenant absolument claire à cet effet). Et l’étude de la réalité (du « matérialis-

|| 34 Griaule, Marcel, « Poteri », in: Documents, vol. 2, 1930, 236. 35 Bataille, Georges, « La critique des fondements de la dialectique hégélienne », in: Œuvres complètes I. Premiers écrits 1922–1940, Paris 1970, 280. 36 Bataille, « Critique des fondements de la dialectique hégélienne », 280.

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me », du « réalisme ») lorsqu’elle est médiée par la psychanalyse des années 1930, ne peut que concerner les sociétés occidentales et, au sein de celles-ci, principalement le groupe des intellectuels (les seuls qui ont une prise à ce moment-là sur le langage psychanalytique). L’expérience matérielle à laquelle réfère les auteurs de Documents est donc essentiellement celles des groupes socialement dominants dont ils sont euxmêmes issus (le groupe des hommes ; le groupe des Blancs ; le groupe des intellectuels). Ce qui ne veut pas dire que les groupes socialement dominés n’occupent pas de place au sein des pages de la revue, au contraire. Mais cette place ne dépasse les limites d’un certain cadre. Ainsi, dans Documents, les femmes et les sociétés dites primitives sont reléguées à des rôles d’adjuvants, en ce qu’elles ont pour fonction de mettre en lumière le côté informe de l’homme, sans jamais pouvoir eux-mêmes accéder à la catégorie d’être humain ainsi éclairée. Le réalisme propre à Documents, critique des sources du réalisme des surréalistes et des sciences positivistes, n’est jamais critique de ses propres origines. De la même manière qu’il n’est pas possible de douter devant une toile de Chirico, il n’est pas possible de douter de l’animalité de l’homme – étant donné que les sociétés primitives, elles, n’ont pas oubliée cette animalité (c’est un motif récurrent de Documents). Et la « dignité de l’espace » trouverait un démenti, également, en ce que l’espace peut aussi se présenter comme un « singe habillé en femme » ou « prend[re] la forme d’un rite ignoble d’initiation pratiqué par quelques nègres, désespérément absurdes37 ». La dernière formule expose le caractère ambivalent de ce nouveau réalisme. Si la « dignité de l’espace » est une catégorie qui peut et doit être mise en doute, les « singes habillés en femme », les « rites ignobles », de même que les « nègres absurdes » par lesquels passent l’argument, eux, apparaissent bel et bien comme des faits stables relevant d’une « nature humaine ». L’indice (ou le symptôme pour Didi-Huberman), c’est-à-dire la réalité matérielle telle qu’elle est conçue par les auteurs de Documents, n’est jamais questionné dans son caractère construit. Singes, femmes et nègres font « documents ». Ainsi, ils se présentent comme fragments matériels du réel devant lesquels on ne peut pas douter ; ils constituent l’unité « authentique » sur laquelle peuvent se construire les nouveaux savoirs de dominants. Ce nouveau réalisme partage donc avec l’ancien de multiples points de cécité. L’ordre naturel, indubitable, nécessaire du réel affirmé par Documents est tributaire d’un triple biais idéologique par son aveuglement quant à sa propre position en termes de classe, de sexe et de race. Et le réalisme de la revue, si|| 37 Bataille, Georges, « Espace », in: Documents, vol. 2, 1930, 41.

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multanément « agressivement réaliste » et « anti-réaliste », n’a pas de discours oppositionnel à proposer contre ses propres conformismes.

Sophia Stang

Spiegelung des Selbst: Giorgio de Chirico über Gustave Courbet Realismus und Pittura Metafisica In einem anlässlich seines 90. Geburtstages geführten Interview (1978) wurde Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978) nach seiner Meinung über die zeitgenössische Kunst gefragt, der er eine durchweg „miserable Qualität“ attestierte.1 Auf die Frage, wen er gelten lasse, antwortete der für seine scharfe Polemik gegen Kollegen bekannte Künstler: „Der letzte wichtige Maler war Courbet.“2 Fast 60 Jahre zuvor hatte er begonnen, sich in seinen kunsttheoretischen und kunstkritischen Publikationen auf das Schaffen Gustave Courbets (1819–1877) zu beziehen. In seinen Schriften dieser Zeit, die häufig autobiografisch geprägt sind, propagierte de Chirico im Kontext des ‚ritorno all‘ordine‘ das Programm seiner Pittura Metafisica. Damals wie in seinem Interview der späten 1970er Jahre wandte er sich mit kontroversen und provokativen Aussagen an die Zeitgenossen. So hatte er 1921 in einer Abhandlung über Pierre-Auguste Renoir formuliert, dass nach der Blüte der französischen Kunst im goldenen 19. Jahrhundert mit dem Tode Courbets 1877 ihr Niedergang begonnen habe.3 Über seine Stellungnahme zum französischen Realismus geht de Chirico in Opposition zu den vorherrschenden Maximen der Avantgarde. Seine kunsttheoretische Auseinandersetzung mit den Künstlern des 19. Jahrhunderts ist dabei konstitutiver Teil seines künstlerischen Programms und der Inszenierung der eigenen Künstlerpersönlichkeit. In diesem Beitrag werde ich anhand der Analyse ausgewählter Schriften de Chiricos aufzeigen, wie de Chirico sich eine Konzeption des Courbetschen Realismus aneignete, die zugleich den Maximen seiner Kunsttheorie zur metaphysischen Malerei entsprach. Die Einordnung in seine Kunsttheorie und Autobiografie der 1920er Jahre wird dabei exemplarisch zwei wesentliche Merkmale seines Schreibens aufzeigen: dass de Chirico sein Verhältnis zu Gegenwart, seine Stellung im Modernitätsdiskurs der 1920er Jahre, über den Bezug zur Vergangenheit

|| 1 „Was Künstlern heute fehlt, ist das Genie“, Werner Krüger im Gespräch mit Giorgio de Chirico, Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, 8./9.7.1978. 2 „Was Künstlern heute fehlt, ist das Genie“ 3 De Chirico, Giorgio, „Augusto Rénoir[sic]“, in: Il Convegno, Februar 1920, 36–46, dt. Übers. in: Schmied, Wir Metaphysiker, 91–96, hier 92. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-012

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definierte und sich dabei widersprüchlicher Argumente bediente, die seinen Ausführungen in einer dualistischen Struktur zugrunde liegen. Einige wenige von de Chiricos Schriften – Briefe, Gedichte, poetische Essays, kunsttheoretische Abhandlungen, dezidierte Autobiografien und Romane – wurden bisher exemplarisch für wissenschaftliche Betrachtungen seiner Malerei und zur Rekonstruktion seiner Biografie sowie seines künstlerischen Werdegangs herangezogen. Einzelne polemische Texte erlangten dabei breite Beachtung, wie etwa der programmatische Aufsatz Il ritorno al mestiere.4 Viele der von de Chirico verfassten und in verschiedenen italienischen Zeitschriften publizierten Rezensionen und Kunstkritiken der späten 1910er und 1920er Jahre blieben jedoch bisher ebenso im Wesentlichen unberücksichtigt wie seine Abhandlungen über bedeutende Künstler des 19. Jahrhunderts, wie Paul Gauguin, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Max Klinger, Arnold Böcklin und Gustave Courbet.5 Die Rolle Courbets für de Chiricos kunsttheoretische Ausführungen, resp. seine Abhandlungen über Courbet, fanden selten Eingang in die wissenschaftliche Auseinandersetzung von Seiten der de Chirico-Forschung. Mein Fokus liegt hier ausschließlich auf der Rezeption von Courbets Kunstschaffen in de Chiricos Kunsttheorie um 1920. Diese Rezeption findet auf verschiedenen Ebenen statt: De Chirico bezieht sich auf Courbets malerisches Werk, auf seine kunsttheoretischen Postulate ebenso wie auf den künstlerischen und wissenschaftlichen Diskurs über Courbet, das in der Kunstkritik entstandene Konzept eines Courbetschen Realismus sowie das öffentlichkeitswirksam inszenierte Bild des Künstlergenies.6 De Chirico hatte 1918, intensiver 1919, mit dem Verfassen von kunstkritischen und autobiografischen Beiträgen begonnen.7 Erste Bezugnahmen auf den || 4 De Chirico, Giorgio, „Il ritorno al mestiere“ [Die Rückkehr zum Handwerk], in: Valori Plastici, Nr. 11–12, 1919, dt. Übers. in: Schmied, Wir Metaphysiker, 51–56. 5 Im Rahmen eines DFG-Forschungsprojektes (Leiterin: Prof. Dr. Verena Krieger, FriedrichSchiller-Universität Jena) wurden in den vergangenen Jahren wesentliche Analysen zu de Chiricos Schriften im Kontext der Valori Plastici vorangetrieben. Ich bereite die Forschungsergebnisse zurzeit für eine Publikation auf. 6 Eine differenzierte ausführliche Auswertung der Texte im Hinblick auf diese Facetten wäre sicherlich lohnenswert. Ebenso steht eine vergleichende Untersuchung des malerischen Werks aus. Erste Ausführungen wurden von Seiten der Courbet-Forschung angestellt: Herding, Klaus, „Courbet in der Kunst der Moderne und der Gegenwart“, in: Klaus Herding/Max Hollein (Hrsg.), Courbet. Ein Traum von der Moderne, Ausst.-Kat. Frankfurt, Schirn Kunsthalle 2010/11, Ostfildern-Ruit 2010, 84–96. 7 Es gibt zwei grundlegende Schriftenausgaben, die jedoch bei ihrer anachronistischen Reihenfolge der Schriften jeweils einer eigenen Logik folgen und als Gesamtausgaben nicht uneingeschränkt genutzt werden können. Fagiolo dell’Arco, Maurizio (Hrsg.), Il meccanismo del

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Realismus und Gustave Courbet sind in seinen Texten Ende 1919/Anfang 1920 in den italienischen Zeitschriften Valori Plastici (1919: Impressionismo, Il ritorno al mestiere), Il Convegno (1920: Augusto Rénoir [sic] und Il primato artistico italiano (1920: Le scuole di pittura presso gli antichi, Considerazioni sulla pittura moderna (I)) enthalten. Wenige Jahre später erschienen die beiden monografischen Abhandlungen zu Gustave Courbet, von denen die erste (1924) auf Italienisch in der Literatur- und Kunstzeitschrift Rivista di Firenze und die zweite als selbstständige Schrift in der Reihe Les Artistes Nouveaux der Edizioni d‘Arte Valori Plastici zunächst in französischer Sprache (1925, 1926 Englisch) erschien.8 Erstaunlicherweise ist letztere in der durch die Fondazione Giorgio e Isa de Chirico veranlassten Schriftenedition (2008) ebenso wenig enthalten wie in der Auflistung seiner gesamten Schriften auf der Website der Fondazione.9

Begrifflichkeiten – naturalismo, realismo, verismo Die Diskussion um den Unterschied zwischen Naturalismus und Realismus wurde schon im 19. Jahrhundert geführt.10 Die Argumente und Charakterisierungen berühren dabei die bis heute breit gefächerte Auseinandersetzung mit Realismus und seinen Theorien. De Chirico verwendet zunächst, auch in Bezug auf die Malerei Courbets, den Terminus „naturalismo“ in seinen Schriften. Dies ist bemerkenswert, da doch die Verwendung des Begriffs Realismus, der in Anschluss an Courbets eigene Proklamation in seinem Manifest Le Réalisme in || pensiero. Critica, polemica, autobiografia 1911–1943, Turin 1985; Cortellessa, Andrea (Hrsg.), Giorgio De Chirico: Scritti/I – Romanzi e Scritti critici e teorici 1911–1945, Milano 2008. Es existieren zwei Anthologien mit dt. Übers.: Schmied, Wieland (Hrsg.), De Chirico – Wir Metaphysiker. Gesammelte Schriften, Berlin 1973; Wagner, Marianne (Hrsg), Giorgio de Chirico. Das Geheimnis der Arkade. Erinnerungen und Reflexionen, Freiburg 2011. Siehe auch Anm. 9. 8 Nachweise zu den Primärtexten in der anhängigen Bibliografie, zitiert wird nach dem Wiederabdruck oder der dt. Übers. wie dort angegeben. 9 Cortellessa, Scritti; Schriftenverzeichnis online: http://www.fondazionedechirico.org/ scritti/opera-omnia/1920-1930-2/?lang=it/[Stand: 8.10.2018]. Auch in Fagiolo dell’Arco, Il meccanismo, 252–255 ist der Originaltext unvollständig reproduziert. Die dt. Übers. ist ebenfalls unvollständig, siehe Schmied, Wir Metaphysiker, 123–124. Eine Dokumentation und Edition der Courbet-Texte de Chiricos für die open access-Publikation Studi OnLine des Archivio dell’Arte Metafisica ist in Vorbereitung. 10 Siehe dazu etwa Röhrl, Boris, Kunsttheorie des Naturalismus und Realismus: historische Entwicklung, Terminologie und Definitionen, Hildesheim, Zürich, New York 2003.

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den vergangenen Jahrzehnten seit dem Tode des Künstlers diskutiert wurde, längst Usus war, wenn auch verschiedene Definitionen existierten. Warum also Naturalismus? De Chirico verwendet diese Bezeichnung für das Schaffen Courbets erstmalig mit negativer Konnotation. In der Polemik Impressionismo, die 1919 in Valori Plastici erschien, problematisiert de Chirico den „Verlust der malerischen Qualität“ in der Kunst durch die Hinwendung zur Natur.11 Er legt in dem Text dar, dass dafür die impressionistische Malerei verantwortlich sei, da kein europäisches und außereuropäisches Land – außer Italien und Deutschland – genug zur Philosophie und Metaphysik neige, um tatsächliche impressionistische Kunst schaffen zu können; die „Tiefgründigkeit“ fehle. „Der französische Geist ist viel zu brutal der Realität verhaftet, um tatsächlich impressionistisch sein zu können.“ Auch sei der „Realismus des Franzosen nicht der des Italieners oder des Deutschen“; dieser sei „weniger metaphysisch, weniger lyrisch“.12 In Bezug auf Courbet bleibt de Chirico in dieser Schrift dann auch beim Terminus Naturalismus. Er bezieht sich in Impressionismo summarisch auf die jüngere, antiklassizistische Tradition der französischen Kunst des 19. Jahrhunderts, die in ihren verschiedenen Ausprägungen – ob Spätromantik, Naturalismus oder Impressionismus – die malerische Qualität geschädigt habe. Mit dem Schaffen von Gustave Courbet und Eugène Delacroix, beide „bedeutend, aber dekadent“, sei der „strenge Sinn und die Verehrung der Antike“ verloren gegangen.13 Als Folge der Emanzipation von akademischen Regeln bei Einsatz und Technik der malerischen Mittel, und auch von dem Vorbildhaften der Antike, beschreibt de Chirico einen Verfall der Qualität der künstlerischen Produktion: „die Kunst [wurde] oberflächlicher und schludrig. Man könnte sagen, daß die französischen Maler den Wunsch hatten, weniger zu arbeiten. Sie flohen aus den Ateliers, die das Studium förderten, in die freie Luft“.14 De Chirico, der in dieser Zeit begonnen hatte, Werke der Alten Meister in den römischen Museen zu kopieren, kritisiert die Pleinairmalerei ebenso wie jegliches „far presto“ in der Malerei. Er verbindet dies mit dem Vorwurf an die ihn umgebenden Kunstschaffenden, die Leinwände bemalen würden, „die mit || 11 De Chirico, Giorgio, „Impressionismo“ [Impressionismus], in: Valori Plastici, Nr. 6–10, 1919, S. 25–26, dt. Übers. in: Schmied, Wir Metaphysiker, 48–50. 12 De Chirico, „Impressionismo“, 48. Vorweggenommen sei an dieser Stelle, dass de Chirico die französische Malerei des 19. Jahrhunderts und insbesondere die Werke des Courbetschen Realismus in den folgenden Texten wiederum als Inbegriff des Lyrischen und Poetischen definiert. 13 De Chirico „Impressionismo“, 49. 14 De Chirico „Impressionismo“, 49.

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ihren Krusten und Klumpen aussehen wie Wände, die als Pissoir mißbraucht wurden“.15 Courbet war für seine Malweise – kraftvolle Pinselzüge, grober Farbauftrag, zu Teilen mit Spachtel und Palettmesser aufgetragene Farben –, die im Widerspruch zu der klassizistischen Feinmalerei stand, schon von den Zeitgenossen kritisiert worden; das „far presto“ war ein gängiges Thema der Kritik.16 De Chirico führt in diesem Text Courbets Schaffen als genealogische Ursache für den Verfall von Maltechnik und Qualität der künstlerischen Produktion an: „Die Schuld der Naturalisten, der Courbet und Manet [sic], und der Impressionisten fällt auf die Häupter aller gegenwärtigen Generationen“.17 Mit dieser Missbilligung verband de Chirico auch den Vorwurf der ökonomischen Effizienz, den er jeglicher antiakademischer Kunstproduktion in seinen Schriften zuschrieb.18 Der polemische Charakter des Artikels Impressionismo ist im Kontext der Idee zur Begründung einer eigenen Bewegung in Italien zu sehen. Diese sollte sich von der umgebenden Avantgarde distanzieren und die Vorreiterstellung der französischen Kunst ablösen.19 De Chirico konstatiert hier daher eine besondere nationale Veranlagung, die die Qualität der Kunst präge, und die er in diesem Text den Franzosen abspricht (s.o.). In den folgenden Schriften, die mit Blick auf Courbet für diesen Beitrag relevant sind, ist diese Schmähung der Franzosen, respektive der französischen Kunst, nicht mehr enthalten oder gar ins Gegenteil gekehrt. Dies liegt – wie im Folgenden auch anhand weiterer Beispiele zu erkennen sein wird – zu einem großen Teil auch in der editorischen Geschichte des jeweiligen Textes begründet. So intendierten doch die Redaktionen der Zeitschriften, in denen de Chiricos Schriften veröffentlicht wurden, als Organe der zeitgenössischen italienischen Kunst und deren Erneuerung mit dem Anspruch auf internationalen Anschluss aufzutreten, und redigierten die Texte || 15 De Chirico „Impressionismo“, 50. 16 Daher wurde Courbet in den zeitgenössischen Karikaturen auch mit einem Besen als Malwerkzeug dargestellt, siehe Grosskopf, Anna, Die Arbeit des Künstlers in der Karikatur. Eine Diskursgeschichte künstlerischer Techniken in der Moderne, Bielefeld 2016, 81. Zu der seit den 1850er Jahren geführten Diskussion über Courbets Messermalerei, dem Künstler ‚als Maurer‘ sowie einem Überblick zur Literatur zu Courbets Maltechnik siehe ebd., S. 98ff. 17 De Chirico, „Impressionismo“, 50. 18 So wirft er in Il ritorno al mestiere den kubistischen Künstlern vor, mit dem Kleben von Collagen großen Schwindel zu betreiben, der nur auf wirtschaftlichen Profit ziele. De Chirico, Giorgio, „Il ritorno al mestiere“ [Die Rückkehr zum Handwerk], in: Valori Plastici, Nr. 11–12, 1919, dt. Übers. in: Schmied, Wir Metaphysiker, 51–56, 52. 19 De Chirico schließt daher den Text mit: „Es sind nur wenige, die heute in der Sache klarsehen (in Italien sind wir bis zur Stunde vier), sich voll Ekel von der Scharlatanerie der modernen Malerei abwenden, und darauf bestehen, den großen Traum ihres Inneren zu realisieren.“ De Chirico, „Impressionismo“, 50.

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ihrer Autoren entsprechend. Mario Broglio, der Herausgeber der Valori Plastici, band französische Autoren in seine Publikationen mit ein und nutzte die französische Sprache als Mittel der Verbreitung der von ihm verlegten Schriften.20 Und auch für die Beteiligung an der 1920 von Enzo Ferrieri gegründeten Monatszeitschrift für Kunst und Literatur Il Convegno war die Prämisse eine Erneuerung der italienischen Tradition, ohne jedoch den Anspruch von Modernität und Internationalität einzubüßen.21 De Chirico arbeitet sich in seinem Text über Renoir, dem er nicht viel Geist, aber Bemühen und Liebe zur Malerei zuschreibt,22 erneut am Impressionismus ab; seine Zeitgenossen verschont er allerdings. Eine Charakterisierung der Kunst Frankreichs im 19. Jahrhundert – im „goldenen Zeitalter für die Malerei“ – sowie Ausführungen zu Courbet nehmen einen gewichtigen Teil des Aufsatzes ein. Hatte er in der Polemik Impressionismo den Italienern und Deutschen dieses Vermögen zugesprochen, behauptet er nun, dass das Kunstschaffen in Italien und Frankreich den Hang zum Metaphysischen habe: Der Naturalismus kann verschiedene Aspekte annehmen. Er richtet sich jeweils nach dem seelisch-geistigen Leben eines Volkes. Bei den Flamen ist er heiter und sinnlich. In Italien und Frankreich hat er dagegen einige Anzeichen des Hintergründigen, des Tragischen und des Metaphysischen“23

Dieser Text steht gewissermaßen an der Schwelle: Zuvor hatte de Chirico mit Naturalismus eine von ihm missbilligte Malweise bezeichnet, die durch ihre Hinwendung zur Natur wesentliche künstlerische Paradigmen missachtet habe. Danach verwendet de Chirico in seinen Ausführungen zu Courbet den Terminus Realismus und bezeichnet damit ein künstlerisches Konzept, das er in diesem Artikel zu Renoir bereits vom naturalistischen Malen abgrenzt, aber noch Naturalismus nennt.

|| 20 So wie auch die Edizioni d‘Arte Valori Plastici zu Courbet (1925) zunächst auf Französisch erschien. Eine umfassende Studie zu den Valori Plastici und de Chiricos Beteiligung befindet sich in Vorbereitung. Siehe Anm. 5. 21 Im Vorwort der ersten Ausgabe, in der auch de Chiricos Renoir-Text enthalten ist, heißt es: „riprendere la tradizione è legge così naturale che nessuno pensa di contraddirla [...]. si presenta come un mosaico di novità [...].“ Il Convegno, Nr. 1, Februar 1920. 22 De Chirico, „Renoir“, 94. 23 De Chirico, „Renoir“, 92. Selbst in der Malerei Renoirs findet er durch diese Tradition des Naturalismus in Frankreich etwas Gutes: Einige seiner Werke hätten „eine gewisse Metaphysik“, De Chirico „Renoir“, 95.

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Wir dürfen den Begriff Naturalismus jedoch nicht in seinem gebräuchlichen Sinn verstehen. [...] Er verletzt die Grenze und reflektiert sich in allen Erscheinungen, in der Landschaft, in der Geschichte, in der Episode aus dem Leben, in der reinen Phantasie.24

Ohne den Unterschied begrifflich zu verdeutlichen, beschreibt er hier die später auch durch ihn formulierte Definition dessen, was Realismus von der Wiedergabe der Welt unterscheidet. Er stellt es als die grundlegende Leistung des Künstlers heraus, den jeweiligen Zeitgeist wiederzugeben: „Watteau und Lancret interpretierten in bewundernswerter Weise den Geist ihres Jahrhunderts. Genauso gibt Courbet das Lebensgefühl seiner Umwelt wieder.“25 Diese „im französischen Wesen verwurzelt[e]“ Kunst erfasst nach de Chirico nicht nur den Geist der Gegenwart, sondern dieser impliziert auch ‚Geschehenes‘, resp. den Einfluss der Geschichte und Kultur einer Nation.26 Gustav Courbet hatte in seinem sog. Manifest des Realismus 1855 formuliert, das ‚Gesicht seiner Epoche‘ in seiner Kunst übertragen zu wollen.27 Hier und im Folgenden greift de Chirico in seinen Schriften – indirekt und direkt – prägnante Aspekte von den Ausführungen in Courbets Manifest auf, versieht sie jedoch mit eigenen Konnotationen.

Savoir pour pouvoir – die Meisterschaft Wenige Monate nach dem Artikel Impressionismo hatte de Chirico seiner in der nächsten Ausgabe derselben Zeitschrift erscheinenden Schrift Il ritorno al mestiere (1919) eine Widmung an Courbet vorangestellt: „Savoir pour pouvoir, Gustavo Courbet“.28 1928 setzt de Chirico das Zitat aus Courbets Ausstellungsbroschüre Le Réalisme ein zweites Mal ein und stellt er es seiner von Giovanni Schweiwiller verlegten Abhandlung Piccolo trattato di tecnica pittorica vorweg.29 In beiden Schriften greift er weder diesen Leitspruch noch einen unmittelbaren Verweis auf das Werk Courbets auf. In beiden ist das Thema des künstlerischen

|| 24 De Chirico „Renoir“, 91. 25 De Chirico „Renoir“, 92. 26 De Chirico „Renoir“, 91. De Chirico schildert an dieser Stelle etwa den Einfluss der Französischen Revolution auf die folgende Kunstbewegung in Frankreich. 27 Courbet, Gustave, Vorwort zur Broschüre der Ausstellung Le Réalisme [Manifest des Realismus], 1855 zit. n. dt. Übers. in: Klaus Herding (Hrsg.), Realismus als Widerspruch. Die Wirklichkeit in Courbets Malerei, Frankfurt 1978, 27. 28 De Chirico, „Il ritorno“, 51, im Original: 15. 29 De Chirico, Giorgio, Piccolo trattato di tecnica pittorica [Kleines Traktat über die Technik der Malerei], Mailand 1928, Wiederabdruck in: Cortellessa, Scritti, 3–43, hier 3.

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Handwerks, die Rückkehr zu einer akademischen sowie nationalen malerischen Tradition vorrangig. Gustave Courbet hatte sich mit dieser Formulierung auch auf sein Studium der Kunst des Altertums und der Moderne bezogen. Er wolle „ganz einfach aus der umfassenden Kenntnis der Tradition [...] schöpfen“, ohne dabei bloß nachahmend zu kopieren.30 Wissen, um zu können, das war mein Gedanke. Imstande zu sein, die Sitten, die Vorstellungen, das Gesicht meiner Epoche nach meinem Dafürhalten zu übertragen, nicht nur ein Maler, sondern auch ein Mensch zu sein – mit einem Wort, lebendige Kunst zu machen, das ist mein Ziel.31

Für beide Künstler ist die Bezugnahme auf die Tradition durch den Umgang mit der Kunst der Alten Meister wesentlich, beide erkannten in dem Verfahren des Kopierens ein Neuschöpfen aus der Tradition.32 Ihren Zugang postulierten sie jedoch unterschiedlich. Courbet wies das Wiederholen von Kunstwerken von fremder Hand als schöpferischen Akt aus, jegliche Form von Akademismus lehnte er ab: „Ich habe die Tradition durchquert wie ein guter Schwimmer einen Fluß – die Akademiker ertrinken darin.“33 In de Chiricos Schriften ab 1919 manifestiert sich das Kopieren in erster Linie als akademische Übung und Ausweis malerischer Fähigkeiten von besonderem Stellenwert, das er auch in seinem malerischen Werk vorführt. Während in Courbets oben zitierter Passage seine Prämisse hervortritt, das „Wissen“ über Tradition der Vergangenheit an die Gegenwart, die Kunst an das Leben zu binden, wird die Verwendung des Zitates als Leitspruch von de Chirico in seinen Texten von 1919 und 1928 primär in den Kontext des Wissens um eine künstlerische Tradition im Sinne von Maltechnik gestellt. Dies ist erstaunlich, hatte der Künstler gerade Courbets Malweise noch kurz zuvor die Schuld am Verfall des künstlerischen Handwerks zugeschrieben.34 Dies legt die Vermutung nahe, dass de Chirico sich erst nach seiner Polemik Impressionismo, die mit ihrem negativen Urteil aus der gesamten Rezeption

|| 30 Courbet, Le Réalisme, 27. 31 Courbet, Le Réalisme, 27. 32 Inwieweit de Chirico von Courbets umfassender Kopierpraxis von Werken alter und zeitgenössischer Meister Kenntnis hatte, lässt sich nicht belegen. Siehe zum schöpferischen Kopieren als Reenactment: Stöppel, Daniela, „Courbets Repliken. Erschaffung und Aufhebung des Originals in der Kopie“, in: Verena Krieger/Sophia Stang (Hrsg.), Wiederholungstäter. Die Selbstwiederholung als künstlerische Praxis in der Moderne, Köln, Weimar, Wien 2017, 29–47. 33 Courbet nach Théophile Silvestre, zit. n. Herding, Realismus als Widerspruch, 29. 34 Bereits in seinem Text zu Renoir hatte er Courbets Zeitalter als „große Zeit des Handwerks und der Malkunde“ beschrieben. De Chirico, „Renoir“, 92.

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hervorsticht, mit den Schriften von und über Courbet intensiver beschäftigt hatte und daraufhin Gemeinsamkeiten erkannte. Auch wenn er einzelne Werktitel Courbets exemplarisch aufgreift, bleiben alle seine Ausführungen zum Courbetschen Realimus vorrangig im kunsttheoretischen Diskurs. Auch die Aneignung des Zitates durch de Chirico und die Veranlassung, es diesen zwei Artikeln als Legitimation und Referenz voranzustellen, hängt nicht zuletzt mit dem tradierten Bild des Künstlers Gustave Courbet in der Öffentlichkeit zusammen. So hatte dieser selbst – wie Stefan Borchardt in seiner umfassenden Studie dargestellt hat – die Wahrnehmung seiner Kunst über „die Selbstdarstellung in der Öffentlichkeit zu befördern und zu lenken versucht“.35 In diesem Zusammenhang hatte er sich die Bezeichnung Maître peintre (Meistermaler) als „persönliches Label“ angeeignet.36 Die künstlerische Meisterschaft ist eine wichtige Kategorie in de Chiricos kunsttheoretischer Reflexion; das Künstlersubjekt steht im Vordergrund künstlerischen Schaffens. Die Rückkehr zu einer Meisterschaft, so führt de Chirico es in seinem in der Zeitschrift Il Primato Artistico Italiano im Sommer 1920 veröffentlichten ersten Text der dreiteiligen Serie Considerazioni sulla pittura moderna aus, sei erschwert. Er kritisiert den „piccolo verismo“ [kleinen Verismus] der Zeitgenossen in Italien, insbesondere in Rom, der nichts mit dem „realismo francese“ [französischen Realismus] Courbets zu tun habe.37 Das Interesse der italienischen Künstler am malerischen Realismus sieht er als gutes Zeichen. Allerdings seien die Voraussetzungen hierfür nicht gut: Unsere Sackpfeife ist für dergleichen Lieder nicht geschaffen, [...] der Stillstand hat lange gedauert und die Finger der Spieler sind verhärtet. Die verlorene Tradition hat auch die Meisterschaft zum Verschwinden gebracht.38

In dem 1924 in Rivista di Firenze erschienen monografischen Beitrag über Courbet greift er dieses Interesse seiner Zeitgenossen als heuchlerisch an. Hierbei bezieht de Chirico sich vorrangig auf die Rezeption durch die Künstlerschaft, die aufgrund ihrer Wertschätzung Courbets „die Schnüre ihres ohnehin dünnen

|| 35 Borchardt, Stefan, Heldendarsteller. Gustave Courbet, Edouard Manet und die Legende vom modernen Künstler, Berlin 2007, hier 131; zur „Imagerealisation“ in seinen Selbstporträts erschien die umfassende Untersuchung Marchal, Stephanie, Gustave Courbet in seinen Selbstdarstellungen (Dissertation Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg 2010) München 2012. 36 Borchardt, Heldendarsteller, 148. 37 De Chirico, Giorgio, „Considerazioni sulla pittura moderna (I)“, in: Il Primato Artistico Italiano, Nr. 5, 1920, 15–16, Wiederabdruck Fagiolo dell’Arco, Il meccanismo, 132–136, hier 134. 38 De Chirico, „Considerazioni (I)“, 134, dt. Übers. der Verf.

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Geldbeutels“ gelockerten hätten, um den „kostbaren Band“ von Julius MeierGraefe zu erwerben.39 Er stellt den vermeintlichen Grund ihres Interesses heraus: „[S]ie hofften, statt etwas zu lernen, sich eine Rechtfertigung für ihre eigenen Schlampereien herauszulesen.“ Sie, so führt er an späterer Stelle im selben Text aus, bedienten sich dieser Malart, um ihre „schöpferische Impotenz zu kaschieren“.40 Diese Künstler, die nach de Chirico „schauen, ohne zu sehen“,41 geben fälschlicherweise vor, „naturalistische Maler zu sein, sich allein vom Wahren inspirieren zu lassen!“. Sie bildeten sich ein, mit dem Schaffen Courbets verwandt zu sein und stellten sich in seine Tradition, um „die Banalität und Nichtigkeit ihrer eigenen Malerei zu retten“.42 Sie hätten seine Kunst für ihre eigene Legitimation vereinnahmt und dadurch Courbets Werk kompromittiert. Die Meisterschaft (Courbets) ist an die besondere Befähigung des Künstlers gebunden.43 Aufgrund der besonderen Befähigung des Künstlers konnten seine Kunstwerke trotz Anwendung einer von de Chirico missbilligten Malweise für diesen als Ausweis außerordentlichen Handwerks gelten. Dies scheint bereits im ersten auf Courbet Bezug nehmenden Artikel Impressionismo durch und wird dann insbesondere in den beiden monografischen Abhandlungen von 1924 und 1925 vertieft: „Je mehr der Maler Dichter ist, um so mehr spürt er die Magie der Maltechnik.“44 Diese Befähigung verbindet de Chirico mit der Idee einer nationalen Disposition, die die Qualität der Kunst präge.45 Julius Meier-Graefe hatte das Zitat „Savoir pour pouvoir“ aus dem Vorwort des Kataloges von 1855 in seiner erstmals 1905 erschienenen Publikation ebenfalls aufgegriffen, jedoch um die nächstliegende Bedeutung des Ausdrucks umzukehren: Der Bauer Courbet sei absolut unwissend gewesen, „[a]ber er

|| 39 De Chirico, Giorgio, „Courbet“, in: Rivista di Firenze, Nr. 7, November 1924, 1–7, dt. Übers. in: Wagner, Das Geheimnis der Arkade, 241–252, hier 247. 40 De Chirico, „Courbet“, 250. 41 Vgl. diese Differenzierung des ‚Sehens‘ etwa auch bei Bürger-Thoré, William, Französische Kunst im Neunzehnten Jahrhundert, Bd. 3, Leipzig 1911, 54: „Gut sehen – und ich meine, die Natur, die man betrachtet, bis auf den Grund durchdringen – und ehrlich und geschickt wiedergeben was man sieht, das macht das Genie des Künstlers aus.“ 42 De Chirico, „Courbet“, 248 und 249. 43 Auch bei William Bürger-Thoré liegt die Meisterschaft in der Individualität des Künstlers, die Qualität der Kunst ist an das Künstlersubjekt gebunden. Zur Auffassung in der Kunstkritik des 19. Jahrhunderts siehe Absatz „Meister seiner selbst“ in: Borchardt, Heldendarsteller, 63– 69. 44 De Chirico, Giorgio, Gustave Courbet. Avec 33 reproductions en phototypie. Éditions de Valori Plastici, Rom 1925, dt. unvollst. Übers. in: Schmied, Wir Metaphysiker, 123–124, hier 123. 45 Siehe Anm. 23.

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hatte mit den Augen, mit den Händen, nicht mit dem Gehirn gelernt“.46 Folgt man Meier-Graefe, so tritt an die Stelle des Wissens bei Courbet der ‚animalische Instinkt‘. Nichtsdestotrotz steht das Künstlersubjekt im Mittelpunkt, seine Malerei sei der „höchst natürliche Ausdruck einer ungeistigen, aber wirksamen Überlegenheit [...] dieser grobe Bauer stand jenseits, in einer neuen Welt, von der die anderen kaum die Anfänge ahnten.“47 Bereits von den Zeitgenossen war Courbet als vulgär, in der Literatur als roher Künstlerbauer beschrieben worden. De Chirico verwehrt sich dieses Vorwurfs: Auch Bilder wie Die Steinklopfer, die ihm zu Unrecht den Ruf eines vulgären Malers einbrachten, enthalten Risse, durch die die Phantasie des Betrachters in die Welt der Poesie vordringen kann. [...] Courbet hat ein tiefes Empfinden für den poetischen Aspekt seiner Zeit. Er war nicht besonders gebildet, doch von intelligentem, poetischen Wesen; so gelang es ihm, die einfachsten Szenen mit einem elegischen Hauch zu beseelen.48

De Chirico charakterisiert den Künstler als lyrischen Geist und knüpft an das – im Widerspruch zu avantgardistischen Maximen stehende – Geniekonzept der Romantik an, das dann auch für sein Bild Gustave Courbets maßgeblich wird. Dieses kulminiert in der in den beiden monografischen Abhandlungen (1924 und 1925) maßgeblichen Beschreibung von Courbet als „Realist und Romantiker zugleich“.49 Die Technik der Malerei findet in diesen beiden Texten nur noch am Rande Erwähnung, der Fokus liegt auf dem Künstlersubjekt. Die Vorstellung des aus sich schöpfenden Genies der Romantik ist modifiziert und an den künstlerischen Ausdruck (Realismus) gebunden: nicht aus dem Inneren des Künstlers heraus, sondern aus der Wirklichkeit wird die Kunst hervorgebracht. Der Künstler „beseelt“ aufgrund seiner geistigen Fähigkeit zu „tiefe[m] Empfinden“, respektive Poesie und Fantasie. Da das Handwerkliche in de Chiricos Kunsttheorie und in seiner Aneignung des Courbetschen Realismus einen besonderen Stellenwert hat, greift er die Arbeit mit Augen und Händen ebenfalls in seiner Charakterisierung auf. Nicht als Bauer, aber als in der zeitgenössischen Kunstkritik in der Regel nicht weniger negativ konnotierten ‚Arbeiterkünstler‘ beschreibt er Courbet in der Monografie der Éditions: „Er war ein Arbeiter und ein Poet. Der poetische Atem war eine notwendige Ergänzung seiner Malerei. Seine erste

|| 46 Meier-Graefe, Julius, Courbet, München 31924, 11. 47 Meier-Graefe, Courbet, 10. 48 De Chirico, „Courbet“, 250f. 49 De Chirico, „Courbet“, 250. Ein Vergleich mit de Chiricos Abhandlungen über Arnold Böcklin und Max Klinger (beide 1920 in Il Convegno publiziert) wäre nicht nur an dieser Stelle interessant.

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Gefühlsregung war die eines Arbeiters.“50 Die Betonung dieser Eigenschaft war in der Kunstkritik meist zugleich mit dem „Fehlen intellektueller und emotionaler Qualitäten“ verbunden und wurde daher ausgespart.51 Courbets Schaffensprozess hatte Max Buchon 1856 etwa als biologischen Akt beschrieben: „[E]r bringt Werke genauso einfach hervor, wie ein Apfelbaum die Äpfel.“52 De Chirico betont in seinen Schriften immer wieder das unermüdliche Arbeiten und seinen Fleiß, und macht es zur Bedingung des Kunstschaffens, für das er akademische Maximen forderte. In die Ausführungen über Courbet flicht er nun Teile aus seiner eigenen Biografie und Geschichte mit ein; er stellt Analogien zur Zeit seines Vaters her: Manchmal denken wir an Courbet und an sein Werk, wie wir an die Jugend unseres Vaters denken. [...] Ähnlich den Ingenieuren des 19. Jahrhunderts Europas, bärtig und kraftvoll. Den Industriellen, den Siedlern, dieser ganzen Generation von unermüdlichen Erbauern [...].53

Dass Bilder Erinnerungen an etwas vermeintlich Bekanntes oder gar Vertrautes beim Betrachter auslösen, formulierte de Chirico auch über die „Traumrealität“ in den symbolistischen Werke von Max Klinger und Arnold Böcklin.54 Die Fantasie beschreibt er als zentrale Kraft, auch im Umgang mit der Wirklichkeit im Schaffen Courbets.

Wir Metaphysiker haben die Wirklichkeit geheiligt De Chirico konstatiert, dass Courbet den Geist seines Jahrhunderts in seinen Werken wiedergegeben habe. Es ist bemerkenswert, dass er aber in keiner seiner Schriften – ob diese lediglich mit einem Einschub zu Courbets Schaffens versehen sind oder sich diesem dezidiert widmen – den politischen, sozialkriti|| 50 De Chirico, Gustave Courbet. 51 Zit. Grosskopf, Die Arbeit des Künstlers, 101; siehe auch ebd., 11f. 52 Zit. n. Borchardt, Heldendarsteller, 43. Diese Allegorie aus der Natur bezieht sich zudem auf den autonomen Künstler, der frei von gesellschaftlichen Regeln schafft; Courbet selbst hatte sein künstlerisches Arbeiten hervorgehoben. Dazu ebd., 98f. 53 De Chirico, Gustave Courbet. Evaristo de Chirico war als Eisenbahningenieur in Thessalien und auf dem Balkan tätig. 54 De Chirico, Giorgio, „Max Klinger“, in: Il Convegno, Nr. 10, November 1920, 32–34, dt. Übers. in: Schmied, Wir Metaphysiker, 78–86, 81.

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schen Impetus von Courbets Kunst und die Aktivitäten des Künstlers thematisiert. Er kritisiert vielmehr an der Begeisterung seiner Zeitgenossen, dass sie Courbet nun wegen seiner alltäglichen Themen schätzten und damit nicht das Wesen der Courbetschen Malerei träfen.55 Er greift in den Éditions 1925 die Diskussion um die Rolle der in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts aufgekommenen Fotografie auf und antwortet auf die am Courbetschen Realismus geübte Kritik der fehlenden künstlerischen Kreativität:56 Es gäbe einen Unterschied zwischen der veristischen, „alltäglichen“ und „langweiligen“ Darstellung der Erscheinungsformen, wie sie in der modernen Fotografie entstehe, und der poetischen und phantastischen Darstellung des Realismus.57 De Chirico differenziert hier zwischen „modernkünstlerischer“ und „alter“ Fotografie. Während erstere dem Ästhetizismus und der Perfektion der Mittel verpflichtet und veristisch sei, könne man „[m]it Hilfe einer alten Photographie [...] dagegen ein Porträt malen“. Interessant ist, dass er auch diese Fotografien nicht als eigenständige Werke, sondern über ihre Nützlichkeit für die Malerei definiert.58 De Chirico verweist in allen seinen Schriften lediglich sekundär auf die Motive und Themen in Courbets Bildern. Er ordnet ihnen in seinen Beschreibungen eine erzählerische und allegorische Funktion zu. Unter der Maxime „Nulla sine narratione ars“ stellt er in seiner kleinen Monografie dar, wie sich das Erzählerische – als notwenige Eigenschaft der Kunst – in der Malerei Courbets vom (verpönten) Anekdotenhaften und der Historienmalerei unterscheide: Das Kunstwerk muß mehr als einen begrenzten Inhalt ‚erzählen‘. Ding und Gestalt müssen eine poetische Aussage erreichen, die weit über ihre materiellen Erscheinungen und

|| 55 De Chirico, „Courbet“, 249; Giorgio de Chirico zeigt in seinen Statements durchaus einen Wesenszug künstlerischer Avantgarden, indem er voll Abscheu auf den aktuellen Zustand der Künste seiner Zeit blickt. Keine Rolle spielt bei ihm jedoch die gesellschaftsverändernde Rolle, die der Kunst zugeschrieben wurde. 56 Schuon, Cornelia, Wahrnehmung und Darstellung von Wirklichkeit in der Krise. Exemplarische Analysen zu Realismuskonzepten von Éduard Manet und Edgar Degas, Berlin 2016, zur Debatte um die Fotografie insb. 64–77. 57 De Chirico, Gustave Courbet, 123. 58 Ebd. Als Beispiel für die gelungene Verwendung einer alten Fotografie führt er Manets Die Erschießung des Kaiser Maximilians (1868/69) an. 1910 hatte Max Liebermann diese Praxis von Manet, über die er von Théodore Duret unterrichtet worden war, thematisiert und die betreffenden Fotografien in Kunst und Künstler (Nr. 8, 1910, 483–488) veröffentlicht.

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Eigenschaften hinausgeht. Courbet hat einen Hund gemalt, der ein poetisches und romantisches Gleichnis der Jagd ist.59

Die Beschreibung von Courbet als Erzähler und der Motive seiner Genrebilder als „Teile eines Romans“60 hatte er in seinen früheren Artikel in der Rivista di Firenze nicht eingebunden. Ein anderer Schwerpunkt – der sicherlich der engen Verbindung zu Giorgio Castelfranco, Förderer de Chiricos und einer der beiden Herausgeber der Zeitschrift, zu verdanken ist – ist dort allerdings die Beschreibung der besonderen künstlerischen Fähigkeit Courbets: „Je stärker sich seine poetischen und phantastischen Fähigkeiten entwickeln, desto tiefer wird sein Verständnis der Wirklichkeit.“ Und weiter: „Sein romantisches Wesen ist nichts anderes als das Überraschende, das an den Lebewesen und der Natur sichtbar wird“.61 Woran de Chirico diese Fähigkeiten eigentlich im Bild festmacht und wie auch die Betrachter der Kunstwerke Courbets dieses „Verständnis“ wahrnehmen können, bringt er hier erstmals zum Ausdruck: Die Darstellung von Natur oder alltäglichen Motiven obläge der Auswahl des Künstlers, der „glückliche Kombinationen“ erzeuge. Maßgeblich sei dabei die „Überraschung“ durch den Künstler.62 In dieser Beschreibung der Bildkomposition liegt eine zentrale Gemeinsamkeit,63 die de Chirico in seinen programmatischen Schriften für das Schaffen Courbets und sein eigenes, für Realismus und Pittura Metafisica konzipiert. Der Künstler vermag in seiner Bezugnahme auf die Wirklichkeit den Betrachtern einen Aspekt der umgebenden Welt vor Augen zu führen, der sich bislang seiner gewohnten Wahrnehmung entzog. In seinem Artikel Noi Metafisici hatte de Chirico das Programm seiner metaphysischen Ästhetik veröffentlicht und die „Ausschaltung des logischen Sinns“ propagiert mit dem Ziel „die dargestellten Dinge über die menschliche Natur hinauszuführen. [...] Wir Metaphysiker haben die Wirklichkeit geheiligt“.64 Das kreative Potential des Künstlers (benannt als lyrischer Geist, Fantasie, poetisches Empfinden ....) ermöglicht diesem nach de Chirico einen selektiven Zugriff auf die Realität und eine „Umwandlung“ des Gesehenen mit dem Ziel zu einer besonderen Poesie vorzudringen. Prämisse ist dabei der Bezug zu den wirklichen Dingen (nicht auf etwas

|| 59 De Chirico, Gustave Courbet, 123. 60 De Chirico, Gustave Courbet, 123. 61 De Chirico, „Courbet“, 250 und 251. 62 De Chirico, „Courbet“, 251. 63 Dieser Aspekt wird auch aufgegriffen von Herding, Ein Traum der Moderne, 89f. 64 De Chirico, Giorgio, „Noi Metafisici“ [Wir Metaphysiker], in: Cronache d‘attualità, II, Nr. 2, 15. Februar 1919, o.S., dt. Übers. in: Wagner, Das Geheimnis der Arkade, 107–118, hier 113 und 114.

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jenseits davon), denn der neue metaphysische Maler „empfängt keine Eindrücke mehr, sondern entdeckt“.65 De Chirico erkennt als Vitenschreiber Gustav Courbets eigene ästhetische Konzepte wieder und eignet sich diese frei an. Sein Zugriff auf die Parameter von Courbets Schaffen ist dabei selektiv; ob frei gewählt oder durch äußere Umstände bedingt. Eine zentrale Rolle spielen hierbei auch aktuelle Debatten im kunsttheoretischen Diskurs, von denen ich in meinem Beitrag nur einige berücksichtigen konnte. De Chirico knüpft an etablierte Kategorien und das Vokabular der Kunstkritik und Kunstwissenschaft an, Bewertungskriterien werden wiederholt, aber auch entkräftet und umgekehrt. In seiner Argumentation arbeitet er mit Widersprüchlichem, sowohl in Bezug auf das tradierte Konzept des Realismus und Bild Courbets als auch innerhalb der argumentativen Struktur seiner Schriften. Wirklichkeit und Fantasie, Realismus, Klassizismus und Romantik etc. sind als Dualismen miteinander verwoben. Die Bezugnahme auf die Kunst des 19. Jahrhunderts wird in de Chiricos Ausführung zur Folie, vor der sich diese wesentlichen Parameter abheben, die die Eckpfeiler seiner antiavantgardistischen Positionierung im Kontext des ‚ritorno al ordine‘ bilden. De Chirico definiert auf diese Weise sein Verhältnis zur Gegenwart, seine Stellung im Modernitätsdiskurs über diese Stellungnahme zu ‚seinem‘ Realismus. Die Beschreibung des Malerpoeten und Meisters Gustav Courbet wird, geleitet von den Maximen der eigenen Kunsttheorie, hierbei in der öffentlichkeitswirksamen Inszenierung de Chiricos weniger zur Legitimation als zur Spiegelung des Selbst.

|| 65 De Chirico, „Noi Metafisici“, 110. Mit Blick auf das malerische Werk und weitere Ausführungen de Chiricos bleibt als ein Unterschied exemplarisch hervorzuheben, dass die künstlich herbeigeführte Kombination von Gegenständen in de Chiricos Bildern, seine metaphysische Ästhetik und Bildsprache (Räume, Materie, Leere, Geometrie etc.) an eine ganz besondere Art von ‚Dinglichkeit‘ gebunden ist. De Chirico, „Noi Metafisici“, 111f.

Irena Kossowska

A Quest for a “New Man”: Bruno Schulz and Giorgio de Chirico The mannequin, the marionette, and the doll – these motifs gained momentum in European culture of the 1920s and 1930s.1 The denotation of these figures embraced diverse – sometimes even antithetical – concepts. Their functions and roles were interpreted as an exemplification of civilizational progress on the one hand and as an expression of the decline of the modern world on the other. Their artificial existence was associated with the category of a “new man” whose birth was proclaimed by numerous avant-garde factions harboring utopian ambitions to establish a universal sociopolitical order.2 The counter paradigm of the man enslaved by the escalating process of industrialization and commercialization was recognized by the supporters of the restitution of the political and ethical order destroyed by the Great War and the advocates of the revival of national values.3 The catastrophic diagnosis of the dehumanization of

|| 1 Bredekamp, Horst/Müller-Tamm, Pia (eds.), Puppen, Körper, Automaten, Phantasmen der Moderne, exhibition catalogue, Düsseldorf: Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, 1999; Hal Foster, Prosthetic Gods. Cambridge, Mass. 2004; “Il manichino: dal “Golem” al “Trovatore”. Parigi, Ferrara, Roma, 1914–1925”, in: Paolo Baldacci/Gerd Roos, De Chirico, exhibition catalogue, Padova: Palazzo Zabarella, 2007, 18–23. 2 Turowski, Andrzej, Budowniczowie świata. Z dziejów radykalnego modernizmu w sztuce polskiej, Kraków 2000, 283–304; Clair, Jean, “La masse et la puissance. L’âge des dictatures”, in: Jean Clair (ed.), Les années 1930. La fabrique de „l’Homme nouveau”, exhibition catalogue, Ottawa : Musées des Beaux-arts du Canada, 2008, 17–26 ; Silver, Kenneth, “A More Durable Self”, in: Kenneth Silver (ed.) Chaos & Classicism: Art in France, Italy, and Germany, 1918–1936, exhibition catalogue, New York: Solomon Guggenheim Museum, 2011, 29–31; Fore, Devin, Realism after Modernism. The Rehumanization of Art and Literature. Cambridge, Mass., London 2012, 242–304. 3 The slogan rappel à l’ordre was coined in 1919 by Jean Cocteau, Roger Bissière and André Lhote (Rubin, William, “Reflections on Picasso and Portraiture”, in: William Rubin [ed.] Picasso and Portraiture: Representation and Transformation, exhibition catalogue, New York: Museum of Modern Art 1996, 103). See also: Willett, John, The Weimar Years: A Culture Cut Short, London 1984; Lucie-Smith, Edward, Art of the 1930s. The Age of Anxiety, London 1985; Golan, Romy, Modernity and Nostalgia. Art and Politics in France between the Wars, London/New Haven 1995; Affron, Matthew/Antliff, Mark (eds.), Fascist Visions: Art and Ideology in France and Italy, Princeton 1997; Stone, Marla, The Patron State: Culture and Politics in Fascist Italy, Princeton 1998; Storr, Robert et al. (eds.), Modern Art Despite Modernism, exhibition catalogue, New York: Museum of Modern Art 2000; Wieland Schmied (ed.), Der kühle Blick. Realismus der zwanziger Jahre, exhibition catalogue, München: Kunsthalle der Hypokulturstiftung, 2001; https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-013

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contemporary society found support in the theses advanced by philosophers: Oswald Spengler, Miguel de Unamuno, José Ortega y Gasset, and Johan Huizinga.

Artificial beings The year 1925 saw the publication of Oskar Schlemmer’s Die Bühne im Bauhaus in which he presented the mannequin and the robot as models of a contemporary actor. Concurrently, testifying to the oppression of the political system and the values of the bourgeois society of the Weimar Republic, the objectified man became an attractive motif for the protagonists of Neue Sachlichkeit: Heinrich Maria Davringhausen, Anton Räderscheidt and Heinrich Hoerle.4 The group of exponents of magic realism who used the expressive potential of the mannequin also included: Georg Schrimpf, Rudolf Schlichter and Wilhelm Schmid.5 The concept of the “new man” spread quickly in Europe, both in the major artistic and intellectual centers and in the remote locations, such as Galician L’viv and Drohobych. The paradigm of human puppet captured the imagination of Bruno Schulz, a Polish writer, literary critic, painter, draftsman, and printmaker of Jewish descent, active in the provincial city of Drohobycz, who in 1934 published Traktat o manekinach (A Treatise on Mannequins).6 The figure of marionette overwhelmed also the artistic vision of Schulz’s friend, Debora Vogel, a philosopher and poet of Jewish origin, who authored the literary montage Akacjes blien (Acacias are in Bloom).7

|| Antliff, Mark, Avant-garde Fascism: The Mobilization of Myth, Art and Culture in France 1909– 1939, Durham 2007. 4 Michalski, Sergiusz, New Objectivity. Painting, Graphic Art and Photography in Weimar Germany 1919–1933, Köln 1994, 33, 81–84, 113–120. 5 Gerster, Ulrich, “‘Auf ähnlichem Wege wie Carrà’. Zur Genese und Entwicklung der Neuen Sachlichkeit”, in: Paolo Baldacci/Christiane Lange/Gerd Roos (eds.), Giorgio de Chirico. Magie der Moderne, exhibition catalogue, Stuttgart: Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, 2016, 214. 6 Schulz, Bruno, “Traktat o manekinach albo Wtóra Księga Rodzaju”, in: Bruno Schulz, Sklepy cynamonowe (Cinnamon Shops), Warszawa 1934; reprinted in: Bruno Schulz, Opowiadania. Wybór esejów i listów, Jerzy Jarzębski (ed.), Wrocław 1989. 7 Vogel, Debora, Akacjes blien, Lemberg – Warsze 1935; Polish edition: Akacje kwitną. Warszawa 1936.

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There is no individual hero in this book but an anonymous crowd of dolls, mannequins exhibited at the hairdresser’s, passers-by in stiff bowler hats, manicurists and waiters who are lost and entangled in the city mechanism of “walking the streets”, faceless and deindividualized figures. This aspect of a human being reduced to the rank of a pawn, a mechanical figure, a knob wearing a bowler hat, is what the author shares with the constructivist vision of the world imposed by the modern visual arts.8

Debora, on her part, noticed the affinity between Schulz’s poetics and the work of George Grosz.9 However, most literary specialists emphasize that the similarities of depiction between Schulz and the exponents of New Objectivity are only superficial and would have been overlooked had not the Germans been obsessed with the motive of prostitutes and their clients carrying the stigma of moral turpitude.10 Bearing this in mind, let us think awhile why Debora made the above-mentioned observation. It seems that Vogel analyzed Schulz’s work through the prism of her own artistic preferences.11 Marionettes populated her imagery as much as they conquered the artistic vision of George Grosz who borrowed the motif of dummy from the metaphysical paintings of Giorgio de Chirico and Carlo Carrà.12 In 1919– 1921 he painted mannequins with featureless faces, manifesting their prosthetic limbs.13 Through the slits of their artificial surfaces one can discern the mechanisms that make them operate. They walk along streets of geometrized, apparently uninhabited buildings. Instead of naming those soulless creatures, inscribed into a space constructed with a ruler and calipers, Grosz numbered them, deepening the mood of anonymity and alienation in the labyrinth of a modern metropolis. In his paintings clumsy robots – a philistine, a clerk, a soldier, a policeman, a worker and a prostitute – which serve as vehicles for a pa-

|| 8 Schulz, Bruno, “Akacje kwitną”, Nasza Opinia, 72 (1936); quote after: Debora Vogel, Akacje kwitną. Montaże, Piotr Paziński (ed.), Kraków 2006, 189–190. Polish-language texts have been translated into English by Irena Kossowska. 9 Nieznany “szwedzki” artykuł Debory Vogel o Brunonie Schulzu”, in: Katalog-Pamiętnik Wystawy „Bruno Schulz. Ad Memoriam” (Bruno Schulz 1892–1942, Wojciech Chmurzyński (ed.), exhibition calogue, Warszawa: Muzeum Literatury im. A. Mickiewicza, 1995, 165. 10 Sikorski, Dariusz Konrad, Symboliczny świat Brunona Schulza, Słupsk 2004, 42. 11 Szymaniak, Karolina, Być agentem wiecznej idei. Przemiany poglądów estetycznych Debory Vogel, Kraków 2006; Vogel, Debora, Die Geometrie des Verzichts. Gedichte, Montagen, Essays, Briefe, Anna Maja Misiak (ed.), Wuppertal 2016. 12 Schmied, Wieland, De Chirico und sein Schatten. Metaphysische und surrealistische Tendenzen in der Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts, München 1989, 32f./92f. 13 März, Roland “Republikanische Automaten. George Grosz und die Pittura Metafisica”, in: George Grosz, Berlin – New York, Peter-Klaus Schuster (ed.), exhibition catalogue, Berlin: Neue Nationalgalerie, 1994, 150.

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rodic vision of the German society, seek their lost shadows. A woman’s corset appears as a fetish of the bourgeois double morality, a love idol, a symbol of compulsive suppressions and psychological traumas. (Fig. 23) In the discourse of my article, connotations will follow the vectors of Grosz’s inspirations, focusing attention on Giorgio de Chirico. I would argue that in De Chirico’s paintings and reflections on art there is a deep analogy with the ideas and artistic solutions of Bruno Schulz. 14

The Magic Realism of Bruno Schulz Looking for artistic prototypes to be paraphrased, De Chirico combined in his writings and paintings a number of references to the art of bygone epochs, transposing a broad range of patterns from the quattrocento to Northern Renaissance to Mannerism.15 For De Chirico and Carrà as theoreticians of the new classicism, tradition and originality were not antithetic values.16 By “quoting” the conventions of representation of the old masters a poetics of paraphrase, pastiche and persiflage was created by the twentieth century classicists. In 1919 André Salmon published his theory of imitation as an unavoidable element of modern art in Valori Plastici. “To paint is to imitate an imitation” – he wrote provocatively.17 Schulz programmatically merged into the cultural syncretism and eclecticism which aspired to the rank of innovation in the 1920s and 1930s. His artistic

|| 14 Since a documentary proof of Schulz’s knowledge of Chirico’s art is lacking, I employ an intertextual method of analysis while juxtaposing the creative goals of both artists, with Grosz serving as an intermediary link. It is notable though that both Vogel and Schulz highly regarded the surrealist group “artes” constituted in L’viv (1929–1936), whose members drew on French Surrealism. At the same time Chirico’s Pittura Metafisica was considered by André Breton an anticipation of the surrealist doctrine (Breton, André, “Oeuvres récentes de Chirico à la Galerie de l’Effort Moderne”, L’art vivant, 77 (1928): 189; dell’Arco, Maurizio Fagiolo, “Classicismo pittorico: Valori Plastici, Magic Realism and Novecento”, in: On Classic Ground. Picasso, Léger, de Chirico and the New Classicism 1910–1930, Elizabeth Cowling, Jennifer Mundy (eds.), exhibition catalogue, London: Tate Gallery, 1990, 360). 15 Chirico, Giorgio de, “Classicismo pittorico”, La Ronda, 7 (1920); reprint in Chirico, Il meccanismo del pensiero, Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco (ed.), Torino 1985, 225–229. 16 Chirico, Giorgio de, “Il ritorno al mestiere”, Valori Plastici, 11–12 (1919); reprinted in: Chirico, Giorgio de, Il meccanismo del pensiero, 93–99; Carlo Carrà. Pittura metafisica. Firenze: Vallecchi, 1919. 17 Salmon, Andrée, “Peindre”, Valori Plastici, February–March (1919), 6.

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stance is perfectly summarized in a quotation from the Second Autumn: “Ah, day of autumn, that old crafty librarian, groping his way up ladders in a faded dressing gown and trying spoonfuls of sweet preserves from all the centuries and cultures!”18 The figure of the librarian is a self-ironic image of the author who penetrated the cultural heritage of mankind, looking for a mythical anchorage, a matrix of “brood of Bibles and Iliads multiplied a thousand times”. The “autumn day” appears to be a poetic parable of Schulz’s imagination whose eclectic aspect many critics have noted, emphasizing at the same time the idiosyncrasy of his work: the limitless richness of his inventiveness based on everyday experiences rooted in historical and social realities.19 Being aware of the syncretistic feature of his work, Schulz created a metaphorical image of that treasury of prototypes and delved into it all the time in order to paraphrase and interrelate the chosen models according to his taste, forming new semantic entireties and hitherto unknown combinations of revelatory significance. He found fodder for his art in the artificial paradises of museums. “That museum art – he wrote, rotting in boredom and oblivion and shut in without an outlet, ferments like old preserves, oversugars our climate, and is the cause of this beautiful malarial fever, this extraordinary delirium, to which our prolonged autumn is so agonizingly prone.” 20 That “second autumn” becomes a surprisingly offhand parable of the modern culture which is suffused with tradition. By referring to the old masters in the titles and compositional devices of his prints and drawings Schulz brought out the fictional aspect of his work.21 In a version of the title page of The Booke of Idolatry (a portfolio of 28 cliché-verres executed in the course of 1920–1922) he introduced the motive of a Pierrot who holds a mirror at the feet of an idolized woman.22

|| 18 Schulz, Bruno, "Druga jesień”, Kamena, 3 (1934): 54–57; reprinted in: Schulz, Opowiadania, 230. 19 Ficowski, Jerzy, Regiony wielkiej herezji. Szkice o życiu i twórczości Brunona Schulza, Kraków 1967, 168; Markowski, Michał Paweł, Polska literatura nowoczesna. Leśmian, Schulz, Witkacy, Kraków 2007, 226–228. 20 Schulz, "Druga jesień", 226–227. 21 Kossowska, Irena/Kossowski, Łukasz, “Właśnie: humor Schulza…”, in: Małgorzata Kitowska-Łysiak (ed.), Mityzacja rzeczywistości. Bruno Schulz 1892–1942, exhibition catalogue, Lublin: Muzeum Lubelskie w Lublinie, 2002, 23–35. 22 Kossowska, Irena, “Dessins et gravures de Bruno Schulz: filiations et parentés”, in: Bruno Schulz. La république des rêves, exhibition catalogue, Paris : Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme, 2004, 53–56 ; Kossowska, Irena, "Relaciones y afinidades artisticas", in Bruno Schulz. El pais tenebroso, exhibition catalogue, Madrid : Circulo de bellas artes, 2007, 43–46.

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Fig. 18: Bruno Schulz, Title page of The Booke of Idolatry portfolio, c. 1922, ink on canvas stuck on cardboard, private collection (current whereabouts unknown), reproduced after Bruno Schulz 1892–1942: The Catalogue-Diary of the Exhibition ‘Bruno Schulz. Ad Memoriam’, Wojciech Chmurzyński (ed.), exhibition catalogue, Warszawa: Muzeum Literatury im. Adama Mickiewicza, 1995.

In Schulz’s poetics the figure of the Pierrot served as an emblem of artistic conventionality. In The Bacchanalia, a drawing and a print made in 1920, the introverted Pierrot, withdrawn from the parade of naked figures, who follow two modernized maenads in a somnambulistic erotic trance, brings in a kind of parenthetical note of artistic fiction. In the Rites of Spring his slim figure “flat right up to the transparency”23 is vertically separated by a streetlamp from the “frieze” of bacchantes in modern attire, who follow a maenad carried by a pariah. The Rites of Spring just like the Bacchanalia can be interpreted as a paraphrase of a crowd possessed by an orgiastic frenzy. In the works of European

|| 23 Vogel, Debora, Bruno Schulz 1892–1942, 165.

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symbolists “infected” with the philosophy of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche that motive expressed the unbridled destructive power of instincts. 24

Fig. 19: Bruno Schulz, Rites of Spring, from The Booke of Idolatry, c. 1922, cliché-verre, 12,1 x 16,7 cm, Muzeum Literatury im. Adama Mickiewicza, Warszawa.

Furthermore, the picture on the title page of The Booke which represents a woman provocatively posed on a bed can be decoded as a pastiche of Titian’s Venus of Urbino and its later incarnations, such as Venus with a Mirror by Velázquez, The Nude Maja by Goya and Manet’s Olympia. Schulz replaced the servants and Eros who usually accompany the goddess by the Pierrot as an impersonation of himself, and ultimately transformed the motive into a visual equivalent of an ironic detachment from the act of idolatry. The woman looks provocatively at the viewer with no apparent interest either in her own reflection or in her admirer. The Pierrot is just as insensitive to the ostentatiously manifested beauty of the supposed object of adoration. Melancholic in his expression and withdrawn, he has his eyes fixed on some distant reality. Hence,

|| 24 Kossowski, Łukasz, “Totenmesse“, in: Totenmesse. Munch-Weiss-Przybyszewski, Kossowski (ed.), exhibition catalogue, Warszawa: Muzeum Literatury im. Adama Mickeiwicza, 1995, 65– 87.

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he is inclined to reflect rather than to worship. Is he thinking about the essence of mimesis? This question comes to mind, since the motive of a mirror image refers to the very nature of the visual arts. Schulz’s drawing seems to imply yet another question: what does the mirror reflect – a middle class woman posing in her alcove or the perfect embodiment of timeless femininity? In his prose Schulz identified the woman, her physical beauty, sensuality and vitality with matter “which does not know what it is and why it is”.25 Let us then define the evoked dilemma more precisely: does art imitate matter or does it reflect an idea embodied by a primordial myth? This question is essential for the entire body of Schulz’s work and implies a philosophical antinomy: Schopenhauer’s rebuttal of Plato’s idea of art as “copy of a copy”, an emulation of illusory phenomena which are just “shadows” of real ideas. It was Schopenhauer who became Plato’s opposite in the wide spectrum of meanings attributed to the concept of mimesis. For him the visual arts had epistemological power because they enabled grasping of the essence of the world through the act of aesthetic contemplation. Yet, the surface of the mirror in Schulz’s drawing is empty. Does the author lead us thus into the space of aporia, undecidedness in front of an unsolvable mystery? Tirelessly trying to track down the primordial myth dispersed among the many layers of culture, Schulz combined heterogeneous elements derived from mutually antagonistic sources into a homogeneous artistic vision. Building his private mythology out “of pieces of sculptures and statues of gods”, he used various parts of the cultural heritage, borrowing them from ancient mythologies as well as from more recent narratives. The latter, however, Schulz treated as a “transformed, mutilated, metamorphosed” version of the original Word, a crippled and fragmentary embodiment of the primeval sense.26 That synthesis was facilitated by his irony akin to the ideas of the early romantics; an irony of a higher order, “transcendental tomfoolery” which rises above the antinomy of matter and spirit, suspends every opposition so as to arrive at the very essence of things.27 It will become apparent in Schulz’s artistic manifesto – A Treatise on Mannequins or, the Second Book of Genesis, where the artist developed his idea of creativity: although any such activity must be crippled and derivative in comparison with that of the Demiurge, it nevertheless springs from the inner

|| 25 Schulz, “Traktat o manekinach. Ciąg dalszy“, in: Opowiadania, 38. 26 Schulz, Bruno, “Mityzacja rzeczywistości”, Studio, 3–4 (1936); reprinted in: Bruno Schulz. Opowiadania, 366. 27 Duque, Félix, “Constructions of the Spirit”, in: Metaphysica, Ester Coen (ed.), Milano 2003, 172.

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imperative and a real impulse which lies dormant in a human being. Manmade things because of their imperfect and fragmentary character can only parody God’s creation and thus delineate the space of art which is identical with the “regions of the great heresy”. 28 We are simply entranced and enchanted by the cheapness, shabbiness, and inferiority of material. [...] This is [...] the proof of our love for matter as such, for its fluffiness or porosity, for its unique mystical consistency. Demiurge, that great master and artist, made matter invisible, made it disappear under the surface of life. We, on the contrary, love its creaking, its resistance, its clumsiness. [...] In one word [...] we wish to create man a second time – in the shape and semblance of a tailors’ dummy.29

Fig. 20: Bruno Schulz, Pilgrims II, from The Booke of Idolatry, 1920–1922, cliché-verre, 16,7 x 23 cm, Muzeum Literatury im. Adama Mickiewicza, Warszawa.

Thus the woman idol is in fact “a lady of oakum and canvas”, a short-lived artifact just like a Pierrot “stuffed with sawdust”, who only pretends to be a human

|| 28 Schulz, Bruno, Manekiny, in: Schulz, Opowiadania, 32. 29 Schulz, “Traktat o manekinach albo wtóra Księga Rodzaju”, 35–36.

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being. Mimesis therefore is an imitation of demiurgic creation, an ongoing attempt to reconstruct the ontological essence of the world and to grasp its metaphysical core. This attempt must fail though, since it is made in a reality which is “thin as paper and betrays with all its cracks its imitative character. [...] on either side the improvised masquerade is already disintegrating and, unable to endure, crumbles behind us into plaster and sawdust, into the lumber room of an enormous empty theater”.30

Fig. 21: Bruno Schulz, Procession, from The Booke of Idolatry, 1920–1922, cliché-verre, 17,7 x 23,2 cm, Muzeum Literatury im. Adama Mickiewicza, Warszawa.

The sadomasochistic ritual of idolaters – the key motive in The Booke of Idolatry – returned in a series of drawings which Schulz executed in the 1930s. Thus the archetype of a feminine ideal known from the paintings of the old masters was revived in many variants, paraphrased and semantically ambivalent. “The tenseness of an artificial pose, the assumed earnestness of mask, an ironical

|| 30 Schulz, Bruno, Ulica krokodyli, in: Schulz, Opowiadania, 76.

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pathos”31 – these words may refer to the women from Schulz’s drawings who have been endowed with the features of real townswomen from Drohobych. The theatrical representation is combined here with dreamlike images concealed in the unconscious. The idolatrous cult is just a fiction, a play of appearances. In A Treatise on Mannequins Schulz defined the ontological status of the depicted figures as follows: Their roles will be short, concise; their characters without a background. Sometimes, for one gesture, for one word alone, we shall make the effort to bring them to life. [...] If they be human beings, we shall give them, for example, only one profile, one hand, one leg, the one limb needed for their role. [...] Their backs can be made of canvas or simply whitewashed. We shall have this proud slogan as our aim: a different actor for every gesture”.32

Fig. 22: Bruno Schulz, Naked Woman with a Man Kissing her Feet, c. 1933, pencil on paper, 16,3 x 20 cm, Muzeum Literatury im. Adama Mickiewicza, Warszawa.

|| 31 Schulz, Bruno, Ulica krokodyli. 76. 32 Schulz, “Traktat o manekinach albo wtóra Księga Rodzaju“, 35.

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A Quest for Archetypes: Giorgio de Chirico and Bruno Schulz The paradigm of the mannequin allows us to connect on an intertextual level Bruno Schulz with Giorgio de Chirico, although each of them used the puppet in his own way. Schulz animated a tailor’s dummy, changing it into a marionette with a human skin. In De Chirico’s Pittura Metafisica an ancient statute or rather its modern copy was gradually turned into a mannequin. Nevertheless, both Schulz and De Chirico gave this new reified version of a human being a similar status of a mock-entity and a similar function of an actor performing in an illusory theater of the world. De Chirico just like Schulz had his favorite old masters whose paintings he paraphrased and adapted to his own goals. One such reservoir of useful tropes was the work of Arnold Böcklin from whom De Chirico learnt how to approach the ancient tradition without solemnity. In his metaphysical paintings he placed statues of ancient gods in deserted squares of such provincial towns as Torino, Firenze and Ferrara, lit with afternoon sun so they could cast disproportionately long shadows, thus evoking a disquieting atmosphere. He saw them as empty forms devoid of any mythical significance, surrogate objects of worship, lacking real equivalent. He felt that contemporaneous civilization had lost the sense of the archetype.33 (Fig. 24) For De Chirico, a hermaphroditic marionette with an egg-like featureless head with visible seams, constructed out of geometrized components, was a simulacrum of a human being freed of all emotions, fears and frustrations. The artist borrowed the principle of reification of a human being from Nietzsche’s philosophical writings which he passionately studied in 1912 while in Torino. He grasped in the Nietzsche’s discourse a hallucinatory aura of a metaphysical mystery hidden in ordinary objects.34 “To completely suppress man as point of reference, as means of expressing a symbol, a sensation or a thought: to shake off once and for all what has always shackled sculpture: anthropomorphism. To see everything, even man, as a thing” – he argued.35 Hence in De Chirico’s metaphysical paintings the puppets made by the artist-constructor assume human poses and gestures so as to play their roles in an artistic narrative on the mystery of being. That mystery can only be suddenly glimpsed in the cracks of a reality

|| 33 Belting, Hans “Square Hermetic Visions”, in: Metaphysica, Coen (ed.), 24–25. 34 Belting, “Square Hermetic Visions”, 22. 35 Duque, “Constructions of the Spirit”, 177.

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consisting of objects. Schulz defined such moments of revelation as an anamnesis - “re-recognition”.36 Although De Chirico did not use the convention of the grotesque which Schulz employed, both artists showed reality as artificial. What they had mostly in common was the longing for the unattainable,37 for the grasping of the “essentiality”38 of the universe, for a perfect unity embodied in a prehistoric myth which had lost its homogeneity as centuries came and went. That myth had also lost its semantic congruity, disintegrating into thousands of derivative, fragmentary or crippled images and narratives. Schulz identified his work with a quest for “this umbilical pre-images, this depths, when we were most approaching the being”.39 However, he found that one could not return to absolute wholeness: “all things reverted, as it were, to the roots of their existence, rebuilt their outward appearance anew from their metaphysical core, returned to the primary idea, in order to betray it at some point and to turn into the doubtful, risky, and equivocal regions which we shall call for short the Regions of the Great Heresy”.40 “No gist can ever be reached” – he concluded, 41 while De Chirico wrote: “We never arrive at the core of anything”.42 For Schulz, just like for De Chirico, memory became a constitutive element of artistic creation. Reflection on the past, selective treatment of the cultural heritage and the construction of one’s own artistic tradition from arbitrarily chosen elements of bygone epochs were signs of a quest for cultural identity which was a more general and important category for many artists of the post WWI era than a national, ethnic or religious self-identification. The “new man” though – as perceived by De Chirico and Schulz – appeared to be an actor performing in an illusory theater of the world threatened by the escalating process of technological progress.

|| 36 Schulz, Bruno, “Letter to Stefan Szuman of October 22, 1933“, in: Bruno Schulz (ed.), Księga listów, Jerzy Ficowski (ed.), Gdańsk 2002, 38. 37 Chirico, Giorgio de “Sull’arte metafisica”, Valori Plastici, 4–5 (1919); reprinted in Giorgio de Chirico, Il meccanismo del pensiero, 83–88. 38 Schulz, “Jesień”, Sygnały 17 (1936): 4. 39 Schulz, “Letter to Stefan Szuman of July 24, 1932”, in: Bruno Schulz. Księga listów, 35. 40 Schulz, Manekiny, 32. 41 Schulz, “Druga jesień”, 229. 42 Chirico, “The Sense of Foreboding”, in: Coen (ed.), Metaphysica, 55.

208 | Irena Kossowska

Fig. 23: George Grosz, Republikanische Automaten, 1920, watercolor on paper, 60 x 47,3 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York, © Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA / Bridgeman Images / PhotoPower.

Fig. 24: Giorgio de Chirico, Hector and Andromache, 1924, oil on canvas, 91,5 x 72 cm, private collection, Photo © Christie’s Images / Bridgeman Images / PhotoPower.

Stephan Brössel

Zeichen der Doppelbödigkeit Filmisches Erzählen als Funktion des Magischen Realismus bei Friedo Lampe

Einführung: Friedo Lampe, Magischer Realismus und filmisches Erzählen Der Autor Friedo Lampe (1899–1945) wird in Zusammenhang gebracht sowohl mit der deutschsprachigen Ausprägung des Magischen Realismus als auch mit einem Erzählen, das quasifilmische Präsentationsstrategien in literarische Texte integriert. Im Folgenden soll beides zusammengeführt werden.1 Die These dabei lautet: Lampes Texte erzeugen eine semiotische Doppelstruktur auf Basis filmischen Erzählens – damit verbundene narrative Verfahren und Textlogiken formieren zentrale Strategien, die nahelegen, warum bei Lampes Texten von magisch-realistischen Texten die Rede sein kann. In einem ersten Schritt wird das Konzept der Doppelbödigkeit im Kontext des Magischen Realismus aufgerollt; in einem zweiten Schritt das Filmische als literarisches Verfahren bei Lampe klassifiziert, in einem dritten Schritt schließlich ein Analysezugang zu Lampes Roman Am Rande der Nacht aufgezeigt.

Magischer Realismus und das Konzept der Doppelbödigkeit: Die semiotische Doppelcodierung Blickt man auf den gewählten Gegenstandsbereich, so sieht man sich mit einer Schieflage konfrontiert. Einerseits floriert die Forschung zum Magischen Realismus seit Beginn der 1990er-Jahre in erfreulichem Maße – etwa mit der Folge, dass auch das Werk eines lange als vergessen geltenden Autors wie Lampe heu-

|| 1 Ich danke ganz herzlich Georg Löwen für seine wertvollen Hinweise zum Magischen Realismus im Allgemeinen und zu Friedo Lampe im Besonderen! https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-014

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te zumindest in Teilen als gesichert gelten darf.2 Andererseits erhärtet sich bereits bei einem raschen Blick über die einzelnen Ansätze der Eindruck, dass zwar ‚Realismus‘ im Terminus ‚Magischer Realismus‘ relativ klar gefasst werden kann,3 das Attribut ‚magisch‘ hingegen recht nebulös bleibt. Beispielsweise bestimmt Michael Scheffel – der einen der durchschlagkräftigsten Vorschläge vorgelegt hat – die mit dem Begriff bezeichnete Sachlage wie folgt: Beide im Zusammenhang mit der Rede von einem ‚magischen Realismus‘ schon mehrfach angesprochenen Bedeutungen von ‚magisch‘, nämlich ‚rätselhaft‘ – konnotiert durch besondere Präzision in der Darstellung – und ‚auf geheime Weise Gegensätze zusammenbindend‘, sind […] impliziert – dient die intendierte, präzise Sachlichkeit in der Beobachtung von ‚Welt‘ doch als erklärtes Mittel, um in ihrer Darstellung die ‚Synthese‘ eines ‚höheren‘, auch das unsichtbare ‚Geheimnis‘ der sichtbaren alltäglichen Welt umfassenden ‚Ganzen‘ zu ermöglichen.4

Damit zielt Scheffel auf eine irgendwie geartete ‚Doppelbödigkeit‘ der dargestellten Wirklichkeit ab: Es gehe stets um „eine Erweiterung von dem, was als ‚Realität‘ zu verstehen ist“,5 getragen von einer spezifischen „ästhetischen Darstellungsform[]“6 – und entspricht damit auch verschiedenen Positionen der Literaturprogrammatik, und dies sogar über die Blütezeit des Magischen Realismus hinaus. Denn schon Ernst Jünger hatte von einer wechselseitigen Implikation von Wirklichem und Zauberhaftem gesprochen.7 Von anderer Warte aus forderte Hans Werner Richter als Aufgabe der Literatur, „in der unmittelbaren

|| 2 Die Tatsache, dass inzwischen allenthalben die Vergessenheit des Autors konstatiert wird, deutet zugleich darauf hin, dass er vonseiten der Forschung – zumindest von derjenigen, die sich mit dem Magischen Realismus auseinandersetzt – erfreulicherweise nicht vergessen worden ist bzw. dass dem Vergessen entgegengewirkt wird. Vgl. aktuelle Stellungnahmen von Scheffel, Michael, „‚Für die Zukunft geschrieben‘. Formen der Moderne bei Friedo Lampe und Wolfgang Koeppen“, in: Moritz Baßler/Hubert Roland/Jörg Schuster (Hrsg.), Poetologien deutschsprachiger Literatur. Kontinuitäten jenseits des Politischen, Berlin, Boston 2016, 119–139 u. Schuster, Jörg, Die vergessene Moderne. Deutsche Literatur 1930–1960, Stuttgart 2016. 3 Scheffel definiert ‚Realismus‘ im Hinblick auf eine Literatur, „die in der als weitgehend objektiv verstandenen Darstellung der empirischen und alltäglichen Wirklichkeit ihr eigentliches Anliegen sieht“ (Scheffel, Michael, Magischer Realismus. Die Geschichte eines Begriffes und ein Versuch seiner Bestimmung, Tübingen 1990, 63). 4 Scheffel, Magischer Realismus, 82. 5 Scheffel, Magischer Realismus, 55; Hervorhebung von mir, S. B. 6 Scheffel, Magischer Realismus, 57. 7 Jünger, Ernst, „Sizilischer Brief an den Mann im Mond (1930)“, in: Blätter und Steine. Kleinere Schriften, Leipzig 1942, 107–121, 121.

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realistischen Aussage dennoch hinter der Wirklichkeit das Unwirkliche, hinter der Realität das Irrationale […] sichtbar werden zu lassen“.8 Und George Saiko setzte gar die Annahme einer Wirklichkeit mit doppeltem Boden in seinen ‚Gedanken‘ zum Magischen Realismus titelgebend ein.9 Das also, was als Magischer Realismus gefasst wird, ist „hintergründig und rätselhaft“.10 In die entworfene Wirklichkeit wird eine „zusätzliche Bedeutungsebene“11 eingezogen ‒ eine „Doppelbödigkeit“,12 ein „magischer Hintersinn“13 ‒ mit dem Effekt einer „Aura des Unheimlichen, Bedrohlichen und Spannungsgeladenen“.14 Kurz: Magischer Realismus – das ist die „magische Überschreitung des realistischen Wahrnehmungsrahmens“.15 Doch wie ist mit dieser Beobachtung umzugehen? Wie ließe sich die erfasste Sachlage in analytisch handhabbare Instrumentarien und heuristisch sinnvolle Taxonomien übersetzen? Ein mit dem vorliegenden Vorhaben kompatibler Ansatz findet sich in Thorsten Leines unlängst publizierter Dissertation: In Anlehnung an Albrecht Koschorke wird dort von einer „semiotischen Doppelkonditionierung“16 gesprochen, einer „Überlagerung mehrerer […] Zeichenregimes, die unterschiedlich codiert sind“.17 Mit diesem Ausgangspunkt sind spezifische [e]pistemische Situationen [gemeint], die durch Mehrdeutigkeit in einem präzisen Sinn gekennzeichnet sind. Sie resultieren aus der Überlagerung mehrerer – im einfachsten und wohl auch Regelfall zweier – Zeichenregimes, die unterschiedlich, ja gegensätzlich codiert sind und wechselseitig unassimilierbar bleiben. Während jedes der Zeichenregimes eigenen, benennbaren Verknüpfungsregeln gehorcht, lässt sich auf ihr Zusammenkommen und den dabei entstehenden Raum keines der beteiligten Regelwerke anwenden: Es

|| 8 Richter, Hans Werner, „Literatur im Interregnum“, in: Der Ruf, 1, 1946/1947, Nr. 15, 10f., 11; Hervorhebungen von mir, S. B. 9 Vgl. Saiko, George, „Die Wirklichkeit hat doppelten Boden. Gedanken zum ‚magischen Realismus‘ in der Literatur“, in: Wiener Briefe, 1, 1959, 1–4; Hervorhebung von mir, S. B. 10 Scheffel, Magischer Realismus, 56. 11 Kirchner, Doris, Doppelbödige Wirklichkeit. Magischer Realismus und nicht-faschistische Literatur, Tübingen 1993, 23. 12 Vgl. Kirchner, Doppelbödige Wirklichkeit, 113. 13 Schäfer, Burkhardt, Unberühmter Ort. Die Ruderalfläche im Magischen Realismus und der Trümmer-Literatur, Frankfurt 2001, 50. 14 Schäfer, Unberühmter Ort, 147. 15 Baßler, Moritz, Deutsche Erzählprosa 1850–1950. Eine Geschichte literarischer Verfahren, Berlin 2015, 357. 16 Leine, Torsten W., Magischer Realismus als Verfahren der späten Moderne. Paradoxien einer Poetik der Mitte, Berlin, Boston 2017, 41. 17 Koschorke, Albrecht, Wahrheit und Erfindung. Grundzüge einer Allgemeinen Erzähltheorie, Frankfurt 42017, 368.

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gibt keinen Metacode, der einen unstrittigen, von allen Seiten im gleichen Maß anerkannten, ja überhaupt explizit zu machenden Übersetzungsschlüssel zwischen den aufeinandertreffenden Ordnungsprinzipien liefert.18

Eine derartige Überlagerung von Zeichenregimes erzeuge einen „(virtuellen) Grenzbereich, der in keinem der beiden Codes restlos“19 aufgehe. Und ebendieses „gegenstrebige Zusammenspiel“20 liege, so wird konstatiert, im poetologischen Interesse derjenigen Texte, die auf der Kippe stehen zwischen Realismus und Moderne oder changieren zwischen einem expressionistischen und einem impressionistischen Impetus: Sie weisen eine paradoxe Struktur auf, bestehend aus ‚Magie und Realismus‘, aus ‚Fragmentierung und Harmonisierung‘.21 Anschließend an diese Argumentationen möchte ich von den folgenden Punkten ausgehen: Erstens besteht offenkundig Konsens in der Annahme, dass magisch-realistische Texte sowohl in der Ontologie der von ihnen dargestellten Welt als auch in der Darstellung selbst das Konzept einer ‚Doppelbödigkeit‘ umsetzen. Übersetzt in semiotische Begrifflichkeiten hieße das zweitens, dass die Semantik derartiger Texte wie auch ihre Oberflächenstrukturen doppelcodiert sind. Gesprochen werden kann daher auch von einer Überlagerung von Codes – wenn auch diese im Notbehelf durch den Ausdruck ‚Regimes‘ benannt werden müssen: Nicht zuletzt im Fall des filmischen Erzählens in der Literatur sollte ja angenommen werden, dass nicht kinematografische, filmspezifische Codes selbst, sondern eine literarische (also fremdmediale) Isomorphie vorliegt. Wenn also filmisches Erzählen im Rahmen des Magischen Realismus funktionalisiert ist, dann zwecks Doppelcodierung literarischer Texte im oben aufgefächerten Sinne: Wir haben es mit literarischen Texten zu tun, die filmisches Erzählen darstellen. In diesem spezifischen Fall besteht die Krux darin, dass man es bei diesem ‚filmischen‘ Erzählen genau genommen mit literarisch-quasifilmischem Erzählen zu tun hat. Und ebendies ließe sich mit dem von Koschorke und Leine benannten Problem des ‚virtuellen Metacodes‘ beschreiben. Drittens schließlich scheint mir eine solche semiotische Übersetzung – mithin eine methodologisch transparente Konkretisierung – sinnvoll, um die größtenteils literaturgeschichtlich orientierte Forschung künftig durch text- und korpusanalytische Beiträge bereichern zu können. Dies kann der vorliegende Beitrag nur ansatzweise leisten, indem er sich einem Autor und der Umsetzung des Magischen Realismus in dessen Werk zuwendet. Der Zusammenhang zwischen dieser Form des Realis|| 18 Koschorke, Wahrheit, 368. 19 Leine, Magischer Realismus, 41. 20 Koschorke, Wahrheit, 371f. 21 Vgl. Leine, Magischer Realismus, 286.

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mus und filmischem Erzählen reicht darüber aber wohl hinaus und bedarf einer weiterreichenden Untersuchung.22

Das ‚Filmische im Literarischen‘ bei Friedo Lampe: Zu einer Poetologie filmischen Erzählens Während also die Forschung zu der literarischen Strömung, der Lampe zugeordnet wird, prosperiert und aus ihr wegweisende Schlüsse vor allem auch für eine semiotisch fundierte Analyse gezogen werden können, verhält es sich mit dem anderen Bereich diffiziler. Um es deutlich auszusprechen: Die Auseinandersetzung mit dem Filmischen bei Lampe muss noch immer als Desiderat angesehen werden. Zwar sind seine Texte von verschiedener Seite aus mit Blick auf filmische Erzählverfahren beschrieben worden, eine fundierte Interpretation steht allerdings noch immer aus.23 Im Hinblick auf die beiden Romane Am Rande der Nacht (1933) und Septembergewitter (1937) konstatiert Kurt Kusenberg: „Beide Erzählungen wenden eine Technik an, die man beim Film cutting nennt. Gleich der Kamera faßt der Bericht eine Szene, verfolgt sie ein Weilchen, wechselt hinüber zu anderen Schauplätzen, anderen Figuren, und kehrt dann wieder zurück, um die Handlung dort weiterzuführen, wo sie abgebrochen wurde“.24 Im Nachwort wiederum zu Am Rande der Nacht im Gesamtwerk wird eine „Lampesche[] Erzählkamera“ erwähnt, „die mit weichen Überblendungen, harten Schnitten […] und Schwenks“25 arbeite. Eine andere Auseinandersetzung behandelt die Gestaltungsaspekte der Visualität und Simultaneität: Herausgestellt wird eine Verschmelzung von impressionistischem und filmischem Erzählen,26 gearbeitet mit Begriffen wie „Übergangstechniken“,27 „filmischen Schnittfolgen“28 und „filmar-

|| 22 Vgl. Baßler, Erzählprosa, 353f. 23 So nehme ich an dieser Stelle auch die Gelegenheit wahr, einige Gedanken meiner Dissertationsschrift aufzugreifen und fortzuführen (vgl. Brössel, Stephan, Filmisches Erzählen. Typologie und Geschichte, Berlin, Boston 2014). 24 Kusenberg, Kurt, „Epitaph für Friedo Lampe“, in: Merkur, 26, 1950, 420–426, 423. 25 Dierking, Jürgen, „Die Augen voll Traum und Schlaf. Zum Werk des melancholischen Idyllikers Friedo Lampe“, in: Friedo Lampe, Das Gesamtwerk, Reinbek 1986, 353–368, 358. 26 Vgl. Lange, Carsten, „Magischer Realismus, Impressionismus und filmisches Erzählen in Friedo Lampes Am Rande der Nacht“, in: Sabine Kyora/Stefan Neuhaus (Hrsg.), Realistisches Schreiben in der Weimarer Republik, Würzburg 2006, 287–301, 297. 27 Lange, „Magischer Realismus“, 294.

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tigen Nahaufnahmen“29.30 Das in intermedialitätstheoretischer Hinsicht nicht unproblematische Postulat von filmischen Darstellungsformen in literarischen Texten ist indes nicht aus der Luft gegriffen – es bedarf jedoch einer theoretisch-methodologischen Rückversicherung und kontextuellen Absicherung.31 Schon Lampe selbst legt einen Bezug zum Film nahe, wenn er an seinen Freund Johannes Pfeiffer 1932 über Am Rande der Nacht schreibt, es solle ein „kleines Buch werden. Eine ziemlich wunderliche Sache. Wenige Stunden, so abends zwischen 8 und 12 in einer Hafengegend […]. Lauter kleine, filmartig vorübergleitende, ineinander verwobene Szenen“.32 Daneben arbeitet er gar in seiner kurzen Erzählung Laterna Magica (1944) eine implizite Poetik der filmischen Literatur aus: Der junge Dichter Albert tritt gegenüber anderen Mitgliedern seines Filmteams für ein neues Filmkonzept ein, das frei von „diese[n] niedlichen, gradlinigen, dünnen Handlungen“33 ist. Vielmehr solle der Film eine „neue Form“ haben: „Was ist das Wesen des Films? […] Raum und Zeit überwinden! Uns aus diesem entsetzlichen Kasten von Raum und Zeit befreien“.34 Von jenen verhöhnt, gerät Albert in eine rauschhafte Filmvorstellung im Kino ‚Laterna Magica‘. Als er am nächsten Tag zum Ort des Geschehens zurückkehren möchte, stellt sich heraus, dass sich der Abend nur in seiner Einbildung abgespielt hat. Indem der Text die Filmthematik explizit aufruft, präsentiert er zugleich ein bestimmtes Filmkonzept und koppelt dieses an die Modellierung von Realität,

|| 28 Lange, „Magischer Realismus“, 298. 29 Lange, „Magischer Realismus“, 299. 30 Dabei setze sich diese Art filmischen Erzählens in der Literatur von vorherigen literarischen Ansätzen ab: „Das Filmische seiner Prosa hat mit dem Kinostil, wie ihn Autoren der Neuen Sachlichkeit – etwa Döblin oder Irmgard Keun – propagierten, wenig zu tun. Das eher Vor- als Großstädtische des Handlungsraumes, die Entschleunigung des Erzählens und die symbolische Überhöhung der Objektwelt statt ihrer neutralen Abbildung zeigen, dass Lampes filmischer Stil nicht der naturalistisch-dokumentarischen, sondern der phantastisch-stilisierenden Tradition des Mediums Film verhaftet ist.“ (Lange, „Magischer Realismus“, 299f.) 31 Vgl. Tschilschke, Christian von, „‚Ceci n’est pas un film‘ – Die filmische Schreibweise im französischen Roman der Gegenwart“, in: Jochen Roloff/Volker Mecke (Hrsg.), Kino(Rom)Mania. Intermedialität zwischen Film und Literatur, Tübingen 1999, 203–221; insb. 207ff. u. Rajewsky, Irina O., Intermedialität. Tübingen, Basel 2002, 32–40 u. 57f. 32 Brief vom 14. Februar 1932; abgedruckt in: Lampe, Friedo, „Briefe“, in: Neue Deutsche Hefte, 3, 1956/57, 108–122, 108. 33 Lampe, Friedo, „Laterna Magica“, in: Friedo Lampe, Das Gesamtwerk, Reinbek 1986, 293– 306, 294. 34 Lampe, „Laterna Magica“, 294.

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und zwar erstens durch eine literarische Diskursivierung des Filmischen und zweitens durch die bedeutungstragende Differenz zwischen Text und Figur. Denn zum einen ist für Lampes kurze Erzählung bezeichnend, dass der Film ‒ und hiermit ist eine ganz bestimmte Filmvorstellung innerhalb der Diegese gemeint ‒ literarisch auf die Textoberfläche übersetzt wird: Die nichtdiegetische Erzählinstanz agiert wie eine filmische Erzählinstanz ‒ nur eben unter Rückgriff auf das ihr zur Verfügung stehende Zeichensystem der natürlichen Sprache. Feierliche Trompetenmusik: Cäsar zog im Triumph in Rom ein, hoch auf dem Siegeswagen, in langem Zuge hinter ihm die gefangenen Gallier – tragische Klänge, eine klagende Syrer-Flöte: Cleopatra winkt der Sklavin, die ihr einen Korb reicht, eine Schlange windet sich heraus, sie hält sie an die Brust und stirbt an ihrem Biß – ein gläsernes Menuett: die Hofgesellschaft spielt im Park von Versailles Blindekuh, Marmorfaune grinsen aus den Taxushecken, Ludwig XIV. sitzt auf der Terrasse und trinkt Schokolade […].35

Der Text präsentiert den Film in Form einer Reihe abgeschlossener, durch Halbgeviertstriche voneinander getrennter semantischer Einheiten, die jeweils durch musikalische Kurzformeln eingeleitet werden und die Paradigmen ‚historische Ereignisse‘, ‚Alltagskultur‘ und ‚Fiktion/Mythologie‘ abbilden. Im Hinblick auf die Präsentation des Filmereignisses insgesamt wird deutlich, dass der diskursivierte Film tatsächlich die Überwindung von Raum und Zeit und damit auch von Realität thematisiert ‒ er konfiguriert die Botschaft, dadurch zu einem übergeordneten Realitätsverständnis zu gelangen: „Räume weichen, Schranken schwinden,/ Welten wollen sich verbinden!“36 Der Film (mit dem bezeichnenden Titel ‚Die Vermählung der Welten‘) ermöglicht den Zugang dazu. Und das nicht nur in der Theorie, sondern ganz buchstäblich für den Helden Albert, der an dem Abend sein Glück findet, die große Liebe sowie die Aussicht auf eine Kooperation mit dem verehrten Regisseur Dr. Kinowa. Bedeutsam – und für die implizite Poetik, wie sie hier vorliegt, eminent – ist aber zum anderen natürlich die Schlusswendung und die Notwendigkeit einer Rückkehr des Helden in die triste Ausgangssituation. Der Text gestaltet dadurch eine kontradiktorische Doppelläufigkeit: Einerseits codiert er das Filmische im Literarischen. Er plädiert nicht nur für den Film, sondern führt dies gar eigens diskursiv vor: Das, was er mit Blick auf den Film einfordert, erfüllt er gewissermaßen selbst. Andererseits aber relativiert er es wiederum, indem er es metadiegetisch in der von Alkohol getrübten Figurenwahrnehmung verankert und ihm einen festen weltontologischen Status vorenthält.

|| 35 Lampe, „Laterna Magica“, 300. 36 Lampe, „Laterna Magica“, 302.

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Laterna Magica wägt also ein literarisch-narratives Potenzial ab. Während die Figur resignativ einsehen muss, dass das angestrebte Filmkonzept in ihrer Realität keinen Bestand haben kann, wird auf der Textebene das Potenzial des Films, das er für das literarische Erzählen bereitstellt, ausgeschöpft: Der Text präsentiert die Möglichkeiten im Umgang mit Realität, wenn auch nur im Modus unzuverlässigen Erzählens. Dem magischen Realismus, wie ihn der Text geltend macht, entspräche also eine kontradiktorische Doppelläufigkeit.

Am Rande der Nacht: Ambivalenz, semiotische Doppelcodierung und Magischer Realismus Wie Lampe selbst vermerkt, entfaltet sein Debütroman Am Rande der Nacht das Tableau einer Kleinstadt – eines Ortes in Hafennähe – und präsentiert eine Geschichte in vielen Teilhandlungssträngen. Einen im Zentrum stehenden Helden/eine Heldin gibt es nicht – vielmehr folgt der Text dem Konzept eines multiperspektiven ‚Romans des Nebeneinander‘: Die handelnden Figuren agieren gleichrangig und gleichwertig und sind mal mehr, mal weniger miteinander in Beziehung gesetzt. Zentral für den Bedeutungsaufbau des Textes ist die Ambivalenz. Die dargestellte Welt wird als ein Kaleidoskop zwar recht unterschiedlicher Figuren präsentiert, deren Gemeinsamkeit aber wiederum darin besteht, dass sie mit einem entscheidenden Problem zu kämpfen haben: Mit ihnen korreliert sind je zwei dominante und konfligierende Merkmale oder Merkmalscluster, deren Kopplung paradigmatisch ist und die variantenreiche Problemstellung des Textes installiert und ihre Verhandlung anstößt. Dies zeigt sich konkret wie folgt: Die Figur Erich möchte einerseits seinem Freund Hans imponieren, indem er zu nächtlicher Stunde mit ihm durch die Stadt streift und am Hafen einen Dampfer beobachtet. Andererseits zieht es ihn aber nach Hause ins heimischfamilienidyllische und sichere Umfeld. Die Figur steht zwischen kindlichem Familienbezug und jugendlicher Rebellion und damit fast auf der Schwelle zur Adoleszenz. Der Ringer Hein Dieckmann verliebt sich in seinen Gegner, überreagiert im Kampf und prügelt jenen krankenhausreif – er verkörpert eine Figur zwischen unmöglicher (da homosexueller) Liebe und verzweifelter Gewalt. Die Figur Berta betrügt ihren Ehemann gleich zwei Mal mit anderen Männern, sagt aber zugleich vollkommen überzeugt und ohne Ironie, dass er ein ganz feiner und anständiger Kerl sei. Sie ist uneins mit sich selbst und steht zwischen verinnerlichter Monogamie und tatsächlich gelebter Polygamie. Die Figur des Zollinspektors bewegt sich zwischen gravitätischem, nach außen hin kühlem An-

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schein und tatsächlich zwischenmenschlicher Bedürftigkeit nach Nähe, Verständnis und Austausch. Der Flötist Herr Berg, dessen Musik das nächtliche Setting immer wieder durchdringt, ist mehr tot als lebendig – er wird innerhalb des realistischen Gesamtgefüges zwar als Lebendiger präsentiert, jedoch als einer, der deutlich mit Todesmerkmalen attribuiert wird. Allein schon dieser kursorische Blick offenbart, dass der Text einen breiten Fächer mehrerer Varianten dieser Strukturgebung entfaltet. Und abstrahiert man das Gegebene vom Einzelfall auf das Allgemeine, so wird ersichtlich, dass sich die figuren- bzw. subjektbezogenen Merkmale stets in kontrastivkonfligierender Relation befinden und von den Figuren negativ erlebt werden: Niemand ist mit seiner Situation zufrieden, allgemein vorherrschend ist eine Selbstwahrnehmung der Trostlosigkeit, der Unentschiedenheit, der Unbeholfenheit, der Resignation. Damit tritt eine spezifische paradigmatischraumsemantische Anlage zutage, die der Text narrativ dynamisiert und aushandelt (siehe Fig. 25).

Fig. 25: Die semantische Grundordnung der dargestellten Welt in Friedo Lampes Am Rande der Nacht.

In und mit den Figuren wird eine für den Text dominante Semantik des Doppelläufig-Ambivalenten transportiert. Manifest wird diese Semantik für die Subjekte in Form einer Zustandserfahrung, die ihnen mit Erzähleinsatz entweder be-

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reits bewusst ist oder ihnen im Handlungsverlauf bewusst wird (sR1). Was den Figuren aber in jedem Fall im Verlauf des narrativen Prozesses bewusst wird, ist die Möglichkeit eines wünschenswerten Zustands, der die Auflösung der ambivalenten Konstitution und der Negativerfahrung vorsieht (sR 2). Die dynamische Ereignisstruktur – der Umgang mit Ereignissen beim Versuch des Übertritts der Grenze zwischen beiden Räumen – ist dabei jedoch dominant restitutiv zu nennen:37 In den meisten Fällen findet zwar eine Annäherung an den abstraktsemantischen Raum 2 oder gar eine Grenzübertretung statt; allerdings werden beide Vorgänge in der Regel wieder zurückgenommen. Für diese Regel spricht jedenfalls die Tatsache, dass zwei Figuren (Herr Mahler und Erich) die Grenze nachhaltig übertreten, sie sodann aber gleichsam von der discours-Ebene ‚verschwinden‘ und nicht mehr thematisiert werden: Es sind nicht sie – so könnte man folgern –, für die sich der Text interessiert, sondern andere Figuren, bei denen der Übertritt eben nicht gelingt. Soweit zur semantischen Grundordnung und narrativen Ereignisstruktur des Romans. Nun ist angesichts dieser Gesamtanlage aber ebenso bezeichnend, wie der Text den Problemkomplex aufruft und wie sich dieser auf der Textoberfläche offenbart. Im Gegensatz zu Laterna Magica (mit seinen expliziten Filmreferenzen) weist Am Rande der Nacht implizit markierte filmische Erzähltechniken auf, die überhaupt nur im Verbund plausibel machen, von filmischem Erzählen zu sprechen – jedoch rechtfertigt ihr textstrukturelles Auftreten darüber hinaus auch die Beobachtung, dass sich auf der Textoberfläche eine semiotische Doppelcodierung (wie die Ambivalenz auf der semantischen Tiefenstruktur) vorfinden lässt: Das filmische Erzählen im vorliegenden Fall konstituiert überhaupt erst die Zeichen der Doppelbödigkeit, der Ambivalenz, die hier in Rede stehen.38 Einprägsam in dieser Hinsicht sind drei Aspekte: Simultaneität, Visualität und die Funktionalisierung von Musik. Einen Interpretationszugang erhält man bei Betrachtung der nachfolgenden Textpassagen: Und Herr Berg spielte weiter, er spielte den ganzen Abend. Das machte er sonst so, und er machte es auch heute. Klar und stetig, in ruhigen Intervallen schwebten die kühlen, silberglänzenden Töne über die Gärten und vermischten sich mit der Abendluft, zerrannen in ihr. [D]ie kleine Luise, die im Nachtkleid am offenen Fenster lehnte, die verstand diese Klänge, sie fand sie sehr schön und ganz selbstverständlich. Sie lehnte ihren Kopf in die Hand und träumte dabei in den Garten hinunter. Die Töne zogen eine ruhige, stetige Bahn […]. Die Gärten lagen dunkelgrün und undeutlich da, Baummassen, Büsche, schwarze

|| 37 Vgl. in Anlehnung an das Raummodell Jurij Lotmans: Martínez, Matías/Michael Scheffel, Einführung in die Erzähltheorie, 9., erw. u. akt. Aufl., München 2012, 158. 38 Vgl. auch Baßler, Erzählprosa, 354.

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Planken, weichumrankte Rasenstücke, Turnrecke für Kinder. Drüben in den Häusern brannte in einigen Zimmern Licht, und die Leute gingen lautlos hin und her. […] Da war etwas, was sie tröstete und beruhigte, ein friedliches Bild. Dort saß nämlich am Ende des Gartens in der von großen Blättern umrankten Laube Herr Hennicke, der Geographielehrer mit seinen zwei Söhnen.39 Mit erhobenem Kopf lauschte Herr Hennicke dem Flötenspiel. Er wiegte ihn im Takt. Auch der Zollinspektor lauschte, er fand diese Klänge sehr schön, er liebte Musik. Trotzdem sagte er nur: „Der Mann hat einen Flötenfimmel. Dem ist das Spielen zu Kopf gestiegen.“ […] Ruhig und wortlos saßen sie […] in der Laube und genossen den Frieden und die Musik. Da brach das Flötenspiel plötzlich ab, mitten in einer immer mehr emporsteigenden Tonfolge. „Nun hört er auf, und so mitten drin, der dumme Kerl“, sagte der Zollinspektor traurig. „Und es klang doch gerade so schön.“ Frau Jacobi hatte das Licht angeknipst. Da mochte Herr Berg nicht mehr spielen. Er setzte sich auf das Sofa und sah mit leisem Lächeln zu, wie Frau Jacobi den Abendbrottisch deckte. […] Sie wußte plötzlich: der wird’s auch nicht mehr lange machen. Ein Todeskandidat.40 Herrn Bergs Flöte spielte kühl und ziehend, mit durchdringender Klarheit. Sie [Luises Mutter] beugte sich etwas über das Fensterbrett, und ein leiser, lauer Wind drang ihr durchs Nachthemd an die Haut. „Nun schau dir die Frau da oben an“, sagte der Inspektor und schüttelte den Kopf, „im Nachthemd am Fenster. Ganz unbeweglich steht sie da, schon eine ganze Weile. Was der wohl durch den Kopf gehen mag?“41 Immer leiser wurde das Flötenspiel des Herrn Berg. Die letzten gläsern-klaren Töne hauchten über die Gärten dahin, verwehten, zerrannen in der stillen Luft – dann war das Spiel zu Ende. Herr Berg war am Ende. […] „Endlich hat er aufgehört zu spielen“, sagte Frau Jacobi. „Ja, endlich“, seufzte Frau Mahler. […] Das Fenster stand offen, und sie hörten vom Hafen her über die Stadt hintönen das dumpfe Getute eines Dampfers. „Ein Dampfer fährt ab“, sagte Frau Jacobi. […] Der Dampfer, der da getutet hatte, war die Adelaide gewesen. […] Anton sah zur Stadt zurück. Die Lichter rückten immer dichter aneinander heran und verschwammen schließlich

|| 39 Lampe, Friedo, Am Rande der Nacht, hrsg. v. Johannes Graf, Göttingen 1999, 29f. 40 Lampe, Am Rande der Nacht, 33ff. 41 Lampe, Am Rande der Nacht, 116f.

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zu einem matten Schein, zu einem langen gelben Streif, und dann versank, zerlöste sich auch dieser Streif, und sie fuhren durch das dunkle Land.42

Die drei obengenannten Aspekte sind zwar in der Theorie unabhängig voneinander benennbar, sie müssen aber in der Analyse des Textes hier gemeinsam betrachtet werden. Diesem Basispostulat folgend, ließen sich diese Beobachtungen und Folgerungen anschließen: Erstens ist makrostrukturell die in Form eines Short-Cuts-Modells hergestellte Fragmentierung des Geschehens in Einzelhandlungsstränge wie auch deren Vernetzung mithilfe der dargestellten Musik und durch Blickwechsel der Figuren sinnfällig.43 Wir haben es mit einer Auflösung des Simultanen im syntagmatischen Nacheinander des Textes zu tun. Dahingehend ist zweierlei anzumerken: Zum einen beschränkt sich die Short-Cuts-Technik nicht darauf, ein bloßer narrativer Wiedergabemodus zu sein, sondern transportiert immer auch selbst eine Bedeutung. Im vorliegenden Fall bestünde diese Bedeutung in der Proposition: ‚Die dargestellte Sozialkultur ist vielgestaltig-heterogen, und doch sind ihre Elemente Teile eines Ganzen, das einen festen Zusammenhalt auszeichnet‘. Zusammen laufen dabei Konstruktion und Destruktion, Heterogenität und Homogenität, Harmonie und Disharmonie und münden in der doppelläufigen Textaussage, wie sie oben aufgeschlüsselt wurde. Zum anderen konstituiert sich das Modell ganz konkret aufgrund des Einsatzes von Musik und durch Perspektivierungsvorgänge. Musik fungiert über ihre auditive Komponente als Verbindungsmittel zwischen den Handlungssträngen – indem sie im Raum erklingt und von verschiedener Seite aus wahrgenommen wird –, sie baut darüber hinaus selbst eine Semantik des Traurig-Schönen und Lebendig-Toten auf und legt Zugänge zu Figürlich-Innerem offen. Unterstützt wird dies – gewissermaßen visuell – mithilfe der Okularisierung von Figuren.44 Die Tatsache, dass Figuren sehen und ihre Umgebung wahrnehmen, ist keine Selbstverständlichkeit der dargestellten Welt, sondern dient der strukturellen Verbindung zwischen den einzelnen Teilräumen.

|| 42 Lampe, Am Rande der Nacht, 157–160. 43 Grundsätzlich zum Short-Cuts-Erzählmodell vgl. Nies, Martin, „Short Cuts. Funktionen und Semantiken alternierenden multifokalisierten Erzählens in Literatur und Film der Gegenwart“, in: Moritz Baßler/Martin Nies (Hrsg.), Short Cuts. Ein Verfahren zwischen Roman, Film und Serie, Marburg 2018, 21–38. 44 Zum narratologischen Begriff der Okularisierung in Abgrenzung zur Fokalisierung vgl. Schlickers, Sabine, „Focalisation, Ocularisation and Auricularisation in Film and Literature“, in: Peter Hühn/Wolf Schmid/Jörg Schönert (Hrsg.), Point of View, Perspective, and Focalisation: Modeling Mediation in Narrative, Berlin, New York 2009, 242–258.

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Es ließe sich daran anschließend – zweitens – folgern, dass Musik strukturbildend eingesetzt ist, dass die Erzählinstanz mit ihrer Hilfe das Geschehen – auch in seiner spezifisch semantischen Dimension des Ambivalenten – präsentiert und es zugleich narrativ ‚zusammenhält‘. Musik dient als erzählerische Finesse – im Rahmen von Short Cuts – zwecks Überbrückung raumzeitlicher Lücken und zur Offenlegung der Ambivalenz der Figuren (im Textauszug mit Blick auf den Zollinspektor und den Musiker). Sie ist eines der wesentlichen Mittel literarisch-filmischen Erzählens und damit der semiotischen Doppelcodierung im gegebenen Fall. Folgern ließe sich drittens, dass ferner die Korrelation von Blickvisualisierung und Fokalisierung bezeichnend für den spezifischen Bedeutungsaufbau ist, dass die Einnahme des Blicks durch die Erzählinstanz in Verbindung mit der Darstellung der Erlebnissphäre der Figuren gebracht wird und genau damit einerseits ihre ambivalente Subjektivität zum Ausdruck wie auch der Doppelcode des Filmisch-Literarischen zum Einsatz kommt. Wir sehen mit den Figuren und sehen gleichsam in sie hinein – die Vermittlung des Geschehens erhält einen markiert visuellen Impetus. Auch dieser Strukturkomplex ist nicht bloß narrativer Beisatz, sondern grundiert als weitere Komponente gleichfalls die semiotische Doppelcodierung. Besonders deutlich wird die Kopplung von Simultaneität, Visualität und Musik am Textende: Die Musik markiert das Ende der Narration, indem sie in einem decrescendo abnimmt und schließlich abbricht. Vermittels Kommentierung durch die Figuren (Jacobi und Mahler) leitet der Text (auf auditiver Ebene) dann über zur gleichzeitigen Abfahrt des Dampfers und nimmt erneut die (visuelle) Sicht einer Figur (Anton) ein, um mit der sukzessiven räumlichen Distanzierung vom Handlungsraum zugleich mit dem ‚dunklen Land‘ die Erzählung abzuschließen. Es ist demnach also nicht der Film selbst, der hier als Medium systemadäquat übertragen wird (oder gar übertragen werden könnte), wohl aber sind es literarische Erzählstrategien, die eine Isomorphie zum Filmischen herstellen. Diese Kombination struktureller Mittel – das filmische Erzählen im literarischen Text – steht im Zusammenhang mit dem Magischen Realismus, wie er bei Lampe ausgeprägt ist: als semiotische Doppelcodierung (Film/Literatur) zwecks Evokation der Semantik der Ambivalenz auf Ebene des Erzählten.

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Resümee Den Ausgangspunkt der vorangegangenen Überlegungen bildete eine Beobachtung: Durchstreift man die deutschsprachige Forschung zum Magischen Realismus, so stößt man bei allen Unklarheiten und Problemen, die bis heute bestehen, unweigerlich auf einen Punkt, an dem bemerkenswerter Konsens herrscht: Magischer Realismus schlägt sich offenkundig in Form einer ‚doppelbödigen Gestaltung‘ nieder, wobei davon Darstellung und Dargestelltes gleichermaßen betroffen sind. Um dies in methodisch klare und heuristisch sinnvolle Bahnen zu lenken, wurden die Begrifflichkeiten semiotisch übersetzt und ‚Magischer Realismus‘ als semiotische Doppelstruktur gefasst. Das hauptsächliche Ziel bestand darin, ausgehend von dieser Basisannahme zu klären, inwiefern die Zusammenführung von Magischem Realismus und filmischen Erzählen beim Bremer Autor Friedo Lampe gerechtfertigt ist. Denn Magischer Realismus, so lautete die These, geht bei Lampe in filmischem Erzählen auf. Seine Texte installieren zwei Zeichenregimes – das des Films und das der Literatur – und amalgamieren beide in einer doppelläufigen Textstruktur: Das Produkt dieser doppelläufigen Semiose liegt uns zwar als literarischer Text auf Basis des primären Zeichensystems der natürlichen Sprache vor, eine maßgebliche Komponente des Bedeutungsaufbaus ist allerdings die Integration filmischer Präsentationsweisen. Diese recht umständliche Textbeschaffenheit ist freilich nicht reiner Selbstzweck und dementsprechend nicht etwa als oberflächliche Auseinandersetzung mit der gewaltigen Popularität des Films am Ende der 1920er- und zu Beginn der 1930er-Jahre aufzufassen. Im Gegenteil erzeugt der Text mit ihr seine zentrale Semantik – die der Ambivalenz – und koppelt so kardinale Problemstellungen der histoire an Vermittlungsformen des discours: Das Changieren zwischen verschiedenen Merkmalspolen und die Überlagerung von Divergentem – ebendas betrifft das Gefühlsleben und die Handlungen der Figuren, in der Gesamtheit des Figurenensembles die dargestellte Welt insgesamt und schließlich auch die Ästhetik der literarischen Diskursivierung selbst.

Andrew McNamara

When the Reality is Unreal: Camps, Towers and Internment The unimportant factor had grown to the immeasurable, the absolute … they smothered the thin voice of reason, covered it as the surf covers the gurgling of the drowning. Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon, 1940

They don’t want ghost stories anymore; it is real experiences that make their flesh creep. There is no longer any need of bewitching the past; it is spellbound enough in reality. Hannah Arendt, “We the Refugees”, 1943

In 1940, Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack painted a small watercolour simply called Sandstorm.1 (Fig. 26) The work depicts a dust storm that has transformed into a monstrous apparition and engulfed an otherwise pitch-dark internment camp. The menacing cloud appears as a strange hybrid of a demonic snake-like creature and something vaguely human. As it rages, the storm acquires a face and two arms. One arm emerges from a separate cloud of dust and reaches out with an open hand, while the other arm has seized a diminutive, upturned internee. Dwarfed by the immense storm cloud, the writhing figure looks like it is about to be consumed by the violent squall or alternatively dropped from a great height. Either way, the prospects for this hapless figure are grim. Although HirschfeldMack’s threatening dust storm is essentially amorphous, it achieves a psychological impression reminiscent of Goya’s disturbing Saturn Devouring his Son (c. 1819–1823). Compared to the brutish depiction of Saturn portrayed by Goya, Hirschfeld-Mack has conjured an evanescent figure of terror. The storm is ephemeral, almost intangible, but it imposes its presence by violently lashing and choking the internees. At once, Hirschfeld-Mack’s image points to the physical and psychological pressures of being incarcerated in this remote Australian location.

|| 1 This essay is complementary to the chapter, “Exile, Internment and Hirschfeld-Mack in Geelong”, by McNamara, Andrew, and Stephen, Ann, in: Philip Goad/Ann Stephen/Andrew McNamara/Harriet Edquist/Isabel Wünsche (eds.), Bauhaus Diaspora and Beyond: Transforming Education in Art, Design and Education, Melbourne, Sydney 2019, 60–71. It extends and develops the discussion with research and observations not included in the chapter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-015

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The following year, still languishing in internment, Hirschfeld-Mack returned to the theme. Once again the resulting work is simply called Sandstorm (1941). (Fig. 27) This time the swirling dust cloud rises up into the atmosphere like a genie that has escaped from its bottle. Its macabre grimace seems to mock its victims, while terrorizing them. The key difference with the second image is that the lower reaches of the massive cloud are now illuminated by a searchlight from the camp watchtower. Its blazing light exposes the unremittingly flat terrain of the Hay internment camp and its seemingly endless barbed-wire perimeter. The unbroken camp fence line featured in this second work contrasts with the disjointed fence in the first image. The first version suggests that the havoc wreaked by the storm has torn the ground from underneath the internees’ feet. Their whole world seems to be in upheaval. With the second version, the camp’s secure perimeter—although diminutive in comparison with the raging storm— now looks unshakeable and itself a forbidding presence in the internees’ lives. It is as if the stark reality of their confinement has now fully registered with the fence defining their existence. The second version of Sandstorm (1941) draws on a contrast between the barbed wire fence that encloses a boundary within a pitiless, flat landscape and the blistering cloud that roams freely, coming and going as it pleases playing havoc with the inhabitants. In a bitter irony, the blistering cloud defies the camp’s formidable barbed wire perimeter with impunity. If anything, the second version from 1941 presents a more menacing image of a life turned completely upside down. For the internees, there is nowhere to flee. The spiralling dust storm torments the already tormented – the besieged internees, but also presumably their guards. Yet they are nowhere to be seen. They have been rendered invisible; cowering out of sight, trapped and immobilised. The combination of the massive sandstorm, the piercing searchlight, and the barbed-wire perimeter fence helps to conjure an image of internment as one of absolute vulnerability and disorientation. Approximately 2,000 civilian internees had to face such a dust storm on their arrival at the remote internment camp in the dry, flat plains of Hay in September 1940.2 Most had been summarily interned in Britain since May before being crammed into a military transport ship, the HMT Dunera, which set sail from Liverpool, England for Australia on 10 July 1940.3 After a further eight weeks at sea, as historian Ken Inglis notes:

|| 2 Hay is located over 700 kilometres west or south-west of Sydney. 3 Around 2,500 people (men and boys) were on board the HMT Dunera when it set sail – "among them civilians of German, Polish, Czech or Austrian origin” as well as German mer-

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… the internees were disembarked: some in Melbourne, en route to a camp in Tatura, in northern Victoria, but most in Sydney, where they were then taken on a 19-hour train journey to the town of Hay and marched into two camps. There the internees sweltered by day, shivered by night, and endured choking dust storms.4

The majority of internees that ended up in Australia were exiles or refugees from Hitler’s Germany (though not exclusively).5 The decision to intern so many exiles stemmed from the fact that the British government were spooked by the domino-like fall of European nations before the seemingly inevitable might of the Nazi war machine. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill made a decision to intern all enemy aliens, even those classified as “friendly and reliable”. Fear of invasion and the role of Fifth Columnists influenced the decision. The declaration effectively changed their status from “exiles” or refugees to “enemy aliens”.6 The new classification marked a serious deterioration in an already devalued and doubtful status. On board the HMT Dunera the status of these civilian internees, as Inglis, Spark and Winter observe, “was obscure, ambiguous, and vulnerable, a point driven home to them daily by rough treatment by their guards”.7 They were “robbed, bullied and abused” by their British guards in extremely overcrowded conditions. Despite the horrendous experience on board the British transport ship, ironically they became known by the collective title of the “Dunera boys”.

|| chant seamen and Italian internees, Inglis, Ken/Spark, Seumas/Winter, Jay (with Bunyan, Carol) (eds.), Dunera Lives: A Visual History, Dunera Lives: A Visual History, Monash University Publishing, Clayton, Victoria, 2018, xvii–xix. 4 Inglis, Ken, “From Berlin to the Bush”, The Monthly, August 2010. 5 There are numerous security files reports on activities of Nazis, fifth columnists or Nazi sympathizers; refer “Refugees: Internment Fifth Columnists”, Department of Army, 31 October 1941, National Archives of Australia, NAA: MP729/6, 29/401/273: 1234; see also the “Tatura Internment Group—Weekly Reports”—the report 110 of 13 February 1945 still notes Nazi activity; National Archives of Australia, NAA: A373, 9167. 6 Australian government cabinet minutes of 28 November 1941 report that the UK decision was provoked by two considerations: (i) “an imminent fear of invasion”, and (ii) “the widespread uneasiness aroused by knowledge of Fifth Column activities in Norway, Holland, Belgium and France”; “Treatment of Overseas Internees”, War Cabinet minute 1234 (B iii), Commonwealth of Australia, 17 November 1941, National Archives of Australia, NAA: A2676: 1234, p. 3. This report is already discussing the release of the entire category of internees classified as “friendly and reliable” and not seen as posing a risk. 7 Inglis/Spark/Winter, Dunera Lives: A Visual History, p. xvii. They refer to the Dunera passengers as civilian internees because “they had neither the status of prisoners of war (POWs) nor that of refugees”.

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War and internment Similar scenarios were being played out in other countries. After the bombing of Pearl Harbour in December 1941, almost 120,000 United States citizens and residents of Japanese descent were interned, losing rights but also property. By February, Japanese Americans were ordered to be removed from the Pacific west coast before being placed in camps. In this atmosphere of fear and xenophobia, all manner of blanket infringements of basic rights could be justified by wartime necessity; at the same time, the policy played to a public fear of suspicious “foreigners” like the Japanese Americans.8 Security files show that many exiles or citizens and residents of Japanese, German or Italian descent were often reported for reputedly suspicious activities that were more imagined than real. In Australia, as a result of the National Security Act of September 1939, a plethora of “enemy aliens” had already been detained in camps before the Dunera’s arrival.9 The country was already littered with numerous internment camps.10 An “obscure, ambiguous, and vulnerable” identity denied any social infrastructure or support is a fragile thing. The civilian internees huddled into the Dunera had already been made outcasts by their country of birth due to their dubious status, primarily Jewish, but also those deemed politically “unreliable” or culturally degenerate. Next, they found their country of asylum had turned gaoler and deported them across the globe. The first thing to imagine is what would it be like to be propelled across the world without even being told where you are headed. Next you need to begin to think what would be the reality of that situation once you land, taking into consideration that most internees had little knowledge of the country in which they found themselves incarcerated. Internment was another level of pain. One of the unfortunate internees detained

|| 8 Romano, Renee, “The trauma of internment,” Washington Post, June 25, 2018. 9 National Security Act of September 1939; Federal Register of Legislation, Australian Government. Section 5.1e was quite sweeping: “(e) for requiring or authorizing any action to be taken by or with respect to aliens, and for prohibiting aliens from doing any act or thing”; https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C1939A00015, October 31, 2019. 10 By 1942, 12,000 people were interned. There were approximately 50 camps in operation across all of Australia. The Enoggera camp in Queensland held whole families of German, Austrian, Italian and Japanese immigrants. In August 1944, over a thousand Japanese prisoners-of-war broke out of one of the camps in the small rural town of Cowra. The survivors caught were relocated to Hay. Young, Matt, and Chang, Charis, “The forgotten history of Australia’s prisoner of war camps”, Herald-Sun, April 25, 2014. https://www.heraldsun.com.au/anzac-centenary/the-forgotten-history-of-australias-prisonerof-war-camps/news-story/252928e826bd5d02743ab0defe10c242, October 31, 2019

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in France before the Nazi invasion was Walter Benjamin, who claimed to give up smoking when incarcerated in the Vernuche camp, near Nevers. He did this, he said, not in order to improve his physical fitness, nor because tobacco was scarce in the camps, but primarily because abstaining would concentrate his attention on quitting smoking rather than fixating on the hardships of internship and camp life.11 After his release from internment, Benjamin complained to Max Horkheimer “that the most painful thing” about the weeks in internment “was the moral disarray in which everybody was engulfed”.12 In her essay, “We Refugees” of 1943, Hannah Arendt reiterated a similar point, when she wrote that “moral standards are much easier kept in the texture of a society” due to the fact that humans are such social beings. “Very few individuals have the strength to conserve their own integrity if the social, political, and legal status is completely confused”.13 Because their status and thus their identity was malleable, Arendt argued that refugees or exiles constantly had to “play roles” – nearly always to their detriment. They were expelled from Nazi Germany because they were Jewish, but no sooner had they entered France then they were declared boches (Huns or Krauts). Nonetheless, they had to play the role of becoming genuine French citizens – “most of us had indeed become such loyal Frenchmen that we could not even criticize a French government order; thus we declared it was all right to be interned”. “In Paris”, she continues, “we could not leave our homes after eight o’clock because we were Jews; but in Los Angeles we are restricted because we are ‘enemy aliens’”.14 In retracing Walter Benjamin’s path from internment to his final act in attempting to flee Nazi-occupied Europe at Port Bou, Michael D. Jackson reflects in his essay, “In the Footsteps of Walter Benjamin”, that “if migrants are sustained by their hope in the future, refugees are afflicted by their loss of the

|| 11 Cited in Jackson, Michael D., “In the Footsteps of Walter Benjamin” https://bulletin.hds.harvard.edu/articles/spring2006/footsteps-walter-benjamin, October 31, 2019. 12 Walter Benjamin, “Letter to Max Horkheimer, Paris, November 30, 1939”, in: Gershom Scholem/Theodor W. Adorno (eds.), The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin 1910–1940, Chicago 1994, 618. 13 Arendt, Hannah, “We Refugees” (1943), in: Jerome Kohn/Ron H. Feldman (eds.), The Jewish Writings, New York 2008, 271. 14 Arendt, “We Refugees” (1943), 270.

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past”.15 This poignant observation jars with a familiar criticism that modern thinking naively insists on a linear progression to a future end. The proposition is presumed to apply to everything from the history of modern art to technological development and our own lives. Once internalized, so the criticism goes, we are prone to the seduction of framing “our experience in narratives whose beginning and middle seem to point to a reassuring conclusion”. We like to “live our lives as if we are narrating them”. The problem with this presumption, as Jean-Paul Sartre points out, is that “we are bound to fail: we ‘live our lives in one direction’ (towards an unknown future) and ‘narrate them the other way round’ (as if we knew how it would end)”.16 Internment or sudden incarceration, however, robs a person of any hope of narrating a future. Even though it might be important to challenge the naivety of our common future-oriented narratives, the experience of internment – then and now – shows that the denial of the capacity to plan or to conceive of a future seriously corrodes an internee’s mental health. Every day becomes an abyss. The internee resides in a suspended state in which the past becomes disconnected from the present and there is no immediate prospect of a future, therefore nothing to narrate. Both past and future become disjointed in the fractured present behind the barbed wire fence.

From Bauhaus to no house Before the long journey culminating in an internment camp in remote, rural Australia, Hirschfeld-Mack’s immediate past paralleled the highs and lows of Weimar Republic life and aspiration. He had been on active service in the frontline during World War One. He survived, was even awarded an Iron Cross, but lost a brother in the conflict and became a life-long pacifist. After the war, he attended Adolf Hölzl’s renowned seminars on colour in Stuttgart before enrolling in a new institution, the Bauhaus at Weimar. Hirschfeld-Mack had some notable achievements at the Bauhaus. He rose from the student ranks to teach its much vaunted first colour seminar in Weimar in the wake of Johannes Itten’s sacking. He also created a new mechanism that produced abstract light projec-

|| 15 Jackson, Michael D., “In the Footsteps of Walter Benjamin”, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Spring 2006, Vol 34, No. 2 https://bulletin.hds.harvard.edu/articles/spring2006/footsteps-walter-benjamin 16 Cited in Rée, Jonathan , “Peas in a Matchbox, (on Sartre’s Being and Nothingness)”, London Review of Books, April 18, 2019, 27.

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tions, his Farbenlichtspiele (Colour Light Plays), which was one of the key highlights of the Bauhaus exhibition week of 1923. The idea for the apparatus was triggered when viewing shadow plays performed by fellow Bauhaus students Kurt Schwerdtfeger, assisted by Josef Hartwig, in June 1922. Hirschfeld-Mack noticed they used one light source with cardboard figures, but a replaced acetylene lamp had doubled the amount of shadows on a translucent paper screen. Due to this chance effect, “a ‘cold’ and ‘warm’ shadow became visible”. Hirschfeld-Mack multiplied the sources of light and projecting them through coloured glass in order to achieve more complex colour–light projections accompanied by sound. The result, he proclaimed, was ‘a new mode of expression’ featuring a “mobility of coloured light sources”. It was as if abstract painting had left the frame to become three-dimensional as well as animated.17 In addition, Hirschfeld-Mack created a design for one of the set of Bauhaus postcards that commemorated its 1923 exhibition. After the Bauhaus relocated to Dessau in 1925, Hirschfeld-Mack toured his Farbenlichtspiele while continuing to refine it, including plans to develop a more complex Colour Light Organ (Farblicht Orgel).18 Once again he taught colour theory at the Staatliche Bauhochschule Weimar in late 1928, which was located in the building vacated by the Bauhaus. From the mid to late 1920s, he gradually embarked on a career as an art teacher. Subsequently, he held positions in various progressive or reformist schools around Germany, such as the Free School Community (Freie Schulgemeinde) in Wickersdorf, but the Nazis kept closing these schools down throughout the 1930s until Hirschfeld-Mack was eventually forced into exile in England.19 Being forced from work in Germany meant that Hirschfeld-Mack had to leave behind a chronically ill wife in order to support his family. With the declaration of war in 1939, even this safe haven proved illusory and he was

|| 17 Hirschfeld-Mack, Ludwig, Farbelicht-Spiele-Wesen-Ziele-Kritiken, exhibition catalogue, Weimar 1925, Bauhaus Archiv, Berlin; Stasny, Peter, “Die Farbenlichtspiele”, in: Andreas Hapkemeyer/Peter Stasny (eds.), Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack: Bauhäusler und Visionär, Ostfildern 2000, 94; Forgács, Éva, The Bauhaus Idea and Bauhaus Politics, Budapest 1991/1997, 92–93, 123; McNamara, Andrew, “Colour-Light Experiments”, Goad et al., Bauhaus Diaspora and Beyond, 182–186. 18 Stasny, Peter, “Die Farbenlichtspiele”, in: Hapkemeyer/Stasny, Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack: Bauhäusler und Visionär, 106–109. 19 Similarly, his teaching role at the Staatliche Bauhochschule in Weimar was terminated in 1930 when Nazi cultural ideologue and determined foe of modern architecture (as a sign of degeneracy), Paul Schultze-Naumberg, assumed directorship of the newly reconfigured academic institute. This was well before the party took power federally in 1933.

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interned in England before finally being delivered to the jaws of the massive dust storm on arrival at the Hay internment camp. In one of Hirschfeld-Mack’s letters from internment in Australia to his daughter, Marga, in England, he notes with surprise that he had “met an old Bauhaus friend”.20 This fellow Bauhäusler could only be Georg Teltscher (1904– 1983).21 Teltscher was one of three Bauhaus-trained artists to arrive in Australia as a result of Nazism and/or World War Two. Like Hirschfeld-Mack and Gertrude Herzger-Seligmann, Teltscher studied at the Weimar Bauhaus.22 Still very young, he shifted from Vienna to the Bauhaus in 1921 enrolling under the name Adams-Teltscher. He claimed to be one of its youngest students. The careers of Hirschfeld-Mack and Teltscher at the Bauhaus had remarkable parallels. Although students, both were selected to design a poster for Bauhaus Week in 1923. In Teltscher’s case, a buoyant figure composed of bright red and yellow ballooning shapes leaps across a pale, monochromatic background with bands of text proclaiming “cabaret” and “theatre” to be the highlights of the Bauhaus’ endeavours.23 Both Teltscher and Hirschfeld-Mack also played prominent roles in the actual 1923 exhibition. While Hirschfeld-Mack’s ColourLight Plays concluded the week, Teltscher collaborated with Oskar Schlemmer, Kurt Schmidt, F.W. Bogler, and others on the abstract stage productions, such as his best-known collaboration, Das Mechanische Ballett (The Mechanical Ballet).24 These contributions of Teltscher and Hirschfeld-Mack to the week-long exhibition were again included in the MOMA Bauhaus exhibition catalogue of

|| 20 Hirschfeld-Mack, letter to Marga Hirschfeld, 8 October 1940; Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack– Marga Hirschfeld correspondence, 20 May 1940–18 February 1942, Tatura Irrigation and Wartime Camps Museum, Victoria. 21 He also known at various times as George Adams, George Teltscher, or George AdamsTeltscher. His mother’s maiden name was Adams. She was American, his father Austrian. 22 Regarding Herzger-Seligmann, see Stephen, Ann, “Gertrude Herzger-Seligmann”, in: Goad et. al., Bauhaus Diaspora and Beyond, 40–41. 23 Although trained in the graphic arts, Teltscher became increasingly interested in designing for the stage and theatre. 24 Forgács, Éva, The Bauhaus Idea and Bauhaus Politics, 123–125. See also Wesemann, Arnd, “Die Bauhausbühne”, in Jeanine Fiedler/Peter Feierabend (eds.), Bauhaus, Potsdam 2013, 540. Peter Stasny notes the links between Hirschfeld-Mack’s works of this time, such as S-Tanz (1923) and the colour lithograph, Sterntänzer, and the theatre-dance work that Teltscher was conducting with Kurt Schmidt and Friedrich Bogler, refer Stasny, Peter, “Die Farbenlichtspiele”, in: Hapkemeyer/Stasny, Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack: Bauhäusler und Visionär, 104.

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1938–39 with Teltscher represented by his postcard as well as by some of the figure designs for The Mechanical Ballet.25 Hirschfeld-Mack’s letter does not make it clear whether he encountered Teltscher in the Hay camp or on the Dunera voyage (the latter is likely given the confined quarters on board). At Hay Hirschfeld-Mack was in camp 8 and Teltscher in camp 7 – the separate quarters were strictly segregated some distance apart with the void in-between dubbed “Haymarket.” As mentioned, the treatment of internees by British soldiers onboard the HMT Dunera was brutal and Teltscher lost teeth when savagely beaten during the voyage. At the Hay camp in Australia, the younger artist Klaus Friedeberger later recalled attending classes by Teltscher, which meant that some of the earliest classes on modernism and the Bauhaus in Australia were being taught at the remote internment camps at Hay.26 Teltscher’s time in Australia was brief, but remarkable for one particular episode. The original camp currency at Hay was cigarettes.27 Teltscher won a competition among internees to design camp banknotes. The Hay internment notes were first issued in March 1941 in three denominations – sixpence (blue), one shilling (green) and two shillings (red).28 (Fig. 28) The notes contain a central crest composed of a kangaroo and an emu holding a shield with a sheep on it above a banner reading ‘Camp Seven Bank.’ They are remarkable in that their design is not too far from the official currency of the day – except that Teltscher’s designs contain poignant and wry details. Behind the official crest is a scene of the camp bordered by an imposing fence of barbed wire. The decorative border conceals an inscription, also composed of barbed wire, containing the absurd slogan: “We are here because we are here because we are here…”29 Another deadpan message is hidden in the barbed wire entan|| 25 Bayer, Herbert/Gropius, Walter/Gropius, Ise (eds.), The Bauhaus, 1919–1928, New York 1938, 62, 83. 26 Friedeberger was also in Camp 7 in Hay with Teltscher. Apart from the classes of Teltscher, he also recalls attending those of Heinz Henghes (at the time known as Gustav Heinrich Clusmann) (sculpture) and Hein Heckroth (film and stage design), all of whom were also in camp 7, as well as encountering Hirschfeld-Mack, Franz Philipp and Helmut Gernsheim; refer ‘Klaus Friedeberger, Dunera Boy, Artist,’ Dunera News, June 2008, 6. Thanks to Seumas Spark for some of the details in this note. 27 Later, as the internees attained allowances of money, funds from outside, as well as the establishment of a canteen, they wanted their own currency. ‘Hay Camp Currency,’ Dunera News, no. 97, June 2016, 15. 28 Inglis/Spark/Winter, Dunera Lives: A Visual History, 129–133. 29 Inglis, Spark and Winter note that the words, an ‘old soldiers’ lament sung to the tune of Auld Lang Syne, was so familiar to internees and so apposite to their plight that they called it the Hay-Tatura hymn’; Dunera Lives: A Visual History, 132.

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glement: ‘HMT Dunera Liverpool to Hay.’ He even includes his signature, George A. Teltscher, as if signing a work of art. The reverse side of the notes is primarily composed of twenty-five sheep, with the number 7 appearing on each sheep’s back, overlaid with a statement declaring that the banknotes are valid only within the confinements of Camp Seven, Hay – with no obligation to honour the note outside the camp. Teltscher manages to inscribe the name of a camp leader, Eppstein, within the fleece of the sheep. The repetition of the sheep motif was due in part because Teltscher remembered that the diet in Australia was “lamb, lamb, lamb.” Estimates of the numbers of notes printed range from 2,000 of the two shillings note to 3,000 of the other denominations.30 They show great ingenuity in absence of any such provision by the authorities. Officials in Sydney, however, took a dim view of its wry, but “bleak statement”. The currency contravened federal law and authorities quickly ordered that they be confiscated and the production of the currency cease.31 Teltscher’s most ambitious design project in Australia thus ended abruptly at Hay while still interned.

Art of the internment camps Less than a month in the Hay internment camp, Hirschfeld-Mack’s first letters to his family from October 1940 already talk of routine—and numerous diversions: “camp fires, lectures, cabarets, choirs, concerts … entertainments to keep up morale”.32 There was a profound sense of dislocation, but a determined ambition to survive it somehow. This impulse echoes the activities of camps in France before the German invasion, which included university classes. The hardly robust Walter Benjamin taught philosophy, but attributed his connection both to the outside world and to his work for saving him from being totally overwhelmed in internment.33 If anything, the ambition in Australia extended further.

|| 30 Inglis, Spark and Winter suggest that “three thousand notes of each domination were delivered to camp 7 in the last days of March 1941”; Dunera Lives: A Visual History, 132. 31 Inglis/Spark/Winter, Dunera Lives: A Visual History, 133. Camp currency “reverted to copper alloy tokens that were issued by the authorities to all internment camps in Australia”. See also “Hay Camp Currency”, Dunera News, no. 97, June 2016, 15. See also McNamara, Andrew, “Georg Teltscher”, in: Goad et al., Bauhaus Diaspora and Beyond, 74–75. 32 Hirschfeld-Mack, letter to his daughter Marga, 8 October 1940. 33 Benjamin, Walter, “Letter to Max Horkheimer, 1939”, in: Scholem/Adorno, The Correspondence 1910–1940, 618.

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Berliner Klaus Loewald argued that “they fashioned ‘little republics’ in the Australian landscape”. As Inglis, Spark and Winter ask, “In what other detention centre of the Second World War did the inmates write a constitution or print their own money?” The internees forged a creative community with scarce resources in the heat, dust and cold. “With the indulgence and even encouragement of their Australian guards”, Inglis, Spark, Winter continue, “the ‘Dunera boys’ fashioned a rich cultural life, bringing Weimar Berlin and pre-Nazi-era Vienna to the bush.”34 The internees’ own magazine, The Boomerang, recorded such aspirations, which included art classes, plays and exhibitions. In three different Australian camps at Hay, Orange and Tatura, for instance, HirschfeldMack held classes on a number of subjects, such as art, education, including the benefits of co-education, the “Science of Colours”, as well as music and colour. A letter to the Society of Friends in Melbourne in July 1941 notes numerous art classes that his fellow internees attended, but also explains how they had begun to work on the creation of toys for local communities (harking back to the Bauhaus creation of toys).35 An old weathered edition of The Boomerang reveals a cover image of a barbed-wire camp perimeter with a bayonet guarding its front. Its editorial by “K.A.” heralds the internees’ commitment to enduring their lamentable situation: “Realisation of our helpless situation, and defiance in the face of the unalterable”.36 The art created in the camps is an important aspect of the internee record; although it is yet to be exhaustively examined. Of the works created in the internment camps, the key themes tend to be dislocation, barbed wire, sentry posts and watchtowers, or flatness. Another characteristic is the matter-of-fact recording of the internment camp life. It is as if the internees need to register the reality of their foreign, highly constricted environment in order to capably inhabit the scene. Given they were stateless and devoid of any secure status, the quasi-routine of the camp and its drab everydayness impresses upon much of the camp imagery. Emil Wittenberg reports on an exhibition held in the “Messhut-Four-Galleries” in May 1941 and it is this matter of fact, reporting aspect of

|| 34 Inglis/Spark/Winter, Dunera Lives, xix. 35 Hirschfeld-Mack, letter to Mrs Margaret Pierce, The Religious Society of Friends, Melbourne, 9 July, 1941 (Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack–Marga Hirschfeld correspondence, 20 May 1940–18 February 1942); see also McNamara/Stephen, “Exile, Internment and Hirschfeld-Mack in Geelong”, in: Goad et al., Bauhaus Diaspora and Beyond, 68–69. 36 Cover of The Boomerang, no. 12, May 16th, 1941, Camp 7, Hay Internment camp, University of Sydney Rare Books Archive.

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the work that attracts his attention.37 His review praises the “close-up” still-life studies by “Mr G. Teltscher,” whose work impresses due to “the subtlety of their colouring and for the way the objects are filled into a satisfactory surface pattern.” Teltscher’s internment art concentrates on everyday objects, even debris, scattered about the camp interior and its grounds, such as piles of wood or gardens and plants, including studies of cabbages, and extends to figure studies. Either seated or standing, listless, pensive and sometimes expectant, the figures look as if worn out from waiting for something to happen. A lot of attention is also paid to the posts that hold up the camp fence. In some works, all you see is a landscape full of posts; in others, the posts press close to the foreground of the work, almost crowding the frame at times. The many depictions of posts thus assume a force of their own in Teltscher’s camp sketches like a mini-genre comparable to how searchlights and towers would assume a prominent role in other art practices—both then and later. One thinks of the way Sigmar Polke would later treat the watchtower as a compelling motif of the Cold War in works such as his Watchtower with Geese (Hochsitz mit Gänsen) of 1987/88. (Fig. 29) Wittenberg’s review of the Hay camp art show singles out for attention the work of a young Erwin Fabian, who is praised because “in a few battered tins, logs of wood, ash, and rubbish, he gives the whole atmosphere of our dismal surroundings. In brilliant colours and with great technical virtuosity he conjures up the eeriness of the scene”. Another image, a monotype, by Fabian depicts a roughly built outdoor shower that looks as if it has been made of much the same debris: tins, logs of wood, and rubbish—thus more of the “dismal surroundings”.38 Born in Berlin in 1915, he was the son of the painter, Max Fabian. He was warned to flee Germany by a swastika-clad art instructor.39 In internment, like Teltscher, Fabian made many studies of standing or seated fellow internees. The atmosphere of the internment camp is given a very different treatment in his Hay Camp with Sentry Box of January 1941. In this image, Fabian employs a frail-looking sentry box as the central motif in an austere and rather barren landscape. The yellow-brown ground is parched and dry, while

|| 37 Emil Wittenberg, review, The Boomerang, no. 12, May 16th, 1941, Camp 7, Hay Internment camp. Wittenberg, an architect, was one of internees who entered the competition to design the own camp currency. He also designed stage sets for internment camp performances. Refer Inglis/Spark/Winter, Dunera Lives, 133, 170–171. 38 Wittenberg, The Boomerang, no. 12, May 1941. 39 Fabian left Germany in 1937. See Migration and The Refugee: The Art of Erwin Fabian, Tatura Museum, 15 September – 3 November 2019; Coppel, Stephen, “Behind Barbed Wire: Printing making in Australian Internment Camps by Erwin Fabian and Ludwig HirschfeldMack”, Art in Print, September–October 2015, 17.

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overhead the overcast sky is depicted as if restless and brooding, not quite sure whether to release a downpour or just drift away. Like Hirschfeld-Mack’s second sandstorm image, Fabian’s study features no camp inhabitants. Even the camp is depicted at a distance, as if viewed almost remotely. This is a different way to express “the whole atmosphere of our dismal surroundings”, as Wittenberg refers to it. The desultory sentry box is a marker of the internees’ incarceration and yet it is dwarfed by the ominous clouds above. It clings to the landscape looking every bit as decrepit as the ramshackle camp that slopes away to the edge of picture plane. The whole image is the epitome of drab rather than overt coercion. The sentry box stands out only as the main feature in a rather featureless landscape conveying a mood of futility and melancholy. Wittenberg’s review was published in The Boomerang shortly before about 400 internees were moved to another camp in Orange on 22 May 1941. Hirschfeld-Mack wrote to his daughter, Marga, that the new, verdant surroundings were much more congenial.40 Like many internees, Hirschfeld-Mack’s attitude to Australia grew more positive. Already in September the previous year (1940), he wrote to his daughter that his first impressions were positive: “the treatment was decent since we got to Australia—a most progressive country, climate and standard of living must be very good; children and adults look healthier than I have seen in Europe”.41 None of these good impressions, nor the many activities he threw himself into (such as his art activities and teaching), however, could hold off bouts of despondency that kept overwhelming him. (Fig. 30) The most compelling visual realisation of such states (which HirschfeldMack candidly reports from time to time in his letters) is manifested in the print known as Desolation—one of the most enduring images of internment. It is a simple, but haunting encapsulation of loss and deprivation. The first version of the image was conceived in Hay, while another version was created in Orange with some additions of colour touches and more highlighting of the sparkling stars.42 This later version is called Desolation: Internment Camp, Orange, NSW

|| 40 “It is a great relief for all of us to see green grass again after having lived such a long time in desert-like country”; Hirschfeld-Mack, letter to Marga, 29 May 1941. He is also impressed by the “most interesting views into the strange countries […] beautiful swinging lines of hills, mountains and wild peripheries of Eucalyptus forest with strange wild undergrowth”. 41 Hirschfeld-Mack, letter to Marga, 19 September 1940. 42 The version held by the National Gallery of Australia, which is signed in black pencil, “L. Hirschfeld-Mack” in the lower right, and dated “Hay 1940–41” in the lower left below printed image in black pencil. Refer: https://artsearch.nga.gov.au/detail.cfm?irn=56853 For the AGNSW version from Orange, see: https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/ collection/works/DA9.1970/, both October 31, 2019.

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(1940–41), while the Hay version (reproduced here) is titled, “Desolation”: Internment camp, Hay, NSW, 1940–41. It depicts an internee standing before the barbed-wire perimeter fence of a camp. The scene is illuminated by a searchlight that pans the compound grounds. The isolated figure stands alone, hands in the pockets of a heavy coat, while peering into the vast night sky imaging a distant world of friends, family and everyday familiarity that is now remote and incomprehensively beyond grasp. Once could even suggest that into this void had evaporated the hopes and ambitions of the avant-garde, certainly the buoyant post-war excitement of the Weimar Bauhaus. The forlorn figure now stands under the distinctive Southern Cross constellation that can only be seen in the southern hemisphere. Yet, the constellation’s markers appear to be depicted upside down as if suggesting that the Southern Cross is perhaps being reframed from a northern perspective that could not see it originally. This small inversion might suggest a subtle insight into the experience of internment which has turned life upside down. The version produced in Hay is slightly starker because it reduces the image to the bare minimum of a contrast between the pitch darkness and the sad, illuminated figure before the barbed-wire fence. There are no blistering dust storms in this woodcut, just the lonely figure contemplating the universe in strict confinement. Loneliness, as Arendt observed, is a fundamental experience, one conducive to thought, but “at the same time contrary to the basic requirements of the human condition”.43 For Christmas that year (1941) Hirschfeld-Mack reworked his Desolation image for a woodcut celebrating the “festivities” in the Tatura camp in Victoria, his third and last internment camp. Again a solitary figure stands before a barbedwire fence with the Southern Cross constellation sparkling in the night sky below an arched banner, “Merry Christmas 1941”.44 It must be one of the bleakest Christmas cards ever produced. While gradually becoming more comfortable in his new surroundings, the sense of unease with the experience of exile and internment did not dissipate quickly – even after release. In 1943, HirschfeldMack produced a simple drawing called Fall, showing an out-stretched figure in mid-air hurtling to earth at a great rate (as if towards certain death or major injury). It is testimony to the psychological cost of internment. By 1943, Hirschfeld-Mack had effectively been in flight from Nazism for a decade, and the image of a figure in free-fall was not one he could readily shake. (Fig. 31) “Desolation”: Internment camp and the two Sandstorm works of 1940 and 1941 highlight a fascinating aspect of internee art in Australia. While depictions || 43 Arendt, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 475. 44 Refer Coppel, “Behind Barbed Wire”, 20.

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of camp life during the day record the humdrum of routine camp life and its surroundings, by contrast the night-time imagery – at least that produced by the best artists – portrays another world entirely. Fabian’s daytime scene of the Hay internment camp (Fig. 29) exudes a sense of isolation and alienation, but without the terrifying night images of the dust storms conjured by Hirschfeld-Mack. At night, however, this sense of isolation and alienation yields to frightening beast-like figures that spring from nightmares to roam around the camp compound. These demonic scenes are found in Fabian’s works, such as Beast-like creature leading a group of anthropomorphic figures, 1941 or Coffin, also of 1941, both monotypes. Fabian’s stylistic hybrid of expressionism and surrealism helps to capture a psychological reality that is not necessarily surreal. Refugees and internees did not need horror or ghosts to excite their imaginations; their minds were flooded with a new daunting reality. As Arendt comments in regard to refugee and internee experience: “it is real experiences that make their flesh creep.”45 While there are other notable examples of artists producing work that pivots between night and daytime reflections of internment experience, such as Klaus Friedeberger and Hein Heckroth, Fabian’s troubled insights transform the rubbish and refuse studies of the waking hours into monstrous forms at night. The beast-like creature leads a curious, swirling parade of figures. Where to, it is not clear. The landscape is desert-like and beast threatening; there is no solace in this night.

Conclusion Most of the Dunera internees were surprised and pleased by their generally good treatment in Australia. Australian officials made it clear that they were doing the bidding of their British counterparts, and that decisions about the internees were made in Britain. Soon the whole episode was declared an error, which Teltscher wryly depicted in a text work that quotes: “‘Mistakes have been made.’ Herbert Morrison in the House of Commons, 3rd Dec. 1940”. Yet, questions of citizenship and an uncertain status prevailed. In the United States, for instance, the former director of the Bauhaus, Walter Gropius, remained classified as enemy alien until he was finally granted citizenship in 1944. In Australia, Hirschfeld-Mack was not granted Australian citizenship until 1949, which finally ended almost two decades as a person of indeterminate

|| 45 Arendt, “We Refugees”, 266.

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status and citizenship. After a successful teaching career, one of his final acts was to recreate his Farbenlichtspiele for the newly created Bauhaus Archiv, then in Dortmund. He died in Sydney shortly after in 1965. Teltscher, on the other hand, was one of the earliest internees to leave Australia. On 4 June 1941, he sailed back to Britain on the Themistocles.46 Many years later, his future wife, Sara, asked him what he remembered most about internment in Australia. After giving it some thought, he declared “chairs”. He explained that the chairs were always in the wrong place. There would be lectures on in one hut, then next in another hut someone was lecturing on Schoenberg and music, followed by philosophy somewhere else. There were never enough chairs, Teltscher recalled, they were constantly carrying them from one place to another and, after a break, the chairs would invariably end up in an empty hut.47 Erwin Fabian made a career out of making art from junk, refuse and debris, but as a sculptor. In 2019, aged 104, Fabian held an exhibition that explored the frightening parallels between his own experience of internment (in particular the abusive Dunera voyage) and recent refugee experience in the early twentieth-first century in which Australia shed its progressive image – once admired by the internees – for the Dunera-like experience of incarceration on the islands of Nauru and Manus.48 A refrain of Fabian’s wartime internment images of refuse and debris can be found in Vera Rudner’s post-war painting, Sacrilege, c. 1948, which features more barbed wire, and refuse, but in this case she brings these elements together in a mixing of the organic and anorganic.49 A face composed of rubble and waste is intersected with barbed-wire that weaves around the figure and the scene and emerges through the ‘eye’ of this hybrid figure. In the background, a crucifix seems to rest behind the head, while a machinic figure bares teeth in a grimace that echoes Hirschfeld-Mack’s Sandstorm image of 1941 (Fig. 27). Born in 1922 to Austrian and Dutch parents, Rudner worked as a child actor in silent movies of the Weimar era, although these films fell into disrepute with the Nazis

|| 46 Teltscher believed he was one of the first permitted to leave because his name was Adams on his mother’s side and they were distantly related to the old American political family going back to the foundation of the United States. 47 Sara Adams, interview with the author, 1 August 2018. He later taught at the London College of Printing and in the 1970s he was Professor of Graphic Design at the University of Nsukka in Nigeria (1973–1977) using the name George Adams. After 1977 he returned to London where he died in 1983. 48 Spark, Seumas, Migration and The Refugee: The Art of Erwin Fabian, Tatura Museum. See also, Coetzee, J. M., “Australia’s Shame”, The New York Review of Books, 26 September 2019. 49 https://artsearch.nga.gov.au/detail.cfm?irn=167342, October 31, 2019.

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because of their Jewish connections. She subsequently studied art in Berlin and later in Sydney after her family moved to Australia in 1939 just before war was declared. What is the sacrilege she is depicting? Rudner quit painting the year she produced this work, yet it does seem like a striking post-war distillation of a generation reduced to rubble and waste.

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Fig. 26: Ludwig-Hirschfeld Mack, Sandstorm, 1940, drawing, watercolour, painting in watercolour over black pencil with additions in vanish on paper, Courtesy of Chris Bell and the National Gallery of Australia.

Fig. 27: Ludwig-Hirschfeld Mack, Sandstorm, 1941, drawing, watercolour, painting in watercolour over black pencil with additions in vanish on paper, Courtesy of Chris Bell and the National Gallery of Australia.

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Fig. 28: Georg Teltscher, “Six Pence Note,” Internment Camp Currency note design ( front and back), March 1941, Courtesy of the Jewish Museum, Melbourne and Sara Adams.

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Fig. 29: Erwin Fabian, Hay Camp with Sentry Box, January 1941, gouache, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Purchase, 1997, © Erwin Fabian.

Fig. 30: Ludwig-Hirschfeld Mack, “Desolation”: Internment camp, Hay, NSW, 1940–41, Woodcut print, printed in black ink from one block on paper, Courtesy of Chris Bell and the National Gallery of Australia.

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Fig. 31: Erwin Fabian, Beast-like Creature leading a group of anthropomorphic figures, 1941, monotype, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, © Erwin Fabian.

| Media/Documenting the Real?

Danièle Méaux

Le réalisme des appareils Pour Jacques Lacan, la « réalité » diffère du « réel » : alors que la première est de l’ordre de la représentation puisqu’elle est tramée de « symbolique » et d’« imaginaire », le second consiste en ce qui existe effectivement. Par définition donc, « nous n’avons pas à nous étonner que le réel soit quelque chose qui soit à la limite de notre expérience » ou « de notre savoir ».1 Tous les efforts de « réalisme » se heurtent de la sorte au fait qu’ils se présentent tendus vers un objet qui se situe peu ou prou hors de leur portée, en raison même des déterminations culturelles qui les hantent. Cette distinction entre « réel » et « réalité » s’offre comme un biais efficace pour appréhender le « réalisme » tel qu’il se manifeste en photographie au moment des avant-gardes, alors que se développe une singulière confiance en la machine. En effet, les photographes, soucieux de se démarquer d’une normalisation antérieure de leurs pratiques selon les canons de la peinture, tendent à valoriser les ressources spécifiques des appareils ; à ceux-ci se trouve reconnu un « réalisme » particulièrement efficient dans la mesure où leur automatisme permet de briser avec les habitudes de la perception, comme peuvent difficilement y parvenir des démarches impliquant la volonté ou le geste humains, et d’accéder ainsi à une appréhension inédite de portions du réel jusque-là restées in-vues. Le médium semble dès lors susceptible de frayer un chemin vers le monde tel qu’il existerait en dehors de la conscience, dans une matérialité étrangère à l’homme. La mythologie d’un accès direct au « réel » – non médié par la pensée, le langage ou la culture, mais autorisé par la machine – se développe au temps des avant-gardes. Elle se trouve déclinée par les photographes, au travers du topos de « l’autoportrait avec appareil » – qui fait de l’objectif un troisième œil capable de déciller la perception et de servir une connaissance inédite. Les ressources du médium se trouvent évidemment mobilisées de façons différentes selon les photographes et les courants : alors que László Moholy-Nagy et les adeptes de la « Nouvelle Vision » mettent l’accent sur la productivité de la prise de vue et sa puissance de révélation de pans jusqu’alors inaperçus du monde, Albert Renger-Pazsch et ses émules priorisent un usage virtuose des ressources de l’optique pour obtenir une netteté maximale et un extrême rendu des détails, favorables à une appréhension de la matière dans son immanence. Le lyrisme

|| 1 Lacan, Jacques, Le Séminaire livre IV [1956–1957], Paris 1994, 31. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-016

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n’est absent ni de l’une, ni de l’autre de ces deux tendances ; il se manifeste également au sein des textes critiques qui célèbrent l’enrichissement du voir et du connaître proposé par le médium. De telles conceptions s’alimentent d’un intérêt pour les usages de la photographie développés par les scientifiques au service d’un progrès du savoir. D’une manière ou d’une autre, la prise de vue se voit revêtue d’une mission d’exploration du réel.

L’homme « augmenté » Au moment des avant-gardes, les photographes n’ont pas manqué de se représenter, de manière frontale, l’œil abouté à leur appareil : on pense par exemple à Germaine Krull posant pour « Autoportrait avec Icarette » (1925), à Erwin Blumenfeld (1932), à Maurice Tabard (1936) ou encore à Umbo (1952) (ce dernier autoportrait est plus tardif, mais Umbo appartient à la même génération que les trois autres praticiens et transcrit peu ou prou une même façon d’envisager la prise de vue). Nombre de photographes proposent des images au sein desquelles leur visage disparaît partiellement derrière le boîtier et l’objectif de leur appareil. Loin d’opposer l’être à la machine, ces assemblages – qui pourraient de prime abord paraître chimériques ou monstrueux – travaillent à exalter les ressources d’un dispositif, présenté comme truchement fascinant d’un renouvellement de la perception.

Fig. 32: Germaine Krull, « Autoportrait avec Icarette », 1925. © Estate Germaine Krull, Museum Folkwang, Essen.

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Au sein de tels plans rapprochés, le modèle humain se trouve partiellement masqué par l’appareil. En raison de la faible profondeur de champ, le visage de Krull apparaît brouillé au second plan. Quant à celui de Tabard, il se perd dans un grisé métallique. Dans l’autoportrait d’Umbo, le nivellement des plans travaille à la constitution d’une espèce de « cyborg », à mi-chemin de l’homme et de la machine. Toutes ces images pointent en tout cas la manière dont l’objectif relaie et « augmente » le regard humain. En écho à ces photographies, un critique écrit en 1928 à propos d’Albert Renger-Patzsch, : « ce monsieur a tout simplement trois yeux : deux sur son visage avec lesquels il voit le cadrage, et la lentille dans son boîtier ».2 Le corps de l’opérateur est impliqué dans l’exercice de la prise de vue : le praticien se trouve immergé au sein d’un espace englobant dont il fixe certains pans. L’exercice de la photographie rend sensible cette incarnation de la vision comme la façon dont elle « est suspendue au mouvement »3 selon l’expression de Maurice Merleau-Ponty. L’opérateur possède une expérience concrète de cette solidarité et la fait, dans une certaine mesure, partager au spectateur. Dans les années 1920–1930, les praticiens possèdent de petits appareils maniables et légers, qu’ils placent devant leurs yeux et qui accompagnent leurs mouvements. Le viseur se fait alors solidaire du regard qu’il prolonge, en épousant ses orientations de sorte que composer, c’est nécessairement bouger.4 Le rapport que le photographe entretient avec une chambre de grand format est évidemment très différent ; la lourdeur de cet équipement ralentit la manœuvre du praticien de sorte que la prise de vue est lente et concertée. L’opérateur se tient à côté de la machine volumineuse, dont il se présente pour ainsi dire comme « le servant ». C’est ce qu’illustre une épreuve de Nadar figurant le mime Deburau en Pierrot photographe (1854–1855). Une telle relation n’engage pas à imaginer une forme d’hybridation entre l’homme et la machine. Le lien susceptible de s’instaurer entre le praticien et un appareil tel que le Rolleiflex est encore différent : la surface sensible se trouve disposée parallèlement au buste de l’opérateur dont le regard surplombe le verre dépoli où il peut prévisualiser l’image. L’usage de ce type d’appareil aiguise, chez le praticien, une conscience de la frontalité. Si la prise de vue est affaire de positionnement phy-

|| 2 Tucholsky, Kurt, « Das schönste Geschenk » (« Le plus beau cadeau »), Die Weltbühne, Berlin, volume 24, n° 51, 18 décembre 1928, 933, in : Olivier Lugon, La Photographie en Allemagne. Anthologie de textes (1919–1939), Paris 1997, 143. 3 Tucholsky, Kurt, « Das schönste Geschenk », 19. 4 Lugon, Olivier, « Le marcheur. Piétons et photographes au sein des avant-gardes », Études photographiques, n°8, novembre 2000, 69–91.

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sique, ce dernier se trouve donc évidemment médié par un appareil. Loin d’être superficielles ou anecdotiques, certaines évolutions techniques modifient de façon essentielle l’expérience de l’opérateur et la nature de l’acte photographique. C’est seulement avec l’émergence des appareils modernes de petit format que l’image a pu être assimilée à un regard porté sur le réel5 ‒ dont la mobilité paraît quasiment sans entrave. Les clichés de Krull, Tabard ou encore Umbo possèdent une forte valeur dramatique : l’œil du modèle est appliqué au viseur et son doigt presse le déclencheur. Dans « Autoportrait avec Icarette »6, la mise au point est faite sur le premier plan de sorte que l’appareil et les mains apparaissent avec netteté, tandis que la tête et le buste de la jeune femme sont troubles ; le contraste marqué fait ressortir la rencontre du doigt et du bouton. Le geste de l’index est également apparent chez Umbo. La pression exercée provoque l’ouverture du diaphragme, qui autorise l’admission de la lumière venant impressionner la surface sensible. Le geste, visible, détermine un processus mécanique qui est, quant à lui, dissimulé à l’intérieur du boîtier ; il implique des opérations concrètes qui, bien que masquées, travaillent à la genèse de l’image. Dans ces autoportraits, les visages paraissent concentrés, absorbés dans l’activité de voir. Le regard qui négocie avec le dispositif optique est déterminant puisqu’il conditionne la décision de déclencher et de faire image, dans l’instant. Selon le scénario ordinaire de la prise de vue ‒ qui est connue du spectateur7 ‒ un certain nombre de réglages ont été effectués au préalable et d’autres prises de vue seront réalisées ensuite ; puis le négatif sera révélé, enfin les épreuves sélectionnées seront tirées. Le moment figuré se présente donc comme un maillon au sein d’une succession d’opérations que le spectateur suppute. Chez Krull ou Tabard, la présence d’une cigarette ou d’une pipe signe l’inscription du mouvement du doigt du praticien au sein d’une durée8.

|| 5 À « l’esthétique de la vue » propre à l’usage de la chambre, Philippe Ortel oppose « l’esthétique du regard » que permet l’usage d’un petit appareil maniable : Ortel, Philippe, La Littérature à l’ère de la photographie. Enquête sur une révolution invisible, Paris 2002, 235–263. 6 La jeune femme est très attachée à cet appareil qu’elle utilisera jusqu’en 1931 ‒ date à laquelle il lui est volé. Il s’agit d’un modèle simple, destiné aux amateurs, dont le cadrage est approximatif. Voir à cet égard Krull, Germaine, La Vie mène la danse, tapuscrit, 1981. Cité dans Frizot, Michel, Germaine Krull, Paris 2015, 43, 75. 7 C’est ce que Jean-Marie Schaeffer nomme le « savoir de l’arché ». Voir Schaeffer, Jean-Marie, L’Image précaire. Du dispositif photographique, Paris 1987, 41–46. 8 La cigarette contribue également, à l’évidence, à poser Germaine Krull en femme active et libérée.

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Si ces photographies ne s’en tiennent pas à l’évocation de l’arrête vive du déclenchement, c’est aussi qu’elles se trouvent elles-mêmes interprétées comme les produits du geste mis en image. Le spectateur est en effet enclin à supputer que la scène figurée se trouve réfléchie dans un miroir. D’autres hypothèses sont évidemment possibles : la photographie a pu être prise par un comparse ou encore à l’aide d’un autre appareil relié à un retardateur. L’idée de l’usage d’un miroir tend cependant à prévaloir dans l’esprit du spectateur, le phénomène de la réflexion se présentant comme le paradigme d’un regard se retournant sur lui-même. Il s’agit aussi de la formule qui permet au praticien de fonctionner « en autarcie », en se cantonnant à doubler le dispositif optique de l’appareil par un autre dispositif optique, spéculaire celui-là. Dans cette hypothèse, les photographies d’Umbo, Krull ou Tabard constitueraient donc les résultats d’une suite d’opérations, dont elles figureraient précisément l’origine fugitive. Pour le dire autrement, le sujet même de ces clichés serait la mise en scène de leur avènement. Ces épreuves semblent dès lors inclure, pour le spectateur, tout un feuilleté de temps : elles rabattent, au sein d’une même figuration, le moment de la prise de vue (qui est ostensiblement donné à voir), celui concomitant de l’impression de la surface sensible (qui est suggéré) et enfin l’existence pérenne du tirage (qui se trouve pour ainsi dire objectivée). Le procès se déplie ainsi en étapes échelonnées dans le temps, mais concaténées au sein de la même image. Chacun de ces clichés propose en tout cas une chimère de chair et de métal. Le visage confus de Krull se prolonge dans le boîtier noir de l’appareil qui, en raison même de sa netteté, semble avancer vers le spectateur ; viseur et objectif ne sont pas tout à fait à la même hauteur, mais ils substituent aux yeux de l’opératrice un système optique plus performant ; le geste de l’index appliqué au déclencheur se fait mécanique, tandis que l’appareil prend presque allure humaine : « L’objectif est un œil mieux fait que l’œil » notait la photographe dans sa préface à Études de nu.9 Chez Umbo, la netteté paraît ramener sur un même plan l’opérateur et la machine. Aux formes simples de l’appareil (circularité de l’objectif, rectangle du viseur…) répond la rotondité du crâne chauve et lustré du praticien. L’univers scientifique est convoqué par ces figures géométriques : le photographe semble tenir du géomètre ou de l’ingénieur. Dans le même temps, le schématisme des formes rappelle la structure de certains masques nègres appréciés des avant-gardes.

|| 9 Krull, Germaine, Études de nu, Paris 1930.

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Fig. 33: Erwin Blumenfeld, « Autoportrait », 1932. © The estate of Erwin Blumenfeld.

La photographie de Blumenfeld est plus surprenante car le modèle n’y est pas placé derrière un véritable appareil, mais derrière un objectif monté sur une plaque carrée ; il est par ailleurs largement ouvert et doté d’une lentille grossissante. Au travers de cet instrument, l’œil du praticien apparaît démesurément grossi ‒ tel que la technique le métamorphose. Ce regard de cyclope tient de l’allégorie : il est tout à la fois entièrement produit par le dispositif optique qui lui est abouté et singulièrement vivant, puisque l’agrandissement exalte la luisance et la texture de la cornée. Pas de diaphragme dans cet objectif célibataire : l’iris du photographe en tient lieu pour ainsi dire. Comment mieux traduire l’accouplement de l’opérateur et de la machine ? L’autoportrait de Blumenfeld rappelle le plan final de L’Homme à la caméra de Dziga Vertov (1929) : l’œil géant, qui y apparaissait par surimpression, y était pareillement cerclé par la bordure noire d’un objectif.

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Fig. 34: Dziga Vertov, L’Homme à la caméra, 1929.

Les affiches de promotion du film de Vertov présentaient également un œil grand ouvert placé dans l’objectif d’une caméra, tandis qu’au trépied de cette dernière se mêlaient les jambes d’une gymnaste vêtue d’un tutu. À l’époque, une telle chimère caractérise aussi bien la photographie que le cinéma. L’affiche présentant la fameuse exposition « Film und Foto » organisée à Stuttgart en 1929 marie également, en une audacieuse contre-plongée, un homme et un appareil.10 Dès 1926, Umbo propose un photomontage intitulé « Le reporter pressé »11 qui exhibe un être « augmenté » de toute une variété de machines modernes (réveil, appareil photographique, mégaphone, machine à écrire, avion, automobile…) à même de relayer ses capacités initiales. Cette créature fantastique signe l’engouement de l’époque pour les ressources machiniques. Tous ces sujets mi humains, mi mécaniques ressemblent aux « cyborgs » dont est peuplée la science-fiction contemporaine. Pour Donna Haraway, l’intérêt de ces créatures imaginaires tient au fait qu’elles se tiennent entre na-

|| 10 Cinéma et photographie sont englobés dans une même vision chimérique. Michel Frizot parle même pour la photographie de cette époque d’un « imaginaire-cinéma » ; voir Frizot, Michel, « D’un imaginaire-cinéma de la photographie (1928–1930) », in: Guido Laurent/Olivier Lugon (éd.), Fixe-Animé. Croisements de la photographie et du cinéma du XXe siècle, Lausanne 2010, 203–224. 11 Il s’agit d’un portrait du journaliste Egon Erwin Kisch.

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ture et culture12, transgressant ainsi les frontières établies. De telles chimères contribuent, à ses yeux, à la déconstruction des dualismes primaires ; autrement dit, elles illustrent l’idée qu’il n’y a pas d’un côté le vivant et, de l’autre, la technique ‒ le sujet se trouvant modifié par les machines dont il fait usage. Selon André Leroi-Gourhan, l’outil joue le rôle d’une prothèse13 : conçu afin de permettre la réalisation de certaines actions, il entre en dialogue avec le sujet dont il conditionne les gestes ; il innerve un corps sur lequel il se trouve pour ainsi dire greffé. Mais un seuil se trouve certainement franchi dès lors que les artefacts susceptibles de relayer les gestes ne sont plus de simples outils, mais comportent des mécanismes internes capables d’accomplir une part du travail ‒ dont l’opérateur se trouve ainsi délesté. L’appareil photographique contient précisément une part d’automaticité : des rouages, des engrenages à même de fonctionner les uns avec les autres, sont enfermés dans son boîtier ; des cheminements y ont été ménagés pour la lumière afin que le spectacle des apparences puisse venir se déposer sur la surface sensible ; les capacités du praticien se trouvent ainsi accrues par la sous-traitance de certaines opérations, sans lesquelles la fabrication de l’image serait impossible. Cependant, en raison de l’automatisation d’une partie du processus, le praticien n’a plus la « main mise » (dans les deux sens du terme) sur toute la production : l’appareil occulte la nature précise de l’action effectuée en même temps qu’il en assure l’efficacité, dans la continuité même des aptitudes physiques de l’opérateur. Les autoportraits de Krull, Tabard, Blumenfeld et Umbo disent combien ces photographes eurent conscience de la manière dont les appareils influaient sur leurs modalités de perception du réel. Les avant-gardes assumèrent pleinement l’entremise de la technique et sa puissance générative. L’exercice de la prise de vue est, pour ces photographes, plus proche d’un ars (au sens latin, activité) que de « l’art » à la manière dont on l’entend aujourd’hui. Ils travaillent pour les magazines ou pour la publicité et ne font pas véritablement de césure entre le créatif et le commercial. « Photographier, c’est un métier. Un métier d’artisan »14 déclare Germaine Krull en 1930, et cet artisanat façonne tout un rapport au monde. Les « autoportraits » ici pris en considération se présentent comme des « manifestes » qui célèbrent les possibilités nouvelles conférées au sujet par la machine. Les acteurs de l’avant-garde exaltent ainsi un nouveau régime de perception, engendré par les appareils.

|| 12 Haraway, Donna, Des Singes, des cyborgs et des femmes. La réinvention de la nature [1991], Nîmes 2009. 13 Leroi-Gourhan, André, Évolution et techniques. L’homme et la matière [1943], Paris 1971, 319. 14 Krull, Études de nu, op. cit.

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Les ressources heuristiques de la prise de vue À ces « autoportraits avec appareil », les textes théoriques et critiques de l’époque font écho. La parution de Malerei Fotografie Film marque, en 1925, l’avènement de la « Nouvelle Vision » en Allemagne et en Europe. Dans cet essai, László Moholy-Nagy assigne à la photographie la mission d’élargir la vision humaine qu’il estime trop limitée ; de cette extension des possibilités du regard, la photosensibilité se présente pour lui comme la principale détermination : […] on négligeait autrefois totalement le fait que la photosensibilité d’une surface traitée chimiquement […] constitue l’un des éléments de base du procédé photographique, la mettant systématiquement au service d’une camera obscura régie par les lois perspectives et la vouant à l’enregistrement (reproduction) de différents objets, selon leur manière de réfléchir ou d’absorber la lumière. On ne prit même pas la peine de soumettre les possibilités offertes par cette combinaison à un examen rigoureux. Cela pourtant aurait permis de rendre visible, grâce à l’appareil photographique, des phénomènes que notre instrument optique, l’œil, ne peut percevoir ou enregistrer, l’appareil photographique se révélant ainsi capable de le parfaire ou de le compléter.15

Moholy-Nagy mentionne ensuite la valeur révélatrice des clichés « ratés » pour en conclure : Le secret de leur effet réside dans la capacité de l’appareil photographique à reproduire une image optique pure, où se manifestent les véritables enregistrements, déformations et raccourcissements optiques, tandis que notre œil, lui, complète mentalement et par association, la forme et la disposition des phénomènes optiques perçus pour parvenir à une image de ce que nous nous représentons. Partant, l’appareil photographique constitue l’outil le plus fiable à l’amorce d’une vision objective. Tout le monde sera contraint de voir ce qui est vrai du point de vue optique, objectif et interprétable en soi, avant de le soumettre à un éventuel jugement subjectif. Ainsi, le pouvoir suggestif des images et des représentations, invaincu depuis des siècles, et que quelques peintres exceptionnels imprimèrent à notre manière de voir, pourra-t-il être aboli.16

Si le dispositif photographique se présente comme le produit de la culture occidentale dans son rapport à l’espace, son potentiel heuristique tient, pour Moholy-Nagy, à ce qu’il exploite les ressources de la photosensibilité et autorise, au moment de l’enregistrement, le retrait de toute médiation humaine pour une saisie du réel dont la conscience est absente. Cette « inhumanité de

|| 15 Moholy-Nagy, László, Peinture Photographie Film et autres écrits photographiques [1925], Paris 2007, 103. 16 Moholy-Nagy, Peinture Photographie, 104.

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l’empreinte » lui confère une formidable capacité à rompre avec la tradition et à frayer de nouvelles voies de perception : la « productivité des appareils » découle de cette prise directe sur le monde, dont l’entremise du sujet est évacuée, alors que la volonté de « reproduction » est toujours biaisée par la culture acquise. Dans cette perspective, Moholy-Nagy va jusqu’à imaginer des machines munies de dispositifs de lentilles et de miroirs, capables de saisir un objet simultanément sous toutes ses faces, ou encore des appareils gouvernés par des lois optiques complètement différentes de celles qui régissent l’œil humain. Il s’agit pour lui de penser des mécanismes qui dépassent les aptitudes biologiques de notre organisme pour approcher autrement – et mieux – le réel, tel qu’il existe par-delà la vision ordinaire. Extension artificielle du corps, l’appareil entraîne un accroissement des capacités sensibles et cognitives de l’être. Bousculant les habitudes de perception héritées du passé, il prépare ainsi l’avènement d’un homme nouveau. La « productivité des appareils » ne se tient pas sur le versant de l’imagination, mais sur celui de l’« objectivité » dont la conscience est évacuée pour servir la connaissance. Au travers d’une telle approche, dimensions esthétique et noétique tendent à se rejoindre, dans une perspective expérimentale17. En accord avec cette manière de voir, l’exposition « Film und Foto »18 exalte les vues réalisées en plongée ou en contre-plongée qui rompent drastiquement avec les règles de la perspective, les gros plans qui portent à la connaissance de l’observateur des éléments auparavant inaperçus ; certains clichés pris à des vitesses très rapides exhibent également des instants invisibles à l’œil nu. Au même moment, paraît l’ouvrage de Werner Gräff, Es kommt der neue Fotograf19 ! (Voici venir le nouveau photographe !) dont la couverture montre sur fond blanc un objectif Zeiss cernant la vision insolite d’un homme marchant sur un trottoir, saisi d’un point de vue zénithal qui le métamorphose. Ainsi cerclé d’un tour sombre griffé d’inscriptions techniques, le sujet ressemble à un spécimen d’insecte ou de plante observé à travers la lentille d’un microscope : l’entremise technologique est exaltée et l’art affiche ses proximités avec la science. Les lettres noires du titre fendent à l’oblique le bas de la couverture pour venir mordre sur l’objectif, adoptant l’orientation d’une vigoureuse contre-plongée et renvoyant au dynamisme des nouvelles pratiques de prise de vue. Es kommt der neue Fotograf ! célèbre les capacités du médium à élargir le regard pour ap-

|| 17 Moholy-Nagy, Peinture Photographie, 105–106. 18 Exposition « Film und Foto », Stuttgart, mai–juillet 1929. 19 Gräff, Werner, Es kommt der neue Fotograf !, Berlin 1929.

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prendre à voir, au diapason d’une société qui se transforme avec les progrès de l’industrie.

Fig. 35: Werner Gräff, Es kommt der neue Fotograf !, 1929, couverture.

L’exposition « Film und Foto » suscita cependant de nombreuses controverses. Certains critiques dénoncèrent de vains exercices visuels, travaillant davantage à stimuler le « nerf optique »20 qu’à fournir une véritable approche du réel ; « un art pour l’art nouveau et froid », « sans trace aucune d’interprétation ou de jugement sociaux »21 se trouva stigmatisé. Il est de fait loisible de s’interroger sur la part faite, au sein de la « Nouvelle Vision », aux jeux optiques surprenants – ce qui conduit de facto à relativiser la capacité des images à introduire une nouvelle connaissance du monde. Reste cependant – et c’est qui nous intéresse ici – que, par l’entremise des photographies comme des discours d’escorte, se trouve obstinément pointé le mythe d’une révélation du réel par le biais des appareils, à même d’élargir la vision humaine : les vues et les textes prennent l’allure de manifestes pour un « réalisme » inédit que le dispositif photographique autorise.

|| 20 Kállai, Ernst, « Schöne Photos, billige Photos » (« Belles photos, photos bon marché »), Die Weltbühne, Berlin, volume 25, n° 46, 12 novembre 1929, 736–738, in: Lugon, La Photographie en Allemagne, 202. 21 Kállai, Ernst, « Schöne Photos, billige Photos », 203.

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Dès 1927 s’impose la figure d’Albert Renger-Patzsch qui se démarque des expérimentations de la « Nouvelle Vision ». Formé à la documentation botanique, architecturale et industrielle, il possède un savoir-faire irréprochable ; aux procédés apparents, il préfère la sobriété d’un rendu exhaustif de la texture des choses ; aux effets optiques surprenants, il oppose une maîtrise technique rigoureuse, incarnant ainsi le mouvement de la « Nouvelle Objectivité ». L’ouvrage qu’il publie en 1928 sous le titre Die Welt ist schön22 (Le Monde est beau) devait initialement s’intituler Les Choses. Les plantes, les animaux, les paysages ou les machines sont détaillés dans des gros plans d’une extrême netteté. Si le réel se trouve ici encore placé en ligne de mire et la technique célébrée en tant que biais pour l’atteindre, les modalités de traitement photographique qui sont privilégiées diffèrent drastiquement de celles de la « Nouvelle Vision ». L’intitulé d’un recueil de poèmes de Francis Ponge (Le Parti-pris des choses, 1942) fait écho au titre d’abord souhaité par Renger-Patzsch – qui traduisait bien mieux que celui ensuite retenu par l’éditeur la puissante attraction qui portait le photographe vers le réel dans son immanence. Le minutieux enregistrement photographique du monde semble en effet capable de révéler sa présence pure, telle qu’elle préexisterait à tout regard humain et donc à toute culture. Chez Renger-Patzsch, la gradation est étendue et la granulation précise : la richesse des détails semble confiner à l’excès, dépassant de loin la quantité d’éléments que l’œil humain est capable de saisir dans la simultanéité. De fait, la portion d’espace que le sujet est susceptible de percevoir avec netteté s’avère très restreinte, le reste du champ visuel demeurant flou ; le regard se meut à la surface du monde et la perception d’un ensemble passe peu ou prou par l’exercice de la mémoire. Les photographies de Renger-Patzsch frappent par la profusion des détails enregistrés, qui entraîne une dilation de la durée de leur examen; les possibilités de la machinerie optique paraissent ainsi à même de forcer l’attention du spectateur pour la pousser au-delà de ses capacités naturelles ; ses images transcrivent l’utopie d’un accès ménagé vers la « choséité ». Au sujet de Die Welt ist Schön, un critique note : « [la photographie] se transforme ainsi en un moyen inestimable de connaissance de la nature […]. Elle exige l’attention vive de l’observateur ; elle active son intelligence des droits réels et valables de la nature et, dans le miroir qu’elle lui présente, ouvre l’accès essentiel mais quasiment perdu au monde réel et obstinément ex-

|| 22 Renger-Patzsch, Albert, Die Welt ist schön, München 1928.

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istant ».23 Un autre estime que la prise de vue « est en mesure de […] fournir une image nouvelle des choses et des hommes qui lui est propre, une image d’une intensité bouleversante, […] à travers une sélection spécifique dans la profusion des faits, fondée sur la particularité absolue de sa technique. »24 Ces commentaires signent la fascination exercée par l’idée d’une relation purement optique avec le réel, capable de court-circuiter la médiation de la conscience. La « Nouvelle Objectivité » eut ses détracteurs. Walter Benjamin tendit par exemple à stigmatiser une esthétisation du monde à laquelle toute mise en perspective sociale ou politique faisait défaut25. Le mirage d’une relation indemne de toute pensée reste cependant fascinant pour l’homme : tout être n’a-t-il pas un jour vainement tenté de rêver le réel tel qu’il pourrait exister en lui-même, littéralement évidé de sa propre présence pour le concevoir ? Les usages scientifiques du médium sont également souvent invoqués par les photographes, les critiques ou les théoriciens des avant-gardes26 afin d’exemplifier l’idée d’un accès aux phénomènes excédant celui qu’autorise la perception « naturelle ». De fait, l’ultra-rapidité de la prise de vue a permis le progrès des recherches menées en physiologie du mouvement ; l’appareil photographique a été abouté au télescope comme au microscope afin d’explorer l’infiniment lointain et l’infiniment proche ; grâce à la découverte des rayons X, l’apparence d’éléments dissimulés à l’intérieur de l’organisme a pu être fixée sur une surface sensible. Les ressources heuristiques de la photosensibilité et de l’optique dans le champ scientifique revêtent une évidente valeur paradigmatique pour les avant-gardes. Durant les années 1920–1930, les photographes se tournent vers l’exploitation des ressources spécifiques des appareils. Si variées que soient les pistes explorées, elles se trouvent peu ou prou légitimées par l’idée d’un gain de « réalisme », par rapport aux perceptions habituelles et aux représentations antérieures. Se manifeste alors de manière récurrente l’utopie d’un accès direct au monde via la technique – l’appareil photographique se présentant pour l’homme comme une prothèse qui lui permet d’appréhender le réel par de-là la

|| 23 Petry, Walther, « Bindung an die Dinge » (« Le lien aux choses »), Das Kunstblatt, Berlin, volume 13, n° 8, 1929, 246–248, in: Lugon, La Photographie en Allemagne, 155. 24 Peterhans, Walter, « Zum gegenwärtigen Stand der Fotografie » (« De l’état actuel de la photographie »), ReD, Prague, volume 3, n° 5, 1930, 138–140, in : Lugon, La Photographie en Allemagne, 155. 25 Benjamin, Walter, « Petite histoire de la photographie » [1931], in : Essais I, Paris 1971, 166. Benjamin, Walter, « L’auteur comme producteur » [1934], in : Essais sur Brecht, Paris 2003, 133–134. 26 Moholy-Nagy, Peinture Photographie, 103.

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« réalité » tramée d’imaginaire et de symbolique, selon l’opposition développée par Lacan. L’« œil photographique » est donc censé apporter une connaissance inédite du monde. Une telle équation suppose cependant une réduction du réel au visible : au travers de cette approche, le sens de la vue se trouve pour ainsi dire héroïsé au détriment de l’ouïe, du toucher ou de l’olfaction. Il s’agit aussi d’exploration visuelle bien davantage que de compréhension des phénomènes, les mots étant indispensables à une intellection du monde dans ses tensions et ses complexités, ses dimensions sociales et politiques. C’est pourquoi le « réalisme des appareils » ne se présente pas vraiment comme une voie effective, mais plutôt comme une mythologie enivrante, un tropisme qui fascine une époque éprise d’innovations techniques.

Éva Forgács

The Inconceivable Reality Amateur Photography and Professional Painting The rich and inspiring theoretical literature on the notion of ‘reality’ and its artistic presentation notwithstanding, this paper is dedicated to the particular, under-examined issue of the perception of the ‘real’ and its porous borders with the ‘surreal’ in the context of amateur photography. Tracing back fascination with amateur photography to the work of Christian Boltanski, I would like to demonstrate this connection mainly in the work of Hungarian painter László Fehér (b. 1953). Discussion of his ‘realism’1 will also include the particular political implications of innovative ‘realisms’ in the Hungarian art between the late 1960s and the 1980s.

Amateur photography and the notion of the ‘real’ in painting Not only was photography seen, as early as the 1920s, to be the obituary of painting, replacing it with industrial perfection: the inverse process also took place when painterly photorealism transferred the photographic image to oilon-canvas (or acrylic-on-canvas) paintings, inducting it into the sanctuary of high culture. This was the more necessary because photography had already been in galleries and museums as an added genre of artistic expression challenging the status of the grand art of painting. Amateur photography’s specific contribution to the sense and interpretation of ‘reality’ in painting was a somewhat later and less examined development. Private snapshots contributed to an increasingly complex understanding of ‘reality’, providing the experience that an image is the trigger rather than the complete equivalent of what is perceived as ‘reality’. Amateur photos served as everyday proofs that related ideas, memories, and associated contents flow through the viewer’s mind at the time of contemplating them. This process has revealed a paradox: the less the image shows and the less the mind is pinned

|| 1 Due to the many different notions and lack of definition of the terms ‘real’, ‘reality’ and ‘realism’, I will use them in quotation marks. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-017

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down to specifics, the more it is activated: black-and-white photos and films deliver not less vivacious perception than coloured ones, and paintings that offer limited colour scale or less details mobilize the viewer’s inner resources more than fully accurate and complete renderings. Such experience has led to recognizing that ‘reality’ is not exactly what is seen at any one time. It is everything that has ever been seen, felt, heard, experienced in any way that a picture brings back to mind.

Amateur photography and art Amateur photography is a different genre than high quality, high-resolution professional photo making. Not only is it opposed to elaborate photographic compositions: it is also fundamentally different from the designed and staged painterly compositions of biblical, historical, or even domestic episodes of classical painting, as it is technically imperfect, and captures banal everyday scenes. An amateur photo is meaningless to everyone except for its maker and those involved. Moments of domestic life and happenstance of groups of objects, however, go back a long way: such scenes appeared at the beginnings of secular art in seventeenth century painting from Vermeer’s and Pieter de Hooch’s silent home scenes to trompe-l’oeils to some of the still lives. Moreover, Vermeer’s method of painting is thought to have been technically photographic, inasmuch as he is believed to have used camera obscura. The paintings that record mundane moments can arguably be seen as forerunners of amateur – especially family – photography2 that became ubiquitous in the twentieth century, exponentially increasing since the use of phones for the purpose. Family photos preserve private moments for posterity by creating family memory with highly personal choices of subject matter and environment, and low technical and compositional quality. Most of them follow set traditions of topics such as vacation scenes and actions, family members posing at famous or personally particularly significant locations, and touting prize family possessions such as the house, car, motorbike, and the like. While photorealist paintings often have the ambition to outdo professional photography by more precisely recording lights, reflections, and details with the indifference of photo-reportage, family photos are emotional and imperfect, their main ambition being to save a partic-

|| 2 Of course amateur photography is not limited to family snapshots. This paper, however, traces the influence of family photography on painting.

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ular moment for memory. A feature the artistic photo and the photo as personal document share is, as Susan Sontag and Roland Barthes pointed out in their respective essays,3 inherent in the medium. Photography, capturing a nanosecond of the present as it is becoming past as soon as the camera is clicked on it, is inseparable from the awareness of passing, and the melancholy and anxiety that pervade our secular culture with regard to death. Sontag and Barthes did not focus on photography as art. Without specifying the genre, both authors were more fascinated by amateur photography than the aesthetics of photography or its significance for art history. It is the vulnerability and the clumsiness of amateur photos where both of them saw the enigma of being, of existence and non-existence. Lacking aesthetic ambitions, amateur photography records a specific scene or sight that is there, but as soon as the shutter clicks on it, is gone. The actual object of amateur photography is the irreversibility of time. The more insignificant the recorded moment, the more important it will appear when viewed from this perspective. The person who clicks the shutter will see that moment as part of a narrative only later, when the recorded scene is invested with meaning that may be entirely different from the one it had at the time the photograph was taken. As they become part of an ever-changing story, amateur photographs pick up new meaning over time, and the amateur photographer knows this. Photography thus exists and functions in the space of memory, where there are hardly any fix points. Our memories may be right or they may be wrong, the stress falls on one or another motif, one or another detail stands out or lies dormant. The elements shift, are blurred, their outlines fade or else come suddenly into sharp focus, or possibly just certain details emerge from some recess of our conscious minds. Bringing amateur photography into painting as a picture’s starting point harnesses the fact that though memory may be good, memories are never reliable, so the act of remembering retrieves images only after they have passed through countless filters, and in the process details are lost, added, layered atop each other, beautified or given unexpected emphasis.

|| 3 Sontag, Susan, On Photography, New York 1977; Barthes, Roland, Camera Lucida, transl. by Richard Howard, New York 1981 (orig. Paris 1980).

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Christian Boltanski’s insights The French artist Christian Boltanski (b. 1944) is one of the first to have exploited such multiple implications and the virtually endless fields of associations of amateur photography to offer a ‘real’ experience through them. In 1970 he exhibited a family photo of a 13 year-old boy under the title The Last Photo of Paul Chardon, playing on the double meaning of the word ‘dernière’ meaning in French, similarly to German and Russian, ‘last’ both in the sense of ‘the latest’ or ‘the newest’, and ‘the final’ or ‘ultimate’. Inspired by the casualness of family snapshots, Boltanski took pictures from a friend’s family album and rephotographed and enlarged them to a uniform size, presenting them as a piece of art consisting of framed photos in a systemic rhythm.4 In Reference Glass Cases (1975) he displayed snapshots of himself, a few art works he had made, and photos of some of his works as a future historic presentation documenting his personality and activity. His interest in objects having the same documentary value as photos and bespeaking transition as well, came from his visits to the Musée de l’Homme in Paris. In an interview he said: …it was there that I saw large metal and glass vitrines in which were placed small, fragile, and insignificant objects. A yellowed photograph showing a “savage” handling his little objects was often placed in the corner of the vitrine. Each vitrine presented a lost world: the savage in the photograph was most likely dead; the objects had become useless – anyway there’s no one left who knows how to use them. The Musée de l’Homme seemed like a big morgue to me. Numerous artists discovered the human sciences (linguistics, sociology, and archeology) there…5

At a time of growing awareness of the possibility to manipulate photos, the power of family snapshots lied in their truthful spontaneity and their apparently purely improvised character. Poor photographic quality warranted for unadulterated truth. Moreover, Boltanski recognized that objects, in their bare, indifferent physicality, are even more unpretentious than snapshots: a pair of used, soiled socks can be just as alive a testimony as a photographic image.

|| 4 Boltanski, Christian, L'album photographique de la famille de B, 1991. 5 Quoted by Lynn, Gumpert, Christian Boltanski, Paris 1994, 32.

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Concepts of the ‘real’ Visionary, psychological, descriptive, photographic, insightfully structural: these are some of the concepts competing, throughout the twentieth century’s history of modernism, for being the definition of ‘realism’ in art. Besides rivalling each other, the many concepts of the ‘real’ had the additional task to disqualify the Nazi and Stalinist use of the term for the dictatorially enforced, fake and idealized optimism of their respective figurative visual production that they exclusively labelled ‘realism’. Looking back at the origins and history of abstract art we must see that it was not meant to counter realism: on the contrary, various sorts of abstraction proposed more adequate, more deep-going encounters with ‘reality’ than imitative figurative renderings. The scientific and technological developments and inventions of the last quarter of the nineteenth century taught humankind that truth is hidden beneath the surface, and highly efficient components of reality such as electricity or x-rays are not visible while they are as real as anything that meets the eye. No wonder that artists discarded the visible surface of reality as irrelevant, and made various forays to fathom what they thought to be the actual, deep-lying reality, exploring its structural as well as psychological layers. Discussion of the revivals of figurative art in post-World War I Italy or 1920s Germany, as examined by Benjamin D. Buchloh,6 is beyond the scope of this paper as well analysis of Clement Greenberg’s famed 1939 essay “Avant-Garde and Kitsch”,7 which argued that abstraction and realism were posited as conflicting trends. Although both essays aim to fathom the concept and meaning of the ‘real’ and the political harnessing of pictorial veracity as propaganda instrument in dictatorships, it is, I would like to argue, everyday photography that has significantly changed our relation to the ‘real’. Paradoxically, it appears that photography made painters defy ‘reality’. They tended to doubt that what we see in a given moment is actually all there is to ‘reality’. Photo-based paintings are particularly intriguing in the light of the current art of photography, in particular the works of artists coming from the Düsseldorf Art Academy, who have presented the world with enormous-size photos of such high resolution that surpass the capacity of human optical perception. Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, and Thomas Struth make digitally ’per|| 6 Bucloh, Benjamin D, “Figures of Authority, Ciphers of Regression. Notes on the Return of Representation in European Painting”, in: Marcia Tucker (ed.), Art After Modernism, New York 1984, 107–134. 7 Greenberg, Clement, “Avant-Garde and Kitsch”, Partisan Review, 6, Fall 1939, 34–49.

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fected’ photos, manipulated in many ways using digital tools, aspiring at photoshop-improved veracity while they often blur or sharpen select motives. Their photos are exhibited in major galleries and museums alongside paintings. If photorealism in painting had harnessed the cultural prestige of oil painting to raise photography and the banality of small everyday topics to the level of grand art, recreating photos in painterly compositions in the 1970s, now we are witnessing painterly features becoming absorbed, due to digital technology, in high-tech photography. Everything is possible: there is adequate technology for choosing the desired colours, resolution, and composition. It is the painter’s choice to use physical pigment and create painterly texture or use digital photography. Therefore in handmade paintings „The medium is the message”,8 too, if in a sense inverse to Marshall McLuhan’s intention. Manipulating the photographic image for offering it as ’real’ is part of the current confusion of fake and real in politics and culture as well as in the visual arts. The definition of ’reality’, we are reminded, has always been a political issue.

The politics of realism versus Socialist Realism in 1960s’ Hungary Since ‘realism’ was the mantra and Socialist Realism the mandatory style in the visual arts East of the Iron Curtain until Stalin’s death in 1953, no artist who wanted to publicly show works could ignore it. Socialist Realism was nonnegotiable. Art had to demonstrate upbeat confidence in the political system. De-Stalinization slightly changed the norms, but ‘realism’ remained a must in the Soviet Union and its satellite countries. Since the actual reality of life was not to be represented, the official politics invested the rendering of the reality on the ground with a sense of opposition. Exploring and revealing the truth pervaded the new art of the Hungarian neo-avant-garde of the early and mid1960s. The cruel retaliation for the 1956 revolution was followed by a general amnesty to political prisoners in 1963, marking a change in the level of tolerance of the regime. This was indicated in the encouragement of new themes and slightly idiosyncratic styles. The building of a national consensus and the consolidation of the regime had proceeded, and the grip of censorship and tight ideological control gradually gave way to a relative but still controlled thaw. All this was based on the recognized necessity of economic reforms, which got || 8 McLuhan, Marshall, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, New York 1964.

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under way in the Soviet Union, and were also theorized and initiated in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and Hungary, opening a gradual, partial, slow, and ultimately flawed shift from ideology to pragmatism. ‘Telling the truth’ about the atrocities of the 1950s was officially solicited, within certain boundaries, as was a cautious kind of modernization in architecture, but the officialdom remained vigilant to quench new artistic styles, original modes of communication and genuine free expression. Abstraction was still seen as the archenemy of socialist culture and thus adamantly disapproved, if with some discomfort on the part of the censors. Labelled ‘decadent bourgeois’, the power of abstract art to mobilize society in any way was grossly overestimated by the communist leadership. Two major reasons of its rejection were, however, obvious in Hungary: one was the tradition of constructivism of the classic Hungarian avant-garde that was still vigorous, and was associated with unorthodox leftism, a current that, along with all varieties of the New Left, Moscow-line communism particularly dreaded. The other reason was György Lukács’s bias for ‘realism’ and his personal dislike for expressionist and abstract art. His complicated political history notwithstanding, between 1957 and his death in 1971 Lukács was an authority in issues of culture and aesthetics, both official and oppositional, in Hungary, and was instrumental in making the rejection of artistic modernism, particularly the neo-avant-gardes, generally acceptable. Lukács was notoriously insensitive to the visual arts, particularly everything non-realistic.9 Around 1966–67 however, disapproval of abstract and surrealist modernism did not necessarily mean an instant ban, and that was a significant change compared to the early 1950s. The rebellious hyper-naturalism of László Lakner (b. 1936) was not less striking and radical than other artists’ abstract works. His large size oil painting Bones (1968) represented grossly enlarged hip and thighbones repeated on two canvases divided by a vertical line. Besides fathoming ‘actual reality’ beneath the surface, it brought to mind Andy Warhol’s repetitive pictures that were seen in Hungary as boldly innovative and socially courageous. Hyperrealism appeared in Hungary in the late 1960s with new energies of revolt as if warning the bureaucrats that they had better not play with the fire of actual reality. Further radical works included Lakner’s Rope (Identity) (1969): a piece of actual rope with its image painted in oil on canvas next to it, inevitably bringing to mind hushed, tragic historical moments of recent Hungarian histo|| 9 Word of mouth had it that he confessed, the most modern artist he could still appreciate was Giotto. (Unconfirmed talk of the town, Budapest, 1960s).

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ry, such as executions after 1956. Lakner also painted a series of roses with photorealist precision, and paintings titled Mouth in the same year. The latter represented enlarged lips in hyperrealist style (lips of the German new leftist Fritz Teufel10). Lakner revealed many faces of photorealism, adding a naked fullbody self portrait (Self Portrait with Autotimer, 1970), and a caricature of communist optimism-based images, Chinese Postcard (1972), representing the harvesting of rice in China by colourfully dressed people, watched by the figure of a soldier in uniform. One of the most controversial artists with his photorealism, in 1974 Lakner emigrated to the Federal Republic of Germany. Another, different type of rebellious hyperrealist work was Week Day (1968) by László Méhes (b. 1944). (Fig. 39) This was the first photorealist painting in post-war Hungary, which represented a markedly lackluster scene of quotidian life in the medium of oil painting. The photo the painting was based on was an amateur snapshot with accidental effects and imperfections, intensely evocative of the banal experience of a tramway ride. Lending the solemnity of the genre to the scene was refreshingly new and radical, and led to further, more satirical articulation of the Hungarian reality in Méhes’ early 1970s series titled Lukewarm Water. (Fig. 40) Like realist Tibor Csernus (1927–2007) and Lakner, Méhes also left Hungary, emigrating to France in 1979. In the 1960s young artists in Hungary turned the dictum of realism inside out not only by the choices of their subject matter, but also technically. Csernus and Lakner, among others, initiated a new, alternative realism labelled Surnaturalism in Hungary, marking the porous borderline between the ‘real’ and the ‘surreal’ in the late 1960s. Surnaturalism operated with highly elaborate texture, using pieces of plastic foil to cup back the still malleable paint for rough materiality, and chisels and knives to scrape and scratch back the pigment from the surface for eliminating smooth brushstrokes. Surnaturalist paintings looked rigorously realistic from a distance, but presented the viewer with indecipherably rich and confusing materiality from up close. This dualism was challenging and tricking the official requirements: the painting’s level of realism depended on the vantage point of the viewer. Manipulations of the pigment, the texture, and the technical execution provided valuable experience in modifying meanings of the term ‘real’.

|| 10 See Fehér, David, “Consonants of Karl Marx. Left versus Left in the Hungarian Neo-AvantGarde. The Case of László Lakner”, Acta Historiae Artium, Vol. 56, 2015, 348.

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The Surreal of the Real The inevitably political nature of inquiring into the ‘real’ made the concepts of ‘real’ and ‘surreal’ seem almost interchangeable in the Hungarian art of late Socialism. Seen from the reality on the ground, the ‘realism’ required by politics was clearly surreal: it required representation of non-existent figures in nonexistent situations conjured up by desirous minds in quest of redeeming political propaganda. Visually and tangibly experienced ‘reality’ often appeared as an unlikely dream, while visions and phantasies could be dressed as ‘real’. László Fehér, for example, invented a uniquely reductive, photo-realism-based visual language derivative of photographs. His paintings are equally informed by reality and surreality. In his 1980s work he used only contour lines of figures set against backgrounds that he painted in massive colour blocks of one, two, or very few more colours. Early in his career Fehér, similarly to Lakner and Méhes, painted glum, black-and-white-and-gray images of Budapest, especially revealing the city’s underworld: blurred pictures of the subway carrying indifferent, tired passengers, or stairs between a passageway and the surface. Passage I was provocative for eliminating colour and thereby representing a segment of the existing city life as glum, grey, and broken, diametrically opposed to the image that officialdom wanted to see. (Fig. 36) Throughout his career spanning more than four decades, Fehér has created a radically original body of works attempting to fathom reality and the possibilities of painterly realism based on amateur photos. He married photographic precision of forms and outlines to transparent figures and objects and deliberately chosen colours, reflecting the dualism of internal and external vision and recognizing that both come into play at any given moment when a visible scene evokes memories of similar, or related moments. Fehér’s paintings and drawings with their photo-realist impulses differ from both photography and mainstream photorealism in significant ways. They originate from amateur photography, often his own, activating the viewer’s highly complex memory-mechanism. The sketchiness and transparency of his figures invites viewers to flash them out by projecting their own life experience into them. Thus involved, viewers travel between the present image and past memories. The time travel dissolves the boundaries of what exactly is ‘real’: it will be a mix of seeing, remembering, re-living, and imagining. This is obviously also the result of the general experience with the cinematic image. The moving picture that channelled time into painting had already fascinated the cubists as well as the futurists, bringing about a sea change in the visual arts. This inevitable change has raised questions about the meaning, function, and relevance of the

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still-standing image: one can’t help but wonder whether, even though we perceive it as such, the static image is still in fact static: that is, if it still arrests a moment from the flux of time. Looking back at the pre-media age, a 1927 article of the late art critic Ernst Kállai comes to mind. He closed his essay, “Painting and Photography”, which generated one of the first international debates on the relevance of the new photographic vision, with this note: “Painting or film: such is the fateful question that confronts the optical creation of our time. We stand on the watershed between a static culture that has lost all its social influence, and a new, kinetic formulation of our own world view: one that already has an unprecedented power to address a mass sensibility.”11 The social influence of painting, once championed by the international avant-garde, is indeed a thing of the past, and amateur film recording has become as common as amateur photography, further complicating the relationship of the still standing image, and the duration of recorded actions, to time. Through photography Fehér has discovered reality as inconceivable. Although he has always been fascinated by the enigma of the real and the possibility of capturing it in a photographic image, I would not tie him exclusively to the great Hungarian hyper-realists of the 1960s and 70s such as Csernus, Lakner, and Méhes, or such international luminaries as Gerhard Richter and the American photo-realists. Fehér uses amateur photography, but he often intersperses family snapshots with images of history. He has, since the beginning of his career, chronicled the era in which he lives through images based on amateur photos. From statues of Soviet memorials to socialist brigade excursions and the homeless in Budapest he holds up a mirror to the current historical moment in Hungary in an unquestionably photorealist style. In his recent paintings Fehér has chosen a new technique, but not new themes. In some of his black-and-white-and-gray pictures he continues to paint transparent contour figures, which not only let the viewer’s gaze travel through them, but keep on inviting the viewer to project his or her own flow of memories into them. As both The Harbour (Fig. 37) and The Black Car (Fig. 38) indicate, Fehér deliberately cuts the scene out of context and places it in a yellow-andblack void as a dream image. Cutting out the figures and omitting all the details irrelevant to the principal motifs is one of Fehér’s most specific signature fea-

|| 11 Kállai, Ernst, “Malerei und Fotografie”, internationale revue i, 10, 1927, No. 4, 245–249. English translation “Painting and Photography”, in: David Britt/T. Benson/É. Forgács (eds.), Between Worlds. A Sourcebook of Central European Avant-Gardes 1910–1930, Cambridge MA 2002, 689.

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tures that is easy to gloss over, no matter how obvious it is. As a result, the motifs emerge from the depths of memory and enter a deep black or differently coloured void. In this manner Fehér is faithful not to the original family photograph but to the workings of memory. What is not recalled does not exist or, the other way round, that which is remembered forces everything else off the inner screen, and the painted image presents the dreamy yet concrete truth in photorealist style. Memories are dreamlike. Therefore, evoking them in a dreamy way in paintings and drawings results in images that appear more real than those painted in the traditional realist style. Since the outlines of the contour-figures or the details of the more densely rendered shadowy motifs describe their forms precisely, Fehér, who has always deliberately reduced his overall images in favour of the main motifs, deleting every other detail so he can focus on the central figures and objects, is somewhat ironically, labelled a photorealist. He is so categorized in spite of his not only reducing his motifs, but employing colour-keys for his works that infuse the entire surface, a gesture that clearly and strikingly swerves away from ‘realism’, if we understand the term as adequate colour and form representation of visual experience. Certain recurrent motifs of Fehér’s oeuvre deserve special attention, the most conspicuous among them being water, an element open to a wide field of associations. Lakes, rivers, public baths, swimming pools and wells are frequent scenes of family vacations, and thus often figure on family photographs. The inexhaustible associations that water evokes, such as immersion, a sense of infinity, slipping out of time and solid reality, lend particular emphasis to amateur photography’s hopeless struggle with the passing of time. A Freudian symbol of mortality and transition, water is brought into Fehér’s pictures as, in Walter Benjamin’s term mediated by Rosalind Krauss, the “optical unconscious”. “The ‘optical unconscious’,” Krauss writes, “will claim for itself the dimension of opacity, of repetition, of time.”12 These are key concepts to understanding Fehér’s pictures, because on the one hand, he offers a precise record of a concentrated, reduced scene stripped down to its bare essentials, while on the other, he transfers the recorded image onto a space where memory and inner associations dwell. Even in his highly detailed new works, there is a marked contrast between the bright white or deep black motifs while the rest of the image has been reduced to a dense, opaque background. Fehér’s latest pictures indicate that he continues to ask questions and seek answers. Can the mystery of reality be made tangible? Can it leave pictorial space for temporal space? Such enquiry brings to mind the thoughts of Hungar|| 12 Krauss, Rosalind, The Optical Unconscious, Cambridge MA 1993, 24.

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ian writer Miklós Mészöly (1921–2001), who said in an interview, “I believe that the most banal and at the same time most extreme elements of reality contain a perspective from which it will appear that reality can transcend its confines without losing its essence as reality. It merely sheds light on a more spacious terrain and defines something with a more general validity, something that is not necessarily a concrete element of reality but much rather, its summary. As a matter of fact, it is this breaking free that is the key to realism of all kinds.”13

Key to veracity: time in the still standing image Mészöly’s suggestion that a perceptible segment of the reality is never just what is perceived because inherent in it is its dynamic, takes us to examining time, involved in static painting. A momentary sight or experience, as a number of authors14 have come to realize, is part of a flow of things in time, and though the writer or painter can capture the moment by creating a still standing image of it by way of description or visual representation, the flow cannot be stopped. The still standing image is, in point of fact, a space-time continuum, as associations invited by it do not stop at any thoughts related to past, present, or future. Mieke Bal dedicates an essay15 to the inevitability of duration in painting both on account of the inherent narrative – a temporal element – in the figurative image, which ensures that “time can inhabit the still image,”16 and the actual time needed to contemplate and process the images “that hold the viewer, enforcing an experience of temporal variation.”17 Since temporality is one of our fundamental experiences of reality, the sense of time greatly contributes to generating a sense of the ‘real’, also in Fehér’s paintings that expand into temporality from a set scene and motif. “Images respond to and eventually intervene in the thought that culturally surrounds them”,18 says Bal (emphases in the

|| 13 Mészöly, Miklós, ’Alakulások’ (Transformations). Interview with the writer of László Szörényi, June 27, 1979, recording in the archives of MTVA, Budapest, transcript published in Jelenkor , Febr. 2017, 226. 14 For essays on this issue, see Bailey Gill, Carolyn (ed.), Time and the Image, Manchester, New York 2000. 15 Bal, Mieke, “Sticky Images: the Foreshortening of Time in an Art of Duration”, in: Bailey Gill (ed.), Time and the Image, 79–99. 16 Bal, “Sticky Images: the Foreshortening of Time in an Art of Duration”, 80. 17 Bal, “Sticky Images: the Foreshortening of Time in an Art of Duration”, 80. 18 Bal, “Sticky Images: the Foreshortening of Time in an Art of Duration”, 81.

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original), and we can add that the cultural context of an image is constituted, beside or in combination with concrete memories, by surreal elements like dreams, desires, and elements of the unconscious, totalling in what is perceived as ‘real’. Shuttling between the matter-of-fact and the surreal, viewers explore more than what they see, which process is encouraged by various methods, such as unexpectedly stunning proportions, deliberate distortion of proportions, or omission of everything except the main motif. Fehér’s forays into surrealism are consistent with his questioning of the actuality – the conceivability – of the real. Forever intrigued by it, he is particularly interested in, for example, a borderline case on the cusp of the ‘real’ and the ‘surreal’: film noir. In one of his paintings for example, titled Simple Story (2017) only the crossed legs of a person are thrust forward from the corner of a building. This is all the artist reveals of the narrative that must be completed by the viewer, just as in Cindy Sherman’s classic Untitled Film Stills. Fehér plays out the actual visual experience against memory, the photographic precision of the outlines set in thick colour blocks that provide a subjective context. Referencing amateur photography and working with the highly complex process of remembering past moments raise a bigger question beyond painterly realism: the realistically captured, static, still-standing picture of a moment of reality entering the dimension of time. In his precisely rendered figurative paintings, reality is mysterious and intangible: realism is as surreal as it is real, revealing reality as beyond understanding. Fehér is fully aware that reality is not merely visual, and cannot be grasped by optical means alone. With their smooth surfaces, his reductive paintings and drawings continue to invite viewers to trans-illuminate them so that adding their own experience of reality to the painter’s composition, they should complete the many fragments of reality into a familiar image validated by memory. Concerning the relationship between precision of details and the absurdity of the whole, Fehér referred to the influence Franz Kafka has on his painting, an author he reads more than any other. Like Kafka, who “seems to notice the most minute and insignificant things, the painter also seeks the philosophers’ stone among ordinary terrestrial elements and investigates the truth of things, a quality of theirs that eludes articulation.”19 Like Kafka, Fehér also expresses tragedy through the ordinary, and the absurd through logic”,20 tragedy being transition, and logic the clarity and adequacy of composition and representation.

|| 19 Author’s interview with László Fehér, Magyar Napló IV/5, 24 July, 1992, 14–17. 20 Ibid.

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Conclusion Fehér’s photo-based, quasi-photorealist paintings involve the viewer in creating the image relying on the temporal expansion of the visual experience. The aesthetics and psychology of perception offer ample explanations for any image’s bringing forth set patterns of motives, schematic pictures and related preconceptions in the viewer. Such pre-existing patterns are projected into even roughly evocative images, let alone those that are photorealistic at least in the precision of the outlines of the motifs. Fehér’s photorealism is tricky as he deliberately reduces the image of reality both in forms and colours. However, the viewer experiences seeing the likeness of reality: the precise contour lines, the familiar scenes and poses evoke photographic veracity. Details that have the power of documents of reality are merged with entirely unlikely motifs and colours, making the viewers activate their inner resources and thus becoming co-authors of the image, participating in the great paradox of evoking ’reality’: its existence and disappearance at the same time, its becoming history and memory as they are watching it, like so many amateur photos they are taking themselves. After all, as all artists working in various versions of ‘realism’, Fehér also remains an inquirer. ‘Reality’, enigmatic as it has always been, eludes his work just like every other ‘realists’.

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Fig. 36: László Fehér: Passage, I. 1975, oil on wood-fibre, 241x170 cm, Municipal Museum, Budapest, Courtesy László Fehér.

Fig. 37: László Fehér: Harbour, 1988, oil on canvas, Private Collection, Courtesy László Fehér.

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Fig. 38: László Fehér: Black Car, 1989, oil on canvas, 180x250 cm, Collection of the artists, Courtesy László Fehér.

Fig. 39: László Méhes: Week Day, 1968, oil on wood board, 80x120 cm, Private Collection, Courtesy László Méhes.

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Fig. 40: László Méhes: Lukewarm Water VI, 1973, acrylic on canvas, 146x97 cm, Private collection, Budapest, Courtesy László Méhes.

Meghan Forbes

A Beautiful New World Reflections of Russian Revolution in Avant-Garde Czech Print In October to November 1925, a group of Czech artists and state representatives traveling as the Society for Economic and Cultural Rapprochement with New Russia [Společnost pro hospodářské a kulturní sblížení s Novým Ruskem] made an excursion to Moscow and Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). A detailed report of the trip appeared in 1926, as a published volume titled USSR: Reflections, Reviews, Notes. Karel Teige, a leading figure of the leftist Czech avant-garde group Devětsil, who had participated in the journey, devotes a lengthy article in the book to capturing the art scene in Soviet Russia, summarizing what the group had observed, and articulating the premises of Constructivism. In the article, “Contemporary Art Work in Soviet Russia” (which would appear subsequently in a slightly different form in his collection of essays Soviet Culture), Teige writes, “Russian art work is not something of the isolated individuality of the artist, but grows out of the complicated impulses of the revolutions and guides its own fate, it constructs a new world”.1 Just how avant-garde practitioners in Soviet Russia were constructing a “new world” was of great interest to Teige, at a moment in which he had just come to articulate Devětsil’s own “art of life” [“uměním života”] –ism: Poetism, described by Teige in a 1924 manifesto as “the art of living in the most beautiful sense of the word, a modern Epicureanism,” that also embraced Constructivist methods.2 Teige’s observations from his time in Moscow and Leningrad had a marked influence on his copious theoretical writings, art production in the form of photomontages, and the editorial direction of the many books and magazines that he oversaw. The magazine format — meant to exist on newsstands, in bookstores, and in the homes of the proletariat — offered a platform by which an art for a new world could reach the public in their domestic spaces and was utilized by Devětsil to propagate its aesthetic, social, and political values. The || 1 Teige, Karel, “Dnešní výtvarná práce sovětského Ruska”, in SSSR: úvahy, kritiky, poznámky, Bohumil Mathesius (ed.) (Praha: Čin, 1926), 165. Emphasis is in the original. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from the Czech are my own. 2 Teige, “Poetism”, in: Eric Dluhosch/Rostislav Švácha (eds.), Karel Teige/1900–1951: L’Enfant Terrible of the Czech Modernist Avant-garde, trans. Alexandra Büchler, Cambridge 1999, 69. Originally published in Host 3, no. 9–10 (July 1924): 197–204. In some instances, slight modifications have been made to the preexisting translation of this text. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-018

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copious writings and publications that Teige produced in the decade of the 1920s enable us to track the development of his own formulation of what art in a new world should look like, vis-à-vis other major avant-garde movements across the European continent from East to West, and observe not only how the trip to the USSR influenced Devětsil production, but also, how the Soviet model was accommodated into the already existing program of Poetism.

Fig. 41: Photograph of Karel Teige in front of the Museum of Culture in Moscow in 1925. Photo: Jindřich Honzl. Courtesy of the Památník národního písemnictví, fond Fotoarchiv.

Throughout the 1920s — when, it must be said, Teige was himself only in his 20s — Teige’s theoretical position was being refined constantly, and the view from Russia would become just one more reference in his arsenal.3 Thus, while a || 3 For a detailing of the early formation of Teige’s conception of Devětsil and Poetism, see the author’s dissertation: Forbes, Meghan, In the Middle of It All: Prague, Brno, and the AvantGarde Networks of Interwar Europe, Ann Arbor 2016. Others have traced meticulously the early shifts in Teige’s approach to Poetism, Constructivism and proletarian art. See, for instance, Zusi, Peter, “The Style of the Present: Karel Teige on Constructivism and Poetism”, in: Repre-

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distinctive shift does occur for Teige after his late-1925 travels, this is also consistent with a more general inconsistency in his writings. Put another way, there is a constant flux in his thinking about the role of art in contemporary society, and engagement with a range of –isms that includes Constructivism, Futurism, Surrealism, and Dada. Without entirely abandoning the principles of any one of these movements, his affinities and ambivalences regularly shift across the interwar period. In the mid-1920s, nevertheless, Poetism is consistently presented and poised as a social imperative and solution, a project of art integrated into everyday life informed by a Socialist vision, on either side of the Russian visit. This paper charts a significant increase in the representation of Soviet ideas and visual matter coincident with late 1925, as evidenced in magazines such as those under Devětsil editorship like Pásmo and ReD, as well as the communist bi-weekly Reflektor. At the same time, as Soviet art-making begins to take up more real estate, this does not preclude continued attention towards previous international items of interest, such as the Bauhaus school in Germany, French art and architecture, and that icon of Western cinema, Charlie Chaplin. This seemingly unlikely combination of sources and influences, presented together on the pages of the Czech avant-garde magazines, especially in the case of ReD, underscores the kind of synthesis to which Teige aspired with Poetism, that could accommodate both collective practice and individualist play. To highlight this, special attention here is paid to Teige’s observations about Soviet film, its representation in the Devětsil magazines and books, as well as the incorporation of Constructivist principles of photomontage into his own practice, both before and after his travels to Russia. These were art forms — along with architecture and advertisement — that Teige saw as particularly well suited to reach a wide audience, integral to the Constructivist and Poetist project of bringing art into life — that is, onto the streets and into the homes of everyday citizens.

|| sentations, 88, 2004, no.1, 102–124 and Levinger, Esther, “Karel Teige on Cinema and Utopia”, in: The Slavic and East European Journal, 48, 2004, no. 2, 247–274. For more on iterations of Dada in Poetism, see Forbes, Meghan, “Devětsil and Dada: A Poetics of Play in the Interwar Czech Avant-Garde”, in: ArtMargins, 9, 2020, no. 3, forthcoming.

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Soviet Constructivism Through the Lens of Czech Poetism Already, in the first Poetist manifesto published in July 1924, more than a year before traveling to Russia, Teige introduces the –ism in relation to Constructivism. Early in the manifesto, he asserts in Marxist terms, “Poetism is the crown of life; Constructivism is its basis,” elaborating that “new beauty was born from constructive work, the basis of modern life.”4 And although Poetism upholds “collective discipline,” that collective at the same time “thirsts for individual freedom”.5 Teige’s understanding of Constructivism at this juncture, prior to traveling to Russia, is largely indebted to Ilya Ehrenburg’s 1922 publication And Yet It Moves (significantly, published in Moscow and Berlin, the latter being an easier access point for the Czech avant-garde), which Teige would call “the first concise, vital, and convincing credo of Constructivism.”6 Excerpts from the book had been published that same year in the first major Devětsil publications, Revoluční sborník Devětsil [The Revolutionary Anthology Devětsil] (“Revolution in Art and Revolution in General”) and in Život [Life] (“Construction”). In the latter, Ehrenburg denounces “wretched individualism,” but at the same time emphasizes that the average modern person, in the aftermath of war and “tired after work,” wants “health and happiness” (i.e. in the form of sport), “joy, gaiety, and laughter,” and, “clarity”.7 Emblazoned within this text’s placement in Život, in large block letters across two pages, is Ehrenburg’s oft-repeated statement: “New art quits being art,” and in this new world, as represented on the printed page, art, life, and industry are collapsed into one.8 Consistent with a Communist vision that knows no borders,9 “today it is relatively clear,” writes Eh|| 4 Teige, “Poetism”, 67. Emphasis is in the original. 5 Teige, “Poetism”, 67. 6 Teige, Karel, “Přednáška Ilji Ehrenburga čili konstruktivismus a romanticismus”, in: Stavba 5, 1927, no. 9, 145. Apparently on the basis of And Yet It Moves, Ehrenburg was invited by Devětsil to lecture in Prague in 1923. Though by that time, Teige concedes, Ehrenburg’s comments “no longer quite corresponded with his book”, and when in 1927 he is invited again to Prague by the Liberated Theater, Ehrenburg indicated a strong turn in his thinking towards a new romanticism, which Teige rejects, now also on the other side of his Soviet visit. [Teige, “Přednáška”, 145.] 7 Ilya Ehrenburg, “Konstrukce”, Život, 1922, 31/33. Originally in A vse taki ona vertitsia, Berlin, Moskwa, 1922. 8 Ehrenburg, “Konstrukce”, 30–31. 9 Indeed, in USSR: Reflections, Reviews, Notes it is reported that as the delegation reached the Soviet border by train, they were met with the slogan, “Communism wipes away all borders!”

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renburg, “why new art is international, collective, and revolutionary”.10 In Život, the photographic illustrations selected by Devětsil to adorn Ehrenburg’s text visualize a technological internationalism, with airplanes and electrical lines, and (notably Western) examples of industry, such as the Eiffel Tower and the New York skyline.

Fig. 42: Photograph from the trip of the first Czechoslovak Cultural Delegation to Moscow in 1925. On the banks of the Moskva, in front of the Kremlin. Photo: Jindřich Honzl. Courtesy of the Památník národního písemnictví.

These early examples evidence that a concept of Soviet Constructivism was already familiar to Devětsil prior to 1925. And it indicates that by the time Teige would travel to Moscow and Leningrad with the Society for Economic and Cultural Rapprochement with New Russia — which also included other Devětsil members such as the poet Jaroslav Seifert and the theater director Jindřich Honzl — he was already interested in, and seeking collaboration with, col|| [“Deník výpravy”, USSR, 348.] Teige later references the same anecdote in the concluding section of Soviet Culture (which is dated January 28, 1928, suggesting that the book did not actually make it into print in 1927, the year stated on the title page, which would mark the tenth anniversary of the Soviet Union). Teige, Karel, “sovětská kultura do druhého desetiletí”, in: Sovětská kultura, Praha: Odeon, 1927–1928, 124. 10 Ehrenburg, “Konstrukce”, 33.

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leagues having roots there. Before the trip to the USSR, the writing of Ehrenburg and the sculptures of Aleksandr Archipenko were staples in the early Devětsil publications — both having visited Prague in 1923, the latter having had an exhibition there that year — but few other Soviet artists are referenced repeatedly (Ossip Zadkine perhaps being the only real exception, whom Teige had met in Paris in 1922).11 A notable exception is a 1924 issue of Host that had been edited by Teige, Seifert, and Jiří Ježek which is dedicated to “New Russian Art,” and includes several reproductions of Soviet artworks (some of which had been lent from Devětsil publications), as well as essays and poems by Czech and Soviet authors. Almost simultaneous with the trip, however, representation in the Czech context of the Soviet avant-garde dramatically increases, indicating the unprecedented access Teige, Honzl, and Seifert had to Russian artistic production once physically in this “new world” and the profound impact it made on them. In letters sent from Teige to his mother and sister from his travels to Moscow and Leningrad in October to November 1925, he emphasizes the impressive theater, films, modern architectural plans, and posters that he encounters, and admires “how beautiful Communism is in reality”.12 As he records in “Contemporary Art Work in Soviet Russia,” Teige has the opportunity to visit the Tretiakov Gallery in Moscow and the Russian State Museum in Leningrad, and his immersive exposure to this “new world” was immediately reflected in an uptick of publication of images of Soviet artworks, cinema, and stage productions that showcase art that is intertwined with the social fabric of daily life. In the case of Pásmo, this is practically simultaneous, as a new column dedicated to the USSR appears in the first issue of the second volume in October 1925 (presumably already in the works before the trip, and earlier issues from volume one had already featured Soviet art), and includes a text by El Lissitzky on his Proun as well as Konstantin Melnikov’s plans for the 1925 Soviet Pavilion in Paris. The cover of the subsequent issue in November features stagings by Nathan Altman for the Jewish State Chamber Theater, with additional images from the New Russian Theater inside.

|| 11 Rea Michalová also notes an exchange of mailed magazines in 1924, with the Institute of Literature and the Arts in the USSR. Teige and Honzl sent the exhibition pamphlet for the Archipenko exhibition, as well as magazines such as Stavba and Host, and the Devětsil publications Disk and Pásmo. [Michalová, Rae, Karel Teige: Kapitán avantgardy, Praha, Kant, 2016, 214.] 12 Karel Teige to his mother Hana, Oct. 18, 1925, Památník Národního Písemnictví, Praha, Karel Teige Archive.

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Fig. 43: Cover of Pásmo 2, no. 2 (Nov. 1925). Private collection.

The first reproduction of a work by Kazimir Malevich in a Devětsil magazine (printed wrong side up) then appears in the February 1926 issue of Pásmo. The painting, Supremus no. 55 (1916), now in the collection of the Russian State Museum, is one that Teige might have seen in person on his travels. And he would certainly have already been familiar with it, since it appeared in Czech print as early as 1923 in the magazine Veraikon, and Teige had included a reproduction of the painting in the special Russian art issue in Host (where it was also incorrectly oriented). In the same issue of Pásmo in which Malevich first appears, El Lissitzky and the Vesnin brothers are also featured, the former with the 1925 model for a skyscraper and the latter with a 1923 model for a Palace of Labor (both of which also appear in USSR and Soviet Culture, both of which volumes reproduce an extensive range of images). And a Naum Gabo construction is also printed. The final issue of Pásmo, published in August 1926, includes another Malevich reproduction, and a model of Vladimir Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International, with the images borrowed from Čin, the publisher of USSR.13

|| 13 Interestingly, when Tatlin’s famous model for the Monument to the Third International had been included earlier in Život, it is criticized for its lack of functionalism. As Nicholas Sawicki has previously pointed out in “The View from Prague”, though the tower is placed side by side with the Eiffel Tower in a way that would suggest that they are considered by the editors to be of equal stature, a caption below praises the Eiffel Tower as both a “beautiful” and “construc-

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Many of these images would also appear in another book published by Teige in 1927, a selection of essays compiled under the title Stavba a báseň [Construction and Poetry]. This is but a brief summary of the images of Soviet art that would be published in the second half of the 1920s in Czech print, but suffice it to say, in text and image, the Czech avant-garde publications trace an expanded exposure to Soviet Constructivism linked to the 1925 trip. Although Teige identifies Ehrenburg as the first to outline a “credo” of Constructivism textually, in “Contemporary Art Work in Soviet Russia,” he situates the beginning of Constructivism as a visual practice with Tatlin’s Counter Reliefs of 1914, and emphasizes a shift from formalism to functionalism as a characteristic trait. But Teige also maintains that the Constructivists are not only the artists Tatlin, Lissitzky, Aleksandr Rodchenko, Vesnin,14 or the theater director Vselovod Meierhold,15 but also the political figures Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Nikolai Bukharin, even Joseph Stalin,16 as well as the “hundreds of anonymous engineers and workers, national economists, politicians, and teachers”.17 He continues: “Constructivism — the technical study and method of socialist work. An outcropping of Soviet production — the work of socialist Constructivism.”18 Constructivism, in this reciprocal sense, has merged fully into an art of

|| tive work” (“konstrukterské dílo”), intended to serve as an observation tower. Tatlin’s tower, however, is criticized for its misuse, or even abuse, of technological possibilities in creating a structure without function beyond its symbolic value as a monument the Third International. It is accused of simply showing off its “machinistic élan.” [Unattributed caption, Život, 2, 1922, 45. Referenced in Sawicki, Nicholas, “The View from Prague”, in Peter Brooker/Sascha Bru/Andrew Thacker/Christian Weikop (eds.), The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines, Volume 3. Europe, 1880–1940 Oxford 2013, 1074–1098, 1090.] In USSR and Soviet Culture an image of Tatlin’s tower is again included, but without the critical commentary. 14 This is likely a collective reference to the Vesnin brothers, Leonid, Viktor, and Aleksandr, all constructivist architects. 15 Although there is not the space to enter into a discussion of this here, Soviet theater was also of great interest to Devětsil. It is documented in USSR that the cultural delegation visited the theater nearly every evening, including repeat visits to the Meierhold and State Jewish Theater, whose stages are included in USSR and Soviet Culture, and also represented in the magazines Pásmo and ReD. 16 There was an unfortunate flirtation with Stalinism amongst the leftist Czech avant-garde. For instance, Stalin’s visage appears on the cover of Reflekor, 1, 1925, no. 14, and in the second issue of ReD, which commemorates ten years of the USSR, a text by him (on Lenin) is included in Czech. For more on Teige’s brief sympathies towards, and then outright rejection of Stalin, see Levinger, “Karel Teige on Cinema and Utopia”. 17 Teige, “Dnešní výtvarná práce sovětského Ruska”, 146. 18 Teige, “Dnešní výtvarná práce sovětského Ruska”, 146.

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life that is not separate from the political, pedagogical, and economic work of the nation. Thus, again, as proclaimed by Ehrenburg in 1922, it is essentially an “art that quits being art.” When Teige writes critically in Stavba in 1927 of Ehrenburg’s own shift in position away from Constructivism towards a New Romanticism, he recalls this phrase, which “has often been cited on our [Czech] pages,” that remains emblematic of the pervasive role of art.19 For Teige, who maintains that Constructivism “grew out of the collective work of the modern creators of a post-revolutionary, soviet Russia,” it would follow that the –ism is “closely tied with the social, economic, and production changes that brought about the October Revolution”.20 Thus, even as Teige moves away from his affinity with Ehrenburg as he observes a shift in his position, at the same time, his observations in Russia strengthen his commitment to a socialist Constructivism that is close to his initial interpretation of what Ehrenburg propounded in And Yet It Moves, and to which Poetism, existing within the material conditions of the new Czechoslovak state, could only aspire. Similarly, in the magazine Tvorba in January 1926, very shortly after his homecoming, Teige provides a definition of Soviet Constructivism now based on lived observation, that, while maintaining the Marxist base/superstructure reference from his depiction in the first Poetist manifesto, emphasizes further the real social value of the -ism: Constructivism is the very work and creed of modern Russia — it isn’t some new trendy -ism, the dernier cri of the ateliers and exhibitions: Constructivism consists with its roots in new, liberated work, in the creation of a life of working and purposely perfect values, in the scientific and fair organization of production. Constructivism is the true rally cry of the whole of today’s Russia: inasmuch as its base is laid down here, a new world will be constructed.21

But while this definition upholds Constructivism in the revolutionary language of Marxism-Leninism, it is telling that Teige’s article, “From the USSR”, which opens the New Year’s Day issue of Tvorba, is followed directly by another he authored, an overview of Dada, suggesting that he did not see any incompatibility in these two disparate modes — which were nevertheless both integral to his formulation of Poetism — nor did he abandon all interest in the latter after returning from the Soviet Union.

|| 19 Teige, “Přednáška”, 145. 20 Teige, “Přednáška”, 145. 21 Teige, Karel, “Z S.S.S.R.”, Tvorba, 1, 1926, no. 5, 86. Emphasis is my own.

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Cinema as the Ultimate Proletarian Art One place in which a shift in Teige’s frame of reference can be seen rather profoundly from before and after the trip to the Soviet Union is in the realm of film. The cinema was central to Teige’s conception of an art that could reach into the space of the everyday, and meet the masses on their own terms. As Esther Levinger has noted, for Devětsil, “a work of art could be truly revolutionary only if it produced an absolutely new form and used entirely new techniques. Cinema, the new machine-made popular entertainment, was such a proletarian art”.22 And yet, Teige’s early interest in film had him looking West not East. In 1925, Teige had published a book of essays, a compilation of writings on media from the years just prior (thus, from before the Russian trip). In this slim volume, the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks take center stage, and there is extended consideration of French film and theory, but nearly no representation of or reflection on Soviet film. This is in large part due to the fact, as Teige himself notes after the return from the USSR, that there was almost no exposure to these films at home.23 Levinger, who has documented the transformation in Teige’s relationship to film in his writings across the 1920s, also points to a shift in his interpretation of film before and after his travels. She writes, “Until late 1925 Teige mostly addressed the joys of cinema and the sensual pleasures it offered. […] The ‘scientist + poet’ type of artist marked a transfer of accent to mechanization and to cinema’s utility value, that is, to cinema’s instrumentality in the successful dissemination of revolutionary ideology”.24 A series of texts that Teige wrote on Soviet film beginning in 1926 naturally support this argument, but a more holistic look at the publications Teige produced in the late 1920s suggests a more nuanced picture, as he does not shy away from continuing to embrace those aspects of film-making that had captivated him prior to his exposure to Soviet film. At any rate, it is clear that Teige is taken by Soviet cinema. Upon his return to Czechoslovakia, he proclaims in a short text in the USSR volume, “Europe needs to experience Soviet film!”25 A list of films included in the article indicates some that the cultural delegation is likely to have seen while in the Soviet Union, including Sergei Eisenstein’s Strike, Lev Kuleshov’s The Death Ray, Yakov || 22 Levinger “Karel Teige on Cinema and Utopia”, 252. 23 Levinger notes the proactive censorship of Soviet films in the Czech context: “Karel Teige on Cinema and Utopia”, 270–271, footnote 77. 24 Levinger “Karel Teige on Cinema and Utopia”, 260. 25 Unsigned (presumably Karel Teige), “Sovětský film”, in SSSR, 331.

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Protazanov’s Aelita, and Yuri Zhelyabizhsky’s The Cigarette Girl of Mosselprom, a selection of film stills from which are also included in the book.26 Indeed, in the diary included in USSR it is recorded that the cultural delegation saw Strike as well as a film with the title given as Hard Years (possibly In the Days of Struggle, directed by Ivane Perestiani), on only their second night in Moscow. And, in Reflektor, Teige reports to have seen (with perhaps some exaggeration) around 40 films in his month-long visit, elaborating on what Levinger references as the medium’s “utopian potential”.27 According to Teige, unlike a “small-town idealism” that reigns in American and European films (including “especially and to the point of unbearability, Czech films”), the Soviet film is the perfect form for engaging the proletariat.28 A year later, in the second issue of ReD, dedicated to the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution, Teige publishes a short article on “Soviet Constructivism”, in which he highlights the revolutionary and proletarian quality of the –ism and Soviet film’s role in this endeavor: New artists must above all be people of the new culture and civilization — not the culture of decorative and applied art, but the people of a civilization of the machine, both creative and productive. […] Constructivism is the creed of new Soviet architecture: and not only that, but the creed of the whole Soviet modern; its methods are applied in the print arts as in film and theater. Constructivism was born out of collective work. […] It is truly inspired by the spirit of the revolution. […] Constructivism has become Russian modern art. […] The USSR is the homeland for the proletariat of the whole world, a proletariat that doesn’t have a home elsewhere.29

As we have already seen, Constructivism is framed as an expansive form of art, collective and immersive in all aspects of life. On the streets, it is visible in new architecture, and it is film, together with graphic arts and the theater, that further disseminate an art for the masses, reaching the proletariat in their own spheres of life. Through the projection of the moving image onto the cinema || 26 Although Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin is not included in this list, scenes from this iconic film are included as plates in USSR. And in a 1926 issue of Reflektor there is a photomontage advertising a book about the film, put out by the Communist Publishing House in Prague. By 1930 in Tvorba, Teige suggests that the Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Joan of Arc was “under the strong influence of Eisenstein’s Potemkin”, indicating by this point a wider reception of, and influence from, Soviet films in the West. [Teige, Karel, “Sovětská kinematografie”, Tvorba, 5, 1930, 455.] This text was part of a serially published transcription of a lecture on Soviet film by Teige to student members of the Left Front. 27 Levinger, “Karel Teige on Cinema and Utopia”, 252. 28 Teige, Karel, “Kino a film”, Reflektor, 2, 1926, no. 13, 7. 29 Teige, Karel, “sovětksý konstruktivismus”, ReD, 1, 1927, no. 2, 54–55.

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screen, Teige saw in film the capacity to display the culture in which and by which it was produced, whether that be a socialist model in the East or capitalist in the West. Teige writes as much emphatically some years later in Tvorba: “Film, more than any other ‘art,’ is connected with the conditions of economic and social organization. […] It is a portrait of its world”.30 While before the visit to Moscow and Leningrad Teige’s main source of reference for successful popular films came from Hollywood and Paris, by 1926, now returned from the Soviet Union, Teige had become critical of what he sees as bourgeois superficialities in western films, and by the close of the decade is even more categorical that the American film industry is merely a mechanism of capitalist propaganda, while Soviet films are an instrument of the class struggle. Nevertheless, an appreciation of what he considers western avant-garde filmmakers remains.31

Fig. 44: Cover of ReD 1, no. 8 (May 1928). Private collection.

|| 30 Teige, Karel, “úpadek kapitalistického filmového průmyslu”, Tvorba, 5, 1930, 436. This is the first installment of the article. 31 Teige, “úpadek kapitalistického filmového průmyslu”, 436–437.

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Fig. 45: Cover of ReD 1, no. 7 (April 1928). Photomontage by Jaroslav Rössler. Private collection.

Thus, even as representations of Soviet theater and film begin to emerge in such publications as Reflektor, Pásmo, and ReD, Chaplin never fully fades away. To offer just one example, the May 1928 issue of ReD, dedicated to May Day and bearing an image on the cover of a parade in Moscow (a photograph that also appeared as the first plate in Soviet Culture),32 nevertheless includes promotional images from Chaplin’s The Circus, as well as a text by the actor translated into Czech. Again, Teige’s notion of Constructivism and revolutionary art is notably influenced by his trip to Russia, but his impressions of the Soviet Union are adapted into a Poetist conception that makes room for humor and popular en-

|| 32 Unfortunately, there is no room to go into the representation of Soviet May Day parades in the Czech press, though the parade was another form of Constructivist art, in Teige’s expansive definition. A series of photomontages as commemorative postcards were created by Teige in 1927, and advertised in Reflektor. They appear together on a page layout that features corresponding “tricolor stickers, published for the purpose of propagating the Soviet Union and Russian Revolution.” [Reflektor 3, 1927, no. 19–20, 31.] The montages incorporate scenes from what appear to be May Day and military parades in Moscow, embedded in geometric formations created out of strong black and white graphic elements, and the figure of Lenin appears in various poses, reading the newspaper Pravda, and speaking to crowds.

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tertainments. The inclusion of Chaplin film photos alongside documentation of Moscow May Day parades,33 or the fact that the 1928 May Day issue of ReD was preceded by one with a cover featuring a photomontage by Jaroslav Rössler of a woman in feather headdress dancing atop a gramophone record, would not have seemed an incommensurable combination for the Czech leftist avantgarde, though it might for the viewer today. As Peter Zusi has written with regards to the unusual relationship of Poetism to Constructivism, “The utopianism in Teige’s dualism was due to neither naïve exuberance nor wilful positing of a unity of opposites, but was rather the mark of theoretical consistency”.34 As argued at the outset here, an accommodation by Teige and Devětsil of an individualist, even “epicurean” play alongside depictions of collectivist class struggle was emblematic of the Poetist project, perhaps even more so after the 1925 visit to Soviet Russia.

Synthesizing Art and Revolution in the Czech Photomontage While Teige might not have found much to be impressed with in Czech film in the mid-1920s, he was active in ensuring that domestic printed matter exploited the propagandistic qualities that he saw as the great potential in the medium of the moving picture. Interestingly, in Teige’s article in Reflektor on Soviet film, he explicitly equates the “picture poem”35 — essentially the Poetist version of photomontage — and the moving image in the work of Russian cinematography: “They want film to liberate all theatrical and literary elements […] they want to create films as art, considered as picture poems in motion”.36 For Teige,

|| 33 And indeed, Chaplin was admired in equal measure by leftist avant-garde movements across the European continent, including the Soviet Constructivists. For more on the reception of Hollywood comedies in the USSR, see Hatherley, Owen, The Chaplin Machine: Slapstick, Fordism and the Communist Avant-Garde, London 2016. 34 Zusi, “The Style of the Present: Karel Teige on Constructivism and Poetism”, 104. 35 The previous volume in this series provides a nice overview of the picture poem (there translated as “image poem”) and some of the relevant scholarship. See Denischenko, Irina “Photopoetry: Czech Poetism and the Photographic Image”, in: Harri Veivo/Jean-Pierre Montier/Françoise Nicol/David Ayers/Benedikt Hjartarson/Sascha Bru (eds.), Beyond Given Knowledge: Investigation, Quest and Exploration in Modernism and the Avant-Gardes, Berlin 2018, 95–113. 36 Teige, “Kino a film”, Reflektor 2, 1926, no. 12, 8. Emphasis is my own.

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Poetism is figured as part of the “concrete work” (“konkretní úkol,” a phrase repeated regularly in Teige’s essays) of the kind of social revolution he envisions — what Teige calls “revolutionary art practice” — while still upholding a sense of beauty and individuality, which the Devětsil picture poems were meant to evince. A selection of Teige’s own photomontages address visually his observations and interpretations of Soviet life (on either side of actually visiting Russia), and evidence how he aimed to make visually manifest his particular notion of revolution. They offer a form of synthesis that was integral to the conception of Poetism, ultimately embodied in the magazine ReD, which began publication in October 1927, and is the only one of the Devětsil magazines that was produced entirely after the trip to the USSR. In the inaugural issue, Teige declares on the opening page: “ReD wants to be the collaborator of all the constructors a new human universe, a fellow warrior for social revolution,” and that the magazine “wants to be a truly synthetic publication of modern cultural creation, wants to collaborate effectively towards the creation of new aesthetic, scientific, social, and living forms.”37 It will be, “above all a sampler and anthology of Constructivism and Poetism,” and a list of the arts that it will showcase includes, among other things: poetry, literature, music, dance, painting and sculpture, film and photography, architecture and urbanism, socialism and class struggle, advertisement, and typography.38 Earlier, in “Contemporary Art Work in Soviet Russia,” Teige had commended a similar variety in art forms that he observed being brought to life by the Soviet practitioner: The new artist-constructivists have abandoned painting and sculpture — they have crossed over to functional architecture, to industry. Others, abandoning the canvas, have adopted the mechanical realm of image-making: photography and mechanical reproduction. They have hit upon a new form for book illustration. The photomontage: an image comprised of photographic elements. The photomontage is brought over into book design and typography, to application in the book arts. Others have passed over into mechanical, kinetic image-making: to film. Still others have at last brought their colors out of the atelier and into the streets, having designed the decorations for folk festivals and become their directors. From there they’ve joined with the artistic work of the theater, like Meierhold, Tairov, Forreger, Radlov, etc., and done away with painterly decoration and re-

|| 37 Teige, Karel, “ReD: Revue Svazu Moderní Kultury ‘Devetsil’ Praha 1927”, ReD 1, 1927, no. 1, 1. 38 Teige, “ReD: Revue Svazu Moderní Kultury ‘Devetsil’ Praha 1927”, 2.

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placed it with staged architecture, staged constructions. Others have finally dedicated themselves to the advertisement and the poster.39

A magazine such as ReD offered a site in which these various forms of art could be platformed side by side, and the second issue — commemorating ten years of the Soviet Union — is a particularly good example of this, promoting as it does with image and text Soviet theater and cinema (here discussed by Artuš Černík, the Brno-based editor of Pásmo), politics and parades. Besides his short essay, “Soviet Constructivism,” Teige writes a report on the important architectural magazine Sovremennaja architektura (Contemporary Architecture), within which is included another reproduction of Lissitzky’s plan for skyscrapers in Moscow, as well as two photographs from the First Exhibition of Contemporary Architecture in Moscow of 1927 (in which one room was dedicated to works from the Bauhaus).

Fig. 46: Cover of ReD 1, no. 2 (Nov. 1927). Photomontage by Karel Teige. Private collection.

|| 39 Teige, “Dnešní výtvarná práce sovětského Ruska”, 161–162.

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The Poetist-Constructivist montage on the cover of this issue of ReD, also by Teige, figures Lenin in a relaxed pose with legs apart and hands in pocket, a cap on his head. He stands perched atop a globe, his feet grounded over a red Russia, from which the color appears to ooze and spread with his applied pressure.40 The typographic design of ReD — especially on its covers — is central to understanding how Teige introduced a “synthetic” Poetism into his own work and it is this magazine that most evocatively embodies Teige’s “art of life” vision. Under the sole editorship of Teige, it is representative of the wide range of his interests and influences, with special issues dedicated to the Soviet Union, the German Bauhaus, or Italian Futurism. And again, an engagement with Dada, the circus clown and music hall, never fully fades, even as Teige becomes increasingly committed to a more austere version of Soviet Constructivism.

Fig. 47: Cover of Reflektor 1, no. 9 (May 1925). Photomontage by Karel Teige. Private collection.

|| 40 Karel Srp writes that the image is taken from a photograph of Lenin from 1918, standing outside the Kremlin with his secretary Vladimir Bronch-Bruyevich. He also notes that this same montage is repeated in a set of posters created the same year, commemorating, as one of the posters puts it, “Ten years of rule of a proletariat democracy: 1917–1927. Nine years of rule of bourgeoisie democracy in Czechoslovakia.” [Karel Srp, Karel Teige a typografie, Prague 2009, 95].

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Nevertheless, it is a Soviet-themed montage that Teige had made for the cover of the 1925 May Day issue of Reflektor just prior to the USSR visit that most fully collapses the two semantic registers of a proletariat Constructivism and the more playful aspects of Poetism into a single image. The slogan “Long live the third International!” punctuates the air above the masses, as though the words are being spoken by Lenin, who stands as the great orator addressing large crowds, with right arm outstretched before the Kremlin and electrical wiring to his back, metonymically referencing his electrification of Russia. Underfoot, an upturned skyscraper is his platform, out from which the heads of Chaplin as the Tramp and Jackie Coogan as the Kid peek, facing away from the speechmaker and looking over the heads of the crowd, which has its attention turned to Lenin. Inside, on the pages of this issue of Reflektor, its editor S.K. Neumann addresses Teige’s design and describes it as a: so-called constructive photomontage […] It is of a sort today much loved in Russia and in Germany, used also for posters and book covers. […] The guiding principle is that what is built from a variety of photographic and other material is a purposefully expressive image without aesthetic flourishes. In our image, Lenin, the Antipode of worldwide Capitalism (whose epicenter is represented by the New York skyscraper), is speaking to representatives of the whole world, and his spirit is the driving force of the entire revolutionary foment. To the image is added a very apt and well-known portrait of Chaplin from The Kid, not only because, of course, Chaplin, as a favorite film actor, is the darling of present day modern aesthetics, but also especially because he represents an art very close to the working and poor people of the whole world, which by various means offers consolation to the exploited class.41

Again, a seemingly incommensurable pairing of Chaplin and Lenin, somehow makes sense within a leftist interpretation of the comedic film actor, embraced in equal measure by the Soviet Constructivists and Czech Poetists, and other leftist avant-garde circles. But this montage is made before the USSR trip, and it is worth noting that Chaplin does not come to directly face off with Lenin in any of Teige’s photomontages after 1925. Just as Chaplin peeks out from under Lenin’s feet, at the close of Soviet Culture, Teige looks beyond the tenth anniversary of the Soviet Union to the next decade. He appraises its accomplishments in “firm and rational organization, a new system of culture, civilization, and collective life” and anticipates its advancements in the next ten years as a fully realized “country of science, industry, art, like a lighthouse of the future”.42 He reiterates that the social principles || 41 Neumann, S.K., “K našim obrázkům”, Reflektor 1, 1925, no. 9, 14. Emphasis is my own. 42 Teige, “sovětská kultura do druhého desetiletí”, 125.

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of the USSR are those founded on “the principle of Constructivism […] It is the principle of a new world, the principle of the future”.43 The beautiful new world that Teige had the opportunity to witness in Moscow and Leningrad in 1925 no doubt had a notable impact on the work that he produced as an author, editor, and artist in the years to follow. But it also remained one of many sources from which he cut and paste, to montage together an image of another world that was of his own making — one that, for a moment at least, allowed for Charlie Chaplin and Vladimir Lenin to enter the same frame, and each hold court.

|| 43 Teige, “sovětská kultura do druhého desetiletí”, 126. Emphasis is my own.

Jindřich Toman

The Real Reality: Notes on Boris Klinč and Photomontage in the USSR Thanks to the growing body of research on Soviet visual culture,1 especially its political line, we are obtaining a more detailed and nuanced insight into the interwar history of photomontage in the USSR.2 Although photomontage was never in the mainstream in this period, there are distinct phases and episodes of its history which are gradually emerging. To simplify somewhat, we can contrast a ‘liberal’ phase of the 1920s – not always political, often aligned with cinema – and a mostly political/propagandistic phase of the 1930s. The latter is the subject of this paper. In both of these phases, though, photomontage significantly links Soviet visual culture with that of the West, especially Germany.3 In the material analysed here this lineage is dramatically demonstrated by the impact of John Heartfield; propaganda publications directed at the invading German army during World War Two paradoxically assert the Soviet-German link as well. There were at least two major political artists in the USSR who started to use photomontage in the 1930s – Viktor Koretskij and Aleksandr Žitomirskij. The present paper adds a third name, Boris Grigor’evich Petrušanskij, a cartoonist working under the pseudonym Boris Klinč, who has rarely been discussed so far, although he actually was the first systematic practitioner of satirical photomontage in the USSR and might thus be placed at the same rank as Koretskij

|| 1 The present study is part of the author’s long-term project about interwar photomontage, see References for individual titles. Comments and suggestions by Aleksandr Bošković and Meghan Forbes are greatly appreciated. Reproductions courtesy of Ne boltai! Collection, Prague; translations from German and Russian by the author. 2 English-language titles include Akinsha, Konstantin, The Second Life of Soviet Photomontage, 1935–1980s, doctoral diss., University of Edinburgh 2012; Gassner, Hubertus, “Heartfield’s Moscow Apprenticeship, 1931–1932”, in: Peter Pachnicke/Klaus Honnef (eds.), John Heartfield, New York 1992, 256–290; Maria Gough, “Back in the USSR: John Heartfield, Gustavs Klucis, and the Medium of Soviet Propaganda”, in: New German Critique, no. 107, 2009, 133– 183; Erika Wolf, Koretsky: The Soviet Photo Poster, 1930–1984, New York 2012; Wolf, Erika, Aleksandr Zhitomirsky: Photomontage as a Weapon of World War II and the Cold War, Chicago 2016. 3 While photomontage was not a Soviet invention, the term photomontage certainly was. It first appears in the tiraž to Majakovskij’s longer narrative poem Pro èto (1923), where Rodčenko is named as the author of the book’s ‘photo-montages’. (For details see Toman, Jindřich, Foto/montáž tiskem – Photo/Montage in Print, Praha 2009.) https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-019

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and Žitomirskij, if not higher for reasons of chronology. Klinč’s entry in the Bibliographic Lexicon of Soviet Artists gives 1892 as his birth year (no place given) and the place and year of his death as Moscow 1946. The rest is laconic in merely stating: “Lived in Moscow. Participated in exhibitions since 1921. Worked primarily in political graphic arts, frequently using photomontage”.4 The entry also lists some of the satirical magazines in which Klinč published, including Krokodil (Crocodile), Voennyj Кrokodil (Army Crocodile), Krasnyj perec (Red Pepper), and Frontovoj jumor (Front Humour). Some of these titles indicate that Klinč was active in military propaganda. An individual monograph is not documented but participation in group exhibitions, mostly between 1932–42, is acknowledged in this source. References to Klinč in more recent literature are rare at best. А Brežnev-era monograph on Krokodil mentions him just briefly, admitting quite correctly that he is understudied.5 A three-volume anthology of Krokodil cartoons6 reproduces just two photomontages despite the fact that Klinč supplied Krokodil with more than one hundred works.

From the 1920s to Krokodil The little that I could review from Klinč’s 1920s are cartoons from the newspaper of the Soviet ministry of defence, Krasnaja zvezda (Red Star), specifically, 17 cartoons from 1927. Already at this point Klinč appears as a specialist in ‘international affairs’, that is, in satirizing the West. This focus, which under given circumstances implies a metamorphosis of satire into propaganda, will remain prominent in his profile for the rest of his career irrespective of the medium he was using. The Krasnaja zvezda examples are hand-drawn cartoons in what might be called the ‘gross’ style, a popular trend in Soviet caricature of the period (cf. Fig. 48). Had it been for works such as these, Klinč would have likely remained a minor cartoonist of the 1920s, situated somewhere behind famous names such as Boris Efimov or the artists of the Kukriniksy group. However, this is where comparisons may well stop – unlike these cartoonists Klinč’s trajectory is distinguished by a number of unusual features and accomplishments. Firstly, he changed his technique from drawing to photomontage, and secondly, he reflected on the new medium in several articles. || 4 Xudožniki narodov SSSR: Bibliografičeskij slovar’, Moskva 1955, vol. 4/2, 571. 5 Abramskij, I. P., Smex sil’nyx: O karikaturistax «Krokodila», Moskva 1977, 221. 6 Jablokov, Aleksej (ed.), Istorija glazami Krokodila – XX vek: Ljudi, sobytija, slova, Moskva 2014.

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Fig. 48: Boris Klinč, ‘Appetite Broke Out,’ from Krasnaja zvezda, June 2, 1927 – Klinč is satirizing the war scare of 1927; note the swastika as an early example of anti-Nazi satire.

Klinč changed his style in 1932 when he started to publish political photomontages in Krokodil, a ubiquitous satirical magazine which was now cautiously opening to the new technique. The opening was modest since it was only Klinč, who systematically pursued photomontage in Krokodil – none of his satirical peers did so. A detailed study would be necessary to evaluate this step on the side of the editorial board since by 1932 Krokodil was a well-oiled machine that had its established editorial policies and served Soviet politics well. Nonetheless, the newcomer took Krokodil by storm – alone in 1932 Klinč published 23 photomontages there, of which 10 are full-page and one appears on the front cover. This tempo slowed down in the subsequent years but on average Klinč was publishing around ten images per year up until the early 1940s; full-size works repeat. There is a natural temptation to give Klinč’s metamorphosis and the readiness of Krokodil to accept it the usual causal frame. And, indeed, we do not have to speculate. Klinč’s photomontages started to appear in January 1932, just a few months after John Heartfield’s grand exhibition in Moscow. Klinč was familiar with the exhibition as documented by an article he wrote for Proletarskoe foto (Proletarian Photo) in which he praised Heartfield warmly. Other details, such as the possibility of personal contact with Heartfield during his stay in the USSR, are not known, though. Some of Klinč’s earliest photomontages definitely reveal Heartfield’s influence, both in content and technique. Still, we have to be careful since works of

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both Heartfield and Klinč were anchored in an identical doctrinal base. Just like Heartfield Klinč followed the doctrine of Social-Fascism, which translated into satirical attacks on German Social Democracy. One of his early photomontages incorporates the image of the social-democratic periodical Vorwärts, a newspaper Heartfield targeted in his famous ‘Cabbage-head’ photomontage from 1930. Klinč shows a group of German policemen literally firing their guns from behind the pages of Vorwärts at workers. Differences between Klinč and Heartfield can also be found. Among other things, Heartfield frequently used staged photography to achieve his goals while hand-drawing was limited. Klinč, on the other hand, may not have had the technical support and resorted to hand-based interventions into photography. He does not seem to have ever worked together with photographers, which Heartfield did. Despite differences, though, we do not have to hesitate to take the liberty of calling Klinč a Soviet Heartfield. The work of Klinč sticks out substantially from everything that has been published in Krokodil precisely because he was using photomontage. His images are explicitly glossed as montages, and photomontages, but frequently also as photo caricatures and photo cartoons (fotošarži), which should be understood programmatically and not just as an attempt to mediate the new technique to the reader, who may have been unfamiliar with it. Klinč also benefitted from Krokodil by being able to print his photomontages in colour. Although this was perhaps a benefit that came at no cost for Klinč as the magazine was printed in colour in its entirety, he definitely took advantage of this aspect and prepared his works with the appearance of the final product in mind. Thus in a 1936 montage with Franco (Krokodil 1936, no. 26), printing in colour allowed to represent the dictator with bloody fingers – in red. By this token alone Klinč differs from other satirical photomonteurs, including Heartfield and Marinus, who were typically confined to periodicals printed in monochrome.7 Colour images were definitely effective and persuasive in contrasting dramatically with black-andwhite photography on the covers of other illustrated magazines. Paging through Krokodil, we note that the range of satire published in it was strictly defined. By and large, Krokodil’s satire dovetailed with the official agenda of the Party. Besides celebratory images, which should not count as caricatures, we find images satirizing bourgeois ideology, such as the ideology of pacifism (Fig. 49), but articles and cartoons targeting the low quality of Soviet products, drunkenness, bureaucracy, and the like, were also among the permissible subjects. The topic of bureaucracy was particularly popular. However, || 7 In other print media colour photomontage sporadically appears a bit earlier. Thus Klucis’ 1928 Spartakiad series is in colour – but the medium is the postcard.

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while the execution of everyday-related themes, was always generalizing, domestic caricatures were never associated with a name. Images of the West were typically individualized and Western politicians were named. This happened by way of a caption or even a name tag embedded into the details of the picture. One is tempted to call this a top-down satire, or in analogy to command economy, a command satire. At the same time, the mechanism of what was essentially propaganda was more complicated and might rather be seen as involving a symbiotic practice characterized by the artists’ readiness to collaborate and anticipate political demands. Stalin is known to have made phone calls with specific demands, though.8

Fig. 49: Boris Klinč, ‘A Pacifist’s tears,’ from Krokodil 1932, no. 8. – Klinč’s first front cover in Krokodil. Since pacifism counted as bourgeois ideology, the cartoon falls within the bracket of anti-Western satires. The montage proper is black-and-white but the red backdrop enhances its impact. Note “remastered” teeth and the bottom up angle that provides the face, already voluminous, with further force.

Klinč followed the bureaucracy line to some extent. One is thus struck with his ‘rabbit’ image (Fig. 50), parts of which evoke Goya’s ‘Sleep of the Reason’ but also the prankish taxidermistry of the American West. However, as was the case

|| 8 One such call by Stalin in 1947 is described in the memoirs of the leading political cartoonist Boris Efimov (Efimov, Boris, “S vami budet govorit’ tovarišč Stalin”, in his: Moi vstreči, Moskva 2005, 376–383).

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in the 1920s already, Klinč’s grand specialty was ‘foreign affairs’, i.e., the construction of the imperialist enemy. In the Krokodil period we find numerous cartoons addressing the Great Depression and unemployment in the West, political doctrines such as Social-Fascism, further a number of Western politicians, including US figures, and, repeatedly, the development in Germany. Anti-Nazi agenda stands out (cf. Figs 51, 52 and 53).

Fig. 50: Boris Klinč, ‘Here’s what a bureaucrat can drive rabbits to!’ from Krokodil 1932, no. 17. – As rabbits do not associate any set meaning, the caricature perhaps suggests that even a peaceful animal can become monstrously aggressive under the bureaucrat’s hands. Note the teeth that ‘animalize animals.’

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Fig. 51: Boris Klinč, ‘Hitler marches toward power’. Caption: ‘Workers from the crowd addressing the social-democrat: Hey, you bigmouth, better say who’s standing behind your back?’ from Krokodil 1932, no. 12. – Hitler's face is strongly reworked, body animalized by a gorillalike outfit. A crowd at the bottom uses photography, otherwise a strong drawing component. The motif of Hitler having reactionary supporters behind him was used by Heartfield in the election campaign in 1931.

Fig. 52: Boris Klinč, ‘Change of cabinet in Germany,’ from Krokodil 1932, no. 35. – The motif of military boots is Heartfieldean, although in and of itself it was standard in anti-Nazi satires.

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Fig. 53: Boris Klinč, ‘Justice in the Third Reich: The court of justice entering,’ from Krokodil 1935, no. 15. – Another anti-Nazi satire; note animalization.

Off to Theory – and Practice Unlike other photomonteurs Klinč did not only practice photomontage – he also wrote about it. Altogether he published three articles about this subject, all of them within a relatively short period, on the pages of Soviet instructional periodicals Proletarskoe foto [Proletarian Photo] in 1932 and 1933 and Fotokor [Photo-Cor[respondent]] in 1932. These were periodicals educating workers to become photographers and also photomonteurs. Whether periodicals such as these could fulfil this function in practical terms is another matter, nonetheless, they prominently included sections geared towards securing a doctrinally pure practice. Heartfield’s visit to the USSR was also reflected. Thus the March 1932 issue of Proletarskoe foto is filled with reproductions of Heartfield’s montages accompanied by a lengthy essay by Sergej Tret’jakov. Klinč’s position in this debate is curious. While he is echoing Gustavs Klucis’ 1931 article on photomontage,9 in which Klucis attempted to develop a hedging strategy against Western influences, including photomontage by Heartfield, Klinč actually endorsed Heartfield without reservation and presented him as a positive example:

|| 9 Klucis, Gustavs, „Fotomontaž kak novyj vid agitacionnogo iskusstva“, in: Pavel Novitskij (ed.), Izofront: Klassovaja bor’ba na fronte prostranstvennyx iskusstv, Moskva 1931, 117–132.

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The recent show in Moscow of this master has clearly shown to which degree the language of photography can reveal its strength, realism and, above all, diversity, if the photograph is not only a document but at the same time a document organized by the will of the talented artist, put together creatively and pointing into the direction needed.10

This passage seems to start as a commentary about photography but it is actually about photomontage, that is, photography ‘organized by the will of the talented artist, creatively put together and pointing into the direction needed’. In other words, Klinč voices a discontent with what he views as static and just documentary – Heartfield shows new ways. This passage echoes period discussions about photography, in part conducted by Marxist critics in the West, especially in the German magazine Der Arbeiter-Photograph, where the Hungarian Communist A. Kemeny, writing under the pen name Durus, stands out. Brecht’s contributions to the debate are also known.11 The Left called for critical photography capable of revealing contradictions of the capitalist everyday. In these discussions photomontage was understood as the right answer and a step beyond documentary photography – it was meant to be realistic in that it was revealing (proletarian) truth. Or, to quote Andres Zervigón, artists such as Heartfield wanted ‘to reinvent photographic truth altogether’.12 In 1938, the German émigré philosopher Günther Anders (1902–1992) addressed the audience at a Heartfield show in New York precisely along these lines: [Heartfield] takes a step beyond the principle of naturalism that wishes to portray the world as it looks, because he knows the world’s appearance is deceptive. […] [For Heartfield] individual pieces are irrealities, indeed fakes of reality. In order to overcome these falsifications, he combines at the visual level those elements that are connected in reality, all within the plain framework of a single sheet of paper.13

The language with which Anders theorizes Heartfield differs from that of Klinč’s, yet it not so different as not to permit a juxtaposition. Klinč was clearly on the forefront of discussions that preoccupied the Left in the interwar time. || 10 Klinč, B[oris], “Fotosatiru – v arsenal agit-massovoj raboty”, in: Proletarskoe foto 1932, no. 6 (June), 24–25, 25. 11 See Toman, Jindřich, “Mapping the Funny and the Serious: Photomontage as a Commentary on Photography”, to appear in History of Photography. 12 Zervigón, Andrés Mario, John Heartfield and the Agitated Image: Photography, Persuasion, and the Rise of Avant-garde Photomontage, Chicago 2012, 2. 13 Anders, Günther, “Über Photomontage: Ansprache zur Eröffnung der HeartfieldAusstellung 1938 in New York”, in: Anders, Günther, Mensch ohne Welt: Schriften zur Kunst und Literatur, München 1984, 175–191, here: 171f., emphasis in the original.

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What mattered for him was moving photographs ‘in the direction needed’. And this was precisely what photomontage was meant to be doing. Just like Heartfield Klinč wanted to reveal the technology of political photomontage to the worker. His article ‘How Photomontage Is Done: From the “Kitchen” of a Photocaricaturist’,14 has no doctrinal passages but focuses strictly on the technology of photomontage. The projected readership was the fotokory, i.e., worker photo-correspondents, to whom Klinč presents a sequence of steps that lead to the photomontage ‘The Face and Language of the Imperialist War’ (Fig. 54). He shows in detail that the image was produced in six steps and was, overall, the result of detailed planning and deliberation. Focusing on the ‘how’, he demonstrates that photomontage is a serious metier, fully compatible with the concept of socialist work. Obviously, statements such as these were not addressing the worker only. There was yet another party that was listening – the Party. Given the bad reputation that photomontage had – dada anarchy on the one hand, commercialism in advertisement on the other – Klinč must be understood as not only attempting to establish photomontage as an acceptable ‘realistic’ practice but also justifying himself as a serious communist artist/worker.

|| 14 Klinč, B[oris], “Kak delaetsja fotomontaž – “Kuchnja” fotokarikaturista”, in: Fotokor 1932, no. 28 (Oct.), no pagination.

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Fig. 54: Boris Klinč, ‘The face and language of imperialist war.’ Originally in Fotokor 1932, no. 28; here from an undated propaganda postcard by the IZOGIS publisher, Moscow. – The motif of the skull as an attribute of the enemy occurs in Heartfield also. The image falls within the campaign against Social-Fascism that derided social democrats, cf. the initials ‘SD’ for ‘social democracy’ on the orator’s chest.

In Conclusion This brief study has analysed Boris Klinč as a political cartoonist who moved from hand-work to the avant-garde medium of photomontage and Boris Klinč as a photomonteur who was reflecting on the new medium. The former angle connects him with Western practices, in particular with John Heartfield, the latter with period discussions about the function of photomontage as the source of

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proletarian truth. Clearly, this is not an exhaustive account of Klinč’s work. Among the points that would extend the scope of this study might well be the concept of the so-called revolutionary laughter that was officially advocated in the Soviet Union, for instance, by Anatol Lunačarskij. Soviet literature and theatre of the interwar period has actually been analysed in this respect15 – connecting the points should thus not be difficult.

|| 15 See, among others, Gérin, Annie, “On rit au NarKomPros: Anatoli Lounacharski et la théorie du rire soviétique”, in: RACAR: Revue d’art canadienne /Canadian Art Revue 37, 2012, 41–52; Russell, Robert, “Satire and Socialism, 1925–1934”, in: Forum for Modern Language Studies 30, 1994, 341–352.

Anna Shvets

Constructivism between the Reality and an Aesthetic Performance Translating Poetic Performative Across Media in For the Voice by Vladimir Mayakovsky and El Lissitzky

Introduction For the Voice, Vladimir Mayakovsky’s and El Lissitzky’s collaboration, is now extolled as a finest specimen of visual design and an art-work, being put on display on museum web-sites.1 However, the initial intent of its author consisted in precisely the opposite: that book was meant to urge the reader to transform the reality she inhabits, to dissolve the boundary between “art” and life. As such, it was conceived of as a mass product geared toward a fulfilment of utilitarian purposes. In that respect, the book is informed by Constructivist sensibilities, although the poet and the artist operate under different assumptions of what constitutes Constructivism. That gap in understanding accounts for the afterlife of the book, with its print run left largely unsold2, although advertised widely by the collaborators, admired at by the fellow artists, and covered in several Western newspapers as a breakthrough in typographic art. In my essay, I uncover the practices the poet and the artist develop on the basis of Constructivism and different attitudes toward the “art-reality” complex stemming from these practices. These practices, as I am going to argue, are predicated upon the treatment of medium. As a result, a productive tension organizing the work of art arises so that the “art-life” relationship becomes more complicated.

|| 1 See https: //www.moma.org/collection/works/14473, 07.04.2019. 2 See: Rossomakhin, Andrei, “Mayakovsky dlia golosa” https://art1.ru/2013/04/05/ mayakovskij-dlya-golosa-7508, 07.04.2019. Also see his book Magischeskiye kvadratyi russkogo avangarda, Saint Petersburg 2012. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-020

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Constructivist Practices: Envisioning New Objects and Envisioning New Forms In the 1920s, both Mayakovsky and Lissitzky experienced a strong pull of a new emergent movement, the Constructivism, being dragged into the orbit of the Constructivist community, so that each of them provided a well-articulated response (as we will see, sometimes critical) to a new aesthetics and a new artistic sensibility. The common ground was partly provided by the Society of Young Artists (Obshchestvo molodykh khudozhnikov, OBMOKhU3). Mayakovsky was known to frequent OBMOKhU meetings: as a Russian avant-garde historian has it, the poet would often “visit the workshop […] give a piece of advice [to the people in there – A.S.] , have an argument [with them – A.S.] ” [the translation from Russian is mine – A.S.] .4 Lissitzky, in his turn, was also supposed to be familiar with the work of the group. In 1921, he was passing through Moscow and was reported to attend OBMOKhU exhibitions, as evidenced by his review of Russian artworks Die Ausstellungen in Rußland, printed in German in Ilya Ehrenburg’s magazine Vesch-Gegenstand-Objet. On the whole, he seemed to respond to the work of his fellows quite favorably, admitting that OBMOKhU exhibitions are innovative as far as the form is concerned and that the new generation of artists is trying to break new ground by oscillating between applied techniques of engineers and “purposiveness without purpose”5 (ziellosen Zweckmäßigkeit) of art. In OBMOKhU, the emphasis was put on applied activities and applied artistic labor. The members of the group (such as the Shterenberg brothers, K. Medunestky, K. Joganson) would paint posters to combat illiteracy, the wrack and ruin of Civil War.6 Later, OBMOKhU as a group joined the Institute of Artistic Culture (Institut Khudozhestvennoy Kultury, INKhUK) to organize several work-

|| 3 The society was set up in 1919 within the institutional superstructure of the Department of Fine Arts at the People’s Commissariat for Education (the so-called Izo-Narkompros). 4 Krusanov, Andrei, Russki avangard 1907–1932: istoricheski obzor. Futuristicheskaya revolutsia, Moskwa 2010, 143. 5 „Die Ausstellungen der „Obmokhu“ sind neu in ihrer Form […] Diese jungen Künstler konzentrieren die Erfahrungen der vergangenen Generation in sich […] Zwischen der Technik des Ingenieurs und der „ziellossen Zweckmäßigkeit der Kunst hin und her schwankend, versuchen sie vorwärts zu dringen“. Lissitzky, El. “Die Ausstellungen in Rußland.” Vesch-GegenstandObjet, no.1–2, March–April 1922, 18–19. 6 Krusanov, Andrei, Russki avangard 1907–1932: istoricheski obzor. Futuristicheskaya revolutsia, Moskwa 2010, 143.

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ing groups that were supposed to project new theoretical directions for applied artistic work. One of these working groups, the Constructivist Working Group under the aegis of Alexander Rodchenko, comprised OBMOKhU members along with V. Stepanova and A. Gan, the most vocal theorist of the new movement. As Gan defines it, one of the goals of Constructivism is to revisit the definition and role of the artist, the work of art as a production of an author. Preconstructivist art, according to Gan, could be seen as idealistic and individualistic since it offers axiological generalizations of the affective state of a single man, not the community. As a result, such art lacks practical, utilitarian applications, its “social” function is divorced from it7. On the contrary, Constructivist art is community-oriented and possesses a social function. The new art is described as “artistic labor,” “intellectual-material production”8, supplying practical solutions to relevant social problems. To put it differently, the new art is a creative process, conceived of as an organized activity in which new social forms of living together are projected, emotionally and materially (in theory as well as in practice). It would be a far stretch to pigeon-hole Mayakovsky as an ardent “Constructivist,” although the Constructivist sensibility, with its emphasis on deaesthetization is evident in his poetry of that time, with its rallying cry “While we all fiddle and fight /over meanings hidden within, – /“Give us new forms”, we cry – /but a howl goes up for things” in Order No.2 To the Army of Arts (1921). Lissitzky’s reception of Constructivism, however, turns out to be a critical reworking of Constructivist premises. Being one of the key figures in disseminating Constructivist ideology through the ideas of “Merz” and “De Stijl” in the artistic circles in Berlin where he resided in 1922 as a cultural ambassador at Lunacharsky’s behest, Lissitzky could be held responsible for the reinterpretation of Constructivism in the West.9 The gains and losses of cultural translation are most clearly seen in Lissitzky’s German texts, written during his stay in the German capital, among these Die Blockade Russlands geht Ihrem Ende entgegen (1922) and Neue Russische Kunst (1922). In these writings, Lissitzky redefined practical orientation of Constructivism by retracing the link between utilitarian, applied aspects of art and its social function, its ability to reorganize social life.

|| 7 Gan, Alexei. “Constructivism [Extracts] ”, in: Alexei Gan (ed.), Formalni Method, Ekaterinburg, 2016, 867–908, 881. 8 Gan, Alexei. “Constructivism [Extracts] ,” in: Stephen Bann (ed.), The Tradition of Constructivism, New York 1974, 214–225, 224; Gan, “Constructivism”, 894. 9 See Lodder, Christina. “El Lissitzky and the Export of Constructivism” in: Nancy Perloff, Brian M. Reed (eds.), Situating El Lissitzky: Vitebsk, Berlin, Moscow, Ann Arbor, 2003, 27–46.

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For Lissitzky, the creation of new forms of social life in art does not necessarily translate to applied and practical solutions in the realm of material “everyday life” (byt).10 Rather, art is geared toward projecting new interfaces and new sensibilities for communal life, practically viable and implementable. At the same time, art has nothing in common with a technological realization of these projects. The first evidence of that approach could be found in the magazine VeschGegenstand-Objet, co-published by Lisstizky and Berlin-based Ilya Ehrenburg. The artist’s Constructivist allegiances are to be found in Lissitzky-Ehrenburg’s joint article preceding the pilot issue of the magazine, titled “Blokada Rossii konchayetsya /Le blocus de la Russia touche à sa fin /Die Blockade Russlands geht ihrem Ende entgegen”: We consider the triumph of the constructive method to be essential for our present. We find it not only in the new economy and in the development of industry but also in the psychology of our contemporaries in art. ‘Object’ will champion constructive art whose mission is not, after all, to embellish life but to organize it.11

Despite an obvious curtsy to Moscow Constructivism, a skeptical attitude toward its utilitarian emphasis could be detected in the article. Lissitzky and Ehrenburg clearly distance themselves from the practically-minded artists: “…to us art means nothing other than the creation of new ‘objects’ […] . However, one should not think for that reason that by objects we mean explicitly useful objects”.12 As Lissitzky and Ehrenburg state, “it is our opinion that useful objects produced in the factories – aeroplanes, perhaps, or automobiles – are also the products of true art; but we do not wish to see artistic creation restricted to these useful objects alone”.13 According to Vesch editors, the objects created by art include poems, pictures and other things that could be defined as immaterial,

|| 10 “Byt” is a concept inherent in Russian culture. It could be interpreted as “daily grind” or “domestic trash,” depending on the context. As, for instance, Svetlana Boym writes: “Originally byt referred only to the way of everyday existence…connected to being and habitat. It was the Symbolists and of the late nineteenth century and the early revolutionaries that used byt to designate the reign of stagnation and routine, of daily transience without transcendence, whether spiritual, artistic, or revolutionary. Byt, the ordinary way of life, began to be seen as the order of chaos and contingency that precludes any illimination” Boym, Svetlana. Common Places: Mythologies of Everyday Russia. Cambridge, Mass. 1994, 29. 11 Lissitzky, El, “The Blockade of Russia Moves towards Its End”, in: Sophie Lissitzky-Kuppers (ed.), El Lissitzky: Life, Letters, Texts, London 1992, 340–41, here: 340. 12 Lissitzky, “The Blockade of Russia Moves towards Its End”, 340. 13 Lissitzky, “The Blockade of Russia Moves towards Its End”, 340.

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non-tangible. The crucial feature distinguishing the object of Constructivist art is its expedience, orientation toward a particular social goal and effect but not an emphasis on crude applicability: “Thus we have nothing in common with those poets who announce in verse that they will not write any more verse, or painters who use the picture as a means of publicizing their renunciation of painting. Basic utilitarianism is far from our thoughts”.14 Lissitzky’s own take on Constructivism was articulated in his lecture New Russian Art, delivered in the winter of 1922–23 in Berlin. Later, that public speech would inform the foundation of the International Constructivism15. Giving an interpretation of Constructivism, Lissitzky argued that the method could be claimed not only by OBMOKhU group, but also by another artistic community, UNOVIS,16 a short-lived artistic group set up by Malevich at the Vitebsk Art School in 1919.17 Both groups, in Lissitzky’s phrasing, had one goal in sight, namely, the “creation of the real object”18. The first difference lay in what constituted the object of art and its application. OBMOKhU artists would base their works on the use of “material and space”19 (Lissitzky 1992, 336), or would rely on the material necessary for the creation of an object and a material context of the real world. In other words, a real object, such as Tatlin’s tower, dress textiles etc. was designed on the basis of material components in order to inhabit physical space as a physical object. At the same time, UNOVIS artists would envision an aesthetic object as a union of “material and plane”,20 or of material components and an abstract art form. Malevich and his followers implemented that principle by decorating and adorning real objects with Suprematist design. The abstract planes were transferred from the canvas onto household items and such things as house walls and carts.21 In this process, the object was treated as an extension of the space of the painting, a means of transmitting the image into the real world while pre-

|| 14 Lissitzky, “The Blockade of Russia Moves towards Its End”, 340. 15 Lodder, “El Lissitzky and the Export of Constructivism”, 28. 16 Utverditeli Novogo Iskusstva, Champions of the New Art. 17 Lissitzky lived in Vitebsk at that time and took active part in the meetings of the group, to the extent that Malevich would become his mentor. 18 Lissitzky, El. “New Russian Art: A Lecture” In: Sophie Lissitzky-Kuppers (ed.), El Lissitzky: Life, Letters, Texts, 336. 19 Lissitzky, “New Russian Art: A Lecture”, 336. 20 Lissitzky, “New Russian Art: A Lecture”, 336. 21 Khan-Magomedov, Selim, “A New Style: Three Dimensional Suprematism and Prounen” in: Frank Lubbers (ed.), El Lissitzky: 1890–1941: Architect, Painter, Photographer, Typographer, London 1990, 35–46, here: 38.

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serving its aesthetic quality, the boundary between what is painted and what is real. The Suprematist object is an aestheticized object, an object turned into a fully-sized canvas for the painting. UNOVIS Suprematists …expanded […] the space in which the white elements floated into the infinite. But the space was essentially imaginary: any white […] plane became an infinite space for the two-dimensional suprematists elements. The [the Suprematists – A.S.] left the painting and went into the world of objects, but they did not […] enter the real space, but an imaginary space that could be formed by the surface of random objects.22

Correspondingly, the second critical difference between UNOVIS and OBMOKhU consisted in defining “practicality and utility of created things”.23 While OBMOKhU Constructivists saw a direct link between a utilitarian approach and practical orientation of art, to the extent that the two merged together, UNOVIS artists would continue to preach a less radical approach. According to Lissitzky, “Unovis distinguished between the concept of functionality, meaning the necessity for the creation of new forms, and the question of direct serviceableness. They represented the view that the new form is the lever that sets life in motion […] The new form gives birth to other forms which are totally functional”.24 To rephrase, the art form only implies a practical application as a potential use, but not necessarily realizes it. The art is a laboratory for constructing new artistic forms and interfaces in order to revise the principles and ways of organizing social life. Nevertheless, the very act of transforming life through applied activity of production does not necessarily fit squarely within the art. It is just a next stage attained by other means.

The Poet and the Artist Working with the Medium of Art These different responses to Constructivist agenda, and different views of the “art-reality” dichotomy are manifested in the poet’s and the artist’s treatment of medium. In this section, I offer the analysis of how both the poet and the artist account for workings of their imagination and lay out the creative practices in their manifesto-like writings on art.

|| 22 Khan-Magomedov, “A New Style: Three Dimensional Suprematism and Prounen”, 38. 23 Lissitzky, “New Russian Art: A Lecture”, 336. 24 Lissitzky, El. “New Russian Art: A Lecture”, 336.

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As a designer, Lissitzky was interested in media affordances of the book as a communicative format. In several articles, he gave an outline of the “new book,” a project which would make the book more expedient in terms of communication (Topography of Typography, 1923; Typographical Facts, 1925; Our Book, 1927). While the first two articles lay out the general principles of the medium reform, the latter focuses on For the Voice collaboration. In these three articles, Lissitzky proposes an innovative use of print technology so that the medium of the book yields affordances for new expressive possibilities. As Lissitzky would put it, the traditional book had come to be an obsolete phenomenon, much like “ink-stand and goose quill”.25 The Gutenberg book is predicated upon the practice of type-setting or making words out of standard letter blocks. The new book departs from this principle of communicating the meaning through a linear sign sequence.“ [T] he pattern of thought cannot be represented mechanically by making combinations of the twenty-six letters of the alphabet”,26 as we read in Typographical Facts. Techniques of combining twenty-six letters of the alphabet lead to the creation of “a passive, non-articulated lettering pattern”.27 Thus, print technology and the techniques based on it create mediumistic “noise”, non-conducive to a clear “articulation” of meaning. New typographical techniques, on the contrary, are geared toward creating an “active, articulated pattern”,28 or a letter pattern, easily distinguishable and interpretable. Such a pattern resembles a “sharply imprinted” gesture, a movement in which the meaning is staged performatively and is read as it is being performed. The monotonous letter “noise”, sequential and linear, is renounced in favor of an easily comprehensible visual pattern. That structure is sponsored by the resources and affordances the book as a medium possesses. A typographical pattern, an active “gesture”, is rooted in “economy of expression”.29 In Topography of Typography, Lissitzky defines it as based on “optics instead of phonetics”.30 The visual look of the text shapes our perception of it before it is read and deciphered by our trained and literate mind’s eye. As we see in Our Book, the “book finds its channel to the brain through the eye, not

|| 25 Lissitzky, El. “Topography of Typography”, in: Sophie Lissitzky-Kuppers (ed.), El Lissitzky: Life, Letters, Texts, 355. 26 Lissitzky, “Topography of Typography”, 355. 27 Lissitzky, “Topography of Typography”, 355. 28 Lissitzky, “Topography of Typography”, 355. 29 Lissitzky, “Topography of Typography”, 355. 30 Lissitzky, “Topography of Typography”, 355.

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through the ear”.31 The implication here is that a typographical pattern is based upon a crafty modification of the look of the page. Thus, it becomes an “optic” phenomenon, an ostensibly visual scheme supplying the reader with the clues for its performative staging. Thus, the new book is predicated upon the enhancement of visual quality of the text. Introducing the phenomenon of the new book, Lissitzky makes sure to trace the lineage back to the experiments of the 1910s, such as Blaise Cendrar’s and Sonia Delaunay’s “livre simultané” (Prose du Transsibérien, 1913), Ezra Pound’s and Wyndham Lewis’ Blast!, Velimir Khlebnikov’s and Alexei Kruchenykh’s little books. These book projects shape the emergence of the “plastic-representational” book, as we read in Our Book. In such a book, the image will be of primary importance.32 Such a move transforms (and informs) the reception of the text. As Lissitzky notes in Topography of Typography, visual design of the text manufactures the meaning of the text in advance, before the recipient has access to it through reading. Further, the typographic design of the “ideas” “must correspond to the strains and stresses of the content”.33 Thus, through visual design the meaning of the text, even the forces organizing its meaning-making, are externalized through “optical” images, given immediately to our eye. The process of reading is transformed as well in this process, since it becomes far speedier, far more dynamic than a regular reading. As Lissitzky notes with regards to Cendrar’s book, in the simultaneous book, the pages form a continuous sequence, passing in front of the reader, much like a movie. As a consequence, not only could we term the new book as a simultaneous one, but also “bioscopic”, or “film-like”.34 An interrupted sequence of pages resembles a sequence of shots that is put into the apparatus of the human eye, turning into a film in the reader’s mind. Thus, Lissitzky offers an unorthodox use of print technology, inventing new uses of the medium of the book and redefining the involvement of this medium in the communication of meanings. Clear, easily decipherable visual and iconic patterns are preferred over the “noise” of linear letter sequence. Within these patterns, the meaning is not arbitrarily associated with the word but rather is embodied and performed through the dynamics of visual and plastic forms.

|| 31 Lissitzky, El. “Our Book”, in: Sophie Lissitzky-Kuppers (ed.), El Lissitzky: Life, Letters, Texts, London, 356–61, here: 358. 32 Lissitzky, “Our Book”, 357. 33 Lissitzky “Topography of Typography.”, 355. 34 Here “bioscope” stands for a primitive film projector.

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Mayakovsky’s take on the treatment of the medium touches upon a completely different matter, the sonic potential of language as a poetic medium, as his 1926 ars poetica How are Verses to be Made? demonstrates. The most important aspect of a poem does not lie with its formal or semantic properties (such as stylistic register or meter, which the poet, in his confession, does not bother himself with) but with the pragmatic import of a poem. For instance, Lermontov’s poem “All alone I walk along the highroad” in Mayakovsky’s interpretation is seen the following way: “he is agitating for girls to go out with poets. After all, you get lonely on your own. How about the poem with the same force in favor of forming co-ops!”35 One more example is the interpretation of the last poem by Sergei Yesenin: In this life, there’s nothing new in dying; Nothing new, of course, in living either. After these lines, Yesenin’s death became a literary fact. It immediately became clear how many suffering from doubt and hesitation were going to be driven to the noose and the revolver by the mood of this powerful poetry.36 Such a poem implies an equal performative answer: And all the newspaper analyses and articles in the world would never be able to invalidate them. Such poetry can and must be fought with poetry and poetry alone.37

The instruction for writing such a performative poem that would drive to the revolver (or would not) includes five components: (1) “a social demand”, (2) “a target”, (3) “material”, (4) “tool of production”, (5) “method”. These components could be aligned with “an expected conventional effect,” “perlocutionary effect,” “language register” and “medium,” technology, “poetic device.” Let us look at an example: Example: social demand – song lyrics for Red Army soldiers off to Petrograd front. Target – to smash Yudenich. Material – army slang. Tool of production – a chewed pencil-stub. Method – rhyming chastushki.38

|| 35 Mayakovsky, Vladimir. “How are Verses to be Made?”, in: Maksim Gorky/Vladimir Mayakovsky/Alex Miller (eds.), On the Art and Craft of Writing, Honolulu, 2000, 129. 36 Mayakovsky, “How are Verses to be Made?”, 139. 37 Mayakovsky, “How are Verses to be Made?”, 139. 38 Mayakovsky, “How are Verses to be Made?”, 130.

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Correspondingly, here we need a poem of a particular genre which would fulfil a particular task (giving “song lyrics”). A perlocutionary effect (“a target”) of such a poem is more concrete: the author strives to smash Yudenich. The material and medium here is to be found in a particular stylistic register. The poetic device is represented by rhyme: Result: Had some mittens from my pretty ‘Gainst the winter spell of weather Now Yudenich leaves the city Absolutely hell-for-leather.

As Mayakovsky elaborates, the success of the poem could be ascribed to the following: The innovation in this quatrain justifying the production of the chastushki is in the rhyming of spell of weather with hell-for-leather. This innovation makes the verse necessary poetic.39

Correspondingly, it becomes evident that without a manipulation of the medium (language), there is no innovative use of poetic technique and no fulfilling of the social task at hand, and no perlocutionary effect. In other words, in poetry, the production of perlocutionary effect is encumbered and complicated by the treatment of the linguistic medium, estranging the very utterance and making it more tangible. Working with sonic potential of the language is not confined to the treatment of rhyme but also includes other sonic structures, one of them being rhythm. In Mayaskovsky’s view, rhythm comes to be a generative matrix of a poetic text, a medium that yields suggestions for future uses and turns of phrase. That is the way to shape and plane rhythm, the basis of all poetry, which runs through it in the form of subdued roar. Gradually, you begin to extract individual words from the roar.40

A rhythmic pattern has its own orchestration of logic accents that might not necessarily match the sequence of semantic accents. It is the rhythm that makes a word fit the line. The rhythmic pattern amplifies the effect of a pivotal word || 39 Mayakovsky, “How are Verses to be Made?”, 130. 40 Mayakovsky, “How are Verses to be Made?”, 144.

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unit, emphasized in the oral declamation, so that it organizes the line both semantically and sonically: More often than not, the first word to stand out is the key one that carries the meaning of the poem, or a word that lends itself to rhyme. The rest arrive and are fitted in to correspond to the main word. When the thing is basically ready, there’s a sudden feeling that the rhythm is broken – there’s a syllable or sound missing. You start cutting and rearranging it all over again and the work nearly drives you frantic. You can measure the crown a hundred times and still it won’t fit the tooth. Finally, after hundreds of try-outs, you push it and it slips into position.41

Let us look at an example, Mayakovsky’s description of his own practice, the process of composing a poem to Yesenin’s death. The first lines were based on the following rhythmic pattern: Ta-ra-rа́ /rа-rа́/rа, rа, rа, rа́, /rа-rа́/.42

Then the words became clear: You have found rа rа rа rа other spheres.43

“You have found other spheres” sound a bit cliché and typical, due to the associations it carries, so it needs to be defamiliarized, “revitalized” by an unanticipated key word that would break the monotony of the rhythmic structure. The variants include: You have found, Seryozha, other … You have found, irrevocably, other spheres… You have found, Yesenin, other spheres….44

Nevertheless, all the three do not fit the purpose since the first line is too familiar, the second seems to be dull, and the third is excessively serious. The way out sounds a bit like: You have found, as some might say, other spheres…45

|| 41 Mayakovsky, “How are Verses to be Made?”, 144. 42 Mayakovsky, “How are Verses to be Made?”, 146. 43 Mayakovsky, “How are Verses to be Made?”, 146. 44 Mayakovsky, “How are Verses to be Made?”, 146. 45 Mayakovsky, “How are Verses to be Made?”, 148.

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“As some might say” plays the role of a key word since this insertion in the rhythmic body creates the necessary pragmatic import: As some might say” […] reduces the pathos subtly […] The quatrain should be divided into two couplets: two serious lines, and two colloquial ones on an ordinary level, each acting as the contrast to the other.46

As a result, it could be said that it is the rhythm as a structuring matrix of verse that accentuates key verbal units, the pillars upon which the meaning-making is dependent, and actualizes their latent connotations, adding to the semantic contents. In the case with “as some might say,” it is its colloquial aura and an ironic stance that become an organizing principle operating beyond the semantic of the utterance and contributing to the pragmatic effect. If we look at Mayakovsky’s poetic program, we will notice that with Mayakovsky, the meaning is evoked and induced in the poetic performance as a superstructure arising sequentially in the process of articulating the utterance in and through language. This superstructure becomes attached to the whole utterance as its signified, yet the link between the two is arbitrary, although it seems to be naturalized due to the powerful pragmatic effect allegedly produced by the poem. Comparing Mayakovsky’s and Lissitzky’s approaches to the uses of medium, we might conclude that here we have two fundamentally different approaches to the process of signification and, hence, two different views on the relationship between art and reality. While Lissitzky strives to devise the process of signification in which an iconic sign is modeled by the means of a nonlinear, simultaneous structure, Mayakovsky prefers an integrative symbolic sign conjured by a linear, rhythmic pattern. By turning toward an iconic sign, represented simultaneously, Lissitzky keeps the distinction between “art” and reality since an iconic sign performs the meaning but never steps out into the reality the reader inhabits, remaining a suggestion on the page. Mayakovsky, on the other hand, tries to make the reader forget about the arbitrary character of signification by putting the pragmatic effect of the poem first, so that it obliterates an understanding of the manipulations the speaker performs. Thus, with Mayakovsky, a performative poetic is meant to evoke a certain affective state and elicit an action from the reader in the real life, not in the realm of art.

|| 46 Mayakovsky, “How are Verses to be Made?”, 147.

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Writerly Techniques in Dialogue in For the Voice Discussing Mayakovsky’s engagement of language as a medium, we have noticed the manipulation of rhythmic and sonic patterns emulating a melodic structure. That structure is intended to arouse the reader to an affective experience of participating in a communal activity, being engaged in collective labor of changing the reality around. The ostensible exploitation of medium is overshadowed by the effect the poem produces. What the reader experiences, in the end, makes him overlook (perhaps, willingly) a crafty handling of languagebased devices. Visual adaptations of the poems Lissitzky is bent on creating, on the contrary, are used to design an equivalent of the poetic device. As such, these equivalents foreground the use of medium and thus illuminate an inherent connection between the effect the device produces and its mediumistic qualities. Ultimately, it becomes clear that Lissitzky writes ‘against the grain’ of Mayakovsky’s poems. There is a notable distinction between the verbal text and its visual translation. These gains and losses acquired across media are indicative of different attitudes toward “art-reality” complex and different aesthetic programs. From the very beginning, Lissitzky reorganizes the media channel in terms of its communicative structure. A few elements of visual design are integrated in the text preceding the body of the poems, transforming the readerly interaction with the book and meaning-making procedures (the robotic Proun47-figure and the ideogram-dedication).

|| 47 Prounen; Proekty utverzhdenia novogo, the short-hand for “Projects for affirming the new.” See Lissitzky, El. “PROUN: NOT World Visions, BUT – World Reality”, in: Sophie LissitzkyKuppers, El Lissitzky: Life, Letters, Texts, 341–43.

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Fig. 55: El Lissitzky, Proun, 1923, © Vladimir Mayakovsky and El Lissitzky, 1923.

The Proun figure (Fig. 55) mobilizes and dramatizes the clash between the audial and the visual modes of reception, emphasizing that the sonic dimension is already transformed by its visual, optic representation. On the illustration, we see a composition made out of geometric figures that resembles a camera on a tripod with two rays of light crossing each other at a focal point of the lens. These lines are projected by the object on the illustration, a small trumpet, an instrument ‘for the voice.’ Remarkably, we see the ‘eye’ of the trumpet so that both audial and visual aspects of that vocal instrument are underscored. The audible here is again represented as the raw material for visual representation of an abstract ‘bioscope.’

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Fig. 56: El Lissitzky, Dedication, 1923, © Vladimir Mayakovsky and El Lissitzky, 1923.

The dedication to Lilya Brik (Fig. 56) demonstrates the same logic in which phonetics is refracted by ‘optics.’ On this illustration, one sees the ideogram, a visual superimposition of Lilya Brik’s initials (L.Iu.B, or “Л,” “Ю,” “Б”) and the phrase “I love” (“liub [liu] ,” “люб [лю] ”). The three letters (“L,” “Iu,” “B,” or “Л,” “Ю,” “Б”) are built into a geometrical composition, consisting of a square, a triangle, a black circle and an incomplete circle. Here the words (Lilya’s name and the verb “ [I] love”) are packed into one visual image so that one sees the template for a word and an utterance and then unpacks its meaning in one mind’s eye. At the same time, the ideogram “liubliu” is made part of a larger visual composition suggesting its mode of reading: through the eye. An incomplete circle here stands for an eyeball, a black circle symbolizes the pupil, with the triangle of light falling on the square of retina. The layout of a word-to-come is placed inside that abstract image of an eye as if implying that the meaning is accessed through seeing to be turned into a word that can be uttered and vocally inflected. Thus, it is the image that has the potential of a future performative to be actualized in speech. While in his poems Mayakovsky strives for going beyond art toward lifecreating, turning art into an expedient instrument for non-artistic goals, Lissitz-

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ky does the opposite: recreates the poetic structure of the poem and the device, instrumental to the effect of the text. For Mayakovsky rhythmic and sonic structures are just a means to an end while for Lissitzky they become the material for visual adaptation of a poetic technique. The “optic” presentation of poetic meanings through an ideogram preceding the poem is most explicitly observed in the poems the effect of which hinges upon the exploitation of a sonic potential of word. In particular, these are Our March, Proper Respect for Horses. In these poems, the utterances are often formed by the means of similarly sounding, monosyllabic words (italicized): “Наш бог бег“,48 “Зеленью ляг луг,”49 “Радуга дай дуг,”50 “Радости пей, пой!”, “Сердце бей бой”51 (Our March), “Били копыта, /пели будто: /ГРИБ /ГРОБ /ГРАБЬ /ГРУБ”52 (Proper Respect for Horses). A sonic resemblance seems to imply a convergence on the level of sense, and because of that the reader tends to overlook the level of semantics and perceive the effect of the poem first, namely, the rhythmic effect emulated through the combination of almost identical monosyllabic units. As a result, the reader will be more likely to be carried away by the rhythmic pattern of the poem rather than pay attention to its semantic import. Thus, these poems are meant to produce a performative effect in a form of march, song, communal celebration, a violent attack etc. Each ideogram adapts a poetic technique manifested in all three poems. Namely, it is the engagement of a sonic image of the word while often bypassing its semantics, in order to emulate a particular performative effect, to elicit a certain action in response. Thus, in Our March the speaker relies on the use of mono- or two-syllabic units, clashing similar words within a sentence to model a frenetic, hectic, staccato-like rhythm: “Дней бык пег. /Медленна лет арба. /Наш бог бег. /Сердце наш барбан”.53 Such a rhythmic pattern is designed to seize the reader’s attention, to excite her, to make her involved in a march-like activity. Often, the rhythm enhances some semantic aspects of an utterance. Thus, in Our March the phrases include a few imperatives, also monosyllabic

|| 48 “Our God is speed”, Lissitzky, El/Mayakovsky, Vladimir (eds.), For the Voice, Cambridge, Mass. 2000, 12. The original: “Nash Marsh”, Lissitzky, El/Mayakovsky, Vladimir (eds.), Dlia golosa, Berlin 1923, 12. 49 “Meadows lie green”, Lissitzky /Mayakovsky, For the Voice, 12. 50 “Rainbow’s arc, rein in”, Lissitzky /Mayakovsky, For the Voice, 12. 51 “Heart, beat for war /on the breast’s bass drum.” Lissitzky /Mayakovsky, For the Voice, 12. 52 “Hoofs drummed, /sang their song: /- CLIP/CLAP /CLOP /CLUP.” Lissitzky /Mayakovsky, For the Voice, 53. 53 “The bull of days is pied. /Slow the years’ ox-cart. /Our god is speed. /A drum is our heart.” Lissitzky/Mayakovsky, For the Voice, 12.

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and terse, meant to urge the reader to an action, to communicate a feeling of excitement. Due to the integrative effect of rhythm, the reader becomes unaware of the presence of these imperatives since they become indistinguishable from the monosyllabic units they resonate with. A presence of imperative calls to action amplified by the rhythm could be seen in the utterances: “Сердце бей бой,” “Зеленью ляг луг,” “Радуга, дай дуг.” The effect of the imperative here is foregrounded by the rhythm obscuring the meaning of the whole sequence. Thus, we perfectly understand that “Радуга, дай дуг [лет быстролетним коням] ”54 incites a particular kind of action through “дай” (give) but if asked to report on the meaning of the utterance, we could find out that we see a very convolute and recondite, almost baroque metaphor.

Fig. 57: El Lissitzky, Our March, 1923, © Vladimir Mayakovsky and El Lissitzky, 1923.

Serving as a material segue into the text or as a tuning fork, Lissitzky’s illustrations “pack” the key device of the poem and its mechanics into a visual image, forming a horizon of expectations. Here, in Our March, the ideogram “б (е/о) й”

|| 54 “Rainbow’s arc, rein in /the years’ swift steeds.” Lissitzky /Mayakovsky, For the Voice, 12.

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(fight) (Fig. 57) makes visible an ostensibly manipulative device of playing with alliteration. In other words, it shows how the speaker deliberately puts similarly sounding words together in order to create a sonic clash, an illusion of resemblance foregrounding particular meanings. As a consequence, the ideogram exposes the key device in the poem.

Fig. 58: El Lissitzky, Proper Respect for Horses, 1923, © Vladimir Mayakovsky and El Lissitzky, 1923.

Furthermore, the ideograms tune the reader to the effects of the poems in advance. The ideograms “б (е/о) й” (fight; Our March), “г р (и/о/а/у) б(ь)” (Fig. 58) (clip-clap-clop-clup; Proper Respect for Horses) visually rhyme the words that resemble each other in sonic terms and create a synthetic, multilayered image, the meaning of which is accessed simultaneously. When coming across a visual ideogram, the reader is likely to see the superimposition of the words as an integrative, complex phenomenon, containing the future meaning-making possibilities the poem will unfold. For instance, the words “гриб,” “гроб,” “грабь!,” “груб” form a more integrative visual complex in which the affective connotations of each word (a sonorous sound of horse hoofs, suggesting the word “grib”; death imagery, associated with “grob,” a coffin; implications of violence, attached to “grab’!”, i.e. “expropriate!”) melt into a single image. The visual signifier thus becomes a vessel for all the connotative and affective meanings the reader might encounter while navigating through the poem. While the poem is a linear structure and invokes these meanings sequentially, the visual ideogram provides the reader with this interpretative structure right away, giv-

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ing a “key” to understanding a poem. The verbal text, as a result, could be seen as an actualization of a string of signifieds held by the visual signifier.

Fig. 59: El Lissitzky, And Could You?, 1923, © Vladimir Mayakovsky and El Lissitzky, 1923.

Finally, in some poems the designer prefers to recreate not only the dynamics of the event performed in the poem but also the inaugurating gesture of the poem initiating that event. For instance, this is the poem And Could You? (Fig. 59). In that poem, the speaker’s gesture consists in eliminating the boundary between text and reality, poetry and real life. The poem starts off with “smudging” of the map of everyday so that the lune between life and an imaginative fiction is blurred, and a restaurant menu with a splash of paint, the plate of aspic somehow intermingles with an imaginary ocean and a silent, latent melody of pipes. Due to the syntactic structure of the poem, it reads as a long exposition followed by a brisk question. That question is enhanced; thus, syntax inscribes the gesture into the fabric of language.

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The same gesture is performed by the illustration. The ideogram “А (в/б)ы?” (And you?) is set against the grid filled with question marks, serving as a background. The grid stands for a conventional and regulated space while the ideogram is perceived as an innovative symbol breaking the boundaries of that space, opening it up. While “Вы” (you) and “бы” (could) are put inside the grid, “A” and the question mark go beyond the grid, beyond its limits. Thus, the designer imitates the provocative effect of the question “And could you?” through a visual image by breaking the grid from inside. At the same time, the very effect of eliminating the conventional grid and stepping into reality is not quite achieved since we are aware of the fact that the illustration is a performance, a staged phenomenon, not a real act of getting rid of the boundary. Emulating the poet’s gesture, Lissitzky chooses to expose its underpinnings, deconstruct it, show its mechanics and turn it into a performance on stage of the page, not in real life.

Justyna Michalik-Tomala

Reality as Disguise: Tadeusz Kantor’s Happenings In his work, Tadeusz Kantor constantly invoked the idea of reality. It might be concluded that the essence of his theater consisted of a constant, perverse game between fiction, theatrical illusion and that which is real. In his notes and manifestos, Kantor frequently mentions artistic attempts of this kind, where one combines or juxtaposes two opposing tendencies in a single piece.1 He claimed that this type of activity has a great artistic merit. It was very early on that he became interested in the concept of reality as an inherent component of a work of art. He fully consciously and creatively used it in the 1960s, when he mainly authored his own happenings. This propensity in Kantor’s work manifested chiefly in aesthetics. He created ingenious collages, attaching old damaged items (bags, packages, envelopes, pieces of wardrobe) to canvas. Already in the years of the Nazi occupation in Poland, in Podziemny Teatr Niezależny (The Underground Independent Theatre), which he founded with a group of friends staging plays in private apartments, Kantor would build sets and create costumes using common everyday objects – ready-mades. Many years later this experience allowed him to declare: “Many of my wartime and later explorations […] were pure happenings by nature. In fact I always use reality. And after all, this is the essential point of happening – reality instead of imitation.”2 Kantor’s comment on the essence of happening shows two planes on which a happening purposefully operates: the aesthetic and the performative. First of all, the purpose of a happening was to deny the traditional and conventional work of art, be it a painting or a sculpture, because, according to the artist, it had lost its relevance in a dynamically changing contemporary reality. This was the reason why many artists created hybrid works which were often a combination of, as it seemed at the time, fully distinct artistic domains: painting, music, film, theatre, and literature. What is crucial here is the fact that the act or pro-

|| 1 See: “A Journey Through Other Spaces: Essays and Manifestos, 1944–1990. By Tadeusz Kantor”, ed. and trans. Michal Kobialka, Berkeley 1993. 2 Tadeusz Kantor’s statement in an interview with Denis Bablet: “Od Akademii do Umarłej klasy (Wywiad Denisa Bableta z Tadeuszem Kantorem)”, in: Józef Chrobak/Justyna Michalik (eds.), Umarła klasa. Seans Tadeusza Kantora. 1975–1979, Kraków 2011, 11. All quotations in the article are translated by the author, except where stated otherwise. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-021

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cess of creating art was much more important than the work itself.3 In a very specific way the distance dividing the audience from the result of the artist’s work was eliminated. This corresponds with Allan Kaprow’s demand that “[t]he line between art and life should be kept as fluid, and perhaps indistinct, as possible”.4 Therefore, perhaps a bit paradoxically, a happening directed the viewer’s attention precisely to reality, towards the here and now. There appears to be a distinct performativity to such actions which often, intentionally and deliberately, were undertaken not only to influence the perception of the viewers in terms of form, but also to provoke a more serious reflection. Here is how Tadeusz Pawłowski, a Polish academic whose interests revolve around the art of happening, insightfully comments on its performative aspect: The happeners wanted to change the world: to make the social coexistence more humane; to liberate relations between the people from crippling authoritative schemes. They expected to reach this goal by infiltrating the objective social world with their artistic actions. […] They wanted to throw the audience off balance, to pull it out of recipient passivity and to transform it into an active and equal participant. Thereafter, roused into full autonomous activity, the audience […] would continue to shape their broader surrounding. This was the crucial element of the happening which aimed at transforming attitudes and relationships between people.5

Tadeusz Kantor produced happenings for almost a decade and his creative input occupies a special place in the international history of the happening movement. Working somewhat removed from the main centres, additionally walled off by the Iron Curtain, Kantor fully conformed to the general protocol of the happening, but at the same time left an important, innovative mark on the history of the genre. Developing yet another performance (probably aware of the fact that the postulates of the founding fathers were utopian), he clearly strove towards artistic and creative transgression; in the course of subsequent experiments he proposed his own understanding and practice of the happening. His works, to which he slowly added plots and senses, consistently gravitated towards theatre, which – it needs to be stressed – happening was theoretically intended to negate.6

|| 3 Sontag, Susan, “Happenings: an art of radical juxtaposition”, in: Against Interpretation and Other Essays, London 2009, 263–274. 4 Kaprow, Allan, Assemblage, Environments & Happenings, New York 1966, 188. 5 Pawłowski, Tadeusz, Happening, Warszawa 1988, 9–10. 6 Even though in the later period of his work Kantor created theatre performances which seemed traditional, in fact he never truly gave up efforts to combine or juggle the two conven-

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Arguably, Kantor did not even perform happenings but rather used their conventions to play deceptive games with reality. And he would trick the audience to get involved on multiple levels. He insisted: “Everything I make, I construct from familiar elements, from known realities, from objects which are physical, imbued with precise conventions and content (such as, for instance, the universal utility or conventions of art). In my art I do not invent any new elements”.7 In his works, Kantor essentially broadened the concept of reality; for him the iconic works of art were very much part of the reality. Thus he explicitly broke one of the chief rules framed by Kaprow who said that, “[t]he themes, materials, and actions of Happenings are taken from anywhere but the arts, their derivatives and milieu”.8 In his artistic work Kantor operated much like the postmodern bricoleur, who, as a member of a community, knows its proclivity towards a certain type of visuality or textuality and plays a game, communicating with people in order to teach or to raise awareness. This is what Kantor needed the broadly defined reality for. In 1967 Kantor organized List (The Letter), a spectacular happening which started in a real-life place: a post office in Warsaw. This was the starting point for a journey of seven actual mail carriers, who set off across the streets of the city, carrying a fourteen-metre-wide and two-metre-high letter made of canvas and filled with inflated mattresses. They walked towards the nearby Foksal Gallery, where the audience gathered waiting for the delivery and listening to the coverage by four reporters apparently standing en route. In reality, the coverage had been recorded on tape earlier and was played during the happening. When the mail carriers reached the gallery, they threw the letter into the crowd and the people began to impatiently tear it apart. List thus operated in two distinct spaces and on two main action-planes: the street with the walking mail carriers and the gallery with the waiting crowd. According to the rules of the happening, there should be no interrelations between these two activities. However, in Kantor’s work the cause-and-effect relationship between the two is quite conspicuous: the mail carriers validate the presence of the crowd in the gallery because they are carrying the letter which

|| tions of happening and theatre; the best, although not the only, example of this would be Kurka Wodna (The Water Hen) staged in 1967. The artist openly called this performance Teatr Happeningowy (Happening Theatre). 7 Borowski, Wiesław, Tadeusz Kantor, Warszawa 1982, 17. 8 Kaprow, Assemblage, 188.

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the people are waiting for. Additional connection between these two spaces is made by the reporters who are seemingly on the route providing live coverage. It might seem that the main point of Kantor’s happening was a conceptual enhancement of a common, or even banal everyday situation, which would perhaps surprise or amuse the participants. However, it is worth noting that this situation involves a very interesting disruption or downright reversal of functions between two quite conventional spaces: a street and an art gallery. Typically, streets are the space of movement, associated with speed, commotion, noise. In Kantor’s happening it is the opposite. The street becomes the scene of an almost majestic parade of an enormous envelope carried with a police escort,9 slowly, with attention, and a sense of dignity. The art gallery, which traditionally is associated with seriousness, pensiveness, silence, and contemplation becomes a dynamic space full of crowded people frenziedly tearing the letter apart to finally destroy it. Even the sounds of the street are directly transferred into the gallery by the orchestrated media coverage resembling a spontaneous live broadcast from sports events. Therefore, Kantor’s happening can be seen as a deceitful attempt to provoke the audience to break with conventional perceptions of reality and thereby make them aware of the fact that one’s behaviour in various public spaces is a result of subconscious conformity to specific rules of social coexistence. Similar spatial dysfunctions take place in Panoramiczny Happening Morski (Panoramic Sea Happening), a four-part event organized by Kantor on a Baltic beach in the summer of 1967. The first part of the happening, Koncert Morski (The Sea Concert), was a relatively simple conceptual action. An impromptu podium was set in the sea several meters away from the shore, and a man dressed in a tailcoat conducted a concert of sea waves for the audience sitting in deckchairs. If we follow the formal rules of the happening, this seems to be an ostensibly usual, everyday situation of a musical performance – a direct reference to reality. One of the most famous photographs from this event shows the feet of the audience members washed by sea waves. From the physical point of view music is a sound wave with changing amplitude and frequency, and becomes audible when it reaches our ears. Thus, the space of Kantor’s performance in a sense fits the definition of a concert hall; it was only the medium, water instead of air, and the parameters of the waves that were different. However, the case turns out to be a bit more complicated. It should be emphasized once again that happeners, with Kaprow in the lead, by eliminating

|| 9 The 1960s in Poland are the times when one needed to acquire permission from the authorities to organise any event of any kind, even artistic events.

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the boundary between art and life in their actions, expressed their reluctance towards conventions that ruled the art world, and which they also wanted to eradicate. In turn, Kantor was convinced that the reality of life is no less shaped by conventions than art. Therefore, he saw neither reason nor any viable possibility for their total rejection. He saw artistic value in colliding, juggling, and forcing them out of the existing, ossified systems in which they had been functioning. And this is precisely what happened in Koncert Morski – Kantor did not reproduce the real reality but out of that reality he subversively chose an extremely conventionalised situation to present it in another highly conventionalised form. This, for him was the essence of happening. Significantly, as Jarosław Suchan claims, the subversive nature of Kantor’s gesture is that he is playing one rule of happening against another: “The principle that the ready reality should be the area of exploration for the happener allowed him to introduce works and rituals of art (which were also the part of that reality for him). And the principle that happening is built from ‘life’ events – to introduce conventions”.10 More than that, this subversive situation, strongly influenced by John Cage’s 4’43, in which the concert turns out to be not what one might expect, is crucial. A musical concert, a product or manifestation of human culture, is juxtaposed with the sea, a part of nature. Invoking this universal opposition or conflict, the artist seems to claim that a human being, when confronted with nature, will always remain in the position of an immobile viewer unable to control a force of nature which seems to be completely unrestrained. This is the conclusion we inevitably reach when analysing the figure of the conductor. In a real musical concert, the conductor is the one holding power over the orchestra, beating the rhythm, introducing instruments. The conductor’s gestures and actions have agency and performative power. In Kantor’s happening the distribution of power is the exact opposite of that since it is the conductor who is controlled by the sea. To keep appearances, and perhaps to make the act more impressive, he probably was attempting to synchronise his gestures with the movement of the waves to create the impression of ruling the rhythm of the sea. But in order to accomplish that, he had to fully submit to that rhythm. His performance was mere pretence with a spectacular reversal of roles. In Koncert Morski it was nature, not the conductor, that exercised power.

|| 10 Suchan, Jarosław, “Happening as a Ready-Made”, in: Jarosław Suchan (ed.), Tadeusz Kantor: niemożliwe = impossible, Kraków 2000, 102.

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The issue of power, or rather oppression being the result of that power, is clearly articulated in a film called Kantor ist da.11 Interestingly, this film was for a long time thought to be a documentary including several recordings of Kantor’s happenings. It turns out, however, that the arrangement and the order of the respective film sequences must have been the result of deliberate decisions made by its creators. The main directorial concept of the film is the motif of the Polish artist traveling to Nuremberg, where he performs a series of happening actions. One of the first ones12 takes place in a symbolic scenery. In the middle of the huge and completely deserted Kongresshalle, with utmost meticulousness, seriousness, and diligence, Kantor wraps a woman standing on a platform in toilet paper, essentially creating the titular Emballage Humain (Human Wrapping).13 During the several-minute-long scene, every now and then we can hear terrifying authentic recordings of crowds chanting Sieg-Heil, evoking the still relatively recent reality of the Nazi rallies which took place here. Next, the viewers witness another act – absurd, happeningesque. In a cluttered room Kantor hammers nails into a wooden package which in its shape resembles a human silhouette. The scene is observed by two young women in bikinis. It lasts so long that the women get bored and fall asleep. This action was called Die Kiste, oder Kantor versucht den Menschen zu schützen (The Case, or Kantor Trying to Save a Human). The following scenes depict Der Rucksackmann und das Rhinozeros (A Man with a Backpack and a Rhinoceros). We see a courtyard of a historic town house and a scene which might be interpreted as a prelude or a build-up to the action proper. We see a man facing backwards, perhaps a wanderer in a hat and coat, carrying a large rucksack with a lot of pockets. Kantor solicitously checks and

|| 11 Kantor ist da. (Der polnische Regisseur, Maler und Verpackungskünstler. Ein Film aus der Reihe Der Künstler und seine Welt); dir. Dietrich Mahlow; prod. Saarländischer Rundfunk 1968. 12 The film analysis presented in this article does not include a detailed synopsis; however, to support my argument, I am referring to several key scenes. A detailed description of the film can be found in my book, Idea bardzo konsekwentna. Happening i Teatr Happeningowy Tadeusza Kantora, Kraków 2015. 13 Emballage (fr. emballage – packaging) is a symbolic gesture of Tadeusz Kantor which returns in various contexts in his work. After the Art Informel period, in which he completely rejected figurativeness in painting, Kantor decided to return to it. He was trying to rediscover the actual connection between art, object and reality. Being, however, aware of the fact that traditional depiction of an object is not viable anymore, or might even be impossible, Kantor decided to hide the object and in this way to only signal its presence in a provocative way.

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adjusts the unusual outfit. Then we see the very same man walking through the streets of the town. The key part of the action takes place a little later, in a crowded coffee shop. Kantor sits at a table, in front of the man with the rucksack and is trying to start a conversation with him. He asks about his journey, his luggage, and the people he met on his way. The man with the rucksack does not respond; he is busy eating, smacking his tongue and grunting. The next action is called Die Prozedur, oder Kantor greift zu Mitteln der Zerstörung (The Procedure, or Kantor Reaches for Means of Destruction). At a café table, nearby a crowded street, there is a man in a hat slowly smoking a cigarette. Kantor is sitting in front of him. None of the passers-by are paying any attention to them. At some point Kantor begins to cut and rapidly rip the man’s clothes with scissors – a peculiar act of dis-emballage. The man does not react in any way, but the scene attracts the attention of a small crowd of witnesses, who watch the situation with curiosity, astonishment, and, sometimes, considerable amusement. The activity of tearing clothes returns once again in a scene revealingly called Rembrandts Anatomie frei nach Kantor (Kantor’s Free Interpretation of Rembrandt’s Anatomy), the painting being De anatomische les van Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp). Here Kantor uses ready reality, the famous artwork of the Dutch master, and artistically re-creates it. Assisted by a group of people reproducing the positions of various figures in Rembrandt’s painting, he performs an autopsy on the clothes of the man-corpse lying on a table. This act of dis-emballage takes the form of a lecture. In an empty and cold hall reminiscent of a dissection room, the artist cuts and analyses the clothes, carefully describing each of his actions. The next part of the film is entitled Kantors Kruzifikation: ein Bild (Crucifixion by Kantor: The Painting). This scene is also based on the concept of disemballage. It takes place in a space filled with a multitude of random objects, with a large white deck situated in the middle like canvas on a stretcher. There is a clothed man lying on it, and Kantor arranges him in a pose echoing crucifixion (joined legs, outstretched arms). Then Kantor cuts the man’s clothes and mounts the pieces to the canvas with a tacker supplementing the emergent shape with paint. The man gets up and runs away towards a wall, while Kantor finishes his painting. The subsequent happenings-scenes show the growing oppression of the individual, ultimately leading to his utter humiliation and destruction – as is often the case in a totalitarian regime. I will bring this story into focus in the following paragraphs. The abovementioned context of a party rally as well as the off comments are a key to understanding the essence of the film; they reca-

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pitulate the whole premise and give it a much deeper meaning. They suggest that the oppressive story refers to the growth of the Nazi regime in Germany. The first comment already signals the issues that Kantor intends to address through his actions and cultural references: “Very early on I was influenced by the Bible as well as Edgar Allan Poe, Maeterlinck, and Kafka. Poe rationalised fear, Maeterlinck wrote about lethal fear, Kafka wrote about a human being subject to management, planning, and regulations, being subjugated”.14 Emballage Humain seems to be an initial sketch of the problem. It exposes the striking need to protect human beings against burgeoning evil encroaching and attacking from every corner. Nothing has happened yet but the catastrophe invoked by the recurring Sieg-Heil chants is inevitable. Therefore, the gesture of emballing becomes something more than just an artistic activity. It is a performative gesture which initiates a series of other acts – strikingly forceful impressions on the nature of evil. The subsequent happenings are therefore a succession of steps in exposing the mechanism: the slowly and gradually progressing destruction. Initially, at the coffee shop table everything is legitimized, unfolding before the eyes of indifferent and detached witnesses, who, although possibly shocked, still fail to react. After all, this absurdity is none of their concern. In Rembrandts Anatomie frei nach Kantor this destructive procedure escalates, taking over the unfalsified spheres of human individuality, which are symbolised by the common, personal, sometimes unexpected items which Kantor takes out of pockets, holes and recesses of the analysed clothing. The autopsy is in fact a painful and brutal interference into human individuality, a dissecting into pieces, often embarrassing and hidden. There is a symbolic change of scenery: we are in a cold, empty room with a table in the middle. Witnesses show no signs of life and no emotion; they are frozen like on Rembrandt’s painting. There is only one person moving; a witness who tries to recollect and bring back what has been repressed and forgotten by many. “I am trying to imagine the ambiguous and unfeasible system, in which an embryo of a costume would be the substance of human flesh”, Kantor says. Kantor ist da is very clear about the nature of this system. The human being, as in Kafka’s universe, is subordinate to management, planning and regulations. The embodied scene from Rembrandt’s painting echoes methods of the secret police who, based on small traces, scraps, deeply hidden things, are examining, analysing and judging in the name of the system. These cruel procedures

|| 14 This quotation, as well as all of the other comments that follow, are from the film Kantor ist da.

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are performed in white gloves; after all, Kantor is only making an artistic gesture reminiscent of the classic Dutch painting. The comfort of indifference can justify anything. In this context the scene between Rembrandts Anatomie frei nach Kantor and the next happening gains a very special meaning. Kantor is travelling to the next scene in a truck. There are two men sweeping the road. Fully engrossed in their work, they do not notice the danger. Even though the truck is close, the horn and lights send a warning, they remain indifferent. This scene might initially seem to be an intermission needed only for composition. But in the context of the analysed mechanism it becomes a cruel and horrifying metaphor: nothing has changed. The mechanism which led to atrocity with public consent could also evolve today. We reach the same conclusion watching the two scantily clad young women falling asleep when Kantor [is] Trying to Save a Human. The last scenes of the film, depicting the tragic Kantors Kruzifikation: ein Bild, build up to the climax. All mechanisms evoked in previous scenes inevitably lead to the atrocity which has become a fact. Death is the final humiliation of the human being. This tragic finale needs no witnesses. There is no need for consent. This act is the direct result of the previous events, and there is no turning back. Kantor, concretising in his actions the barbarity of the Nazi system, triggers recollections in those who witness what is happening. In this German film, created two decades after the war, there is a bitter comment: “A man can kill another man in his fury, but the spirit which is gone cannot be recalled again and the soul which escaped cannot be set free.” The voice that accompanies Kantor during the whole journey in Nuremberg, is impersonal. We never see the face speaking these words. This is the Medieval Everyman, Jedermann. When considered within the context of reality in Mahlow’s documentary, this is a tragic comment on German history, admitting guilt and indifference. It is a painful conclusion that the logic behind man killing man, or rather, broadening this interpretation, a nation destroying other nations, did not and could not bring the intended effects. “The spirit which is gone” cannot be recalled by anyone or anything. The dream of the Thousand-Year Reich, the successor of the Holy Roman Empire, which they tried to make real – when faced with cruelty depicted in a metaphorical and very evocative way, the cruelty which was the direct consequence of their actions – becomes a cliché. Kantor’s performative actions evoke and expose the senseless mechanisms of enslavement and destruction for the sake of ideals which failed to come true. Kantor’s last action operates on various levels of actualization. It is a standard artistic act of dis-emballage. It is the climax in the logical order of the ana-

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lysed mechanisms of evil: the final destruction of a human being. Finally, the title of the work and the pose of the model are an open reference to Christianity. The crucified man becomes Jesus. There are three parallel discourses: Kantor’s strictly artistic actions evoking history in individual scenes; the journey through the circles of the hellishly inhumane system; and Christian martyrdom, a reference which might almost seem inappropriate. Biblical references are interesting for another reason. They are not merely the connective device, nor are they arbitrary. They construct yet another, completely different order of the whole: the Passion. Emballage Humain would be the judgement of Pilate seeking means to save Christ and going against the chants of the crowd; in Die Kiste, oder Kantor versucht den Menschen zu schützen nails are driven into the case, but we only hear regular sounds resembling whipping; Der Rucksackmann und das Rhinozeros might symbolize the Way of the Cross; the stripping of clothes in Rembrandts Anatomie frei nach Kantor seems equally symbolic. And the final scene has the actual cross. “Everything that happens, also happens to us”, says a comment off camera. History repeats itself in cycles, inevitably following its own track. The mechanisms repeat in changed circumstances. A question arises of what we can do. The voice off camera replies: “You need to remember. You must do something that makes others remember. So they know again.” Even with the assumption that the film is only documenting Kantor’s happenings, it is impossible not to consider one more question. The main and primary idea of a happening is the direct, physical participation of the audience. In Kantor’s case, the nature of film excluded any physical participation. Also, most of the scenes lack any spontaneous reactions of the witnesses. Everything seems directed and meticulously prepared. The opportunity to participate in Kantor ist da is more open for the viewers, not the participants. And at the same time it is transposed to a different, intellectual level. While watching, we might search for something that is bothering us, something that Kantor is deliberately trying to hide. The act of hiding happens both on the formal plane of a documentary, and on the semantic plane: after all, the film talks about Kantor’s happenings which, according to the rules of the genre, should not be interpreted at all; they should be only what they depict, specific actions. The act of limiting visibility is also conceptual. Introducing Rembrandt’s painting, the artist is trying to redirect our attention onto a strictly formal level. We are supposed to notice and admire the concept of his action. It is as if through this cover-up of Nazi crimes, especially the Shoah, the artist wanted to make us aware how difficult it is to recognise and face these issues, even today.

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In my deliberations, I tried to show the mechanism of a subversive game played by Kantor with the recipients of his art. We could call it reality as disguise; its primary rule being an intellectual search for and uncovering of the real content of his works. In every analysed example, reality was Kantor’s starting point, later undergoing subversive transformation; this in a sense became a mechanism provoking the viewer to search for new meanings. Reality, as used in Kantor’s happenings, can be experienced exactly as it is – as (according to Kantor’s own words) “depicting reality with reality”. However, the act of noticing subtle, yet significant displacements, seeing the inadequacy or even contradiction contained within his works, agitates our cognitive apparatus and provokes a search for possible meanings at a somewhat different level. In List the inadequacy applied to the function of the space: the street and the art gallery. The primary meaning was the reversal of these two functions. However, the street often becomes the space of political and social changes and breakthroughs. In Kantor’s happening, the performative function of the street is clearly negated. The revolution, which usually takes place in the street, is unnaturally transferred into an art gallery, a place of convention and illusion. A similar pattern applies to Koncert Morski, which is the artist’s attempt to address the problem of the distribution of power. And almost the same is true for Kantor ist da. In this apparent documentary the viewer at some point notices the familiar dramaturgy of the Passion, which opens new and surprisingly obvious interpretations; all pieces of the puzzle fall into place. Interestingly, in all of the above-mentioned works, the hidden in some way relates to the distribution of power. This inevitably makes these actions political, which Kantor always refrained from. Perhaps this gesture should be understood as a pragmatic coverup. The 1960s in Poland, like in any other Central-European country, did not encourage artistic freedom, in particular when it came to exploring the nature of authority. Likewise, in Germany, invoking the infamous past was not easy. Therefore, the only possible way to preserve freedom of artistic expression was to use unorthodox metaphors, to emballage what was real with another reality.

Berit Hummel

The Cinema of Improvisation Bildwerdung zeitgenössischer Wirklichkeiten in Shadows und Pull My Daisy Im November 1959 zeigte die auf Avantgardefilm spezialisierte New Yorker Filmgesellschaft Cinema 16 die kurz zuvor veröffentlichten Filme Pull My Daisy (1959, Robert Frank /Alfred Leslie) und Shadows (1958/59, John Cassavetes) in einem Doppelprogramm mit dem Titel The Cinema of Improvisation.1 Die Filme erschienen zu einem Zeitpunkt der Neuformulierung des Verhältnisses zwischen Film und Realität, zu einer Zeit allgemeinen gesellschaftlichen Umbruchs, in der sich auch die anderen Künste im Wandel befanden. Beide erhielten jeweils den ersten und zweiten Independent Film Award der 1955 auf Initiative von Filmemacher Jonas Mekas gegründeten Zeitschrift Film Culture mit der Begründung, sie verbreiteten „an immediacy that the cinema of today vitally needs if it is to be a living and contemporary art“.2 Zeigt sich bereits hier das Spannungsfeld zwischen Kunst und Kino, in dem sich die Entwicklung der unabhängigen filmischen Praktiken bewegte, wurden Shadows und Pull my Daisy im Folgenden als Begründer eines auf die gesellschaftliche Realität bezogenen neuen Kinos, des New American Cinema, gehandelt. Beide Filme verwenden die Themen der zu diesem Zeitpunkt bereits im kulturellen Mainstream verankerten Beat Generation und die damit verbundenen Mythen des Spontanen und Unkontrollierten als Folie für die Entwicklung einer im Medium Film als neu wahrgenommenen Unmittelbarkeit.3 So stehen sie zwischen einem der || 1 Zur Rolle von Cinema 16 bei der Entwicklung der unabhängigen filmischen Praktiken in New York vgl. MacDonald, Scott, Cinema 16. Documents Toward a History of the Film Society, Philadelphia 2002. 2 Z.n. Sitney, P. Adams (Hrsg.), Film Culture Reader, New York 2000, 424. Shadows erhielt den Award im Januar 1959 und Pull My Daisy im April 1960. Zu den Gründungsmitgliedern von Film Culture gehören neben Jonas Mekas die Filmemacher und Kritiker Edouard de Laurot, George N. Fenin, Gordon Hendricks, Adolfas Mekas und Louis Brigante. 3 Wie Katie Mills in ihrer Studie The Road Story and the Rebel. Moving through Film, Fiction and Television hervorhebt, war die Straße (road) das zentrale Motiv in den Bildwelten der Beats und stellte damit ein Re-kodieren der Imaginationsräume der US-Depressionszeit dar: „In the forties and fifties, ... the Beats trusted their creative power to overwrite the sad imagery of Depression- and War-era films like The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and Sullivan’s Travels (1941), as well as the photographs of Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, and others – all of which constituted a vast “cinemscape“ of the road that the Beats vigorously remapped by their “intermediary mystehttps://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-022

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Beat-Literatur entlehnten, an Improvisation gekoppelten Authentizitätsbegriff und einem Wirklichkeitsbezug im Sinne eines neuen Realismus.4 Der Modus einer sich in Spontanität und Improvisation gründenden filmischen Praxis wird in diesem Zusammenhang zur Abgrenzung vom industriellen, narrativen Kino einerseits und vom in den 1950er Jahren vorherrschenden, an surrealistische Traditionen anknüpfenden Avantgarde- und Experimentalfilm andererseits eingesetzt. Die Bedeutung des Spontanen und Improvisierten als einem Weg, bestehende hierarchische Strukturen zu durchbrechen, verweist auf einen krisenhaften Wirklichkeitsbegriff.5 Das Kino wird als veränderlicher und teilweise ergebnisoffener Prozess neu definiert, um einer sich radikal wandelnden Realität zu entsprechen. Die Handlung von Shadows und Pull My Daisy wird dezidiert in New York verortet, womit sich die Filme auf ein konkretes urbanes, kreatives Milieu beziehen: die von der Jazzkultur beeinflusste Beat-Szene Ende der 1950er Jahre.6 Pull my Daisy, geplant als Filmversion des dritten Aktes von Jack Kerouacs Theaterstück The Beat Generation, stellt als halbstündiger Kammerspielfilm die Geschehnisse in der Loftwohnung der Familie des Eisenbahnarbeiters und Poeten Milo und dessen Frau, einer Malerin, vom frühen Morgen bis zum Abend dar. Milos ‘Beatnik‘-Freunde, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlosky und Gregory Corso als sie selbst, verbringen den Tag in dessen Wohnung und interagieren mit einem von seiner Frau eingeladenen Bischof sowie dessen Schwester und Mutter.7 Ein von Jack Kerouac eingesprochener Off-Monolog vertont die Dialoge und

|| ries[.]” (Mills, Katie, The Road Story and the Rebel. Moving Through Film, Fiction, and Television, Carbondale 2006, 36.) 4 Vgl. etwa die Zentralstellung von Authentizität im Ur-Text der Beat-Generation, Jack Kerouacs On the Road, der mit seinem ‚stream of consciousness‘ Schreibstil der der unmittelbaren Erfahrung nahekommen soll und ein Vorbild für Adoleszente der Mittelklasse darstellte, welche aus den Konventionen der 1950er Jahre ausbrechen wollten. Der Text ist zugleich eine Inversion des Bildungsromans, als einem populären bourgeoisen Genre des 19. Jahrhunderts, bei der der Protagonist eine neue Ebene der gesellschaftlichen Integration erreicht. Im Gegensatz dazu ist das Nicht-Ankommen Ziel der Protagonisten von Kerouacs Narrativen. 5 Vgl. Bormann, Hans Friedrich/Brandstetter, Gabriele/Matzke, Annemarie, „Improvisieren: eine Eröffnung”, in: Dies. (Hrsg.), Improvisieren. Paradoxien des Unvorhersehbaren: Kunst – Medien – Praxis, Bielefeld 2010, 7–19, 8. 6 In Pull My Daisy wird zu Beginn des Films die Handlung mit „Bowery, Lower East Side, New York” verortet, in Shadows wird sowohl in den Dialogen als auch im Filmbild wiederholt auf die Stadt Bezug genommen. 7 Die Handlung basiert auf einem 1955 stattgefundenen Treffen einiger Beat-Schriftsteller mit einem Schweizer katholischen Geistlichen im Haus von Neal und Carolyn Cassady in Kalifor-

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kommentiert das Geschehen aus der Perspektive der Protagonisten.8 Die Handlung fokussiert sich nahezu ausschließlich auf den privaten Innenraum, in den die urbane Realität nur gelegentlich in Form von mit Ausblicken aus dem Fenster verbundenem Straßenlärm eindringt. Im Stil der visuellen Symbolik von Robert Franks The Americans ging es in Pull my Daisy vor allem um ein neues Bild der Gesellschaft. Dies zeigt sich auch in der Verwendung der Flaggensymbolik in einer Art Traumsequenz: Die einzige nicht-diegetische Außenraumsequenz, gedreht im Warehouse District unter der Manhattan Bridge, zeigt den Bischof bei einer Ansprache auf einer Art Laderampe, wobei er während gelegentlicher Windböen von einer in diesem Kontext überdimensioniert wirkenden US-Flagge fast komplett verdeckt wird.

Fig. 60: Robert Frank /Alfred Leslie, Pull My Daisy (1959), TC 00:14:46, © The Andrea Frank Foundation; courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York.

|| nien. (Vgl. Nicosia, Gerard, Memory Babe. A Critical Biography of Jack Kerouac, Berkeley 1994, 134.) Milo wird vom Künstler und Saxophonisten Larry Rivers dargestellt. 8 Kerouacs Off-Monolog verwendet den Begriff ‘Beatnik‘. Milos Beruf des „railroad brakeman” steht für das prävalente Thema des ständigen Unterwegsseins, vgl. Kerouacs Einführung zu Robert Franks Fotografien in The Americans: „[A]s a railroad brakeman I rode by such backyards leaning out of the old steam pot[.]” (Kerouac, Jack, „Introduction“, in: Robert Frank [Hrsg.], The Americans, New York 1959, ii). Pull My Daisy war anfangs eine Zusammenarbeit zwischen Kerouac und Frank, Leslie kam später hinzu. Der Ausdruck ‚Beatnik’ wurde – im Zeichen von Kaltem Krieg und ‚space age‘ – im April 1958 durch den in San Francisco tätigen Kolumnisten Herb Caen als Zusammensetzung aus ‘Beat‘ und dem russischen ‘Sputnik‘ geprägt.

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Die Flagge nahm im kulturellen Diskurs der Nachkriegsjahrzehnte als vernakuläres Nationalsymbol eine große Rolle ein. Nach den metaphorischen, jenseits des Alltäglichen angesiedelten, Bildwelten des Abstrakten Expressionismus standen künstlerische Repräsentationen der Flagge für eine kulturelle Spezifität und zeugten von einer konkreten räumlichen und kulturellen Verortung.9 In Shadows wird dagegen auf direkte Weise Bezug auf die zeitgenössische soziokulturelle Realität genommen. Der Film ging aus der Arbeit des damals von Cassavetes geleiteten Schauspielworkshops hervor, der auf Improvisation als darstellerischer Methode basierte.10 Erzählt werden Alltagsepisoden im Leben von drei afro-amerikanischen Geschwistern, den Jazzmusikern Ben und Hugh sowie deren Schwester Lelia, einer angehenden Schriftstellerin. Die Darsteller sind Teilnehmende des Workshops, deren Filmcharaktere ihre realen Vornamen tragen. Kernkonflikt des Films ist das abrupte Ende einer Beziehung der hellhäutigen Lelia, nachdem ihr Geliebter durch Begegnung mit ihrem dunkelhäutigen Bruder die afro-amerikanische Abstammung der Familie entdeckt.11 Damit nahm Shadows bereits eine herausragende Position ein, da multi-ethnische Paare im zeitgenössischen Kino noch zu den weitgehend tabuisierten Themen gehörten, wenngleich sie in den einschlägigen New Yorker Jazzclubs Teil des regulären Publikums waren.12 Jazz und Bebop sind in beiden Filmen sowohl auf der Sound- als auch der Bildebene präsent. Jedoch steht gerade der Bezug auf Bebop, als afro-amerikanischer Wiederaneignung der Jazzkultur, mit der in Shadows dargestellten Thematik in inhaltlicher Verbindung, während er in Pull

|| 9 Vgl. Stich, Sidra, Made in U.S.A. An Americanization in Modern Art, the 50’s & 60’s. Berkeley 1987, 17. Kurz vor den Dreharbeiten zu Pull My Daisy zeigte Jasper Johns in seiner ersten Einzelausstellung bei Leo Castelli eine Serie seiner flag paintings. Vgl. auch Howard Becker zum Einfluss Robert Franks auf die Herausbildung einer neuen Ikonografie durch eine nicht den Konventionen entsprechende Darstellung kultureller Symbole (Becker, Howard, Art Worlds, Berkeley 2008, 78.). 10 Cassavetes leitete zusammen mit Fred Lane den Cassavetes-Lane Drama Workshop, der eine Alternative zu dem damals dominanten Method-Acting nach Lee Strasberg bot. 11 Zu Shadows vgl. u.a. Carney, Raymond, Shadows, London 2001; Sargeant, Jack, Naked Lens. An Illustrated History of Beat Cinema, London 2001. 12 Die sozialen Ungleichheiten speziell Afro-Amerikanern gegenüber setzten sich in den USA bis in die 1960er Jahre hinein fort. So wurde die in den Südstaaten der USA Anfang der 1960er Jahre noch praktizierte Rassentrennung offiziell erst 1964 durch den Civil Rights Act von Lyndon B. Johnson aufgehoben.

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My Daisy zu einem die Selbstinszenierung der weißen Beat-Schriftsteller begleitenden Element wird.13 In kinematografischer Hinsicht waren beide Filme nicht mehr improvisiert als die bis dato produzierten Avantgarde- und Experimentalfilme, wobei ihre Art der Wirklichkeitskonstruktion sich weitaus stärker als diese am industriellen Kinofilm orientierte.14 Dennoch wurden die formal wie konzeptionell sehr unterschiedlichen Filme nach ihrer Doppelpremiere bei Cinema 16 als richtungsweisend für ein neues, spezifisch US-amerikanisches, Kino des Realismus gehandelt. In den zeitgenössischen Kritiken verbreitete sich ein Mythos der Spontanität ihrer Produktionsweise, der teilweise von der Filmgeschichtsschreibung übernommen wurde. Jedoch war der bei Cinema 16 gezeigte Shadows die bereits grundlegend überarbeitete Fassung einer 1958 im New Yorker Cinema Paris vorgeführten ersten Version.15 Entgegen der aus dieser Version beibehaltenen und sich auf die schauspielerische Methode beziehenden Texttafel vor dem Abspann des Films – „The film you have just seen was an improvisation.” – war Shadows eine zum großen Teil durchgeplante, wenngleich mit geringem Budget gefilmte Produktion, an der Cassavetes insgesamt über eine Zeit von drei Jahren gearbeitet hatte.16 Neben einer Umstrukturierung des vorhandenen Materials hinsichtlich stärkerer narrativer Kontinuität wurden dabei auch Szenen komplett neu gedreht.17 Die nachproduzierten Sequenzen, unter anderem am Times Square, Grand Central Terminal und der Skulpturengarten des Museum of Modern Art, erzeugen eine konkretere, topografische wie sozio-

|| 13 Vgl. hierzu: Villa, Sara, „Improvisatory Practices and the Dawn of the New American Cinema”, in: George E. Lewis/Benjamin Piekut (Hrsg.), Critical Improvisation Studies, Vol. 2, New York 2016, 322–337. 14 Shadows etwa verwendete in seiner ursprünglichen Fassung noch stärker als in der Überarbeitung konventionelle narrative Verfahren wie Schuss-Gegenschuss Montage. 15 Der Film wurde während drei Mitternachtsvorstellungen vor insgesamt ca. 2.000 ZuschauerInnen bei freiem Eintritt vorgeführt. 16 Zur Produktion der ersten Version, während der keiner der Mitwirkenden bezahlt wurde, bemerkt Cassavetes: „‚Shadows‘ started as a classroom experiment with a view toward fresh approaches to cinematic style. The first film was improvised by the actors; there was no writer; it was shot with unbending honesty, care, and disregard for the critics.“ (Cassavetes, John, „‚Shadows,‘ cont.“, in: Village Voice, 16. Dezember 1959, 4.) 17 Die erste Version wurde laut Cassavetes überwiegend negativ rezipiert (vgl. u.a. Cassavetes, ‚Shadows,‘ cont., 4–5.). Zu den genauen Unterschieden zwischen der lange verschollen geglaubten ersten und der zweiten Fassung von Shadows vgl. Carney, Shadows. Das Buch enthält ein Filmprotokoll der ausgetauschten Szenen, anhand dessen sich der Charakter der Originalversion von Shadows erahnen lässt.

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topische Verortung und bedienen zugleich die Konventionen des kinematografischen Stadtbildes von New York.18

Fig. 61: John Cassavetes, Shadows (1959), TC 00:14:58, © 02.2020, Faces Distribution Corp.

Pull My Daisy war von vornherein im Stil einer kleinformatigen Studioproduktion mit dem privaten Raum der Atelierwohnung als Gegenrealität zur Inszenierung des Milieus der Beat-Schriftsteller angelegt. Das Studio des Malers Alfred Leslie wurde mittels geliehener Lichttechnik als professionell ausgeleuchtetes Filmset benutzt, um einen Raum beiläufiger Alltäglichkeit herzustellen. Die Dreharbeiten für Pull My Daisy begannen im Januar 1959, die einzelnen Szenen wurden geprobt und anschließend dreimal aufgenommen.19 Mit einem Drehverhältnis von 1:10 entsprach die Produktion in etwa den Praktiken der damaligen Hollywood Filmindustrie.20 Die weithin übernommene Zusammenführung von Shadows und Pull my Daisy als Begründer eines neuen Kinos der Improvisation stellt die Frage nach deren Rolle in beiden Filmen. Während Shadows, zumin|| 18 So wurde unter anderem auch eine Sequenz auf einer Upper-Manhattan Literaturparty hinzugefügt, welche die Akteure einer gesellschaftlichen Schicht zuordnet. 19 Vgl. Leslie, Alfred, „‚Daisy‘: 10 Years Later“, in: Village Voice, 28. November 1968, 54. Ebenso folgte auch Kerouacs Off-Monolog Skript und wurde wiederholt eingespielt. 20 Zur Produktion von Pull My Daisy vgl. Allan, Blaine „The Making (and Unmaking) of ‚Pull My Daisy‘“, in: Film History, 2, 1988, 3, 185–205. Zur Herstellung der Glaubwürdigkeit wurde Leslies Studio mit Objekten aus der Wohnung Robert Franks versehen, u.a. eine JugendstilLampe und ein Harmonium. Leslies Studio war ein ehemaliges Büro, dessen Wände er mit weißer Farbe übersprühen ließ.

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dest in seiner ersten Version, durch die spezifische Art des schauspielerischen Einsatzes die Improvisation als Methode der Repräsentation einsetzt, wird sie in Pull my Daisy zur im Film referenzierten Realität. Dies wird auch an der Qualität des filmischen Raums sichtbar. Mittels filmischer Montage in Shadows und Rekadrierung in Pull My Daisy werden auf je unterschiedliche Weise theatralisierende Raumbezüge produziert. In Shadows dient unter anderem die Theaterbühne des Schauspielworkshops als Privatwohnung der Protagonisten. Deren Kadrierung trägt wesentlich zu einer Ästhetik der Improvisation bei: Der fensterlose Raum wirkt nebensächlich inszeniert und die Materialität des Bühnenbaus ist etwa durch im Bildvordergrund sichtbare Vertäuung so offensichtlich, dass sie den extemporalisierenden Charakter des Schauspiels unterstreicht.

Fig. 62: John Cassavetes, Shadows (1959), TC 00:46:50, © 02.2020, Faces Distribution Corp.

Fig. 63: John Cassavetes, Shadows (1959), TC 00:57:07, © 02.2020, Faces Distribution Corp.

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Eine zusätzliche Offenheit entsteht durch die Zentralität sich frei bewegender Schauspieler: die Beleuchtung war in der Regel so ausgerichtet, dass diese vergleichsweise frei im Raum agieren konnten, die Kamera folgte ihren Bewegungen.21 In Pull My Daisy hingegen wird der Raum von der Kamera in einer von den Agierenden mitunter abgekoppelten Dynamik erfasst. In einem Wechsel von weiten und engeren Einstellungen wird der Raum kartiert und den Akteuren ihr Handlungsraum zugewiesen: die Atelierwohnung als Bühne für die Selbstinszenierung der Beat-Autoren.

Fig. 64: Robert Frank /Alfred Leslie, Pull My Daisy (1959), TC 00:05:37, © The Andrea Frank Foundation; courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York.

Fig. 65: Robert Frank /Alfred Leslie, Pull My Daisy (1959), TC 00:18:01, © The Andrea Frank Foundation; courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York.

|| 21 Zu dieser Besonderheit von Cassavetes’ Arbeitsweise vgl. u.a. Kouvaros, George, Where Does it Happen?: John Cassavetes and Cinema at the Breaking Point, Minneapolis 2004.

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Damit lassen sich zunächst zwei unterschiedliche Strategien des Etablierens von Authentizität erkennen: einer vordergründigen Rohheit der filmischen Mittel steht das Verwenden eines bildinhaltlich-textuellen Verweissystems gegenüber.

Authentizität und Improvisation Die Verschiedenheit der beiden hier unter der Zuordnung zur Kategorie der Improvisation in den Dienst einer neuen realistischen Poetik gestellten Filme ist exemplarisch für die im Zuge der Neudefinition des Kinos geführten Debatte um das Primat von Inhalt oder Form. Diese drückt sich für die Zeit um das Erscheinen beider Filme in zwei aus diametral so gegensätzlichen wie aus einflussreichen Positionen heraus veröffentlichten Werken der Filmkritik und Filmtheorie aus: Parker Tylers Three Faces of Film: The Art, The Dream, The Cult und Siegfried Kracauers Theory of Film. The Redemption of Physical Reality.22 Während anhand von Tylers, in die im Titel genannten Kategorien unterteilte, Kollektion seiner Kritiken sein Interesse an Film als Sparte der bilden Kunst und damit Teil der Hochkultur deutlich wird, definiert Kracauer die wahre Qualität des Films anhand von dessen direkter Beziehung zur Wirklichkeit. Dieser privilegierte Realitätsbezug erfordert für Kracauer einen geradezu nicht-künstlerischen, also möglichst direkten und unverstellten, Umgang mit dem Medium.23 Der Gegensätzlichkeit dieser beiden Ansätze, Film in Beziehung zu Gesellschaft zu setzen, entspricht auch die Positionierung der unabhängigen filmischen Praktiken zu dieser Zeit. Während für diese in den 1950er Jahren die Bezeichnungen Avantgarde-Film und Experimentalfilm synonym verwendet wurden, verschob sich die Begriffsbildung von dieser Positionierung als gesellschaftlich wie ästhetisch in einem privilegierten Bereich verorteten Praktiken zu einer Ausrichtung auf

|| 22 Tyler, Parker, Three Faces of Film: The Art, The Dream, The Cult, New York, London 1960. Kracauer, Siegfried, Theory of Film. The Redemption of Physical Reality, New York 1960. 23 Eine Diskussion der je unterschiedlichen Kunst- wie Realitätsbegriffe Kracauers und Tylers würde an dieser Stelle zu weit führen. Zur zeitgenössischen Rezeption der Werke vgl. die Rezensionen beider Bücher von Ernest Callenbach in Film Quarterly, der aufgrund ihrer Gegensätzlichkeit eine gemeinsame Lektüre der beiden Autoren vorschlägt. Callenbach, Ernest, „Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality by Siegfried Kracauer”, in: Film Quarterly, 14, 1960, 2, 56–58. Callenbach, Ernest, „The Three Faces of the Film: The Art, the Dream, the Cult by Parker Tyler” in: Film Quarterly, 14, 1960, 2, 58–59.

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ein diese Filme potentiell rezipierendes Publikum.24 So steht die Entwicklung eines von der Filmindustrie unabhängigen Kinos gleichermaßen in Bezug zu wie in Abgrenzung von eben dieser Industrie und gleichzeitig zu den sich in ihrem Realitätsbezug ebenfalls in einem grundlegenden Wandel befindlichen bildenden Künsten. Auf den Diskurs um den Begriff des Realismus verweisend tritt dessen mehrfach relationaler Charakter in den Vordergrund: seine Verwendung für eine Beziehung zur „physical reality“ stellt die Frage nach der produktions- wie rezeptionsseitig existierenden Vorstellung dieser Realität. Für Shadows und Pull My Daisy bildet sich dieser Diskurs in weiten Teilen in der sich als Forum für unabhängige Filmschaffende definierenden Zeitschrift Film Culture ab, die in den Anfangsjahren stark vom realistischen europäischen Nachkriegskino geprägt war. In deren Erstlingsausgabe legt Mitherausgeber Edouard de Laurot im ersten und deutlich umfangreichsten Artikel, der als repräsentativ für die damalige Position der Zeitschrift gelten kann, seine Forderung nach einem „dynamischen Realismus“ dar, den er mit dem spezifischen Charakter des Mediums als Ausdrucksmittel zentraler kontemporaner Fragen begründet.25 Die Charakteristika des Mediums sind nach de Laurot nicht nur Voraussetzung der Arbeit der neuen Filmschaffenden sondern zugleich dessen Aufgabe: eine „true expression of reality”26 zu erreichen, die er von einer reinen Repräsentation des Alltäglichen abgrenzt. Ein filmischer Ausdruck von Realität sei demnach „a matter of content dictated by a dynamic perception of reality, reflecting the development of the human conscience within its historical context. (...) Realistic art then is a fusion of the universal and the particular or – more exactly – the expression of the universal through the particular.“27 Dieser Ausdruck des Universellen durch eine genaue Untersuchung der Welt und der in ihr vorhandenen partikularen Perspektiven steht für die Vorstellung von Kunst als Syntheseleistung – und drückt die Idee eines geschichtlich verankerten, politisch-sozialen Realismus aus. Zugleich spricht de Laurot jedoch auch von einem diskursiven Charakter des Kunstwerks: Die Kunst wirke auf die Realität zurück und damit auch auf die Wahrnehmung dieser durch den Künstler selbst. Die einzige Kunstform, welche die Gesetzmäßigkeiten dieser sich in Veränderung befindlichen

|| 24 Diese Entwicklung ist in Zusammenhang zu sehen mit dem Niedergang der HollywoodFilmindustrie in den 1950er Jahren und der damit verbundenen aufmerksamkeitsökonomischen Freiräume. 25 de Laurot, Edouard L.: „Towards a Theory of Dynamic Realism“, Film Culture, 1, 1955, 1, 2– 14. 26 de Laurot, „Towards a Theory of Dynamic Realism“, 12. 27 de Laurot, „Towards a Theory of Dynamic Realism“, 13.

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Wirklichkeit zu erfassen vermag, ist für den Autor das Kino.28 Dieser privilegierte Zugriff des Films als Kunstform auf die sich verändernde Wirklichkeit ist eine Konstante im Diskurs und zugleich Ausdruck der doppelten Abgrenzung des neuen Kinos gegen Praktiken des hier als hochkulturell-elitär betrachteten Avantgardefilms auf der einen und das massenkulturelle, die normative USGesellschaft der 1950er Jahre repräsentierende industrielle Kino auf der anderen Seite. In dem von den in der Beat-Literatur gegenwärtigen Paradigmen der Spontanität und Authentizität beeinflussten Diskurs um das neue Kino stand die Frage nach dem Wirklichkeitsbezug filmischer Praktiken, nach der Relation des Films zur Lebensrealität seines Publikums, im Mittelpunkt.29 Die historisch enge Beziehung der Avantgarde zum Vernakulären, die sich später etwa im Falle der Happenings durch eine Einbeziehung von Alltagshandlungen und deren massenkulturellen Artefakten äußert, spiegelt sich im Diskurs um das neue Kino in der Forderung nach einer künstlerischen Praxis der Authentizität. So beschreibt etwa de Laurot den neuen Realismus als „the expression of that which is truer than the ordinarily perceived reality“.30 In einem Film Culture Editorial im November 1957 schreibt Jonas Mekas über die neuen unabhängigen Filmemacher, dass diese die „true possibilities of the cinema“ aufzudecken versuchten, um ihre Werke „not only as truth, but also as art“ zu positionieren.31 Das im Sommer 1961 in der Zeitschrift erschiene Manifest der New American Cinema Group spitzt dies weiter zu: „[W]e are not only for the New Cinema: we are also for the New Man. (...) We don’t want false, polished, slick film—we prefer them rough, unpolished, but alive; we don’t want rosy films—we want them in the color of blood.“32 Die Authentizität des neuen Kinos, dies wird hier deutlich, legitimiert sich durch seinen direkten Bezug zu einer sich in Veränderung befindlichen

|| 28 de Laurot, „Towards a Theory of Dynamic Realism“, 5. 29 Vgl. David E. James zu den terminologischen Parallelen zwischen dem New American Cinema und den Beat-Autoren, beispielsweise Kerouacs Stil des „spontaneous writing“ und Jonas Mekas’ Forderung nach einem „spontaneous cinema“ (James, David E., Allegories of Cinema. American Film in the Sixties, Princeton 1989, 85–118.). 30 de Laurot, „Towards a Theory of Dynamic Realism”, 13. 31 Mekas, Jonas, „Editorial”, Film Culture, 14, 1957, 2. 32 N.N., „The First Statement of the Group”, in: Film Culture, 22–23, 1961, 130–133, 133. Zu den insgesamt 23 aufgeführten Gründungsmitgliedern, neben Filmschaffenden auch Produzenten und Besitzer unabhängiger Kinos, gehörten neben Jonas Mekas u.a. Lionel Rogosin, Shirley Clarke und Robert Frank.

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Wirklichkeit.33 Die Direktheit dieser Verbindung drückt sich im Film durch das Rohe, Unbearbeitete, Improvisierte aus. In seinem Essay „The Two Authenticities of the Photographic Media“ beschreibt Rudolf Arnheim, der in den 1950er und 60er Jahren auch wiederholt in Film Culture veröffentlichte, Authentizität als abhängig von dem Vermögen der bildenden Künste, der Realität gerecht zu werden und dafür eine den Qualitäten der menschlichen Erfahrung entsprechende mediale Umsetzung zu finden.34 Improvisation, von Mekas in „Notes on the New American Cinema“ als „the highest form of concentration (...), a state of being necessary for any inspired creation“ beschrieben, bildet durch die Präsenz von Jazz und Bebop in der urbanen Kultur New Yorks einen Teil der Realität im Produktionskontext der beiden Filme.35 Zugleich steht die der Improvisation inhärente Performativität hier für eine Form des Wirklichkeitsbezugs, die Abgebildetes und Umsetzung zusammenführt. Anhand der in der Filmszene geführten Debatten um Shadows und Pull My Daisy wird deutlich, welche Wirklichkeitsbezüge für die ästhetische Definition eines neuen Kinos aktiviert wurden. Im Folgenden wird der Einsatz des Authentizitätsbegriffes für das neue Kino beispielhaft anhand von Aussagen der Filmschaffenden Jonas Mekas und Maya Deren sowie des Filmkritikers und Schriftstellers Parker Tyler auf ihre Darstellung der Relation zwischen Kunst und Wirklichkeit, Filmbild und Realitätsvorstellung hin untersucht.36

Inhalt vs. Form Die Zentralstellung einer Praxis der spontanen Produktion von Film ist im Diskurs zum neuen Kino Ende der 1950er Jahre besonders ausgeprägt. Hier wird deutlich, dass die vom dominanten, industriellen Herstellungsmodus abweichenden Filme mit der Erwartung verknüpft waren, die filmische Form durch || 33 Wie Susanne Knaller hervorhebt, steht der Authentizitätsbegriff in seiner Gebundenheit an die „konkreten Legitimierungs- und Beglaubigungsinstanzen“ für den sich öffnenden Kunstbegriff. Knaller, Susanne, Die Realität der Kunst. Programme und Theorien zu Literatur, Kunst und Fotografie seit 1700, Paderborn 2015, 15. 34 Arnheim definiert „recognizable images of creatures and objects“ und „the aesthetic function of representation“ als zwei Formen der in jeder Fotografie und jedem Film wirkenden Authentizität. (Arnheim, Rudolf, „The Two Authenticities of the Photographic Media“, in: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 51, 1993, 4, 537–540, 537.) 35 Für zeitgenössische Überlegungen zur politischen Implikation von Improvisationspraktiken vgl. Jones, LeRoi, Blues People. Negro Music in White America, New York 1963. 36 Vgl. Knaller, Realität der Kunst, 196f.

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die Spezifität ihrer Produktionsweise zu erneuern. Die diskursive Bedeutung einer auf Spontanität und Improvisation gründenden Authentizität zeigt sich auf direkte Weise in der Kontroverse um eine vermeintliche Minderwertigkeit der zweiten Version von Shadows. Jonas Mekas benennt die Bedeutung von Shadows, sich ausdrücklich nur auf die Qualtitäten der ersten Version beziehend, mit dessen Rohheit, die erstmals „the tones and rhythms of a new America“ darzustellen vermöge.37 Eine solche Wirkung spricht Mekas auch Pull My Daisy zu, wobei er hier die neue filmische Sensibilität – die er auf die mit den Brüdern Lumière verbundenen Ursprünge des Kinos bezieht – mit der Qualität der Fotografie gleichsetzt. Der Film erinnere, so Mekas, seine Betrachterinnen und Betrachter an einen „sense of reality and immediacy that is cinema’s first property“.38 In Bezug auf die Produktionspraktiken begriff Mekas die erste Version von Shadows als eine Art Initialzündung für eine neue Praxis des Filmemachens wenn er in seinem programmatischen Ruf nach einer neuen Generation von Filmschaffenden schreibt: John Cassavetes’ film, Shadows, proves that a feature film can be made with only $15,000. And a film that doesn’t betray life or cinema. What does it prove? It proves that we can make our films now and by ourselves. Hollywood and the miniature Hollywood of “independents“ will never make our films.39

Wie hier deutlich wird, orientiert sich das Verständnis alternativer filmischer Praktiken noch stark an der Produktion von Spielfilmen. Zugleich stellt Mekas hier, wie auch in dem in der Folgeausgabe veröffentlichten längeren manifestartigem Text Cinema of the New Generation, die Authentizität der Filme, die sich sowohl zum Leben als auch zu den Gepflogenheiten des Kinos loyal verhielten, in den Mittelpunkt.40 Am auffälligsten ist jedoch die Betonung der materiellen Bedingungen der Produktion, welche mit der Aufforderung von Mekas an die ausgerufene neue Generation Filmschaffender verbunden wird, eigene Werke zu produzieren. In seiner Behandlung von Shadows als richtungsweisendem Film setzt Mekas die Rohheit und Imperfektion mit Authentizität gleich: „The very imperfections, the ‘unprofessionalism’ of his techniques became an integral part of the film, its very style, giving it a certain roughness, a certain impurity that made it

|| 37 Mekas, Jonas, „Movie Journal“, in: Village Voice, 27. Januar 1960, 8. 38 Mekas, Jonas, „Movie Journal“, in: Village Voice, 18. November 1959, 12. 39 Mekas, Jonas, „A Call for a New Generation of Film Makers“, in: Film Culture, 19, 1959, 2. 40 Vgl. Mekas, Jonas, „Cinema of the New Generation“, in: Film Culture, 21, 1960, 1–20.

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more authentic, less official.“41 Mekas findet in Shadows „the same sense of roughness and impurity which is a fundamental part of all modern American art“ und zählt als charakteristisch Beispiele aus Musik, Happening, Theater, Literatur und Malerei auf. In Bezug auf ein konkretes Beispiel, die Malerei Alfred Leslies, konstatiert er einen in Shadows auf gleiche Weise zu findenden Anti-Illusionismus: sowohl die in einem Gemälde sichtbaren Spuren des Prozesses seiner Entstehung als auch der im Filmbild deutlich werdende Produktionsprozess verleihen dem Werk einen „touch of actuality and action“.42 Die Nähe zu Harold Rosenbergs Charakterisierung des „Action Painting” ist hier offensichtlich: die Bildfläche der Malerei als Aktionsfeld wird zum Akt der filmischen Produktion selbst, der höher zu werten ist als das auf der Projektionsfläche im Kinosaal sichtbare Ergebnis.43 Die Improvisation begründet eine die ursprünglichen Konventionen des Mediums sprengende Performativität.44 Sowohl Shadows als auch Pull my Daisy stellten im Kontext des Kinos eine Abgrenzung gegen das etablierte Filmschaffen auf mehreren Ebenen dar. Dies bezieht sich einerseits auf die Ästhetik des Direkten und Unvermittelten mittels eines betont improvisierten Charakters der Szenen. Andererseits bedienten sie sich auch der Mittel des klassischen Kinos: in Form der, wenn auch fragmentierten, so doch kohärenten Erzählstruktur in der zweiten Fassung von Shadows, ähnlich wie auch des Einsatzes der Atelierwohnung als konventionell bespieltes und ausgeleuchtetes Set in Pull My Daisy.45 Dadurch positionierten sie sich in einem Bereich zwischen experimentellem Avantgarde-Film und narrativem Kino. Diese Position des Dazwischen wird auch durch Angriffe aus der zeitgenössischen Experimentalfilmszene deutlich. So setzte etwa Maya Deren, vor allem in Bezug auf Pull My Daisy, die filmische Verarbeitung einer solchen Spontaneität gleich mit einem „amateur burglar in a strange apartment, turning all the drawers onto the floor, cutting up the mattresses, ripping off the backs of pictures and in general making one ungodly clumsy mess in a frantic search for

|| 41 Mekas, „Cinema of the New Generation“, 12. 42 Mekas, „Cinema of the New Generation“, 12. 43 Vgl. hierzu die bekannte Debatte zwischen Harold Rosenberg („Action Painting“) und Clement Greenberg mit seinem Paradigma vom Aufgehen des Inhalts in der Form. 44 Vgl. Haberski. Raymond, Freedom to Offend: How New York Remade Movie Culture, Lexington 2007, 126. Der Autor weist darauf hin, dass Mekas durch die mit Shadows ausformulierte Polemik die spezifische Performativität des Kinos konstiuierte, „the realization that filmmaking is not a business or even an art; it is simply, profoundly and personally an act“. 45 Bei Shadows bedienten zwar die Schauspieler zugleich Teile der Ton- und Beleuchtungstechnik, jedoch arbeitete Cassavetes mit dem professionellen Kameramann Erich Kolmar, gedreht wurde mit dessen Arriflex-Kamera.

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a single significant note.“46 Diese Aussage bezieht sich vor allem auf die filmische Praxis im Umgang mit der Realität, die nicht einem ordnenden Konzept zu folgen scheint, sondern das Medium selbst als Mittel der Aufdeckung eines verborgenen Sinns hinter der Oberfläche der materiellen Umgebung definiert. Maya Deren argumentiert hier aus einer Position des surrealistischen Avantgardefilms, die etwa der Kracauers diametral gegenüberstand. Sie kritisierte die von Mekas als Begründer eines neuen Trends im amerikanischen Kino ausgerufenen Filme Shadows und Pull my Daisy, da sie lediglich „unorthodox subject matter in an orthodox manner“ präsentierten und damit den „latent Peeping Tom in the audience“, den verkappten Voyeurismus des Publikums, ansprächen.47 Der Idee von der Kontrolle filmischer Form durch ein als Ordnungsprinzip wirkendes Konzept, von Deren mit dem Bild eines mit Konzentration und Bestimmung aufgeladenen Magneten umschrieben, setzt Mekas in einer späteren Ausgabe seiner Kolumne Movie Journal, die sich auf Shadows und Daisy bezieht, die unbestimmte „new sensibility“ des unkontrollierten und unkontrollierbaren „new American man“ entgegen.48 Diesen veränderten Realitätsbezug kontextualisiert Mekas mit einem vorangestellten Zitat Willem de Koonings, in dem der Maler den Gestus des Abstrakten Expressionismus als einen Lebensstil verallgemeinert: „Painting – any kind of painting, any style of painting – to be a painting at all, in fact – is a way of living today, a style of living, so to speak.“49 Dieser in Bezug auf die neuen filmischen Praktiken eingesetzte Verweis erscheint, neben möglichen strategischen Beweggründen, als weitere Facette der Zentralstellung des Authentizitätsparadigmas. Der aus der Beat-Literatur entlehnte Mythos des Spontanen und Unkontrollierten des neuen Menschen wird hier einerseits mit der neuen Realität gleichgesetzt und zugleich in Verbindung

|| 46 Deren, Maya, „Some Metaphors for the creative process“, in: Film Culture, 39, 1965, 52f. (Wiederabdruck des von Deren am 21. Juli 1960 in Vertretung von Jonas Mekas in der Village Voice veröffentlichten „Movie Journal“). 47 Ebd. Vgl. Parker Tyler zur Funktion der Kamera als Voyeur im Undergroundfilm (Tyler, Parker, Underground Film. A Critical History, New York 1969, 36). 48 Mekas, Jonas, „Movie Journal”, in: Village Voice, 2. März 1961, 11. Vgl.: „The new American man, lost and shaky, searching, fragile, groping in an uncertain moral landscape, resists any attempt to use him in a preconceived, thought-out manner, in any creation which begins with a clear conception of what one wants to do, because he knows that most of what we know is wrong.“ (Ebd.) 49 Willem de Kooning, z.n. Jonas Mekas, ebd. Die Verwendung eines Künstlerstatements als Epitaph zu Mekas‘ Movie Journal ist in dieser Form einzigartig. Das gleiche Zitat verwendete Mekas in seinem ein Jahr später erschienenen Artikel „Notes on the New American Cinema“, in: Film Culture, 24, 1962, 6.

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gebracht mit dem malerischen Stil, welcher zum Synonym für den Erfolg der Kunst der Nachkriegsdekaden in den USA wurde.50 In seinem 1962 in Film Culture veröffentlichten Artikel stellt Filmkritiker Parker Tyler fest, dass das Zusammenführen von Shadows und Pull my Daisy auf einen gemeinsamen Nenner des improvisierten ‚Beat Films‘ durch die Rezeption auf einem Missverständnis gründe, welches unterschiedliche Anliegen und Umsetzung in eins setze.51 Gerade die Hervorhebung von Gemeinsamkeiten zweier so unterschiedlicher Filme weist jedoch auf die Zentralität des Motivs hin, eine Bildsprache für den durch die Beats geschaffenen Mythos spontaner Produktion zu finden und damit eine der Zeit entsprechende bildhafte Darstellung zu entwerfen. Pull My Daisy entwickelte sich – auch aufgrund der beteiligten Akteure – zu einem ‚Beat Home Movie‘, der im Sinne eines Imagefilms deren von den starren Moralvorstellungen des Amerika der 1950er Jahre abweichendes Konzept von Gemeinschaft und Familie als einer „collective form of authenticity“ propagierte.52 Während sich der zeitgeschichtliche Kontext in Pull My Daisy vor allem über die Verwendung einer spezifischen Symbolik und Sprache äußerte, stellt sich dieser Bezug in Shadows primär über die filmische Form selbst her. In seinem 1962 in Film Culture veröffentlichten Essay zum Zustand des New American Cinema betont Mekas wiederum den dokumentarischen Aspekt der von ihm favorisierten Shadows-Version als einer direkten Abbildung des Alltäglichen: It is this immediacy of the dramaless, beginningless, and endless episode which is the most important aspect of Shadows. The true value of the “immediacy“ being not its realism, but its cinematic properties. The film’s rhythm, its temperament is not that of the ideas in it, but, primarily, that of the people in it, their faces, their movements, their tone of voice, their stammerings, their pauses—their psychological reality as revealed through the most insignificant daily incidents and situations.53

|| 50 Für Maya Deren stand demgegenüber das für die Produktion der Filme bekannt gegebene Budget im Widerspruch zum offensichtlich mit geringstmöglichen Mitteln erzielten Ergebnis. Deren, die hier von ihren eigenen Erfahrungen als Filmemacherin ausgeht, beurteilt den Wert der Filme demnach primär aus der Position der Künstler-Produzentin heraus, setzt ihre eigene Praxis gegen ökonomisch orientierte filmische Praktiken. Vgl. Deren, Maya, „Movie Journal“, in: Village Voice, 25. August 1960, 6. 51 Tyler, Parker, „For ‚Shadows’, against ‚Pull My Daisy‘“, in: Film Culture, 24, 1962, 30. 52 Vgl. Tyler, Underground Film, 29. Der Filmkritiker J. Hoberman bezeichnete die vordergründige Informalität von Pull My Daisy als „deliberate and sophisticated aesthetic strategy“. (Hobermann, J., „Pull My Daisy. The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man“, in: Melinda Ward/ Bruce Jenkins (Hrsg.), The American New Wave 1958–1967, Minneapolis 1982, 37.) 53 Mekas, „Notes on the New American Cinema“, 8.

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Der direkte Zugriff der Kamera auf das Alltägliche, in Form nebensächlicher Details und unbedeutender Gesten, machte für Jonas Mekas den Charakter von Shadows aus. Zu diesem Schluss kommt auch ein im Auftrag der UNESCO verfasster Bericht des Filmwissenschaftlers Colin Young zum Zustand des USamerikanischen Films. In Bezug auf Shadows resümiert der Autor, der Film sei „important as form, not as content“.54 Demnach wird Authentizität hier vor allem durch den formalen Einsatz der filmischen Mittel in einer dem italienischen Neorealismus verwandten Ästhetik erzielt, während das Moment des Authentischen sich in Pull My Daisy über den Modus der Beobachtung einer vermeintlich alltäglichen Szene im Leben der Beat-Gemeinschaft herstellt. Während Cassavetes in Shadows Improvisation als schauspielerische Methode und damit als Darstellungsmodus verwendet, ist sie in Pull My Daisy die referierte Wirklichkeit einer freien Kreativität der Beat Schriftsteller. Beide Filme stellen Formen der Anknüpfung an und Abgrenzung von der städtischen Gesellschaft dar, wobei die Performativität der Improvisation entweder eine Form des Wirklichkeitsbezugs oder die dargestellte Realität ist. Improvisation unterstreicht dabei den Handlungscharakter der neuen filmischen Praxis: sie ist fortwährender und veränderlicher Prozess statt eines mit technischer Finesse erarbeiteten Produktes. Diese Form des Realitätsbezuges machte die Filme zentral für die nachfolgenden Entwicklungen der Filmszene. Der hier vorgenommenen Gleichsetzung von Realismus und Authentizität entspricht die Äquivalenz eines direkten Zugriffs auf die Realität mit einem geringen Produktionsbudget: Die Bedeutung beider Filme lag vor allem darin, die Handlungsmöglichkeiten innerhalb des neuen Kinos vorgeführt zu haben. Zugleich rekurrieren beide in je verschiedener Weise auf die in gleichem Maße im Umfeld zeitgenössischer künstlerischer Praktiken wie Happening und Environment sich abzeichnende Kunstfähigkeit des Alltäglichen. Kaprows einschlägigem, die Perspektive der

|| 54 Vgl. „Eventually, it is the relationship between story and realism (or authenticity) which reveals the crucial problems facing the American documentary experimenter. I find a beginning to all this in Shadows. In the conventional story film, the plot is the content (try to summarize any recent pop film). In Shadows, the plot was used as a device for presenting the lives of its people in convenient form. It was important as form, not as content. The result was an untidy film, but we can always believe we are with the people, since the people dominate, not the plot. When plot dominates, the people (and authenticity in general) are sacrificed.“ (Young, Colin, „The Experimental American Film in the Last Decade“, in: United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, Paris, 12 October 1964, 6. In: Thomas Brandon Collection, Celeste Bartos International Film Study Center, Museum of Modern Art, New York.) Diese Einordnung von Cassavetes‘ Film als rein formales Experiment stellt zugleich eine Entpolitisierung der zeitgeschichtlich brisanten Rassismusthematik in Shadows dar.

360 | Berit Hummel

Kunst durch das Leben selbst ersetzenden „walk down 14th Street“ entspricht hier die je spezifische Alltäglichkeit im Sinne eines Bezuges auf urbane und gesellschaftliche Realitäten wie in Shadows oder auf eine Gegenwelt in kreativen Rückzugsräumen wie in Pull my Daisy.55 Damit stehen die Filme nicht nur aus produktionsästhetischer Perspektive für eine Aufzeichnung eines sich wandelnden Verhältnisses von Akteur und Publikum.56 Auf der bildinhaltlichen Ebene zeigt sich ein Fokus auf eine Umkehrung von theatralem Handlungsraum und Zuschauerraum und die mit diesen jeweils verbundene Realitätserzeugung. Dies stellt sich etwa in dem textuellen Verweis auf die Improvisiertheit des Films am Ende von Shadows dar oder in der Sichtbarkeit der Infrastruktur einer Theaterbühne, welche zur Kulisse wird. In Pull My Daisy werden demgegenüber normalerweise nicht sichtbare Freiräume der Kreativität als Alltag inszeniert. Beides verweist auf eine Transformation des Betrachterbezugs, der schöpferische Akt wird zum eigentlichen Gegenstand.

|| 55 Auch diese wird mit einer spezifischen, der Objektzentriertheit zeitgenössischer künstlerischer Praktiken verbundenen, Ästhetik verknüpft. So bemerkt Mekas zur Bildsprache der von Robert Frank geführten Kamera: „The photography (...) continuously concentrates on the details and actions which, although seemingly inconsequential, contain the most essential qualities of contemporary American realities.“ (Mekas, Cinema of the New Generation, 14.) An einer anderen Stelle im gleichen Artikel wird er bezüglich der Darstellung dieser Realität konkreter: „The camera harshly and pitilessly reveals the bedroom, the sink, the table, the cockroaches.“ (13) 56 Vgl. die oben zitierte Aussage von Jonas Mekas, nach der Shadows für die neuen Filmemacher die Unabhängigkeit von Hollywood beweist: „we can make our films now and by ourselfes“. (Mekas, Call for a New Generation of Film Makers, 2.)

| Realist Turns/Politics of Realism?

Rachel Boate

Fernand Léger’s New Realism Painting for the People in 1930s France As a modern celebration of labour and leisure, Fernand Léger painted Adam and Eve, a monumental work completed over the course of 1935 to 1939 (Fig. 66). Updated references to a well-known subject in the grand tradition of Western art history identify the Old Testament protagonists in a contemporary setting.1 The deceptive serpent coils lithely around a pole in Adam’s hand, while Eve glances down, lured by the apple inked on her partner’s biceps. In contrast to Eve’s nakedness, Adam sports what scholars have often identified as an acrobat’s leotard, but could just as easily represent a contemporary swimming costume, reminiscent of those featured in documentary photographs that captured the vacations and activities of cultural leisure recently granted to the working class by the newly elected French Popular Front government.2 While of great historical significance, I am more interested here in the blue and chestnut biomorphs that seem to hover unanchored in pictorial space. Art historians typically read them as signs for clouds and a blue jacket – le bleu de travail – that drapes languidly over the yellow fence, just thrown off by the unclothed Eve. Besides their allusions to naturalistic props within the larger compositional mise en scène, these viscous globules bear a striking resemblance to other forms that recurred throughout Léger’s Objects in Space series, the little-examined body of work that dominated his artistic output from the late 1920s up to this point. The artist catalogued the ambiguous forms that populate this series as || 1 Sophie Bowness has noted that the artist’s choice of subject likely had connections with his interest in staging Le Jeu d’Adam, a twelfth-century play recently translated by his friend Robert Guiette. Bowness, Sophie, “L’Adam et Eve de Léger et la renaissance du théâtre médiaval”, Europe 75, 1997, 818, 148–156. 2 The French Popular Front passed the Accords de Matignon on June 7, 1936 granting two weeks of paid vacation to French workers for the first time in the nation’s history. Documentary photographs from the summer of 1936 depict these periods of paid leave, capturing Parisians vacationing on beach fronts and river banks. See the work of Robert Doisneau and Henri Cartier-Bresson. Some art historians read Adam’s ensemble as an acrobat costume, as Léger was simultaneously working on a series entitled Marie the Acrobat from 1933–36. The circus was another popular leisure activity in 1930s France. See Fréchurat, Maurice et al. (eds.), La Partie de campagne: Fernand Léger et ses amis photographes, exh. cat., Biot 2008.; Ory, Pascal, La Belle Illusion. Culture et politique sous le signe du Front populaire. 1935–1938 Paris 1994. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-023

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objects as diverse as a walnut, a ball of crumpled paper, sides of meat, trousers creased by a day’s wear, wrinkled, worn-in leather gloves, fragments of flint, comet tails scintillating across the night sky, and cows, to name but a few.3 Despite the notion of clear-cut legibility suggested by a series named Objects in Space, Léger’s biomorphic forms encourage an intentional slippage between signifiers and signifieds. Such was the guiding principle of Léger’s New Realism, the object-oriented theory of aesthetic practice he spent the early 1930s developing and promoting in contrast to theories of pictorial or conceptual realism that had dominated earlier periods of art history. “Rather than returning to the subject, it is better to call upon the object”, Léger advised in his response to the 1935 “Où va la peinture” survey circulated to contemporary artists and printed in the pages of Commune, the militant journal published by the French Communist Party’s (PCF) Association des Écrivains et Artistes Révolutionnaires (AEAR). “If we only use the object, we have a far greater chance of making something plastic of quality”.4 For Léger, the subject or signified had become overdetermined in recent cultural production, diminishing the plastic value of form as a result. The conception of New Realism, however, privileged the object in artistic practice. In accentuating the object, Léger intended to emphasize a form’s pure plasticity over that which it represented. Léger’s Objects in Space series deliberately defers the identity of the depicted object and manipulates plastic form to evoke a panoply of potential signs that the viewer can only partially identify with additional compositional clues and Léger’s choice of title. This essay argues that for Léger, the pictorial and semiotic ambiguity he explored both artistically in Objects and Space, and theoretically in his New Realism, offered an example of visual form’s democratizing potential. The inability to clearly name all of his objects and biomorphs encourages a farther-reaching

|| 3 While Léger’s multi-figure compositions of the mid- and late-1930s (including Adam and Eve) have received critical attention in recent exhibition catalogues, the related Objects in Space series remains relatively unexamined. I believe that Léger used the series to work out the ambiguous forms present in his large-scale compositions. Studies of the diverse objects listed above became a testing grounds for Léger to plot out his biomorphic clouds, just as his depictions of ropes or tree trunks informed the yellow fence-like construction. A similar argument has been made in: Freeman, Judi, “L’Evènement d’objectivité plastique: Léger’s Shift from the Mechanical to the Figurative, 1926–1933”, in: Nicholas Serota (eds.), Fernand Léger: The Later Years, London 1988, 19–32. 4 “Plutôt que de retourner au sujet, il vaut mieux faire appel à l’objet… Si on ne se sert que de l’objet, on a beaucoup plus de chance de faire quelque chose de qualité plastique”. Léger, Fernand, “Où va la peinture”, Commune 21, 1935, 944–5.

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mode of visual engagement, one that allows for a wider array of interpretations. The amorphous figures in Adam and Eve, for instance, do not simply mark a rift between plastic form and the object depicted, but more significantly reveal a fissure between what is seen and what is known by the viewer. While we see organic daubs of paint, we do not necessarily know them or identify them as clouds. New Realism offered a form of vision that no longer depended on language or knowledge to designate the things we see. In an effort to dissociate the visual from the ideational, Léger strove to produce paintings comprehensible to an array of viewers — regardless of education or individual experience. In New Realism and its manifestation in the Objects in Space paintings, I argue, Léger saw the potential for a more democratic mode of vision. Léger’s writings of the early 1930s reveal a more theoretical understanding of the need to distinguish between knowing form and simply seeing it—between subjects and objects—between a form’s plasticity and its connoted meaning. He presciently credited capitalist excess with overvaluing a form’s significance and appreciating the epistemic over the empirical; in Léger’s mind, capitalism had come to value what a form represents over how it was assembled or how it functioned. The artist offered a keen observation on the object’s broader economic import in a 1933 catalogue essay for an exhibition of work by American artist Elisabeth Blair, one of his former students. “Error consists in forgetting that grain, cotton, wool are vital objects”, he cautioned, “and in being interested in them only because of their value in gold, their speculative value. The economic purpose is not ‘to make millionaires out of gasoline’ but to distribute gasoline according to demand and need”.5 Here, Léger references the need for New Realism, locating a real-world example of the ways in which an object’s connotations had become overdetermined; society increasingly appreciated raw materials for their market worth, not their use value. He continued in an unpublished essay of the same year: “Ask an American: What is cotton? I don’t know. What is the price of cotton? I know… Wall Street has gone too far in turning everything into speculation. Wall Street is an amazing abstraction”.6 For Léger, capitalism’s emphasis on an object’s meaning or referential associations—its promise of prestige, capital, or influence rather than the object itself—had played a role in both the interwar socioeconomic crisis and the artistic crisis of representation.

|| 5 Léger, Fernand, “Introduction”, in: 12 Paintings by Elisabeth Blair, exh. cat., New York 1933, np. 6 Léger, Fernand, “The Wall, the Architect, the Painter”, unpublished essay of 1933, np (original emphasis). Reprinted in Léger, Fernand, Functions of Painting, ed. Edward F. Fry, trans. Alexandra Anderson, New York 1973, 94.

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In his efforts to reconsider the object, the raw material, its plastic form, Léger held that contemporary artists could produce an art accessible to both the intellectual and the ouvrier, while also remaining modern. The object — even the consumer object — could become a great levelling device. A review of Léger’s Objects in Space in a 1930 issue of Documents magazine reveals that Carl Einstein recognized the unusual degree of slippage in the series. Rather than seeing Léger’s ambiguous objects as symbolic stand-ins for something larger, Einstein suggested that it was formal equivocality itself that evoked a mysterious quality in the artist’s latest work. “His fruits are shells,” Einstein writes, “his roses are nightmares of rumpled paper”.7 Nor did Einstein interpret Léger’s objects as props in a narrative scene; he appreciated them instead as “stark naked objects”.8 Unpublished letters between Léger and Kunsthaus Zurich director Wilhelm Wartmann from 1933 reveal that Léger endorsed Einstein’s interpretation of his object paintings. In one such letter, Léger even suggests that Einstein be invited to Zurich to “chair several lectures” organized in conjunction with a forthcoming exhibition of the series; “he [Einstein] knows my work in depth”, Léger explained.9 This same correspondence reveals that Léger sold two works during the course of the Zurich exhibition, including a work identified as Study of an Object from 1931.10 Here Léger depicts a dramatically modelled tree stump, split down the middle into two central trunks, which in turn, divide into a twisting maze of smaller branches and bifurcated outcroppings. Striated passages reveal the stump’s interior, offering glimpses of the sinuous tree rings made visible with a cross-section view. Yet what is most striking here is the formal ambiguity inscribed within these striped fragments; they could just as easily represent swathes of flowing hair on anthropomorphic trees.

|| 7 “…ses fruits sont des obus, ses roses des cauchemars de papier froissé”. Einstein, Carl, “Léger: oeuvres récentes”, in: Documents 4, 1930, 195. Einstein’s review and the Surrealist connotations of Léger’s Objects in Space are discussed in greater length in Chénieux-Gendron, Jacqueline, “Fernand Léger, contrastes d’objets, 1930”, in: Fernand Léger. Reconstruire le réel, exh. cat., Paris 2014, 58–63. 8 “l’objet à poils”, in: Einstein, “Léger: oeuvres récentes”, 193. 9 “On peut envisager qq. conférences confiées à K. [sic] Einstein qui connaît mon oeuvre à fond”. Fernand Léger to Wilhelm Wartmann, February 9, 1933. Unpublished archives at the Musée National Fernand Léger, Biot, uncatalogued. 10 Letter from Wartmann to Léger, July 1933. For works sold during the exhibition, see: Fernand Léger, du 30 avril au 25 mai, Paris 1933.

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In his same article for Documents, Einstein noted that even Léger’s human figures were just “objects amongst other objects”, and no longer actors in a broader pictorial narrative.11 Léger went on to consecrate a portion of his Objects in Space series to works that explore this plastic conflation of human subjects and objects. Though some scholars have read Léger’s incorporation of the human figure as a desire to shift his oeuvre away from the machine aesthetic that had dictated his work of the late teens and twenties, I interpret his inclusion of people as just another means to probe plastic form.12 The Bather of 1931 directly juxtaposes the same isolated tree trunk that appeared in the Zurich show with a stylized crouching female nude. Her dramatically bent arm closely resembles the curve of the stump, while the tendrils of her hair parallel the leafy branches that emerge from the tree’s joints. In a later iteration of The Bather of 1932 (Fig. 67), the figure’s hardedged blocky torso echoes the sturdy base of the tree, while the jerky positioning of her limbs functions as a human analogue for the upturned boughs and branches. Her stylized tresses even appear just as dense and impenetrable as Léger’s renderings of sides of meat. Léger has also removed the background landscape, the rumpled draperies, all additional vegetation, and even the nuanced modelling that gives a naturalistic suppleness to the female form. He has reduced both the tree trunk and female nude to their plastic essentials. “Everything is of equal interest”, Léger wrote in “The New Realism”, “the human face or the human body is of no weightier plastic interest than a tree, a plant, a piece of rock, or a pile of rope”.13 The strangeness of a potentially anthropomorphic tree and its analogous, yet reverse, reified human figure reveals how forms have historically been identified by the significations suggested by their formal referents. Yet, once the formal referent itself is modified, we doubt what we see and second guess our instinctive interpretation of pictorial form. Léger sought to return the viewer’s interpretive agency to the eye and reduce the primacy granted to memory and the brain, to produce concrete plastic form, regardless of its subject. If the object held any value for Léger beyond its plastic form, it was of a social nature. “Today the object in the street educates the masses through window display”, he explained in “Où va la peinture”; “it forms the people’s taste… the

|| 11 “L’homme est un objet parmi d’autres objets”, in: Einstein, “Léger: oeuvres récentes”, 193. 12 See Conzen-Meairs, Ina, “Revolution and Tradition: The Metamorphosis of the Conception of Realism in the Late Works of Fernand Léger”, in: Fernand Léger: The Later Years, 14. 13 Léger, “The New Realism”, reprinted in Léger, Function of Painting, 111.

368 | Rachel Boate

object is a social value”.14 Léger’s Objects in Space served as a testing ground for thinking through both New Realism and consumerism’s potential to democratize artistic practice. The paintings of the 1930s showcase objects manufactured by labourers and marketed toward the middle class. With the rise of mass culture, the advertising poster and pedestrian shop window had become sites of consumerist spectacle, featuring the commercial object as their lead actors. Jean-Paul Bouillon has explained that the rise of the shop window as a cultural phenomenon and site of spectacle developed rapidly throughout the 1920s.15 Articles devoted to the art of the window display began to emerge in Parisian weeklies in the interwar period, and several publications solely devoted to the subject also appeared: Boutiques et magasins; Devantures de boutiques; Devantures, vitrines et installations de magasins; and Présentation, le décor de la rue, les magasins, les étalages. By the end of the decade, some even equated the department store window to a popular museum: “What the official museum — which appeals only to the elite — cannot do”, observed one author in Présentation, le décor… , “the display artist can. He will act, on the street itself as a teacher of beauty for the passer-by”.16 Consumer culture had surged in France since the 1929 stock market crash and its transatlantic reverberations, offering the option of new objects and new media to facilitate everyday life. But the Frankfurt School theorists held that mass culture offered consumers only the illusion of choice.17 Strategic marketing offers the semblance of individuality between products that look alike and serve the same function. Léger’s imagery, however, emphasizes each object’s individuality. His painted objects turn this system of standardization back onto itself. Look at Léger’s detailed study of Quarter of Mutton from 1933 (Fig. 68). With knowledge of the title, we can easily make out the sturdy side of meat, the modelled ripples of muscle demarcated by thin strips of fat or tendon. Yet, the striking highlights and jagged contours of Léger’s mutton could just as easily represent other objects — fragments of rock, a fossil, or a schematic sign for human

|| 14 “L’éducation des foules aujourd’hui se fait dans la rue par l’objet… se forme le goût des masses… L’objet est une valeur sociale”. Léger, Fernand, “Où va la peinture”, Commune 21, 1935, 945. 15 See Bouillon, Jean-Paul, “The Shop Window”, in: The 1920s: Age of Metropolis, ed. Clair, Jean, exh. cat., Montreal 1991, 162–181. 16 Derys, Gaston, “The Window Display, Museum of the People”, in: Présentation, le décor de la rue, les magasins, les étalages, 1927 and cited in Bouillon, “The Shop Window”, 170. 17 Adorno, Theodor W./Horkheimer, Max, “Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception”, in: Dialectic of Enlightenment, ed. Gunzelin Schmid Noerr, trans. Edmund Jephcott, Palo Alto 2002. First published as Dialektik der Aufklärung in 1944.

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hair, as we have already seen. In contrast to the defined role and identity of a consumer good, Léger’s objects retain their individuality in the ways they transform under the viewer’s or consumer’s gaze, offering a choice of disparate signifieds. Léger was touting the object at the very moment the French cultural sphere was debating the revival of figurative painting and championing the return of the subject in contemporary art.18 For Léger, this meant works of art that sacrificed formal strength for the sake of recounting a story, reviving a myth, or offering a symbolic message. Romy Golan has written extensively on the renewed interest in conventional narrative painting that emerged in the late 1920s, underscored by the formation of figurative artistic collectives including Les Peintres de la Réalité Poétique and Forces Nouvelles and a wave of exhibitions in the French capital that focused intently on the socio-political stakes of returning to a subject in artistic practice.19 By the 1930s, abstraction in Paris was heavily criticized by critics and intellectuals for being bourgeois, individualist, incomprehensible, and irrelevant to the ongoing crises. Staunch leftists held that reviving the subject in painting would restore a sense of public address to artistic production, and pave the way for a retreat from the formalist concerns of the avant-garde that reeked so much of the ivory tower. Art would again possess a meaningful social function, be accessible to the uninitiated working-class, and not just a market value under capitalism. Such was the aesthetic climate in Paris when Léger introduced his New Realism to a more politically charged public on the occasion of the Querelle du réalisme, a series of three animated debates organized over the summer of 1936 by the AEAR at the Paris headquarters of the Maison de la Culture. The objective? To consider the various ways in which contemporary artists could better

|| 18 See: Le Retour au sujet, exh. cat., Paris 1934; Réhabilitation du sujet: Au profit de la Fondation Foch, exh. cat., Paris 1934; Maîtres de la Réalité au XVIIe siècle, exh. cat., Paris 1934; Les le Nain—Peintures et dessins, exh. cat., Paris 1934. The Leftist press advocated the return of the subject as a means of making art more relevant to the growing economic crisis in France. See: Moussinac, Léon, “Le peintre devant le sujet”, Commune, 19 July 1936, and Crevel, René, “Discours aux peintres”, a conference held at the Maison de la Culture in May, 1935. For more, see Golan, Romy, Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the Wars, New Haven 1995; Les Réalismes, 1919–1939, exh. cat., Paris 1981; Miliotes, Diane Helen, “Antifascist Art of the Popular Front in Paris, 1934–1938”, Ph.D. diss., Evanston 2010; Racine, Nicole, “La Querelle du Réalisme”, Publications de la Sorbonne I Sociétés & Représentations, 15, 2003, 113–131. Wilson, Sarah, Picasso/Marx and Socialist Realism in France, Liverpool 2013. 19 See Golan, Modernity and Nostalgia, especially chapters “The Return to Man” and “At the Fairs”, which deal with the politics of the retour à l’ordre phenomenon in France.

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address the social question in their work amid the rising political and economic crises.20 Although a general consensus between participants indicated that artists were willing to work in a more accessible style as a sign of commitment to the underrepresented working class, little agreement emerged concerning the specific form this contemporary art should take. Two general camps emerged. The first, spearheaded by Commune editor Louis Aragon on the night of the first debate (May 14, 1936) called for a radical rejection of avant-garde principles and a return to realist trends in art and literature that he understood as coinciding with moments of class struggle throughout history (an aesthetic akin to Courbet’s The Stonebreakers of 1849, which championed the working class in unflinching detail on the scale of monumental history painting). Aragon’s plea for a socialist realism—and not the optical naturalism characteristic of pompier painting — it should be noted, was in full accordance with Soviet Comintern policy. Social realism had become the official Soviet aesthetic in 1934 as part of a larger effort to nationalize and standardize cultural production.21 Whereas Léger looked to everyday objects as a source for concrete plastic relationships, Aragon asked artists to locate their subjects in everyday world events. He held that avant-garde painting and an art for the proletariat were mutually exclusive. “Nothing human remained in their canvases”, Aragon railed against modernist abstract artists, “They were happy to become demonstrators of technical problems of painting. They no longer painted for men, and painted only for painters”.22 In Léger’s object paintings, Aragon only located consumerist kitsch. An aesthetic based on mass-produced objects — the subli-

|| 20 Founded in 1935, La Maison de la Culture was established in conjunction with the AEAR and based on the Houses of Culture in the U.S.S.R. The Querelle du réalisme refers to a series of discussions and debates held at the Maison by a number of well-known artists and writers. For a transcription of the debates and more information, see Fauchereau, Serge (ed.), La Querelle du Réalisme, Paris 1987. 21 Socialist realism was declared the official aesthetic in the USSR in 1934. Aragon and André Malraux (who was elected as a member of the World Congress against War and Fascism in 1933) attended the First Union of Soviet Writers’ Congress in Moscow. Stalin’s cultural minister described socialist realism in the following terms: “…artistic portrayal should be combined with the ideological remoulding and education of the toiling people in the spirit of socialism… to be an engineer of human souls means standing with both feet planted firmly on the basis of real life”. See Zhdanov, Andrei A., The Soviet Writers Congress 1934: The Debate on Socialist Realism and Modernism, London 1977, 21f. 22 “Plus rien d’humain n’est resté dans leurs toiles. Ils se contentaient de devenir les démonstrateurs de problèmes techniques de peinture. Ils cessaient de peindre pour les hommes et ne peignaient plus que pour les peintres”. Fauchereau (ed.), La Querelle du Réalisme, 94.

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mated products of capitalism — he argued, could never emancipate the alienated worker. Those opposed to the call for socialist realism (including Léger) urged Aragon to organize a second debate for the evening of May 31.23 Among the opposing participants, Léger conceded that geometric abstraction had not succeeded in reaching the masses, but located a similar failure in socialist realism. He had spoken out against Aragon’s conception of the Soviet approved aesthetic the year before in “Où va la peinture”, by demanding: “Do not ask painters to retrace the battles of February old boy”! in reference to the fascist riots that had convulsed Paris in February 1934 and paved the way for a united popular front against totalitarianism.24 Their opinions diverged to such a degree that Aragon censored Léger’s discourse (and that of Le Corbusier) on the second night of the Querelle from the ensuing publication of the debate transcript.25 Rather than attribute cultural inaccessibility to an artist’s aesthetic choice or the lack of a legible subject as Aragon did, Léger blamed the contemporary social order. For the painter, Aragon’s militant call for socialist realism was “an insult to these men of a new world [the working class], who ask nothing better than to understand and to go forward… They are told that le moderne is not for us; it is for the rich, a specialized art, a bourgeois art, an art that is false from the bottom up”.26 What Léger understood that Aragon did not was that the very idea of a proletarian art or literature proved paradoxical. An art depicting the “truth” of the work|| 23 Participants in the second debate included Fernand Léger, Le Corbusier, André Lhote, and Jean Labasque. 24 “Ne demandez pas aux peintres de retrace les batailles de février, mon vieux”! Léger, “Où va la peinture”, 946. In contrast, Aragon voiced his dismay during the Querelle that painting had not been changed enough by February’s events: “Récemment, [Edouard] Goerg me disait qu'il était stupéfiant de penser qu'on pouvait aligner les oeuvres d'un peintre dans les années dernières, et ne pas trouver de différence entre celles qui étaient antérieures et celles qui étaient postérieures au 6 février 1934”. (“Recently, Goerg told me that he was stupefied to think that we could line up the works of one painter from the previous few years and not locate differences between those that were completed before and after February 6, 1934”). Cited in L’Art dans les années 30 en France, exh. cat., Saint-Étienne 1979. 25 George Besson laments in his review of the Querelle that the opinions of the youngest artists did not appear in the published transcript of the debates. Besson, George, “La Querelle du réalisme”, in: L’Humanité, 1936. 26 Part of Léger’s discourse during the Querelle included the following: “Si nos oeuvres n’ont pas pénétré dans le peuple, c’est la faute, je le répète, à l’ordre social actuel et non pas parce que ces oeuvres manquent d’humanité”. (“If our works haven’t penetrated into the people, it’s the fault, I repeat, of the current social order, and not because these works lack humanity”). Fauchereau (ed.), La Querelle du Réalisme, 103. He built upon this idea in 1937 with Fernand Léger, “The New Realism Goes On,”, in: Art Front 3.1, 1937.

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ing-class experience was essentially geared toward the non-working-class elite.27 In opposition to scenes of strike or labour to which the working class was ambivalent, Léger proposed his New Realism. In depictions of the object (both industrial and natural) Léger found geometric forms and plastic relations to which the working class could relate; the pictorial relationships of part to whole echoed those of interlocking machine parts put together on factory assembly lines. For the painter, the mechanical or commercial object functioned as a cultural site where modernist and mass cultural sensibilities might potentially intersect. “The people”, he explained “live in the middle of modern objects that they judge beautiful, pretty, magnificent: cars, airplanes, machines… ”28 The object was omnipresent: projected on the cinema screen in fragments or in unsettling magnification; reproduced in glossy, full-page magazine ads, given pride of place in well-lit department store windows, and sometimes, even elevated on museum pedestals or protected within the confines of an exhibition vitrine. Rooted in everyday modern life, the object could function as common ground between the contemporary artist and the working-class citizen. The artist could be a labourer to the same degree as the contemporary ouvrier, just as the modern worker could produce an aesthetic object. Producing high culture that aesthetically approximated quotidian visual culture was to make an accessible contemporary art without abandoning the modernist project. In Léger’s mind, New Realism, whether abstract or figurative, could be a form of painting for the people.

|| 27 The artist Marcel Gromaire also understood this paradox. He wrote in 1934 that “Art is not made for the proletariat, or for the revolution, neither is one obliged to make art for the bourgeoisie. Art is made for Man”. Cited in Geroulanos, Stefanos, An Atheism that is Not Humanist Emerges in French Thought, Palo Alto 2010. 28 Léger, Fernand, “Color in the World”, in: Functions of Painting, 125. The article was first published in 1938 in Europe magazine. Léger’s point was that social realist painting could be just as isolating as the forms of abstraction disparaged by Aragon. Object painting, however, depicted the forms the working class not only worked with, but saw every day in film, advertising, and leisure activities.

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Fig. 66: Fernand Léger, Adam et Eve (Adam and Eve), 1935–1939. Oil on canvas, 228 x 324.5 cm. Photo credit: bpk Bildagentur/Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen/Walter Klein/Art Resource, NY. © 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris.

Fig. 67: Fernand Léger, The Bather, 1932. Oil on canvas, 98 x 130 cm. Photo credit: Musée National Fernand Léger/Gérard Blot. © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY © 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris.

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Fig. 68: Fernand Léger, Quartier de mouton (Quarter of Mutton), 1933. Chinese ink, 40 x 30.5 cm. Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France. © CNAC/MNAM/ Dist. RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY © 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris.

Chara Kolokytha

Picasso vs. Fougeron Cahiers d’Art and Quarrels over Realism in France (1932–1949) An art that refers to a particular class of people does not exist, and if it existed, it would be unimportant to life.1 Manifest Proletkunst

The debates over realism and abstraction kept resurfacing in the political turmoil of the 1930s but did not climax until after WWII. The Communist Front’s definition of modern artists as proletarian workers was fraught with contradictions that formalist critics and the historical avant-garde found difficult to resolve. The modernist creative mission to reconnect art with life was „above all posters, whether made for champagne, Dada, or communist dictatorship”, declared the signatories – mainly constructivists and former Dadaists – of the Manifesto for Proletarian Art in 1923, about a year after the foundation of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (AKhRR) in Moscow and Leningrad and a few months before Vladimir Lenin’s passing.2 In Paris, although the debated topic of abstraction had already attracted its share of champions and opponents in the 1920s, the menacing qualities of socialist realism were emphasised over the ensuing decade, when, in 1932, Stalin called upon artists to „portray life truthfully” and „on its way to socialism”.3 The aesthetic towards which Stalin has voiced his support was starkly differentiated from traditional realism and, due to its optimism, distinguished itself from 19th century critical realism or French social realism. With the qualifier „socialist”, he provided the definition of a new genre of realism, which was set to create new life „in the image of the ideal future”.4 However artists such as Jacques-Louis David, Gustave Courbet, Honoré Daumier and Théodore Géricault continued being „paramount in the

|| * All translations are mine, unless otherwise stated. Special thanks to Malcolm Gee for his comments on an earlier draft of this article. 1 Doesburg, Theo van/Schwitters, Kurt/Arp, Hans/Tzara, Tristan/Spengemann, Christof, “Manifest Proletkunst“, Merz, 2, 1923, 24–25. 2 Doesburg et al., “Manifest Proletkunst“, 24–25. 3 Quoted in Kemp-Welch, Tony, Stalin and the literary intelligentsia, 1928–1939, London 1991, 131. 4 Gutkin, Irina, The cultural origins of the Socialist Realist aesthetic, 1890–1934, Evanston 1999, 38–39. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-024

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PCF (French Communist Party) hierarchy of revolutionary painters”.5 It is crucial to understand that socialist realism in France was an „imported concept”, which was primarily interpreted by communist authors such as Louis Aragon, Paul Nizan and Jean Fréville.6 In pictorial means, though it brought the modern and the communist to terms, it remained, in a formal sense, undetermined.7 To better illustrate the phenomenon, it is pertinent to focus on the critical reception of socialist realism in the modernist review Cahiers d’Art, where the problem of realism in contemporary art was interpreted with scalable degrees of intensity ending up in unreserved anti-communist propaganda in the late 1940s. Published in Paris between 1926 and 1960, Cahiers d’Art grew to its influential pinnacle around 1930, counting numerous subscriptions across the globe before experiencing the effects of the international recession. Its founder and director, Christian Zervos, is best known for his long-term collaboration with Pablo Picasso for the publication of the complete catalogue of his work in 32 volumes.8 Freedom of artistic expression was the end towards which Zervos directed all his energies throughout his career as an editor. The review was apolitical, though it collaborated with leftist intellectuals and, in due course, the surrealists. Not so long after their conflict with the Communist Party, it embraced the surrealist reconsideration of the realist aspects of the technique of automatism in the 1930s, notwithstanding Zervos’ rejection of the movement’s painterly qualities in the previous decade. The latter was naturally wary of both realism and non-objectivity, taking the side of artists who refused to relinquish naturalism for non-figurative art. But unlike the abstractionists, Cahiers d’Art was rather slow in acknowledging the threat of realism and political engagement in contemporary art. Its sole preoccupation up until 1930 was to save cubist-influenced art as it teetered on the brink of abstract and decorative decline. Zervos discussed cubism in terms of idealism and naturalism. He avoided con-

|| 5 Wilson, Sarah, “’La beauté révolutionnaire’? Réalisme socialiste and French painting, 1935– 1954”, Oxford Art Journal, 3, 1980, 62 and Picasso/Marx and socialist realism in France, Liverpool 2013. 6 Baudorre, Philippe, “Le réalisme socialiste français des années trente : Un faux depart”, Sociétés & Représentations, 15, 2003, 13–38. 7 Bazin, Jérôme, “Socialist Realism and its International Models”, Vingtième Siècle. Revue d’Histoire 109, 2011, 76. 8 See also Kolokytha, Chara, “Christian Zervos critique d’art: Partis pris, polémiques et débats”, Marie Gispert and Catherine Méneux (eds.), Critique(s) d’art: Nouveaux Corpus, nouvelles méthodes, 2019, https://hicsa.univ-paris1.fr/page.php?r=133&id=1004&lang=fr (21.02.2020), 257–272.

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senting to early cubist theories, namely by Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger (Du Cubisme, 1912), which saw cubism as a form of realism or more precisely as a combination of Courbet’s “materialism” with Paul Cézanne’s “dialectical” multiperspectivity, an approach that utterly distorted “a properly Marxist definition of both terms”.9

The question of realism in the 1930s The subject will disallow any speculation […] it will reveal the artist’s disagreement with the bourgeoisie and consequently express the author’s confidence in the future of socialism, in other words, his sympathy, at least, for the revolutionary proletariat.10 Léon Moussinac

In 1931, the two articles series titled “Problems in young painting: The return to the subject is it probable?” surveyed the role of the anecdote and its pictorial execution in painting, shifting in time from Picasso to Courbet. The discussion unfolded around two painted themes recurring in the work of several artists: the Bathers and the Luncheon on the grass. It actually meant to emphasise Cézanne’s pioneer influence over the succeeding generations by belittling that of Édouard Manet, who, Zervos thought, never knew what Cézanne called “objective memory”. Unlike the peasant force of Courbet or the meridional emotion of Daumier and Cézanne, Manet, he argued, spent his entire life as a Parisian painter with his realism being more analytic than synthetic.11 Cézanne’s “imaginative reason” became the motivating force of twentieth-century art, Zervos concluded, lending a critical eye on Manet the following year in an article that had the disarming question, “Manet est-il un grand créateur?”, as its title. The hostility was triggered by the 1932 Manet show at the Musée de l’Orangerie whence the artist’s use of the art of the past “became a historical problem”.12 The fact that Manet, the artist that marked the transition from realism to impressionism, was overtly attacked for being a plagiarist, who copied directly from Francisco Goya, Diego Velasquez, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo and others, || 9 James, David E., Power Misses: Essays across (un)popular culture, New York 1996, 51. 10 Moussinac, Léon, “Les peintres devant le sujet”, La Querelle du Réalisme, Paris 1936, 146– 147. 11 Zervos, Christian, “Les Problèmes de la jeune peinture : I. Le retour au sujet est-il probable ?”, Cahiers d’Art, 3, 1931, 122, 124, 126. 12 Fried, Michael, Manet’s Modernism: Or, The face of painting in the 1860s, Chicago, 1996, n. 4, 467.

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is telling, for Zervos had hitherto maintained a parochial view of realism mainly interpreted as lack of imagination in transforming a given subject in painting.13 But the question of realism was becoming all the more complex as the decade progressed with Zervos fully perceiving it in its multilayeredness after his shortterm interplay with the surrealists. The reconsiderations of the concept of automatism in the 1930s transformed “the whole face of surrealism and its entire field of action”, marking theoretical inconsistency within the movement.14 In 1933, the first issue of Minotaure published two essays by Salvador Dali and Jacques Lacan questioning the passive aspects of the technique of automatism traced in André Breton’s texts on surrealism and Louis Aragon’s Traite du style (1928).15 Breton’s “passive automatism” was viewed as an alternative form of realism, while Dali’s contemplation of the “active” aspects of automatism aimed at “derealisation”, opposing typification and realist banality.16 Dali’s essay was an early introduction to his 1938 book manuscript Le mythe tragique d’Angélus de Millet, eventually published by Jean Jacques Pauvert in 1965, which discussed the theoretical aspects of his paranoiac-critical method. Paranoiac delirium, he argued, far from being a passive element that favours interpretation, like automatism and dream, is in itself a form of interpretation. The critical preoccupations of surrealism, Dali added, are active in compensating “all passive and automatic states on the plane of action, in making them interpretatively intervene in reality, in life”. Dali referred to “dream objects” as the first surrealist move closer to réalisation, which aimed at colliding, daily, with other objects in life, in full reality.17 In that vein, Dali sought to dissolve the confusion between the “really real” and the “false real”, placing the paranoiac deformation of reality against the surrealist “falsely mysterious”. “We have no talent”, Breton had announced in the first Surrealist Manifesto (1924), referring to surrealists as modest “registering devices” (appareils enregistreurs).18 Though he revised this position in the 1933 essay “Le message automatique”, admitting with pessimism that ”the history of automatic writing in

|| 13 Zervos, Christian, “Manet est-il un Grand Créateur ?”, Cahiers d’Art, 8–10, 1932, 295–296. 14 Jenny, Laurent, “Les aventures de l’automatisme”, Littérature, 72, 1988, 3–11 15 Dali, Salvador, “Interprétation paranoïaque – critique de l’image obsédante ‘L’Angélus’ de Millet. Prologue : Nouvelles considérations générales sur le mécanisme du phénomène paranoïaque du point de vue surréaliste”, Minotaure, 1, 1933, 65–67. Jacques Lacan, “Le problème du style et les formes paranoïaques de l’expérience”, Minotaure, 1, 1933, 68–69. 16 Jenny, “Les aventures de l’automatisme”, 3–11. 17 Dali, “Interprétation paranoïaque…”, 66. 18 Breton, André, Manifestes du surréalisme, Paris 1970, 40.

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surrealism has been one of continuing misfortune”,19 his former statement had direct impact on the movement’s theoretical underpinning. The surrealists’ need to inform their agenda is situated at the end of the “période raisonnante” (1925–1930) and the beginning of what Maurice Nadeau called “autonomie du surréalisme” (1930–1939).20 With their espousal of Marxism that became evident, Lewis remarked, when leading Surrealists decided to join – albeit briefly – the PCF, it appeared as if Breton and his circle gave in to “the historically truthful and concrete depiction of reality”.21 To those, however, who read between the lines, Breton’s term “registering devices”, though inherently passive, was an outright reference to registering of dreams rather than reality. Yet confusion kept mounting with close readings of key surrealist texts. “The painter is not merely a registering device” proclaimed the communist artist Jean Lurçat in the debates about realism organised by the Maison de la Culture in 1936. The three debates, published as La Querelle du Réalisme, were complementary to the survey “Où va la Peinture?” published in Commune.22 Lurçat’s remark points directly to the first Surrealist Manifesto linking Breton’s dictum to such artists as Dali and René Magritte. Similarly, Dali’s painting was interpreted as pure registration of reality by Alfred Barr, who, influenced by the manifesto, divided surrealist painting the same year into two opposing groups: the first, essentially realist, painted what Dali called hand-painted dream photographs, which were “pictures of fantastic objects and scenes done with a technique as meticulously realistic as a Flemish primitive”. The technique was precise, realistic, and lacked spontaneity. The second represented by contrast “complete spontaneity of technique as well as of subject matter.” It found expression in the informal style of André Masson and Joan Miro, and the “tradition of automatic drawing and painting previously carried on by Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Arp”.23 The concept of realism maintained its ambiguity in surrealist discussions even after 1938, when Breton, Diego Rivera and Leon Trotsky published the manifesto “Pour un art international independent”, declaring that true art “is not content to play variations on ready-made models but rather insists on expressing the inner needs of man and of mankind in its time – true

|| 19 Breton, André, “Le message automatique”, Minotaure, 3–4, 1933, 57. 20 Nadeau, Maurice, Histoire du surréalisme, Paris 1964. 21 Lewis, Helena, “Surrealists, Stalinists, and Trotskyists: Theories of art and revolution in France between the wars”, Art Journal, 52, 1993, 61–68. 22 See Racine, Nicole, “La querelle du réalisme”, Sociétés & Représentations, 15, 2003, 113–131. 23 Barr, Alfred, Fantastic art, Dada, Surrealism (MoMA, 1937), reprint. New York 1968, 11–12.

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art is unable not to be revolutionary, not to aspire to a complete and radical reconstruction of society”.24 Contrasting definitions of French socialist realism established on the common basis of dialectical materialism had been proposed by Aragon and Georges Besson since the mid-1930s.25 Except for the militant artists of the PCF, the majority of artists who turned to realist narratives did not entirely sacrifice formal innovation to content but literally voiced the dreary effects of the recession and the efforts to reconnect with a wider audience, displaying a controversial lack of both intrinsic political commitment and aesthetic autonomy. Moreover, the PCF was unexpectedly tolerant towards modernist trends, while the support offered by the Maison de la Culture, run by the PCF, was in keeping with the Popular Front cultural policy.26 In that vein, the artists collaborating with the Maison de la Culture were seeking a middle ground, and as Norris put it, “a position somewhere between politically ineffectual formalism and ideologically subservient realism” that reconnected them with a wider public “on the terrain of topical and legible subject matter without entirely giving up the formal innovations pioneered by modern artists”.27 Cahiers d’Art observed with neutrality the developments on the Soviet front and even attempted to excuse its wrong doings, namely its intensive materialism which was interpreted in 1932 as “the provisional consequence of primordial necessities”. These necessities, Zervos asserted, “oblige all Soviet activities to turn for some time towards the realization of a vast economic plan, which could allow the Russian republics to accord their economy with that of other large countries, since it is the very existence of the Soviet peoples that is at stake”.28 Though he poignantly posed the question of the Soviet leaders’ circumscription of human activity for practical purposes only, he took a more trenchant look at the soviet cultural policy after the competition for the construction of the Palace

|| 24 Breton, André/Trotsky, Leon/Rivera, Diego, “Manifesto: Towards a free revolutionary art”, transl. Dwight MacDonald, Partisan Review, 4, 1938, 49–53. 25 See Riou, Gwenn, “Le réalisme au prisme du communisme. Les écrits sur la peinture de George Besson et Louis Aragon dans Commune et Les Lettres françaises (1936–1954)”, Marie Gispert and Catherine Méneux (eds.), Critique(s) d’art : Nouveaux corpus, nouvelles méthodes,  2019, https://hicsa.univ-paris1.fr/page.php?r=133&id=1004&lang=fr (21.02.2020), 355–377. 26 The four honorary presidents of the Association des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs, graveurs de la Maison de la Culture were Othon Friesz, Marcel Gromaire, Albert Marquet and Henri Matisse. See Racine, “La querelle du réalisme”, 116. 27 Norris, Tobby, “The Querelle du Réalisme and the politicization of French artists during the Great Depression”, PART, Journal of the CUNY, 12, 2012. 28 Zervos, Christian, “Vie Spirituelle ou Activité Utile?”, Cahiers d’Art, 1–2, 1932, 5–6.

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of the Soviets in Moscow in 1934. Cahiers d’Art had presented two years earlier the plans by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret for the Palace, but the project was eventually commissioned to Boris Iofan.29 The result disgruntled the architects-collaborators on the review, namely Sigfried Giedion and Walter Gropius, due to its neoclassical and reactionary conception. As a consequence, Moscow was deemed inappropriate to host the 4th CIAM the same year, a congress for modern architecture and urbanism eventually held in Athens. The term “Soviet”, explained the Russian-born surrealist poet George Reave in Cahiers d’Art, is less a linguistic or ethnological term than a political qualifier associated with a de facto government, dialectical Marxism and social reconstruction by means of proletarian dictatorship. Those refusing to follow its directives, he added, are portrayed as bourgeois intellectuals.30 In 1935, Zervos launched a survey on the role of the artist in society, which received a great deal of mixed responses. Georges Braque declared that an art seeking massive approbation is an official art, frigid and weak. Even the distant to the masses and isolated in his ivory tower artist, explained Louis Fernandez, is a social product, for isolation is a reaction to society. Amédée Ozenfant, contrarily, thought that art will cease to exist if artists keep on serving a deceased class that shares no force with them.31 Expectedly so, during the Popular Front administration Zervos strategically turned his focus away from Soviet politics. He published instead timely material against the Nazi regime and took the side of the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. The review discontinued its publication during the war and Zervos moved to Vézelay, where he stayed until the Liberation. His Parisian apartment was turned into a meeting point for resisters issuing clandestine leaflets. Zervos received official praise as a Grand Chef de la Résistance in 1945, though he admitted to Mary Callery that his resistance activities were made up by the people in the Vézelay region and were utterly untrue. The review published its first post-war issue in 1944, presenting a significant number of artworks and texts produced during the occupation. It, furthermore, served as a platform against collaborators, namely Le Corbusier and Maurice de Vlaminck.32

|| 29 Corbusier, Le/Jeanneret, Pierre, “Projet pour la construction du Palais des Soviets”, Cahiers d’Art, 1–2, 1932, 74–77. 30 Reavey, George, “Poésie Soviétique”, Cahiers d’Art, 5–6, 1935, 111. 31 “Enquête”, Cahiers d’Art, 1–4, 1935, 22, 24, 35, 38, 40. 32 See Kolokytha, Chara, Formalism and Ideology in 20th century art: Cahiers d’Art, magazine, gallery and publishing house (1926–1960), Newcastle-upon-Tyne 2016, 271–273.

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“Peindre a cessé d’être un jeu” At the opening of the Salon d’Automne,33 a mob of young artists tore Picasso’s paintings from the wall and screamed: Explain! Explain! Some people thought this was artistic resentment over the fact that Picasso had just joined the Communist Party. But most agreed that the young artists simply did not like Picasso’s style.34

On October 4, 1944, Picasso adhered to the Communist Party in a private ceremony held at the offices of the newspaper L’Humanité, in the presence of – among few others – Aragon, Paul Eluard and André Fougeron. The latter, a well known resistance fighter and party member, brought together seventy nine recent paintings (74) and sculptures (5) by Picasso to celebrate his work in the upcoming Liberation Salon. The show turned into a scandal ending up in intense reactions and even assaults on the works. A likely subtext accompanying Fougeron’s plan to honour the artist was, according to Nash, “a capitalization on Picasso’s prestige to further the cause of the Communist Party”.35 However Fougeron’s admiration for Picasso dated back to – at least – 1937, when he produced a series of works (The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Martyred Spain, The Tournament, Homage to Franco, Tate, London), which drew direct inspiration from Guernica, a work deemed incomprehensible by most of his comrades. Zervos was convinced about the PCF’s opportunism, but was moreover annoyed by Picasso’s glorification as a resistance hero advising Barr not to pay attention to “false anecdotes” and “nonexistent heroics” in his forthcoming MoMA catalogue Picasso. Fifty Years of his Art. Picasso, he added “simply preserved his dignity during the Occupation […] But he never got involved in the Resistance”.36 The artist’s adhesion ranked among France’s signature postLiberation developments and was met with scepticism by many of his erstwhile supporters and friends. Gertrude Stein publicly scorned his ideological integrity in 1945 with a rather shallow declaration in Life magazine: “Picasso’s been reading Marx? He’s never read Marx. He’s never read a book in his life”.37

|| 33 The title is derived from Aragon, Louis, “Au Salon d’Automne, peindre a cessé d’être un jeu. L’art et le sentiment national”, Les Lettres françaises, 388, 15 November 1951, 1, 8–9. 34 Anon., “New French Art, Picasso fostered it under the Nazis”, Life, November 13, 1944, 73. 35 Nash, Steven A. (ed.), Picasso and the War Years, 1937–1945, Hong Kong 1998, 28. See also Schieder, Martin, “Picasso libre”, Laurence Bertrand Dorléac/Thomas Kirchner et al. (eds.), Les arts à Paris après la Libération, Paris 2018, 107–128. 36 Nash, Picasso and the War Years, 28. 37 Anon., “Life reports”, Life, April 16, 1945, 18.

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Fougeron had joined the Party in September 1938 and soon became a major figure in the communist visual propaganda. During the Occupation he was involved in clandestine activities and was named general secretary of the Front National des Arts (FNA), a post that he kept until 1950. Unlike him, Picasso epitomised in many ways what Zhdanovism inveighed against.38 In 1934, the Central Committee secretary, Andrei Zhdanov, had presented the aesthetic of socialist realism at the first Congress of Soviet Writers in Moscow. What became known as the Zhdanov doctrine was established in 1946 and involved censorship and prosecution of individualistic, bourgeois and apolitical expression in music, literature and the fine arts. It was officially presented at the Warsaw meeting of the Cominform in 1947 and proposed the division of the world into two camps: the imperialist and anti-democratic led by the United States, and the anti-imperialist and democratic led by the Soviets. His policy is situated in the first phase of the Cold War and constitutes the opposite realm of the Truman Doctrine, which offered support to states menaced by Soviet Communism. The dark red covers of the 1946 double issue of Cahiers d’Art were presumably a reference to the triumph of the PCF in the legislative election, the biggest electoral achievement in the entire history of the Party. Yet judging from its content the issue turned out to be a Trojan horse. Presumably under the influence of the recent statements by the PCF’s general secretary, Maurice Thorez, in the Times of London about considering “other roads to socialism” than those followed by the Russian communists, Zervos took the initiative of influencing the manner of judgments of his readers and peers. He published a selection of extracts from the writings of Lenin and Stalin derived from the 1937 anthology Lenine, Staline: Sur la Litterature et l’Art by Freville, a militant communist and a true devotee to the Party. The extracts advocated total freedom of expression in art and literature that the Soviet leaders were now accused of suppressing.39 The selection was misleading and provoked controversy. Party members were obviously unsettled by the dismissal of communist ministers from the government in 1947 after the outbreak of the Cold War and Zervos’ initiative fuelled their reactions. In June, at the 11th congress of the PCF held in Strasbourg, Laurent Casanova, an associate member of the central committee of the PCF publicly attacked Zervos for isolating excerpts from keyMarxist texts and having them published in a fraudulent context that distorted

|| 38 Hensbergen, Gijs van, Guernica: The biography of a twentieth century icon, London 2013, 188. 39 Zervos, Christian, “Des problèmes de la création artistique et littéraire d’après quelques textes de Lénine et de Staline”, Cahiers d’Art, 1945–1946, 341–342.

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the intended message of their authors.40 Picasso had great admiration for Casanova, who had escaped prison and found refuge in Michel Leiris’ apartment during the occupation and was by and large one of the reasons that motivated his adhesion to the Party. Aragon and Elsa Triolet were on Casanova’s side, accusing Zervos of deceit in a lecture at the Athénee theatre, commemorating the seventeenth anniversary of Vladimir Mayakovsky’s suicide. Picasso’s friends were obviously resentful towards Zervos. The same year, the newly appointed president of the USSR Academy of Fine Arts, the socialist realist artist Aleksandr Gerasimov, condemned Picasso and Matisse in a polemical text against the School of Paris in Pravda. Although the French Office did not entirely espouse the Soviet condemnation of modern art, Gerasimov’s ideas were reproduced in the French communist publication Les Lettres Françaises in a text signed by Claude Morgan.41

Fig. 69: Unknown photographer, Picasso at work in Vallauris, reproduced in Cahiers d’Art, 1948, 82.

Zervos published, between 1947 and 1949, two volumes that stressed the formal and spiritual qualities of Picasso’s drawings. The first came out together with Aragon’s volume of figurative drawings by Fougeron, including some inspired

|| 40 Casanova, Laurent, Le communisme, la pensée et l’art, rapport au XXIème congrès national du PCF, Paris 1947. 41 See Levaillant, Françoise, “Sur l’affaire de la Pravda dans la presse Parisienne d’aoȗt à octobre 1947”, Cahiers du Musée National d’Art Moderne, 9, 1982, 147–149.

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by Guernica.42 Picasso did not think highly of him as a painter and found his success funny in the beginning, “then ridiculous, later absurd, and finally very unpleasant”.43 The two artists approached painting in diametrically different ways. The Picasso volumes reproduced numerous drawings and variations on a theme, which Zervos thought were symptomatic of his unfathomable imagination. On the contrary, Aragon’s publication only included 20 plates with Fougeron’s independently conceived drawings. In 1948, Picasso settled in Vallauris and delved into pottery in the Madura workshop, fulfilling his ambition, Zervos vouched, to make his works accessible to the masses, to enhance their aesthetic appreciation and intensify their humanity.44 Fougeron strived for almost a year to find a solution to the pictorial questions raised by the Party. Deeply influenced by Casanova’s speech and his recent trip to Italy, he painted the Parisian Women at the Market, which was displayed at the 1948 Autumn Salon. The painting gave form to a renovated French conception of socialist realism. Fougeron advocated continuity of history painting of social vocation inscribed to the national tradition of Nicolas Poussin, the Le Nain brothers and Courbet. The work was praised by his comrades as an outstanding example of socialist imagery but scandalised formal critics who thought it was conspicuously uninspired. The picture carried an eloquent message that voiced Cold War rhetoric. It portrayed the hardship that high prices inflicted on the average working-class and the declining quality of everyday life in France under increasing American control.45 Following his condemnation of abstract painting in “Le Peintre à son Créneau” published in La Nouvelle Critique in 1949, Fougeron disclosed his thoughts on the role of subject in painting. In a text, published in La Pensée, he included extracts from writings that had exerted seminal influence over his thinking, namely by Moussinac, Casanova, Aragon and Karl Marx cited from another source. A comparison with Zervos’ 1931 texts on the same topic makes evident the distance of opinions between the two and their different approach to realism. Fougeron referred to Cézanne as the greatest painter of the French bourgeoisie of the end of the nineteenth century and underlined the historical importance of subject-matter in painting, noting that, before its subversion, a society in decline is “systematically marked by works where decoration prevails

|| 42 Zervos, Christian, Picasso. Carnet Royan 1940, Paris 1947. Zervos, Christian, Picasso Dessins 1892–1948, Paris 1949. Aragon, Louis Dessins de Fougeron, Paris 1947. 43 Gilot, Francoise/Lake, Carlton, Life with Picasso, New York 2019, 279. 44 Zervos, Christian “Céramiques de Picasso”, Cahiers d’Art, 1948, 73. 45 Mesch, Claudia, Art and Politics: A small history of art for social change, London 2014, 21.

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over content”. The anecdote appears harmless beside “the generalized ‘nondire’”. Taking on a militant tone, he continued: Before those who fight, who suffer, who are killed or imprisoned just because they want some more bread for their children; before those who believe in social justice and human love; in the face of those who know that their present struggle realizes little by little the triumphant hope for which they consent to give their life, it is difficult to think that a fruit dish will suffice to immortalize such heroism!46

The frequency with which Zervos published material on Picasso in the post war years cannot pass unnoticed. He even postponed his response to Casanova – and Gerasimov – to give priority to the 1948 annual issue dedicated to Picasso, which published rich documentation on the latter’s activities in Vallauris. Picasso’s decorated pottery, he observed, resembled the mentality of the ancient Greek, Cypriot and Sumerian primitive creator thinking that his works, designed for series production, were better able to stimulate the sensibility of the masses than legible party-line pictorial narratives. True revolution, in Zervos’ mind, predisposed the creation of a new social order which could transform – and not dictate – the aesthetic appreciation of the masses. In 1949, Aragon turned Picasso’s Dove into a symbol of peace to illustrate the posters of the World Peace Congress held in Paris. On the occasion of the exhibition of Picasso’s recent works at the Maison de la Pensée Française, Zervos’ commentary led on to aggressive rhetoric against socialist realism. The aesthetic was presented as the offspring of a post-Leninist Marxist doctrine that Zervos reproved. Picasso was concisely informed about the commentary’s content through a letter sent by Zervos when the issue was apparently in press.47 That there is no evidence of reaction from the part of the artist is telling, for he tacitly consented to Zervos’ views. The new style that he introduced with these works serves as proof of his reaction to party-line aesthetics. In La Cuisine (Fig. 70), painted on the 30-year anniversary of Guillaume Apollinaire’s death and displayed at the show, he “used derivatives of his arabesque motifs from Le Chant des Morts”, an album of 123 lithographs produced between 1945 and 1948 and published by Tériade.48 Zervos’ commentary was by and large a denunciation of the PCF for taking advantage of Picasso’s reputation to strengthen its impact. Picasso’s revolution, he maintained, cannot be reduced to “vengeful

|| 46 Fougeron, André, “Le Rôle du ‘sujet’ dans la peinture. Sur des propos qui tiennent en éveil les jeunes artistes” La Pensée, July 1949, 72, 74–76. 47 Zervos, Christian, letter to Pablo Picasso, 13 December 1949, Musée Picasso, Paris. 48 Stupples, Peter, Art and Book: Illustration and Innovation, Newcastle-upon-Tyne 2016, 95.

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expression in the service of a party and the forgery of real”.49 Due to ignorance, the communists, he opined, fail to acknowledge that Picasso’s figures opposed their aesthetic, presenting them as affirmative of their system. On the contrary, his art is not imposed by external reality but goes beyond the visible world. “Whether it concerned an intellectual, moral or political manumission, Picasso, since his youth, refused to give himself in”.50

Fig. 70: Picasso, La cuisine, oil on canvas, 1948, reproduced in Cahiers d’Art, 2, 1949, 79.

It is astounding how the PCF’s political isolation and the increasing Soviet control over its policies untied the tongue and fuelled to such degree Zervos’ fury against the party. His lengthy “Réponse à Laurent Casanova” was overwhelming. Published earlier in the year, it eloquently brought forward his objection to Zhdanov’s party-line, non-cosmopolitan, and propagandist doctrine and routinely registered his own positions over the role that independent art could play in social transformation. Zervos confessed that his decision to publish the Lenin and Stalin extracts in 1946 was driven by his – admittedly naïve – intention to

|| 49 Zervos, Christian, “Œuvres récentes de Picasso exposées à la Maison de la Pensée Française”, Cahiers d’Art, 2, 1949, 237–240. 50 Zervos, “Œuvres récentes de Picasso…”, 238, 240.

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persuade “the intellectuals of the left and the extreme left to separate art from their political convictions”.51 The text was far from being an apology. Insisting that the Marxist disbelief in the creative process finds no parallel in Lenin’s writings, he overtly accused Casanova and his fellow travellers of peremptoriness springing from the pronounced authority of Zhdanov’s – deceased the previous year – directives: The liberty proclaimed by the creator carries, in the eyes of Zhdanov, the error of sanctioning the preferred doctrine of the bourgeoisie: awareness of free will. That explains his disdain towards the intellectuals and artists’ unfailing resistance […] No liberty of engagement is left to the talents that can not tolerate constraint. All the birds that fly high are likewise restrained by the string of liberty that is being loosened and tightened by Zhdanov, a very short string that restrains and inhibits flying. 52

Ironically enough, the same 1946 issue had published Picasso’s sketches for the figure L’homme à l’agneau (Man with sheep) produced between 1942 and 1943 and photographs of the two-metre tall statue casted in plaster. The work was viewed by many as symbol of the resistance. It was casted in bronze six years later. One of the three copies produced was donated by Picasso to the Municipal Council of Vallauris as a war memorial. It was unveiled and inaugurated by Casanova in 1950, the same year when Boris Taslitzky completed the monumental realist painting The Death of Danielle Casanova, commemorating the death of Casanova’s wife in Auschwitz camp. From the point of view of aesthetics, the two works radically opposed one another. The gap opened between Zervos and the PCF was hard to bridge due to irreconcilable differences, aesthetic and intellectual, succinctly exemplified in the two disparate opinions on Fougeron that Cahiers d’Art strategically published in the second of its two 1949 issues. The first was signed by Georges Mounin, resister and Party member, the second by Zervos. The title alone “Insignifiance de l’Art de M. Fougeron” epitomises the latter’s discontent. The most reputed French socialist realist artist now became the target of his disdain and as Casanova declared the same year “attacking Fougeron is attacking the Party”.53 The same issue published texts on Jean Hélion, Max Ernst, Fernand Léger, Callery, Hans Hartung, Victor Brauner, Willi Baumeister and Jean Villeri’s “Risques de la Réalité”, pretending that “non-figurative painting is a realism”, for it takes as a point of departure objective reality and proceeds to its subjective

|| 51 Zervos, Christian, “Réponse à Laurent Casanova”, Cahiers d’Art, 1, 1949, 73. 52 Zervos, “Réponse à Laurent Casanova”, 75, 77. 53 Daix, Pierre, La vie de peindre Pablo Picasso, Paris, 1977, 343.

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transformation. Ideological commitment and creative expression were incompatible qualities in Fougeron’s work. On the contrary, Picasso, Zervos maintained, quit his work in the south of France and went to Paris to celebrate with his comrades Stalin’s birthday, yet his art defied communist directives. Unlike Picasso’s Guernica, Fougeron’s art failed, in Zervos’ eyes, to be provocative as his passionless symbolism and lack of imagination could not stimulate the spectators’ consciousness and deeply touch human misery.54

Sequitur Although Fougeron strived, under the PCF directives, to reconcile socialist realism with French realist tradition, he did not persuade the champions of nonengaged art, who kept highlighting its soviet identity and fundamental lack of French sensibility. Cahiers d’Art continued attacking Soviet cultural policies without considering Casanova’s speech to be a “warning shot”. From 1947 onwards and while his debate with the Communist Party was still ongoing, his publications were met with enmity, aloofness and finally disinterest by the Eastern and the Western blocks in a period when the French market was struggling for recovery. The magazine published in 1950 a long list of modern French artworks from the Moscow Museum of Occidental Art, most of which came from the expropriated – after the Russian revolution – art collections of Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov. The success of the museum, the commentary informed the readers, was short-lived. An important number of works by Paul Gauguin, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Auguste Renoir, and Edgar Degas was subsequently sold to foreign collectors by the State. The rest were stored in depots to be rescued from the war and remained as such after the war ended, being interpreted as western sources of contamination.55 Zervos’ antipathy towards Soviet cultural policy and unconditional sympathy for Picasso proved to be a perilous combination for his professional affairs. In a letter to Barr he reported that while he had 254 subscriptions from Czechoslovakia in 1950, on government decision these were reduced to two in 1951, and

|| 54 Zervos, Christian, “Insignifiance de l’art de M. Fougeron”, Cahiers d’Art, 2, 1949, 347 (346– 348). Mounin, Georges, “Les Femmes de M. Fougeron”, Cahiers d’Art, 2, 1949, 245–246. On the reception of Fougeron’s art see Adamson, Natalie, Painting, politics and the struggle for the École de Paris, 1944–1964, New York 2016. 55 C. A., “L’Art moderne française dans les collections des musées étrangers. I. Musée d’Art Moderne Occidental à Moscou”, Cahiers d’Art¸2, 1950, 335–336.

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these two, he added, were used to present to young Czech painters the “mauvais exemples à ne pas suivre”.56 Czech art historian Vojtěch Lahoda remarked, however, that the, albeit rare, references to Picasso in the Czechoslovak press during the Stalinist era were positive and that the regime corresponded frequently with the artist.57 Contemporary Czech authors appear to solely focus on the American embargo on him. Jaroslav Bouček informed his Czech readers in 1951 that “as soon as Picasso painted the dove, the portrait of Maurice Thorez [...] and Nicos Belojannis, which show a marked turn towards realism, he became persona non grata in the USA and was even refused an American visa”.58 Consequently the Czech embargo on Cahiers d’Art was aimed at Zervos, who, furthermore, sought to expand his readership overseas, but his volumes with Picasso’s drawings were banned at customs with the claim that their content was pornographic.59 Picasso’s political engagement affected the nature of Zervos’ criticism and the target audience of his magazine. Defending Picasso in this particular era abounded in contradiction, for it meant turning a blind eye to either his political commitment or his art.

|| 56 Zervos, Christian, letter to Alfred Barr, 19 March 1951. Fonds Cahiers d’Art CAPROV 9, Bibliothèque Kandinsky, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. 57 Lahoda, Voltech “The artist and politics: Pablo Picasso and the Communist Bloc during the Cold War”, Meno istorija ir kritika-mik, 3, 2007, 12. 58 Cited in Lahoda, “The artist and politics: Pablo Picasso and the Communist Bloc... “, 12. 59 Fonds Cahiers d’Art, CAPROV 9, Bibliothèque Kandinsky, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.

Cristian Nae

Whose Figuration? Varieties of Realism in Romanian Art 1968–1972

Global Pop or International New Figuration? Some Terminological Difficulties Many genealogies and critical analyses of Pop art tend to approach it as a monolithic artistic entity, firmly rooted in late capitalist modernity that it celebrates and interrogates at once.1 The limitations of such an approach became obvious in the expanded field of global art history. To what extent may we use the same umbrella-term to designate, for instance, the construction of politically charged figurative representations produced in countries such as Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Russia, China, Argentina or Brazil in the 1960s? What categories should we use in classifying as “pop art” paintings produced in a different economy of images, determined not by overabundance, but rather by a shortage of consumer products? What characterizes the popularity of these images, and how realistic are they, after all? To rephrase Katalin Timar’s influential article written some time ago, is that Pop our Pop?2 Answers to such unsettling questions seem to have been offered by two influential exhibitions presenting Pop art in a global context. In September 2015, at Tate Modern, curators Jessica Morgan and Flavia Frigeri opened a blockbuster exhibition, featuring artists from Latin America to Asia, and from Europe to the Middle East. According to Jessica Morgan, Pop was not a mere celebration of Western consumer culture, but was often a subversive critical language internationally employed as a political, anti-imperialist gesture.3 Taking a different route, the exhibition International Pop, organized by the Walker Art Center

|| 1 See, for instance: Madoff, Steven Henry (ed.), Pop Art: A Critical History, Berkeley 1997; Foster, Hal, The First Pop Age, New Jersey 2012; Crow, Thomas, The Long March of Pop. Art, Music and Design 1930–1995, New Haven 2014. 2 Timár, Katalin, “Is Your Pop Our Pop? The History of Art as Self-Colonizing Tool”, Artmargins, 2002, www.artmargins.com/index.php/archive/323-is-your-pop-our-pop-the-history-ofart-as-a-selfcolonizing-tool (accessed February 12 2018). 3 Morgan, Jessica, “Political Pop: An Introduction”, in: Jessica Morgan/Flavia Frigeri (eds.), The World Goes Pop, New Haven 2015, 17. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-025

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almost concomitantly with its British counterpart, narrated the global history of Pop art from the 1950s through the early 1970s through a multitude of critical contacts with other types of “realism” such as Nouveau Réalisme, Concretism and Neo-Concretism, the Art of Things, Anti-Art, Capitalist Realism, Happenings, and Neo-Dada. While such an approach destabilizes some of the entrenched assumptions associated with Western-based art practices in the 1960s, acknowledging them as a widespread critical vocabulary, it also raises further questions. Do we need a different terminology to designate what appears as a local inflection of representational aesthetics which are presumed to have originated elsewhere? Are there different local genealogies or terminologies that art historians may mobilize in order to shy away from a linear trajectory of influence that re-affirms the hegemonic position of North American art in the 1960s? By criticizing homogenizing interpretive practices that would geographically expand a certain artistic canon, I am also interested to examine in this text the more charitable notions of cultural transference and artistic adaptation, intended to replace the traditional notion of “influence”. This fundamental concept of art history was already accused of expropriating the agency of those artists that are relegated to a secondary, passive position in relation to the “influential” ones, ignoring the creative reinvention these artists perform by appropriating and transforming the works of their predecessors.4 Inspired by the postcolonial theory of cultural translation employed to research vernacular modernisms,5 the notions of “transference” and “adaptation” were introduced in the art historical vocabulary in order to alleviate or flatten the obvious asperities or incongruences in the comparative exercise of contemporary art history. Taking as a case study Romanian figurative painting produced between 1968 and 1972 associated with Pop art and photographic realism, I propose to pay an increased methodological attention to global art history as inherently pluralistic practice meant to reveal differences by means of a comparative study. Such a comparative study should focus not only on social and political differences, or on the technical aspects involved in the visual articulation of these paintings and their particular iconography, but also on the related epistemologies that inform artistic practices at a certain moment. Figurative pictorial representations produced in Eastern Europe in the 1960s are often characterized by an inherent duplicity towards the socialist reality it is meant to represent. In his overview on “art and the avant-garde in || 4 Baxandall, Michael, Patterns of Intention, New Haven 1985, 58–62. 5 Mercer, Kobena, Pop Art and Vernacular Cultures, Cambridge 2007.

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Eastern Europe”, late polish art historian Piotr Piotrowski noted that in “countries of East-Central Europe, such as Poland or Yugoslavia, but also Czechoslovakia, the rejection of Modernism, combined with a turn towards figuration, which took place in the 1960s, has been given the name of ‘new figuration’” (or refiguration in relation to Slovak art).6 He also noted that, since in most countries from the former Eastern bloc, there was no consumer culture in the Western sense, “the local artists, who reached for models provided by Pop art expressed, above all, a longing for modernity and a desire to participate in global contemporary art”.7 I intend to complexify these narratives, insisting on the disparities, irregularities and even contradictions within the process of writing a global history of art in the 1960s. Thus, I focus on a series of examples drawn from Romanian art that turned to photography in search for a new type of realism. I will examine, on the one hand, the way photography was employed as a source for a painterly reappropriation, and on the other hand, how photography was used as an ironic means of social critique. What remains obvious, in all these instances, is that, despite some formal resemblances, many of these artistic examples are also referring to (and at the same time contrasting with) locally dominant aesthetic theories, where their social and art historical agency should also be traced back and interrogated. In Romania, the reception of Pop art in the 1960s was mostly negative. In particular, there was no modernism against which artists could have turned towards figuration, like the Americans or their Czechoslovakian neighbours. Defending a conservative form of realism, still entrenched in the socialist realist doctrine, Romanian critics usually emphasized the mechanical coldness of the pictorial depiction, “abstracting precisely what is human specific, affection, sensitivity, vibration”.8 Searching for objectivity, Pop artists would unfortunately present the actual object instead of forging its image.9 Others criticized the lack of creative transfiguration in American “new realism”, a transfiguration which, on the other hand, characterized the quest for objectivity of the socialist realist artist: “without reflecting reality through a complex process of artistic development, it cannot be a genuine realism”.10 The latter was distinguished

|| 6 Piotrowski, Piotr, In the Shadow of Yalta. Art and the Avant-garde in Eastern Europe 1945– 1989, London 2011, 166. 7 Piotrowski, In the Shadow of Yalta, 166. 8 Codrescu, Ana Maria, “Pop-art or Non-art?”, in: Arta, 1964, no. 10–11, 562. 9 Demetrescu, Camilian, “Tehnici contemporane ale imaginii”, in: Arta, 1968, no. 7, 7. 10 Breazu, Marcel, “A fi modern”, Arta, 1964, no. 8, 398.

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from the naturalistic depiction, and equally from the mere subjective abstractisation of the world as experienced by the artist, becoming an attempt to essentialise external reality in search for the general, that is, the typical, injecting it with ideas and rhetoric, that is, with propaganda.11

Transference and Adaptation It is also in this particular aesthetic context that one may interrogate the traditional notion of artistic influence, usually described as a unidirectional process of cultural imperialism spreading from West to East. The subsequent question of cultural transference is complicated by the construction of an uneven timeline in Eastern European art, where the so-called cultural thaw takes different forms and starts at different times. In Romania, the critique of painting was mostly turned towards the long march of socialist realism, which was imposed after 1945 in a brutal manner over the existing avant-garde traditions. The cultural thaw occurred much later, with Nicolae Ceaușescu’s early years of the regime (1965–1971). Romanian art historians refer to this brief timespan as the period of “cultural openness”. This period, marked, one the one hand, by Nicolae Ceaușescu’s famous opposition to the invasion of Prague, and on the other hand, by the so-called “July thesis”, a speech in 17 points issued by Nicolae Ceaușescu in July 1971 and published in November the same year, may be extended until 1972.12 It is in this period that Pepsi opens in Constanța a local branch of production. Limited access to other items from Western material culture (such as blue jeans, whiskey or Rock LP’s) also offered a glimpse into a different lifestyle, which, nevertheless, remained only superficially tasted and were still experienced as objects of desire rather than as commonplace goods.

|| 11 Rudașcu, Lelia, Probleme de Artă Plastică, București 1955. 12 The speech, soon followed by another one delivered in a more colloquial tone, contained measures to “improve the political-ideological activity and the marxist-leninist education of the party members and all workers”, among which, the requirement that art should have “a militant content” and ”picture reality”. The guiding principles expressed by Ceaușescu were almost immediately applied by the Unions of Creation since 1972, with the subsequent subordonation of the Ministry of Culture to the Council of Culture and Socialist education. For a detailed analysis of its short and long-term effects of these theses see Mocănescu, Alice, “The ‘July Theses’ as a Game Changer: the Reception of the ‘July Theses’ within the Romanian Artists’ Union”, in: Caterina Preda (ed.), The State Artist in Romania and Eastern Europe. The Role of the Creative Unions, București 2017, 207–230.

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It is also in this period that the critical reception of Pop art in Romania becomes more charitable. Previously concerned with pointing out the lack of subjective transfiguration of the crude, brutal reality in American Pop art, and the artistic superiority of socialist realism as a humanist aesthetic, Pop art is now reviewed by the art critics in a descriptive and analytical tone. Important travelling exhibitions presenting American abstract expressionism and Pop art, such as The Disappearance and Reappearance of the Image: American painting after 1945, organized in 1969 by the International Art Program of the Smithsonian, were also presented at Dalles Hall in Bucharest, eliciting quite an interest among the artists and the larger publics. It was accompanied, in 1972, by another exhibition installed at Dalles Hall, entitled Form and Creation Process in American Painting of the 20th Century. Such exhibitions may be considered influential in “transferring” the discourses of Pop art and photo-realism, but also gestural and colour-field abstraction to the existing figurative and realist pictorial agendas. But, assuming such an import existed, did such a transference occur without any frictions? And against what exactly did artists use this vocabulary as a form of protest, as Morgan would suggest – since neither the critique of American imperialism nor a generic critique of a socialism, which in that moment seemed that it would follow the Yugoslav “third way” model, can be mobilized as pertinent reasons for such a figurative shift? The voluntary appropriation or adaptation of Western European contemporary art trends, representational techniques or subject-matter to art produced in Eastern Europe, is an issue that both Piotrowski and Katalin Timár seem to have tackled in their writings on Hungarian Pop art, debating over the term selfcolonization13 – a voluntary import of idealized Western ideas in order to counter Soviet imperialism. The different reasons for such an import may also be raised when addressing Ion Bitzan’s paintings that bear the marks of his acquaintance with Robert Rauschenberg’s collages and combine paintings in the Venice Biennale in 1964.14 In artworks such as The Portrait of Zootechnician Timar (1968), or the The 1st of May (1970), Bitzan integrates photographic elements into his painterly compositions divided into flattened painterly areas of subtly different painterly texture to serve as background, and employing often pale chromatic scales, sometimes leaving entire areas in a state of rough sketched drawing. The collated-like images, juxtaposed in a way that perturbs linear narratives and simplified metaphoric associations, are deeply ambivalent towards the socialist realist tradition it subtly subverts through his bold tech|| 13 Piotrowski, In the Shadow of Yalta, 166. 14 Piotrowski, In the Shadow of Yalta, 257.

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nical approach, while at the same time exposing the constructed character of its realistic imagery. Traces of the 1964 exhibition may also be found in Bitzan’s juxtaposition of Abstract Expressionism colouring, photorealist reproductions, Pop art seriality and serigraphy, and images of socialist-realistic propaganda. According to Romanian art critic Anca Arghir, the ”new figuration”, including the above mentioned artworks by Bitzan, distinguished itself from the “old figuration” by employing ready-made images. Thus, it conveyed not only a mere representation of reality, but also precious information about the way artistic technologies process this reality, preserving at the same time traces of the artist’s subjective experience.15 However, in adapting such techniques of collage to the local context, Bitzan was also operating against a cultural background influenced mainly by French culture, where a certain sensitivity for vernacular culture and modern popular culture existed in visual arts from communist Romania, including posters, photographic collages, and representations of daily life in printed press, so placing Bitzan’s works solely in Rauschenberg’s wake would be inaccurate. Noteworthy, Bitzan’s paintings in question also resemble the late works of Max Herman Maxy, an influential avant-garde painter who, in this brief period of cultural openness, departed again from the socialist realism he opportunistically endorsed after 1945.16 Since Bitzan was also a well-established mainstream artistic figure, who did not shy away from tackling subject-matters extracted from everyday social life that were more than appropriate for the socialist propaganda, it would be misleading to interpret these images as being overtly critical in relation to the locally dominant painterly discourse. Bitzan oscillated between the desire to synchronize with international contemporary art by creating abstract and objectbased series of artworks, and the necessity to please the local institutional structures that were conservative and ideologically inclined to follow the lessons of socialist realism.17 Although, like many others, he benefited from international circulation and exposure in the more relaxed context of the late 1960s,

|| 15 Arghir, Anca, ”Ion Bițan. Câți Ion Bițan există?”, România Literară, 1969, 28. 16 Kessler, Erwin, ”Picture it painted...Reality Real and Realisms in Romanian art and theory, 1960–1976”, in: Nikolett Eröss (ed.), East of Eden, Budapest 2012, 104. 17 For a more detailed analysis of the Romanian artistic context after 1971 see Tanta, Mirela, Neo-Socialist Realism: the Second Life of Socialist Realism in Romania (1970–1989), in: Caterina Preda (ed.), The State Artist in Romania and Eastern Europe. The Role of the Creative Unions, București 2017, 207–230.

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he considered such a commitment to socialism necessary.18 According to the more critical opinion of Erwin Kessler, who noticed that Bitzan was favoured by the ruling political regime, such works are “baffling examples of apparent innovation thoroughly masking subservient rhetoric into harmless art”.19 Similar experiments may have served the regime because they departed from crude propaganda art. The Romanian art historian constructs a compelling argument in favour of the complicity between such instances of photo-realism, stripped of its criticality, and the control mechanisms of the political regime. He notes that photographic realism preserved the appearance of objectivity, departing at the same time from the mere naturalism considered in the early 1960s as a negative value, while the interest for technical experimentation and innovation was assimilated to the progressive rhetoric of the communism.20 Nevertheless, Kessler’s interpretation does not diminish Bitzan’s artistic versatility in incorporating various techniques that, in other artworks from the same period, also conjure conceptual art’s inquiry into systems of signification, the nature and functions of art, expanding the limits of vision and extending the predominantly figurative language of artistic representation in Romania.21 If the notions of cultural transference and local adaptation are relevant in accounting for Bitzan’s flirting with the type of mixture of abstraction and realism theorized in Yugoslavia as ”sober realism” or ”socialist aestheticism”22, they should be understood in this case as a clever instrumentalization of contemporary compositional experiments and progressive artistic techniques rather than as a critical adaptation of Pop art topics, and even less as a critique of American imperialism. Such techniques were employed in order to subvert the socialist realist infatuation with the typical, that is, with the ideologically constructed “objectivity”.

|| 18 Between 1967–1972, Bitzan represented Romania at the Sao Paolo Biennale (in 1967 and 1969); He took part in Four Romanian Artists (together with Paul Neagu, Peter Jacobi and Ritzi Jacobi) and in Romanian Art Today exhibitions, organized by Richard Demarco in Edinburgh in 1969 and 1971; He also benefited from an art residency at the Stedelijk Art Museum, Amsterdam in 1970 and 1971. 19 Kessler, ”Picture it painted…”, 104. 20 Kessler, ”Picture it painted...”, 108. 21 See, for instance, the series of small bags of sand painted over with red or black lines as highly schematized ideograms (Small Sacks, 1971). 22 Šuvaković, Miško, ”Art as a Political Machine: Fragments on the Late Socialist and Postsocialist Art of the MittelEuropa and the Balkans”, in: Ales Erjavec (ed.), Postmodernism and the Postsocialist Condition: Politicized Art Under Late Socialism, Berkeley 2003, 93.

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Appropriating Vernacular Culture One of the key troubles with expanding terms such as Pop art to describe the pictorial style of other Romanian artists such as Cornel Brudașcu is that it is so intimately related to photographic realism. Another equally important issue is that it only rarely and hastily touches upon some of the main issues of North American Pop art or the French new realism: the celebration of the celebrity culture, the cynical glorification of everyday life material culture, the criticism of reckless consumption, the ironical fetishisation of consumer goods, and the renewed attention to the technological production and the distribution of images in contemporary society. Many of these issues are simply untenable in the Romanian socialist society, and if any reference to consumer culture is to be found, it appears only as a private fantasy. According to Hal Foster’s psychoanalytical account of Pop art, with the presumed elimination of subjectivity from the act of reception, translated into a lack of affective implication, the embrace of the banality of everyday-life in Pop art constructs a new universe of disturbing fetishisation of images, which “shows us how, in a consumerist economy, objects and images tend to become serial and simulacral, and how commodities tend to operate like signs and vice versa (…)”.23 Foster’s general remarks may cautiously be applied to describe the few paintings such as Cornel Brudașcu’s Guitarist24 (1970), connecting the fetish with the phantasmatic image of an object of desire. Such a connection is warranted by the economic specificities of the local economy – one where the encounters with Western consumer culture are still mediated by images and the access to consumer goods are nevertheless limited. Attentive to the specific local economic context, especially in relation to the so-called Hungarian ”goulash capitalism”, Piotrowski also affirms that the use of popular images of consumer icons in Eastern Europe “articulated a certain nostalgia for consumer culture, within which an empty can of Coca-Cola is just a piece of trash and not a mythologized keepsake of past trips abroad”.25 Brudașcu’s Guitarist is executed after a poster claimed to be extracted from the German teenage magazine Popcorn, where he inserted the portrait of one of his friends.26 It is, in a way, a depiction of the “typical”, the depiction of a stereotypical image, nevertheless, || 23 Foster, The First Pop Age, 13. 24 The painting is also referred to as Young Singer. See Mereuță, Iulian, ”O situație a imaginii”, in: Arta, 1972, no. 12, 10. 25 Piotrowski, In the Shadow of Yalta, 166. 26 Morgan, “Political Pop: An Introduction”, 15.

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one of a different sort from the glorification of the worker that may be found in socialist realism. Replacing the worker with the rock star, Brudașcu cunningly reveals the artificiality of socialist realist iconography. The same type of phantasmatic items of American consumer culture may be found in Florina Lăzărescu (Coulin)’s photorealist painting Child in Park (1972), featuring the image of a child, painted in transparent, blue monochrome brushstrokes, embracing an equally ghostly apparition of an American car, while other kids play around it unaware of its presence. According to Kessler, the work is ”the product of a disturbing combination of apparently fitting (yet fictive) photographs which, at a closer look, prove to produce a thrilling, impossible combination, unmasking the silently anxious, vulnerable reality around”.27 Guitarist was associated by Brudașcu himself with photographic realism. His striking use of bright colour and his experimental use of photography mark a clear departure from the ideologically supported art of his period. But, at the same time, he also distinguishes his painterly technique from his British or American peers by using vividly coloured surfaces and fluid lines without sharp edges. As a result, Brudașcu’s anonymous characters appear blurry, overexposed and chromatically over-saturated. In fact, in paintings such as Composition (1970) or Portrait (Ion Munteanu) (1970), he often employed solarized snapshots of friends from his personal collection as primary sources for his disturbing pictorial representations. Solarized photographs are used to recreate figurative compositions of a hallucinating appearance and eerie atmosphere. The uncanny presence of ordinary people, whose liquid shapes recall Gerhard Richter’s treatment of the canvas as a memory screen, seem to become the pretext for a meditation on the limitations of the medium to capture the flow of time. The portrait of Munteanu, for instance, does not depict the Warholian alienation characteristic to contemporary society, but sadly commemorates a friend that committed suicide.28 Some of Corneliu Brudașcu’s paintings also appropriate photographs that were circulating at that time in local media. Brudașcu sometimes worked over images that resembled social propaganda, which may be considered as the rough equivalent of capitalist advertising. The title and narrative theme of Youth on the Building Yard (1972), for example, is characteristic of official proletcult art of this period, whose ideological imperative was to form a new culture that would reflect the spirit of the collective and the desire to

|| 27 Kessler, “Picture it painted...”, 110. 28 Madsen, Kristian Vistrup, “Cornel Brudașcu”, frieze, November, 2017, https:// frieze.com/article/cornel-brudascu (accessed November 26 2019).

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build a new Communist society. Another, perhaps lesser-known painting, entitled The Meeting (1974), is most probably depicting a newspaper-like scene: the meeting between the president Nicolae Ceaușescu, an undisputed popular icon, and some representatives of workers – a typical media imagery at that time. Such typical scenes comply with official propaganda.29 At the same time, their painterly reproduction is profoundly ambivalent, since it preserves the autonomy of a singular and innovative pictorial style. Without considering himself a Pop artist, Brudașcu frequently chose subjects from his familiar every-day life surroundings, thus departing from and contrasting with the utopian and idealized descriptions of typical workers or work situations found in socialist realist paintings of the 1950s. But at the same time, depicting his subjects after a photographic image, Brudașcu exposes the distance separating painting from reality. The images he chose to paint were not extracted from the immediate reality – and, as such, were not depicting the local vernacular culture – but rather from its ideologically constructed pictorial representation. More precisely, they transfer on canvas photographic reproductions of this reality – a feature that connects his paintings with Warhol’s examination of the construction of celebrity through the medial repetition of the social image. In Brudașcu’s social context, however, the circulation of photographic images in popular culture served a different purpose, that of masking the political reality. When he repaints images selected from private photographs, the use of excessively saturated colours may also be regarded as a Brechtian strategy of distancing from a topic it simultaneously overly mystifies.30

Local vocabularies: Ion Grigorescu’s ‘realograms’ An evolution of the notion of realism on the local scene was, therefore, underway. It encompassed a broad range of sometimes contrasting representational practices. Their common denominator was an insistence on the exploration of the limits and functions of the visual and the analysis of artistic language oper|| 29 It was claimed that, in fact, Brudașcu has personally attended this meeting. See Cioban, Victor, “Corneliu Brudașcu”, Caiete Silvane, July, 2018. https://www.caietesilvane.ro/ articole/3713/Corneliu-Brudascu. html. (accessed on November 29, 2019). This does not contest the fact that photographic mediation was nevertheless necessary to capture such events. 30 Brudașcu’s approach to private photographic archives also undermines the idea of photographic objectivity.

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ated with artistic means, and a concomitant inquiry into the dominant modes of production and circulation of images. A compelling example for such a conceptual shift may be found in Ion Grigorescu’s early painterly experiments with photography, which, unlike Brudașcu’s attempts to subjectify the photographic representation, are used to deconstruct the pretences of objectivity associated with socialist realism in the name of a more honest, more “objective” engagement with the notion of realism. In 1974, Grigorescu organizes the exhibition Probleme noi ale imaginii (New Problems of the Image) at Orizont Gallery in Bucharest. Its actual title should have been Towards a New Realism, but it was censored in order to avoid its reading as overtly oppositional towards the still dominant socialist realist aesthetic doctrine. According to Grigorescu’s own considerations on the topic of the realist artist, “realism for me meant and means to not impose the painted real a style (...) To be realist means to paint people, their environment”31. Grigorescu further explains that his own type of realism is purely analytical and devoid of ethical judgements: “I like to listen to people from all social strata, from words the image of their life is being formed; I would like to follow with the camera a worker 24 hours a day. From paintings I do not make ethical debates, I do not want to evaluate (…) I propose to analyse”.32 In a review of an earlier exhibition installed at Amfora Gallery which presented Grigorescu’s Reportage from Gorj together with some paintings by Brudașcu, Iulian Mereuță notices that, for these artists, the transformation of banality occurs without drastically altering the documentary status of the image.33 It is only in this sense that Mereuță talks about a discrete critical distance applied by both Brudașcu and Grigorescu within realism as a common pictorial style. For both, what was called ”realism” in the 1970s painting was completely dissatisfactory because representations of the actual everyday-life environment were nowhere to be seen. In other early paintings, such as the 1973 Uncomrades (Netovarăși) Grigorescu employs photography as a source for a serial composition that recalls the cinematic storyboard and the aesthetics of comic strips. He juxtaposes veridic

|| 31 Grigorescu, Ion “Despre artistul realist”, in: Arta, no. 12, 1973, 23. 32 Grigorescu, “Despre artistul realist”, 23. 33 Mereuță, Iulian, “O situație a imaginii”, 12.

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images which construct a fragmented, non-linear and ultimately, ambiguous narrative, lacking coherence.34 Photorealistic depictions of socialist public spaces in Grigorescu’s early paintings such as Loto (1972), where the artist uses rough brushstrokes to paint the showcase of a socialist store, covered with logos and other elements of public visual communication during socialism, may be superficially similar to illusionistic depictions of reflexive urban facades in American art – the epitome of capitalist transformation of the commodities into images. But, besides the obvious difference in technique – Grigorescu never attempting to equalise or surpass the photographic objectivity in his paintings –, these images are constructed against distinct representational codes and different understandings of the photographic image. Concerning Loto, Grigorescu declared that it was produced in relation to photorealist experiments of transferring photography on canvas, but only because he could not produce large enough colour photographs, while the choice of this subject matter originated in his belief that everything he sees is worthy to be recorded.35 However, he incorporates small black and white photographs into the pictorial field, which only highlight the documentary condition of the resulting painterly image. If the extraction of images from the ideologically controlled environment of popular culture was characteristic for Bitzan or Brudașcu’s pictorial imports and appropriations, Grigorescu’s early experiments with photographic realism searched for the cracks and fissures of this fabricated reality, exhibiting the raw, fragmentary and often depressing truths of ordinary life. This becomes obvious in mixed media artworks such as My Mother and My Elder Brother (1973) or Family Meal (1974) where, instead of repainting the photographic image on canvas, Grigorescu chose to produce enlarged photographic prints of family snapshots, retouching them with paint. Thus, he only highlights several features of the photographic image, relying solely on his private memory, without challenging its capacity to capture raw moments of everyday life. Unlike Brudașcu, the photograph is associated by Grigorescu to Roland Barthes’s phenomenological account of an uncoded, indexical imprint of external reality.36 In choosing his subjects, Grigorescu also took up a critical position towards the local variant of

|| 34 Pintile, Ileana, “Artă în spațiul public sau artă pentru sine: Ipostaze ale artistului Ion Grigorescu în epoca comunistă și posttotalitară”, in: Romanian Political Science Review, no. 3, 2017, 402 35 Ferchedău, Stefania/Șerban, Alina (eds.), Ion Grigorescu. Despre artistul realist, București 2017. 36 Barthes, Camera Lucida, New York 1981

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realism that relied on the iconography of a benign popular imagery and opted instead to depict mundane family scenes. Presenting unexceptional fragments of the family life, accurately depicting the ordinary dull life, the real life of anonymous people, Grigorescu turns the photographical device against the presumed objectivity of pictorial realism depicted in the ideologically controlled mass-media, as well as against the generic painterly representations dubbed “realist” at that time. The use of flattened areas of thick colour superposed on black and white photographic representations of rural life is nothing but an ironical attempt to inject life into what otherwise remains a technological limitation of the photographic means of production available, that were only capable of reproducing reality in black and white. Images depicting a party with accordion singers in an improbable dejeuner sur l’herbe are remote from the fascination with consumer culture to be found elsewhere. His choice of subject matter – city outskirts, the rural area, which were bleak, ordinary, unexceptional, chaotic and insufficiently developed is understandable if we approach his paintings neither as flirtations with Pop art, nor as photo-realist paintings, but as a specific, singular form of pictorial realism, directed against the prevailing norms of realistic depiction. The bleak and austere rural life is absent from Western versions of realism during the 1960s, that celebrated the urban modern life in rich and lively colours. Although he rarely employed photography extracted from mass-media, Grigorescu sometimes used found images of a familiar tone in order to depict rural social reality. For instance, in the paintings from the series Reportage from Gorj (1972), Grigorescu chose to use photographs made by his own brother, Octav Grigorescu, due to their sincerity and honesty, which contrasted with publicly exhibited propaganda images, exposing their limitations and deconstructing their artificial rationality. Their presentation in a format reminiscent of comic strips, as well as of cinematic storyboards, constructs a discontinuous and multi-perspectival view on stereotypical human figures, activities and situations. It is in this sense that a Romanian art critic, Ion Drăgănoiu, referred to these painted photographs neither as Pop, nor as hyper-realism or socialist realism, but as “realograms”: images that preserve the imprint of the real engraved on their surface.37 It is as if Grigorescu was performing a visual archaeology of socialist realist painting and ideologically controlled contemporary journalism in order to excavate and deconstruct its stereotypes. The political || 37 Drăgănoiu, Ion, “Realogramele lui Ion Grigorescu”, in: Ion Grigorescu, Expoziţia nr. 17, Cluj 1976.

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tone of his early works derives precisely from this collusion between the ideologically fabricated “reality” that passed as documents and the “ever savage, repressed, yet baffling real”38, surfacing in the guise of fragmentary glimpses beyond the forcefully coherent representational surface. To conclude, it would be more appropriate to frame such figuration as locally developed critical versions of realism, that tactically appropriated and instrumentalised, sometimes for contradictory purposes, representational techniques similar to the ones employed by Pop artists or by those associated with photographic realism in the West, instead of talking about versions of Pop art with photo-realist or even socialist-realist inflexions. Painters like Brudașcu repositioned the socialist-realist imaginary in the realm of subjective commentary. For Bitzan, propaganda images become signs in a visual economy autonomously governed by the artist’s associative conjunctures. In a different vein, Grigorescu voluntarily intended to transform the realistic approach by choosing as a subject for his paintings family snapshots, guided by the avowed intention to depict everyday life more objectively than the dominant type of pictorial realism. Such a local-scale inquiry into the pre-existing notion of realism, fuelled by the collusion between painting and photography, often subverted vernacular aspects of visual culture by adopting representational patterns and critical positions towards the inherited pictorial construction of reality. We might thus affirm the existence of multiple, parallel epistemologies in different parts of the world, to which similar artistic vocabularies in the figurative art of the 1960s would respond, in each case gaining a different political meaning. Acknowledgement: This text was supported by a grant from the Romanian Ministry of Research and Innovation, CNCS – UEFISCDI, project number PN-III-P11.1.-TE-2016-1369, within PNCDI III.

|| 38 Kessler, “Picture it painted”, 110.

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Fig. 71: Ion Bitzan, The Portrait of Zootechnician Timar, 1968, mixed media on canvas, The Museum of Visual Arts Collection, Galați. Courtesy of Pictoright Amsterdam 2020.

Fig. 72: Ion Bitzan, The 1st of May, 1970, acrylic, oil, serigraphy on canvas, The Museum of Visual Arts Collection, Galați. Courtesy of Pictoright Amsterdam 2020.

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Fig. 73: Corneliu Brudașcu, Guitarist (Singer), 1970, oil on canvas, 130 x 96 cm. The Museum of Visual Arts Collection, Galaţi. Courtesy of Galeria Plan B, Cluj-Berlin.

Fig. 74: Corneliu Brudașcu, Portrait (Ion Munteanu), 1970, oil on canvas, 120.5 x 91 cm, Mircea Pinte Collection, Cluj. Photo credit: Galeria Plan B, Cluj-Berlin.

Noemi de Haro García

The Use(s) of Realism in Spain: Politics and the Visual Arts in the Long Sixties The term “realism” recurs frequently in the narratives that provide an account of the art produced in Spain during Francisco Franco’s dictatorship (1939–1975). It is explicitly associated with the aesthetics and the politics of most artists who, working inside Spain since the late 1950s, criticised the order imposed after the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939).1 In close connection with initiatives developed in other fields such as cinema, theatre and literature, during the long sixties2 many artists in the visual arts announced their adherence to “realism”. Indeed, the terms “realism” and “reality” were flagged, described, and defined, time and again in the texts written by and about them. This was frequently done in a changing, vague and fuzzy way, often in combination with a quite problematic claim for the “popularisation” of the arts and associated with the notion of the “avant-garde”. The critical fortune of these artists has been diverse and uneven. In general, it could be said that whereas in the 1960s and 1970s their “realism” was considered by many to be an outstanding positive trait, when one examines the texts produced later, the number of positive (or even indifferent) references to their “realism” (or lack thereof) is directly proportional to their distance from the top of the canon of Spanish creators. Other terms, labels and categories are preferred to “realism” for those that are better placed in the canon; for example, “Pop”. Why was there this preference for “realism” in the 1960s and 1970s? Why did the changes in art historiography’s judgments occur later? The lack of one single proper definition of the notion of “realism” might lead to the easy conclusion that artists, art critics, and art historians had a very limited, incoherent and uninformed understanding of the concepts they used. This might, in turn, justify the subsequent classification of their works under other categories and labels. In this essay however, it will be argued that in order to properly understand it, it is necessary to change the approach to the emer|| 1 This work has been funded by a “Ramón y Cajal” postdoctoral research contract and is related to the research project Larga exposición: las narraciones del arte contemporáneo español para los “grandes públicos” (HAR2015-67059-P, MINECO-FEDER). 2 The concept of the “long sixties” was introduced by Arthur Marwick to refer to a distinctive and influential period of change going, approximately, from 1958 to 1974. Marwick, Arthur, The Sixties. Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy and the United States, c. 1958– c. 1974, Oxford, New York 1998. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-026

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gence and expansion of “realism” in the visual arts in Spain in the long sixties. I will contend that the defence of realism was the result of a conscious strategic choice. It was crucial to safely create and recognise a common political framework of interpretation. This contributed to building a resilient common front and a genealogy for the antifrancoist avant-garde that challenged the system imposed by the dictatorial regime.

Ambiguous realism After the end of the Second World War the regime abandoned part of its fascist rhetoric in order to survive. Many efforts were made to whiten the image of Spain, to bury in the past its association with the Axis powers and incorporate it within the Western bloc. In line with this, the separation of art from politics was advocated and abstract art received official support. This process was increasingly visible from the 1950s onwards and was in tune with dominant Western ideas about the arts and culture. This was made compatible with the affirmation of the existence of specific characteristics defining national identity. Namely, Spanish informel was presented as the perfect combination of modernity and Spanish art tradition.3 The dictatorship’s move was a success. The signature of the Madrid Pacts with the United States in 1953 and the accession of Spain to the United Nations in 1955 ended the previous virtual isolation of the country, which was now among the defendants of the “free world”. Regarding the visual arts, the new orientation of the cultural policies of the Spanish government brought several relevant prizes to the artists representing it in renowned international events such as the biennials of São Paulo or Venice. For example, Jorge Oteiza won the International Sculpture Prize in São Paulo in 1957 and in 1958 Eduardo Chillida and Antoni Tàpies were respectively awarded the International Grand Prize for Sculpture and the UNESCO Prize in Venice. At the same time, since the mid-1950s there had been an intense reflection and many debates in Spain about what (social) realism was and what its relevance was for the social and cultural fields. Among the main issues under debate were what type of reality it should deal with, with what kind of language, who were its recipients, and what was its relationship with national and inter-

|| 3 About this see Díaz Sánchez, Julián, La idea de arte abstracto en la España de Franco, Madrid 2013.

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national traditions4. These discussions were the result of the renewed post-war interest in the representation of social reality and the human condition in literature, theatre, cinema and the visual arts. Such an interest was common in Western Europe and the United States after the Second World War. The circulation of the resulting creations, and the cross-pollination between artistic media, crystallised in the diverse forms that shaped (neo- and social-)realism in different geographies. In the case of Spain, relevant works in the definition of early social realism appeared in the late 1940s and especially, in the early 1950s. They had in common the avoidance of the heroic, celebratory tone and topics of other previous and contemporary creations. Nonconformists, their authors turned towards common people and subjects instead. They did not shy away from pointing out their protagonists’ difficulties and problems, which frequently also meant revealing and denouncing the failures of the system. The resulting message appeared sometimes as moralising whilst in other cases it was of clear political criticism and protest. Realism allowed for a degree of ambiguity that should not be underestimated. This explains in part the regime’s tolerance towards it. At least until the late 1950s. From then onwards, however, the situation changed. In the case of literature for example, realist novels’ harsher criticism was met by an increasingly stricter control and deeper cuts by the censors, which in turn moved writers to (forced) innovation.5

|| 4 About this issue in the novel, theatre and the visual arts, see Álamo Felices, Francisco, La novela social Española. Conformación ideológica. Teoría y crítica, Almería 1996; Sanz Villanueva, Santos, La novela española durante el franquismo, Madrid 2010; Cornago Bernal, Óscar, Discurso teórico y puesta en escena en los años sesenta: la encrucijada de los “realismos”, Madrid 2000; Díaz Sánchez, Julián/Llorente, Ángel, La crítica de arte en España, Madrid 2004, 88– 100. 5 This is argued by Larraz, Fernando, Letricidio español. Censura y novela durante el franquismo, Gijón 2014; Larraz, Fernando/Suárez Toledano, Cristina, “Realismo social en la novela española (1954–1962)”, Creneida, 5, 2017, 66–95.

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Fig. 75: José Ortega (José García Ortega), Destajo, ca. 1957. Calcografía Nacional. Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. Madrid.

In 1957 the print by José García Ortega entitled Destajo (Piecework) was awarded a third medal in the graphic arts section of the National Fine Arts Competition. Ortega had been imprisoned after the war because of his political activities as a member of the socialist youth. This official recognition awarded to a former inmate could be interpreted, precisely, as evidence of the newly alleged separation between art and politics. It could also be considered a proof of the ambiguities of realism that have been mentioned above, including its potential resonance with the sensibilities of some of the power groups within the regime’s circles. In addition, it also demonstrates the ways in which political activists, namely communists, had started infiltrating francoist institutions. Indeed, after his release, Ortega had become an active member of the clandestine Spanish Communist Party (PCE). In June 1957 the Alfil gallery in Madrid celebrated a solo exhibition of Ortega. Its catalogue included a text that has been referred to either as his “Declaration of Principles” or (in a clear reference to avant-garde practices) as his “Realism Manifesto”. In the section of the text devoted to “theory”, he stated that any “true artwork” is a “deep revelation of reality” and that all art is “tendentious”. In the lines discussing “the form” he claimed that “realist art” was not a “passive reflection of” nor an “evasion from reality” but “reality interpreted, judged by the artist and projected towards a better understanding of life and of man as a social being”. Finally, he stressed that he was in an “aesthetic, humanist, social, movement” that was wide and multiform, suited to “all those who loved walking with life”.6 Ortega’s manifesto should be understood in a broad post-Second World War context where ideas such as “humanism” and “realism” carried deep resonanc|| 6 Text reproduced in Martínez Rodríguez, Arturo, Aspectos estéticos y sociales del grupo “Estampa Popular de Madrid”, PhD diss., University of Salamanca 1992, 59.

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es within the frameworks of existentialism and communism. Its reception was also probably tainted by his own history of political militancy, the PCE’s policy of national reconciliation,7 the activities of the antifrancoist movement (like the student protests of 1956), the search for a counterproposal to José Ortega y Gasset’s dehumanization of art, and the specificities of the debates about realism that were taking place in Spain. All this, together with his works of art and texts, created a more defined (and antifrancoist) interpretation framework which was no doubt, reinforced by what an art exhibition in a commercial gallery made possible: the gathering of people and an occasion to converse. This should not be overlooked in a country whose rulers had banned the right of assembly.

Politicising realism I Ortega’s statement is considered a precedent and model for Estampa Popular’s proposals.8 Charismatic and popular, forced into exile in France in 1960 to escape repression, his figure plays a key (almost mythical) role in the imaginary of Estampa Popular and in historical accounts, a fact that has obscured the name and role of the other members of the groups.9 There were, in fact, not one but many “Estampas Populares”. The first was formed in Madrid in 1959 but very soon others followed suit in Sevilla (1960), Córdoba (1961), Vizcaya (1962), Valencia (1964), Cataluña (1965) and Galicia (1968). They formed a network that connected these places with one another, and which also reached other countries such as Portugal, France, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Brazil and Uruguay.

|| 7 In his reports to the PCE in the early and mid-1950s Ortega used the term “socialist realism” whereas he did not use it in this 1957 manifesto (De Haro García, Grabadores contra el franquismo, Madrid 2010, 110). It is possible his position had changed in those years, it is also plausible that both were strategic moves: to be accepted by his superiors at the PCE, in the first case, but to avoid censorship or repression in the other. However, it could also be that in 1957 he used the wider notion of “realism” to create a common and open front in the arts like the one intended by the PCE’s policy of national reconciliation. 8 Gandía Casimiro, José (curator), Estampa Popular, Valencia 1996, 13. 9 About some of them see De Haro García, Grabadores contra el franquismo; de Haro García, Noemi, “La breve, pero intensa, actividad de Estampa Popular Galega”, in: Goya, 2011, Nr. 337, 342–357; de Haro García, Noemi, “Mujeres artistas e imágenes de la opresión femenina en el realismo crítico. Revisando la historia oficial del antifranquismo”, in: Aliaga, Juan Vicente/Mayayo, Patricia (eds.), Genealogías feministas en el arte español: 1960–2010, Madrid 2013, 149 –169.

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Each group followed its own rules and had its own name, usually the result of adding a geographical reference to the common denomination of “Estampa Popular”: for example, Estampa Popular de Córdoba or Estampa Popular de Vizcaya in the case of the groups established in those two cities. There were groups that were more connected than others (with the rest of the network and/or with other important agents in the cultural or political milieu, both inside and outside Spain). There are also important differences regarding the lifespan of each group: some were active for one year while others lived on for several decades. All this can help to provide an idea of the geographical, experiential and age gap that separated the components of the network, and therefore of the inevitable diversity of ideas, people and poetics that gathered under the umbrella of Estampa Popular. Despite all their differences, all the groups had in common a critical (although diverse) political stance, which positioned their activities in the areas resulting from the overlap between the artistic field, social movements and clandestine political parties, and their “popular” aim. The basic idea underpinning their work was, indeed, the will to make “popular” art. This was understood as the opposite of the lucrative and award-winning elite high art. Estampa Popular aimed at creating art for, about, and by common people. As was declared in its very name (Estampa Popular means “popular print”) in order to produce as much artwork as possible at cheap and affordable prices, most of its members created prints. They were shown in all kinds of venues: from art galleries to bars. They also circulated through other media: they were often reproduced in the artefacts that shaped a transnational antifrancoist and antifascist culture. Those who knew about Estampa Popular could recognise the creations of its members when they appeared in the pages of magazines and newspapers, on the covers of literature books, in political pamphlets, and also on stamps, posters, postcards, calendars and protest song album covers. All this represented an alternative and a challenge to the working dynamics and politics of the art system that was being put into place in Spain at the time. There were many problems and contradictions with such a wide and ambitious programme. However, this critical position towards the art system was shared by the other antifrancoist art groups and collectives that would appear later. Although exploring this in depth lies beyond the scope of this text, it is worth noting that, in Estampa Popular, the notion of the “popular” set into motion its complex, multifaceted and contradictory meanings: those referring to national, regional or ethnic communities and identities, those evoking peasants and the rural world, as well as traditions, folk culture and folklore, those applying to what was liked (and usually consumed) in urban contexts, those related

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to class divisions (that associated the term with the working class) and also, in some cases, those meanings which pointed towards communities not necessarily defined by class identity. In addition, the echoes of the 1930s Popular Fronts with a singular emphasis on the avant-garde Leftist culture and its debates (including those taking place in Spain during Second Republic and the Civil War) were also evoked by this term. Finally, through its very name, Estampa Popular, it built an explicit bridge with the Mexican Taller de Gráfica Popular (the Popular Graphic Arts Workshop). In addition to this connection with the revolutionary culture of the past, this also stressed the relevance of Mexico, including the Spanish Republican exiles who lived there, both as an interlocutor and as a model for the antifrancoist movement that was organising itself inside Spain. Like Ortega’s manifesto, the text that presented the exhibitions of the first group of Estampa Popular in 1960, ended with a call for the artists to join in. The main aim of the group was to foster the revitalisation of print as an art form and as a means that facilitated the “popular communication” of “realist topics”.10 Not much was said regarding what these topics were, or what realism consisted of. Probably this was not deemed necessary. As it has been said previously, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the control system of the regime was well aware of the political criticism of realist cultural products. Considering this, it is reasonable to think that for many, the mere use of the word “realism” in the 1960s sufficed to delimitate an antifrancoist interpretation framework. This explains for example, the orientation of the article written about Estampa Popular’s first exhibition by Antonio Giménez Pericás. His final words about the exhibition concisely sketched this framework when he stressed that, when used well, prints, like cinema as well as the written and the spoken word, were useful to denounce and intervene in life, not simply to provide a comment on it.11 The political connotations that an ascription to “realism” entailed in the long sixties in Spain may be found in how Afal related to it. This was the name of the magazine of the Agrupación Fotográfica de Almería (AFAL, Photographic Group of Almería); among its members were many photographers who aspired to work in the professional field. Historiography has frequently connected their work with neorealism and realism. However, according to Laura Terré, in Afal there was barely any theorisation about neorealism or realism and the group

|| 10 Estampa Popular, “Bajo el nombre de ‘Estampa Popular’…”, text reproduced in the exhibition leaflet of the Estampa Popular exhibitions in Sala Abril (Madrid, May 1960) and Galería Sur (Santander, August 1960). 11 Giménez Pericás, Antonio, “‘Estampas Populares’, Clave y Tapies y un premio”, in: Acento Cultural, fortnightly supplement, 15 June 1960, Nr. 13–14, 6.

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never called itself “realist”.12 It is hard to believe that Francisco Ontañón was not interested in the lives and struggles of ordinary people when he photographed them for instance, in Se hacen portes (we carry your stuff).

Fig. 76: Francisco Ontañón, [Se acen portes], ca. 1954–58. Copyright: Heredera Francisco Ontañón.

However, leaving the intentions and interests of the photographers aside, as well as the similarities between their work and that of realist and neorealist photographers, it is reasonable to think that there was little to gain by being associated with anything identified as politicised for someone who was trying to earn a living as a professional photographer. Maybe it was because of this that Afal avoided the label “realism”.13 Conversely, the continuous efforts of politically engaged art critics like José María Moreno Galván to connect the abstract art of informel with realism and reality, show what this meant. Having (even) them on the realist “side” was a victory over the authority of the regime’s discourses and interpretive framework.14 This also meant politicising the notion of the “avant-garde”, challenging the official position regarding (modern) art.15 Many artists involved in Estampa Popular collaborated with filmmakers, playwrights, poets and novelists who identified themselves as realists and antifrancoists. Several Estampa Popular exhibitions were venues for literary readings. This was the case of the 1963 the exhibition of Estampa Popular de Madrid, Córdoba, Sevilla and Vizcaya in the Quixote gallery in Madrid. Its poster repro|| 12 Terré, Laura, Historia del grupo fotográfico Afal: 1956/1963, Sevilla 2006, 74. 13 De Haro García, Noemi, “Los trabajos y los días de Francisco Ontañón. Modernidad, consumo y cultura visual”, in: Martín, Alberto (curator), Francisco Ontañón. Oficio y creación, Madrid 2019, 283. 14 It should be noted that several informel artists like Antonio Saura, Antoni Tàpies and Manuel Millares had joined the antifrancoist front at the time, refusing to participate in any other exhibition officially representing Spain. 15 See Moreno Galván, José María, Autocrítica de arte, Madrid 1965; Moreno Galván, José María, Pintura Española. La última vanguardia, Madrid 1969.

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duced a print by Luis Garrido that also illustrated the card announcing a literary reading by well-known realist authors.

Fig. 77: Print by Luis Garrido illustrating the poster of the Estampa Popular exhibition in the Quixote gallery (Madrid, 1963) and the card announcing the literary reading during this exhibition (front and back).

Unfortunately, the authorities banned the event. This was probably the origin of some of the data contained in one document that the control and repression system produced on Estampa Popular. This document defined it as a group “formed by painters, writers and poets of communist or filocommunist orientation and, in any case declared enemies of the Regime”.16 The document contained many errors but was right in its assessment of the political sympathies of its components: some were members of the clandestine PCE, many were fellow travellers, others were part of other Left clandestine political parties, and finally there were those that whilst being antifrancoist and leftists, never expressed a specific political adscription. However, through their deeds, friends and (realist) artworks they unmistakably “declared” their opposition to the dictatorship.

|| 16 “Estampa Popular”, secret file produced by the Oficina de Enlace of the Spanish Ministry of Information and Tourism, dated the 6 September 1969. Archivo General de la Administración, Oficina de Enlace, box 446, file of Francisco Cortijo.

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Politicising realism II In 1964 Estampa Popular de Valencia appeared. That same year some of its members (initially three of them, but latterly only two) formed Equipo Crónica.17 At the time there were intense debates both inside and outside Spain regarding realism and figuration in the arts. This was further complicated by internal divisions within the communist parties in the West that led to expulsions such as those of Jorge Semprún and Fernando Claudín in the case of the PCE, as well as to the formation of new political parties. Whereas the Estampa Popular de Valencia’s members signed their prints individually, Equipo Crónica used both painting and reproduction techniques and rejected individual authorship, working and signing its works as a team. The art historian Tomàs Llorens played a crucial role in the definition and development of both initiatives. A student activist, Llorens had been in prison in the early 1960s. He was part of the artistic, intellectual and political circles in Spain. Among others, he knew Ortega, as well as relevant art critics such as Valeriano Bozal and Vicente Aguilera Cerni. As many other intellectuals, he was interested in and well aware of the discussions in the international art arena. In 1963 he published an article where he referred to the “quasi mythical condition” the term “realism” had acquired, and how its use had made of it “a vague nebula of justifications for results that were very different from one another”. In fact, Llorens pointed out that when people resorted to “realism”, what they wanted, implicitly, was to discuss intentionality and, therefore, the social role of the artist. The problem that still had to be solved was that of language.18 Art historiography usually presents the birth of Estampa Popular de Valencia (and of Equipo Crónica) as a reaction against the problematic conception of the realism of the existing groups of Estampa Popular. On the one hand, this is a description of something that definitely happened. On the other, the fact that art historiography stresses this confrontation could be considered as evidence of the long-lasting impact of the assessments, explanations and arguments laid down by those authors who strongly supported these groups. That is the case of Llorens, Bozal and Aguilera Cerni.19 Employing the logic of progress in which an

|| 17 Although she is not mentioned in Equipo Crónica accounts, between 1971 and 1975 the artist Isabel Oliver worked with the team. 18 Llorens, Tomàs, “Realismo y arte comprometido”, in: Suma y Sigue del Arte Contemporáneo, July–September 1963, Nr. 4, 12–13. 19 See, for instance, Llorens, Tomàs, “Un any d’estampa popular de valència”, in: Serra D’Or, November 1965, Nr. 11, 41–43; Aguilera Cerni, Vicente, “Oggi la pittura spagnola”, in: D’Ars

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art initiative appears as a reaction against, and an improvement to the previous one, was probably usual in the construction of art historical discourses at the time. After all, this is a structure that is deeply embedded in art history. It was no doubt effective to present and support a new art collective. This was probably also the purpose of the label coined by Aguilera Cerni to encompass a new avant-garde movement that he considered had been initiated by Equipo Crónica: Crónica de la Realidad (Chronicle of Reality).20 Some of the “straw men” that served to build these arguments in the past can still be found in texts produced decades later. This could be considered an echo of the above mentioned logic. An example of this is the association between specific groups, topics and languages. This establishes a contrast between the Valencian and the other groups of Estampa Popular. As a result, Estampa Popular de Valencia is identified with the transformation of language and with the introduction of topics such as modernisation, the situation in urban centres, consumer culture and the mass media. However, just an overview of their works suffices to show that none of this was done only by the Valencian groups: there are examples of both in the production of the Estampa Popular groups that were active at the time in Madrid, Cataluña and later, in Galicia. All of which were, indeed, diverse and heterogeneous.21 Through their sustained discussions and collaboration with a handful of art critics, Estampa Popular de Valencia and Equipo Crónica were able to present a

|| Agency. Periodico d’arte contemporánea, 20 April–10 July 1965, Nr. 2, 8–13; Bozal, Valeriano, El realismo entre el desarrollo y el subdesarrollo, Madrid 1966; Aguilera Cerni, Vicente, Panorama del nuevo arte español, Madrid 1966. 20 Aguilera Cerni would include other artists in this tendance, some of them made the notion their own although there was only one collective exhibition that used “Crónica de la Realidad” as its title in 1965. The term was mentioned in the first manifesto of Equipo Crónica, which despite being signed with the names of the members of the group, according to Román de la Calle was written by Aguilera Cerni himself (de la Calle, Román, El ojo y la memoria: materiales para una historia del arte valenciano contemporáneo, Valencia 2006, 76). Even though Llorens and Bozal initially used the term in their own texts, in the end they were not comfortable with it nor with Aguilera Cerni’s attempts to become the leading theoretician of the movement. After 1966 Bozal, Llorens and Equipo Crónica distanced themselves from him. About this disagreement see Barreiro, Paula, Avant-garde Art and Criticism in Francoist Spain, Liverpool 2017, 260– 261. 21 About the diversity within Estampa Popular see De Haro García, Grabadores contra el franquismo. Tomàs Llorens has acknowledged the lack of homogeneity in Estampa Popular in recent texts like Llorens, Tomàs, “Els primers anys d’Equipo Crónica (1964–1970) i el seu context històric artistic”, in: Llorens, Boye/Llorens, Tomàs (curators), Equipo Crónica, Valencia 2016, 43.

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more articulate and coherent programme. In parallel, they were also included, and positively assessed, in the art historical accounts written by the authors they collaborated with. None of the other groups of Estampa Popular were in a similar situation. This was, in my opinion, decisive in the making of their diverging historiographical fortune, especially with regard to the better fortune of Estampa Popular de Valencia and Equipo Crónica. Despite their critique of Estampa Popular, which was mainly concerned with the detection of “deficiencies in the underlying base of its conception of realism”,22 the art critics and the artists of the Valencian groups still considered that the notion of realism was useful and productive. “Realism” was the answer to the question of “how to make constructive popular art” according to the presentation text of Estampa Popular de Valencia exhibition in the University of Valencia’s Faculty of Medicine in 1964.23 In his presentation, Llorens said that the whole movement of Estampa Popular was defined by its adscription to the aesthetics of “intentional realism” which meant the “correspondence of the ethical content proposed by the artist with the master lines directing the wishes and social aspirations of the people”.24 The term “realism” appeared repeatedly in the poster-manifesto of Equipo Crónica in 196525 and the very interesting text presenting the collaboration of Estampa Popular de Valencia in the magazine Cartelera Turia in 1967 affirmed that Estampa Popular was “characterised by its ‘realist’ will”.26

|| 22 Llorens, “Un any d’estampa popular de valència”, 41–43. 23 “Por qué hacer un arte popular…” text in the brochure of the Estampa Popular de Valencia exhibition at the University of Valencia’s Faculty of Medicine, December 1964. 24 Llorens, Tomàs, “El movimiento Estampa Popular…” text written for the presentation of the Estampa Popular de Valencia exhibition at the University of Valencia’s Faculty of Medicine, December 1964. Reproduced in: Gandía Casimiro, José (curator), Estampa Popular, Valencia 1996, 24–25. 25 Equipo Crónica, Poster-manifesto, 1965. Reproduced in: Llorens/Llorens (curators), Equipo Crónica, 76. 26 Toledo, Juan-A., “Estampa Popular de Valencia”, in: Cartelera Turia, 1967, Nr 164, 2.

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Fig. 78: Cartelera Turia, 1967, nr 164. Cover by Estampa Popular de Valencia and text by one of the members of the group, Joan A. Toledo.

References to “realism” and “reality” were included in the texts presenting the first exhibitions and in the name itself of another team created in Valencia in 1966: Equipo Realidad. Like Equipo Crónica, its two members also opted for teamwork and avoided individual authorship. They were involved in the university movement and were part of antifrancoist political and artistic circles in Valencia.27 In 1967 Equipo Realidad stated that “a contemporary ‘realism’, deeply connected to the transformative factors of our society” was needed so that a work of art could achieve social transformative endeavours.28 Among the texts that included a reflection on “realism” that were produced by the authors directly connected with the artists a few years later, the 1972 overview of the activities of Equipo Crónica stands out. Llorens stated that the basis of their understanding of realism was to be found in Bertolt Brecht’s distancing effect (Verfremdung) in combination with the reflection on language and on its anchoring on the specific historic context. That was the way to solve

|| 27 There are individual publications about these groups, the first study that provided an overview of them all was Marín Viadel, Ricardo, El realismo social en la plástica valenciana, Valencia 1981. 28 Equipo Realidad, “Desde el momento en que…”, text first published in the catalogue of the exhibition Le Monde en Question in 1967. Reproduced in: Millet, Teresa/Gandía Casimiro, José (curators), Equipo Realidad, Valencia 1993, 1.

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the problems they had detected in “realism”, to make a transformative tool of it.29

A common front and genealogy There is no doubt that each art group mentioned in the previous pages interpreted “realism” in different and changing ways. However, what is relevant is that they all considered that keeping, and sharing, the term was worth it. Among other things, it helped to build a network that connected most antifrancoist intellectuals with one another. It also linked them with the past, namely with the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.30 Finally, it also established connections with critical initiatives in other Western countries and expressed affinities with the Eastern counter model. In summary, it was useful to build a common front and a genealogy for antifrancoist art. These artists were well aware of the state of the international artistic scene at the time, especially in what concerned the importance and visibility that figuration was acquiring in Europe. For example, the artists in the groups in Valencia were very interested in what the artists of the Figuration Narrative were doing in France. They were in contact with one of the artists involved in it, the exiled Eduardo Arroyo. In fact, according to Llorens, when they formulated the project of Equipo Crónica, they had in mind the international model of the tendency represented by Arroyo, Gilles Aillaud and Antonio Recalcati and their work for the II Paris Biennale in 1963.31 Equipo Crónica would be invited to participate in events like the Salon de la Jeune Peinture in 1965 and 1967 and in the exhibitions Bande dessinée et figuration narrative and Le monde en question, both in 1967. Equipo Realidad was also invited to participate in Le monde en question.32

|| 29 See the texts by Tomàs Llorens in VV.AA., Exposición antológica del Equipo Crónica, Sevilla 1975. 30 Many of the texts by Llorens included historical reflections that went back to the nineteenth century. See also the books by Bozal about realism: Bozal, Valeriano, El realismo plástico en España de 1900–1936, Madrid 1967; Bozal, El realismo, entre el desarrollo y el subdesarrollo. 31 Llorens, Tomàs, Equipo Crónica, Barcelona 1972, 9. 32 About Figuration Narrative and the Salon de la Jeune Peinture see Ameline, JeanPaul/Ajac, Bénédicte (curators), La figuration Narrative. Paris 1960–1972, Paris 2008; Parent, Francis/Perrot, Raymond, Le Salon de la Jeune Peinture. Une histoire 1950–1983. Réédition 2016 avec annexe, Paris 2016.

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Like their colleagues in France, the artists in Equipo Realidad and Equipo Crónica, as well as those in all the groups of Estampa Popular, considered that what they did was not comparable with Pop art because it did not share their critical stance. Even though some art critics at the time might have put Equipo Crónica and Equipo Realidad in relation with Pop, none of the artists or the authors that were close to them used the label “Pop” to refer to their work at the time: they actually explicitly differentiated and distanced themselves from it.33 Even though they studied it and often cited it in their own work, as they did with other works of art, Llorens still affirms that they were distant from Pop in their “conception of realism”.34 Despite this, many authors have stressed the connection of Equipo Realidad, Equipo Crónica or Estampa Popular de Valencia with Pop art while downplaying or even silencing their reflections on realism. There is no reason to think they do not mean well. After all, Pop is nicely positioned in the Western art historical discourse and canon. Realism, on the other hand, is not. In what could be considered an over-simplified version of the discourse, only Estampa Popular de Valencia achieved progress, as it was Pop (or very similar to it), while the remaining groups of Estampa Popular were “stuck” in their outdated realism. Maybe the difficulties of integrating realism in the Western twentieth century art canon can partially explain why there was almost nothing by Estampa Popular in the collection of the Museo Reina Sofía until 2010. Then, as an outcome of the revision of its discourse by its newly appointed director Manuel Borja-Villel, the museum acquired a large collection of works by the groups to create a room entirely devoted to them. Unfortunately, after a few years, this room was dismantled.35 The incorporation of the work of these artists within the established art historical narrative might lead paradoxically, to stressing the “difference” of Span-

|| 33 A number of references could be provided to exemplify this. See, for example, these texts written by Llorens in 1965, 1972 and 2016: Llorens, Tomàs, “Estampa Popular de Valencia”, in: Aulas 65, 26–27, 1965, 32; Llorens, Equipo Crónica, 13–18; Llorens, “Els primers anys d’Equipo Crónica (1964–1970) i el seu context històric artistic”, 47–49. An interesting overview of the reception of pop in Spain is Díaz Sánchez, Julián, “Sobre la recepción del ‘pop-art’ en España”, in: Cabañas, Miguel (ed.), El arte foráneo en España: presencia e influencia, Madrid 2004, 495– 504. 34 Llorens, “Els primers anys d’Equipo Crónica (1964–1970) i el seu context històric artistic”, 49. 35 However, in an interesting turn that updates the groups’ circulation aspirations (but which also separates it from the collection on display), the museum has recently created a microsite devoted to Estampa Popular. Obra destacada de la colección: Estampa Popular https://www.museoreinasofia.es/obra-destacada/estampa-popular (Accessed: 15.06.2019).

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ish Pop, which in the late 1990s “smelled of politics”.36 This contrasts with the “normal”, and we can suppose, “odourless” Pop. This characterisation recalls well-known binaries: difference/normality, nature/culture, feminine/masculine, barbaric/civilised, etc. As a result, the artists end up in a subordinate, marginal (even if fascinating and exotic) position in the master narrative. This problem does not only affect Spanish art. Some authors have specifically reflected on the problems implied by the acceptance of the term “Pop art” by (local) art history outside its “centres”, considering art history as a self-colonising tool.37 Piotr Piotrowski has also pointed this out.38 Exhibitions like The World Goes Pop intended to contribute to challenging and redefining the notion of “Pop” revealing how it “was often a subversive international language for criticism and public protest across the globe”. Indeed, the wide range of works of art and artists presented in the exhibition is noteworthy, as is its feminist approach.39 The artists’ interviews on the exhibition website show however, that many of them did not consider themselves as pop artists back then.40 Why then was “Pop” chosen as the all-encompassing label? Why wasn’t there any recognition of the names, terms and arguments that were relevant locally? It would have been interesting to explore the real and imagined links, including those connecting the two sides of the Iron Curtain, that might have emerged if “realism” had been taken as a lead.41

|| 36 Daniel, Marko, “What is different about Spanish pop?” in: Jeffett, William (curator), Spain is different. Post-Pop and the New Image in Spain, Norwich 1998, 29–41. 37 Timár, Katalin, “Is Your Pop Our Pop? The History of Art as a Self-Colonizing Tool”, in: Artmargins, 16 March 2002, https://artmargins.com/is-your-pop-our-pop-the-history-of-art-asa-self-colonizing-tool/(Accessed: 15.06.2019). 38 Piotrowski, Piotr, “Why Were There No Great Pop Art Curatorial Projects in Eastern Europe in the 1960s?” in: Öhrner, Annika (ed.), Art in Transfer in the Era of Pop, Stockholm 2017, 23. 39 The EY Exhibition: The World Goes Pop, press release, 14 September 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/press/press-releases/ey-exhibition-world-goes-pop (Accessed: 15.06.2019). See also the exhibition catalogue Morgan, Jessica/Frigeri, Flavia (curators), The World Goes Pop, London 2015. 40 That is the case of Joan Cardells (member of Equipo Realidad with Jorge Ballester) and Manolo Valdés (member of Equipo Crónica with Rafael Solbes). It is interesting and telling that they do not mention that, for them, “realism” was a key term. “Artists interviews”, in: The World Goes Pop, Tate Modern exhibition website https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tatemodern/exhibition/ey-exhibition-world-goes-pop/artist-interview (Accessed: 15.06.2019). 41 The project To Each Its Own Reality (2010–2016) led by Mathilde Arnoux is an interesting example of the results that such explorations can produce. Own Reality. To Each His Own Reality, research project website https://dfk-paris.org/en/ownreality (Accessed: 15.06.2019).

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For artists and authors who were engaged in political activities in Spain, advocating “realism” was an important weapon in a common initiative to dispute the dictatorship’s legitimacy to represent and make sense of modernity, and specifically, of the Spanish artistic avant-garde.42 In this sense, it is revealing that the Spanish exhibition in the 1976 Venice Biennale, which is considered to be a turning point in the history of art in Spain, devoted special attention to realism and to establishing its role in the genealogy of Spanish avant-garde. It was entitled Spain. Artistic avant-garde and social reality: 1936–1976, and it was not organised by specialists appointed by the Spanish government but by a group of antifrancoist artists and art critics. Llorens, Bozal and Equipo Crónica were among them. The aim of their project was “to analyse and correct the image of the Spanish avant-garde that the Biennale had been offering until its 1972 crisis”.43 In the text presenting their first exhibition in 1975, the art collective La Familia Lavapiés expressed the necessity to provide an “objective image” of the “real country”. The “critical revision of artistic language” was also important.44 These ideas had much to do with the debates within the Maoist organisation that most of the members of the collective were part of. But they were also related to those taking place within the artistic antifrancoist community and network. In fact, it was this broader and critical community that La Familia Lavapiés considered to be the main recipient of its exhibitions and for this community “reality” and “objectivity” seemed to be still relevant in the mid-1970s.45 Adaptable to different contexts and situations, the idea of “realism” served as a tool for cohesion in a long-term antifrancoist struggle. It bound together agents that were acting in different fields and contexts in a number of ways. Despite the continuous debates that existed among politically committed intellectuals, this notion made their front and their members recognisable. It is only by paying attention to their creations, their discourses and ideas that the richness of this panorama can be appreciated and understood. When this is done, “realism” appears as a protean resilient notion that facilitated frame alignment between diverse antifrancoist groups and actors: artists, activists, political par|| 42 In this vein, see Moreno Galván, Pintura Española. La última vanguardia, pp. 165ff. 43 Bozal, Valeriano/Llorens, Tomàs (coords.), España. Vanguardia artística y realidad social: 1936–1975, Barcelona 1976, XII. Italics in the original. 44 La Familia Lavapiés, Arte-contradicción, catalogue of the exhibition at the galería-librería Antonio Machado 1975, 2–3, 12. 45 About La Familia Lavapiés, see de Haro García, Noemi, “La Familia Lavapiés: Maoism, art and dissidence in Spain”, in: Galimberti, Jacopo/de Haro García, Noemi/Scott, Victoria H.F. (eds.), Art, Global Maoism and the Cultural Revolution, Manchester 2019, 187–211.

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ties, etc. It made resonances with the past and the present possible, at a national and a transnational level, establishing connections between the two sides of the Iron Curtain and creating a rich, complex and much needed genealogy for antifrancoism. It was also important because it enabled the integration of the activities of artists in diverse (artistic and political) fields into an avant-garde common front that could challenge the system imposed by the dictatorship, over a long period of time.

Paula Ribeiro Lobo

(Ir)Real Portugal Dictatorship and Resistance in Neo-Realism, Surrealism and Abstraction By 1949, when Salazar’s dictatorship had re-tightened its repressive mechanisms and cut short the democratic hopes that had emerged with the Allies’ victory in World War II, the very definition of reality in Portugal, if not the reality of Portugal, became a central concern and matter of debate among the painters, writers and literati who, for some years, tried to form a front of artistic resistance to the regime. This front, which consisted of Neo-Realists, Surrealists and painters exploring abstraction, housed rather different, even conflictual, views of how resistance was to be fleshed out aesthetically, and which view of reality had to be adopted to this aim, as this chapter intends to show. Before laying out the different trends that converged in this heterogeneous artistic front of resistance, however, we first need to take stock of three fundamental challenges this divided front met from the start.

Challenges First and foremost, perhaps, there was the predominantly backward-looking situation in the arts, which had always held Realism at an arm’s length, whether it be the historical emanations of Realism in the nineteenth century, or forms of realism developed later on. Indeed, in the early decades of the twentieth century, most Portuguese painters, including many who had studied in Paris or Germany and travelled across Europe, by far preferred to follow the aesthetic paths of Romanticism or late Naturalism instead of the raw Realism of a Courbet or a Géricault. Overall, Portuguese pictorial production had barely any surprises, which derived from a confluence of factors: there were few exhibition venues and commercial art galleries,1 no specialised art critics and so almost no art

|| 1 Inaugurated in 1913, the headquarters of the artistic society Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes was the main venue in Lisbon for regular salons and art exhibitions – including the initial ones promoted after 1935 by SPN-SNI (the dictatorship’s office of propaganda), prior to the opening of its own exhibition space. The first commercial art gallery in Lisbon, Galeria UP https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-027

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criticism; the public accordingly lacked knowledge and had a conservative taste; academy teaching and regular salons promoting and awarding academic painting ruled, while there was scarce state investment—the National Contemporary Art Museum created in 1911 for a long time neglected its duties to the contemporary. Some artists occasionally stirred the scene but, in such context, any spark of avant-garde activity seemed to be fated to general mock and scorn. Such was the case, for instance, in 1916, when painter Amadeo de SouzaCardoso (1887–1919) presented his work in Porto and Lisbon. The decade he had lived in Paris had widened his studies, artistic horizons and international recognition, as demonstrated by his participation in modern art exhibitions such as the Salon des Indépendants of 1911 (where his works were presented in the legendary Room 41), the Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon organised by Der Sturm in 1913, or his successful presentation in New York’s Armory Show of 1913.2 He was the first Portuguese artist to effectively take part in cross-Atlantic modernist dialogues. By 1916 Amadeo already mastered a very personal approach to painting and pushed his work to the experimental grounds of the international historical avant-gardes, with whom he established close formal relations as well as personal friendships.3 Caught by the outbreak of the World War I, which forced him to stay in Portugal, he began to incorporate reality directly into his paintings by inserting fragments and objects of daily life, until he died in 1918. Portugal at this point was far from ready to acknowledge his aesthetic significance, and reactions to his Porto and Lisbon exhibitions in 1916 were, unsurprisingly, openly hostile. However, for the few, including the then Futurist Almada Negreiros (1893–1970), who saw and actually understood the range of his artistic research, Amadeo’s loss would have a long-lasting effect. Amadeo became a sort of mythical figure, a paradigmatic model of experimentation and bold achievement, but his works, and their penchant for an alternative realism, would remain absent from public view until the 1950s.4 As a result,

|| (run by actor, stage director, writer and Surrealist painter António Pedro) was active from 1933 to 1936. Commercial photography studios and furniture shops were frequent venues. 2 Amadeo sent eight paintings to the Armory Show (of which seven were sold to prominent art collectors), exhibited side by side with Marcel Duchamp, Duchamp Villon, Gleizes, Léger, Metzinger and Picabia. See Freitas, Helena de, “Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso “1887–1918”, in: Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso: Pintura: Catálogo Raisonné, Lisboa 2008, 17–37 [english translation: 422–435]. 3 Among others, with Modigliani, Boccioni, Walter Pach, Juan Gris, Max Jacob, Brancusi, Diego Rivera, Sonia and Robert Delaunay. 4 Amadeo’s paintings were exhibited in Paris and Chicago during 1920s and 1930s. In Portugal he was represented at a group exhibition in 1925 (I Salão de Outono, Sociedade de Belas Artes,

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even the younger generations of experimental artists championing him perhaps badly understood his actual work. If realism was, in short, a relatively alien body in the Portuguese art scene, secondly, the art scene had become more susceptible to political disputes and ideological frictions. Portuguese modernist painters, regardless of their political stances, had played a crucial role in defining a new image of Portugal – and for Portugal – during the early years of Salazar’s Estado Novo. (This occurred in line with what happened in other countries, where European avant-gardes also contributed with figuration to a retour à l’ordre and collaborated with authoritarian regimes.5) Indeed, cooperating with the SPN-SNI,6 the office of national propaganda created in 1933 and directed until 1949 by journalist, publicist and Modernism enthusiast António Ferro (1895–1956), Portuguese modernists had decorated pavilions for national and international exhibitions, edited photomontages and created graphic designs for official publications, researched traditions to (re)create regional imagery and outfits for folk dances, and, of course, had also been assigned to embellish symbolic public buildings. Given the economic crisis of 1930s, the dictatorial regime and the inexistence of an art market, such public commissions for many of course brought the chance to work and make some living from art. These modernist artists met with strong criticism from both sides of the ideological barricade. The right wing forces that supported the dictatorship distrusted the modernists from the very start. Despite the regime’s overt connections with Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, and as can be expected in times of fervent nationalism, many disapproved of the influence of international models in Portuguese modernist art – if not directly linked it to Communist values. Accusations of not or misrepresenting Portuguese reality were quite common. Even though, thirdly, there was no thorough and generalised knowledge about the reality of the country itself: roads and railways were still being built to connect cities and villages; national radio was taking its first steps and, like the

|| Lisbon), but only in 1952 his works became regularly exhibited. His first major retrospective was presented by SNI in 1959, in Lisboa and Porto. 5 See Clair, Jean, “Données d’un Problème”, in: Les Realismes 1919–1939, Paris 1980, 8–14. See also Buchloh, Benjamin, “Figures of Authority, Ciphers of Regression: Notes on the Return of Representation in European Painting”, in: October, Vol. 16, 1981 (Art World Follies), 39–68. And see also Devillez, Virginie, “The Avant-Garde on the reworking of tradition”, in: Nathalie Aubert/Pierre Philippe Fraiture/Patrick McGuiness (eds.), From Art Nouveau to Surrealism. Belgian Modernity in the Making, Cambridge 2007, 142–151. 6 The Secretariado de Propaganda Nacional (SPN) was renamed Secretariado Nacional de Informação (SNI) in 1944.

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press, subjected to censorship; the rates of poverty and illiteracy were very high, and official statistic data compilation had only recently been centralised and intensified. In short, the “reality” of Portugal was poorly known and there was plenty of margin for the work of imagination and propaganda. In 1940, for example, captain Henrique Galvão, then a prominent coordinator of colonial exhibitions and director of the Emissora Nacional, the official radio, accused the “internationalism” of António Ferro’s modernist statepropaganda, putting it in the following terms: “One is writing the French way, painting the Spanish way, building the American way – but neither in form nor in motifs, that is to say, neither in technique nor in inspiration, the artists are Portuguese”.7 In the late 1940s even Almada Negreiros, the most prolific and notable among modernists to have collaborated with the Estado Novo’s propaganda, was still subject of rejection at the highest official ranks.8 He was commissioned to paint the murals of Lisbon’s two new Maritime Stations, but when he finished the first assignment at the Alcântara Station the minister of Public Works considered the frescoes an eyesore. Only after recommendations from reputable experts and Ferro’s personal mediation with Salazar, the murals were kept. However, for the second station, Rocha do Conde de Óbidos, the commission had several setbacks and Almada faced a much tighter preliminary scrutiny. In 1948 the outcome caused quite a stir. One of the triptychs, titled Quay, depicted the melancholic atmosphere surrounding the departure of an ocean liner. In other words, it represented a population divided between the hope to find a better life in exile, migration to the colonies or emigration to Brazil, and the grim perspective of getting stuck in Salazar’s Portugal. The option to destroy that mural was on the table, and political motivations were behind the dissatisfaction with such a monumental scale portrait of the nation, decorating a public building aimed to welcome foreigners. Quay ultimately got spared and is nowadays considered a masterpiece, but in 1953, when Almada was already intensifying his speculative research on Portuguese 15th century painting and the mathematical ratio 9/10, he placed the polemic in due terms by telling a newspaper that, even though he was not “an enthusiast” of such an artistic movement, “all artists consciously make ‘social

|| 7 Translated by the author. Galvão, Henrique, “Prefácio”, in: Exposição do Mundo Português: Secção Colonial, n.l., 1940, n.p. (paragraph 20). 8 Lobo, Paula Ribeiro, “Almada and the Maritime Stations: The portrait of Portugal that the dictatorship wanted to erase”, in: Revista de História da Arte/Série W, 2014, Nr. 2, 342–352. http://revistaharte.fcsh.unl.pt/rhaw2/RHAw2.pdf (Stand: 12.05.2019).

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realism’”.9 His words denoted the ideological combat taking place. On the one hand, the left wing opposition distrusted him and dismissed many modernists for their role in the dictatorship’s propaganda and for conveying bourgeois culture. On the other hand, from the most orthodox right wing perspective, his murals were seen as an artistic expression defying the regime. The dividing line had already become clearer during the Spanish Civil War, when a new front of resistance had been established as well.

Neo-Realism Portuguese Neo-Realism was the artistic answer of the left to the rise of fascisms and Salazar’s alignment with Franco. Initially emerging as a literary movement during the second half of 1930s, with trans-Atlantic links to Brazilian and North American literature concerned with portraying social problems, Neo-Realism represented the counterpoint to individualist modernist writing. The label was adopted so as to dodge censors, given the possible connotations with soviet Socialist Realism. In 1939, after a violent attack by a well-known local who classified modern art as “degenerate” and “internationalist”, newspaper O Diabo asked a selection of critics and artists for their views of the origin and universal role of modern art. Among them was Almada,10 but also the young intellectual, amateur artist and future leader of the Portuguese Communist Party, Álvaro Cunhal. For the latter modern art was to echo issues of historical progress and give form to present-day reality; while he also thought that “although national in form” modern art was above all to be “universal in its content”.11 In this way he settled the visual premises of Neo-Realism, and although it became immediately evident to many that the parameters for Neo-Realist art were anti-formalist and far from

|| 9 Lobo, Paula Ribeiro, “Almada and the Maritime Stations”, 350. 10 For Almada Negreiros Portuguese modern art was closely related to History of Art. However, he averred, Portuguese art had failed to keep up in the nineteenth century and because of that the “pseudo-orthodox” people “strapped” to previous periods were now “looking for pathologies and politics” in modern artists’ explanations. See “Depõem críticos e artistas acêrca da Génese e da Universalidade da Arte Moderna”, in: O Diabo, Ano V, 29.04.1939, n. 240, 5–8. 11 “Depõem críticos e artistas acêrca da Génese e da Universalidade da Arte Moderna”, O Diabo, 5–8.

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clear, for some time the label managed to unite and engage an increasing number of artists who set out to give Portugal an alternative, projected reality. Visual references ranged widely, from Goya, Cézanne and Picasso to Léger, Grosz, Central-European Expressionism and the Mexican muralists, not only in the numerous and aesthetically diverse paintings exhibited under the umbrella of the movement, but also in murals designed for public buildings, drawings, engravings and illustrations for novels. Despite its heterogeneous formal matrix, Neo-Realism in art historiography12 was for a long time overshadowed (if not eventually dismissed) for its perceived ties to soviet cultural models – a prejudice Neo-Realists themselves also fostered by frequently calling for the necessity of an “art for the people”, by valuing certain social groups and thematic stereotypes, and by letting themselves get caught up in internal disputes and polemics surrounding the so-called “battle of content”. Vivid debates on national and international models, on how to combine modernity and tradition, and on the best formal approach as well as social function of art had been recurrent in Portugal since the 1920s. Such debates had yielded deep divergences which, more than being based on art theory, were related to ideological and pragmatic issues.13 Yet, although positions were marked, Neo-Realist critics of the aesthetics promoted by SPN-SNI official propaganda very often ended up discussing formal aspects among themselves.14 A key moment in the history of Portuguese Neo-Realism was the inclusion of Portinari’s Coffee (1935) in the Brazilian pavilion at the Portuguese World Exhibition, held in Lisbon in 1940 to celebrate national history and extol the Estado Novo. Already known by (poor quality) photographic reproductions in catalogues and newspapers, Coffee would remain a visual reference, a role model to decry labour exploitation and aesthetically emphasise manual work. The hard life conditions of peasants and blue-collar workers, frequently observed during organised field sessions and aesthetic missions, inspired numerous drawings, engravings and paintings – among which the iconic Gadanheiro (The Reaper) and Almoço do Trolha (The Bricklayer’s Lunch), both painted by Júlio Pomar (1926–2018) and considered Neo-Realist masterpieces. Pomar would soon after experiment and proceed in other directions with distinctive con-

|| 12 Santos, David, “Da ambição de uma arte para o povo ao esquecimento contemporâneo: caminhos do neo-realismo visual português”, in: David Santos (eds.), Uma arte do povo, pelo Povo e para o Povo: Neo-Realismo e Artes Plásticas, Vila Franca de Xira 2007, 8–14. 13 Esquível, Patrícia, Teoria e Crítica de Arte em Portugal (1921–1940), Lisboa 2007, 21–60 and 99. 14 Esquível, Patrícia, Teoria e Crítica de Arte em Portugal (1921–1940), 261.

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sistency and acclaimed results, but by then he was not only the younger and leading painter of the movement but also one of the most prolific promotors of Neo-Realism in the press.15 From 1946 to 1956, the Neo-Realists presented their works at the Exposições Gerais de Artes Plásticas (commonly referred as Gerais), annual group exhibitions that took place in Lisbon, at the Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes. Amassing diverse perspectives and unbalanced results, the exhibitions worked as pretext for a common front of artistic resistance to Portuguese dictatorship and its “politics of the spirit” concocted by António Ferro.16 In fact, to exhibit at the Gerais participants had to meet only one requirement: to cut the ties with Ferro’s Exposições de Arte Moderna, which had been organised by SPN-SNI since 1935. The first edition of the Gerais was a massive success, and even the proregime press hailed it. But it was the second edition, in 1947, that became legendary. Newspaper Diário da Manhã denounced it as the “communist front” on its front page, including photos of some works on display. The Minister of Interior personally led a raid of the premises, ordering political police to seize 12 paintings – among them Júlio Pomar’s Resistência (1946), depicting a young woman held captive by two Nazi soldiers.17 From then on, the Gerais had to submit to prior censorship. But crowds rummaged the venue to see the empty spaces of seized artworks and what had been left. Also, in 1947 several contributing artists formed the first Surrealist group in Portugal, to which we will presently return. One year later, and opposing to censorship scrutiny, this group withdrew their works from the Gerais and parted ways with Neo-Realists. Discussions about how art could affect cultural revolution, among others through the education of the masses, were a common feature of dictatorships regardless of geography or ideological field.18 In the Portuguese oppositional art context such discussions were largely informed by debates within the French

|| 15 Pomar, Alexandre, “Júlio Pomar. O Neo-Realismo, e depois (1942–1968)”, in: Alexandre Pomar/Marcelin Pleynet (eds.), Júlio Pomar, Catálogo “Raisonné” I. Pinturas, Ferros e Assemblages 1942–1968, Lisboa 2004. https://www.academia.edu/741356/Julio_Pomar._O_neorealismo_e_depois._1942–1968 (Stand: 20.05.2019). 16 For a comprehensive analysis on this subject, see Acciaiuoli, Margarida, António Ferro - A Vertigem da Palavra. Retórica, Política e Propaganda no Estado Novo, Lisboa 2013. 17 Dinis, Hugo, Almoço do Trolha. Farrapeira. Resistência, Lisboa 2017, 13–15. 18 For Italian, German and Soviet cases, see Ades, Dawn/Benton, Tim/Whyte, Iain Boyd (eds.), Art and Power: Europe under the Dictators 1930–1945, London 1995. See also Groys, Boris, Art Power, Cambridge, London 2008.

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cultural scene.19 As a result, political issues somehow relegated to a secondary plan the analysis of Neo-Realism’s multifarious visual outlook—and actually only in recent decades has this formal diversity become the subject of more consistent academic research and exhibitions.20 However, power disputes should not be neglected when addressing this formal diversity and its uneven aesthetic output, given the fact that politics was at the core of the rise and decline of Neo-Realism. Warnings that discussing form and content in a dichotomous way would lead to orthodox biases and divide artists, came quite early on from Mário Dionísio (1916–1993), a teacher, writer, self-taught painter and main theorist of Neo-Realism—a designation he actually preferred to use in the plural form. In 1938 he called attention to the traps of such a dichotomy, reminding his readers that humanist and social art were not necessarily the same as a doctrinal pamphlet art.21 Later, as co-organiser of the Gerais, he authored the manifesto of intentions published in the catalogue of the first edition, in 1946, and he also had a painting confiscated by political police the following year. The Gerais, as he put it, were a “large political rally without words”.22 Nonetheless, for him matters of aesthetics had to be considered on their own terms, not on those of politics. Dionísio systematically supported the idea that form and content were inseparable, and that painters, as members of a lively society, in order to create new images could not simply focus on a certain social angle and obliterate previous formal models and techniques.23 Among others, he wrote books and essays on Van Gogh, Picasso, Rivera and German Expressionism; interviewed Portinari and Léger; studied the theoretical approaches of Wölfflin, Francastel, Antal and Hauser, and knew the writings on art by Baudelaire, Proust and Malraux. For Dionísio, there should be no distinction between portraying a fisherman or a banker, because the question should not be put in terms of social classes but strictly remain in art’s own terms. And in that he collided with a narrower understanding of Neo-Realism, closer to Zhdanov’s premises, which deemed form as illustration of content. Cutting the ties with the Portuguese || 19 Racine, Nicole, “La Querelle du Réalisme (1935–36)”, in: Sociétés & Représentations, n. 15, Décembre 2002, 113–132. 20 The Museu do Neo-Realismo opened in 2007 in Vila Franca de Xira, near Lisboa. 21 Lobo, Paula Ribeiro, “A necessidade de ver claro”, in: Sonhar com as Mãos. O desenho na obra de Mário Dionísio, Lisboa 2011, 14. 22 Dionísio, Mário, “Para a história da resistência portuguesa”, in: Diário de Notícias, Lisboa 05.3.1975. 23 Lobo, Paula Ribeiro Lobo, “A necessidade de ver claro”, 16.

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Communist Party in 1952 and with the Gerais the following year,24 Dionísio would later write that Neo-Realism could not be achieved in art through “newspaper articles, invectives or decrees”, and summarised the situation in 1954 in disenchanted terms: “It would be of little use to pronounce and chew the word ‘realism’, if we couldn’t understand that realism will always be the exact antonym of the graveyard. Originality only frightens the mediocre. There is no love of the real without boldness.” 25 Without contradicting himself, Mário Dionísio could thus claim that abstraction and figuration were the two halves of the same thing, and as such the real was obviously also present in the abstract works (which he so much admired) of Maria Helena Vieira da Silva (1808–1992), for instance. Although she had exhibited in Lisbon from the 1930s onward, Vieira da Silva had lived in Paris since her artistic formation years and went into exile in Rio de Janeiro during World War II, where she kept developing her singular research and established close contacts with Brazilian modernists, before returning to Europe and becoming a French citizen with her husband Arpad Szenes. For decades, she would remain the most international of Portuguese-born painters and she is still a key reference in Lyrical Abstraction. As for Dionísio, after publishing his major theoretical essay (A Paleta e o Mundo, finished in 1962), he, too, would follow the path of abstraction.

Abstraction Portuguese abstraction emerged in the context of 1940s not as a mere import of foreign models, but mainly as a drive to form and a “conscious process of aesthetic search” to reconnect painting to earlier avant-garde and modernist research.26 The movement was pioneered by Fernando Lanhas and Nadir Afonso, two young architects who were academy colleagues in Porto. Encouraged by

|| 24 Several artists that exhibited at Gerais had also participated in SNI organised Portuguese representation to Bienal de São Paulo of 1953. Considering that such collaboration with Estado Novo’s office of propaganda violated the founding principles of the Gerais, Dionísio refused to further participate. 25 Translated by the author. Dionísio, Mário, “O Sonho e as Mãos II”, in: Dionísio, Mário, Entre Palavras e Cores – alguns dispersos (1937–1990), Lisboa 2009, 120 and 125 [first published in Vértice, Vol. XIV, n. 125, February 1954, 93–101]. 26 Almeida, Bernardo Pinto de, Arte Portuguesa no Século XX: Uma História Crítica, Matosinhos 2016, 165.

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their colleague Júlio Pomar (then the editor of an influential art page in the newspaper A Tarde), Lanhas and Nadir integrated the first national group exhibition of abstract art, in 1948, within the scope of Exposições Independentes. Although linked by friendship to several Neo-Realists, the forerunners of abstraction took their own solitary ways. The regular presentations of this socalled Generation of 45 promoted innovative aesthetic works that independently distanced themselves from Lisbon’s official and counter-official discourses and that placed Porto in a singular relation to the post-war avant-gardes abroad. Fernando Lanhas (1923–2012) painted his first abstract works in 1944, two years after his preliminary experiments in that direction. Architectural structuration, schematic use of forms, material density and the use of contiguous cold colours signalled how the harmony of his early compositions already pointed to a suspension of tensions related to some kind of ancestral mark.27 Lanhas, in other words, located the reality of Portugal elsewhere, in the soil of the country whose rocks allowed a primordial glimpse of a merged past and present, a bind between the universal and the Portuguese. His fascination with archaeology and astronomy, combined with his interest in collecting fossils, rocks and pebbles, was translated into his art to address other dimensions of the real, indeed. His painted rocks and pigments made of grinded stones not only related Lanhas abstractionism to the natural world, but also to primordial residues and inscriptions that connected different times through drawing.28 His rigorous, restrained painting has been described, more recently,29 as the result of a cartographical sense of movement towards something exterior to painting itself, related to a very personal metaphysical and essentialist quest. At least as original, though expressively different, was the work of Nadir Afonso (1920–2013), whose pioneering experimentations combined interesting visual articulations with theoretical perspectives on the notion of the real. As an architect, from 1946 onward Nadir worked in Paris at Le Corbusier’s office (contributing, among other projects, to Marseille’s Cité Radieuse), and Léger let him use his studio for painting. Nadir also lived in Brazil, in 1951–52, where he worked at Oscar Niemeyer’s office (collaborating in the project for IV Centennial of São Paulo), before he moved back to Europe and, in the mid-1960s, exclusively dedicated himself to painting. As a painter, after some early figurative works

|| 27 Dias, Fernando Rosa, “A Abstracção Geométrica nas Origens da Arte Abstracta em Portugal – Fernando Lanhas, Nadir Afonso, Almada Negreiros Joaquim Rodrigo”, in: Convocarte: Revista de Ciências das Arte, n. 3, September 2016, 167–168. 28 Dias, “A Abstracção Geométrica“. 29 Almeida, Bernardo Pinto de, Arte Portuguesa no Século XX, 168–169.

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related to gestural impressions and Surrealist imaginaries, his fascination with problems of space and time led him to geometrical abstraction and kinetic experiences. Nadir explored the internal dynamics, correlations and antinomies, contrasting geometric forms and vibrant colours for a phenomenology of perception. In the tri-dimensional compositions of his series Espacilimité (1954–55), lines, volumes, colour and background were translated as rhythm. The series configured multiple dimensions of reality through an internal normative aesthetic system based on natural laws, about which the painter would extensively write. Indeed, developing theory and art alongside one another, Nadir published several books that interwove art history, philosophy and mathematics: “In nature,” he claimed, from a materialist perspective “the evolutional process of creation is assertively guided by those physical, geometrical, mathematical norms that the brain of Man – the highest level of material development – can reflect and reproduce.”30 Nadir’s abstract understanding of reality was, in his own words, not incompatible with Marxist dialectics, provided that artistic creation was envisaged neither as mere representation of materiality nor as mere result of subjectivity. In his cityscapes, dematerialised streets and buildings were transformed into colourful motion syntheses. Geometrical relations in space gave us the notion of harmony, he argued. During the second half of the 1950s, Nadir exhibited in Paris at the Galerie Denise René and at the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles of 1958. Despite this international recognition, however, his universalising perspective on abstraction and reality was perceived in Portugal as being too intellectualist and ambiguous to be adopted by others who desired to contest the dictatorship and its renderings of the real.

Surrealism In contrast with Abstraction, Surrealism in Portugal was more widely related to political activism. The first references to Surrealism in Portugal dated back to the mid-1920s and the movement attracted attracted people from diverse backgrounds.31 Yet only in 1947 did Portuguese Surrealism gain an outspokenly col|| 30 Translated by the author with thanks to Sascha Bru. Afonso, Nadir, Da intuição artística ao raciocínio estético, Lisboa 2003, 8. 31 Surrealism was discussed in literary magazines from 1924–25 onwards and occasionally inspired some texts and artworks, but the first Surrealist drawings by António Pedro were

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lective character, when a group exhibited at the Exposições Gerais only to but break away from the Gerais a year later. As early as 1949, dissensus among Surrealists led to a split in two groups.32 Even though their work differed greatly, Breton’s international relaunch of Surrealism provided the Portuguese surge of the movement a set of basic, collective roots: all those involved shared as common ground the drive to unlock the unconscious, considering it as the only true realm of reality, and a libertarian drive, often bold in its political critique.33 Cruzeiro Seixas (born 1920) was an interesting example of such overrealism. His early works included metaphorical representations of Portugal’s past and present. Combining objects trouvés and estrangement strategies, he mocked the values of authoritarian leadership (as in L’Oppresseur, 1951, a cannonball with faucet and hat plume which together resembled a bust), while he equally derided the mystified national narrative on the empire (as in Portuguese Sea, 1952, a birdcage with a conch shell captured inside). Seixas travelled the Atlantic and lived in the then colony of Angola from 1950 to 1964, where he developed provocative Surrealist artworks and actions against colonialism. This activity put (and kept) him on the radar of the political police. While other Surrealists, too, got interested in African culture and iconography, to the point of assimilating them in their works,34 Seixas even after returning to Portugal re-

|| exhibited in 1936 in Galeria UP. In 1940, Pedro organised and participated in the first Surrealist collective exhibition in Lisbon, along with painter António Dacosta and English sculptor Pamela Boden. Several exhibitions and publications were produced, and Surrealism interested artists and intellectuals from the left wing but also less openly engagé people and even some people considered to be closer to the political right wing. See França, José-Augusto, A Arte em Portugal no Século XX (1911–1961), Lisboa 1991, 379–401. See also Ávila, María Jesús/Cuadrado, Perfecto E., Surrealismo em Portugal 1934–1952, Lisboa 2001. 32 Grupo Surrealista de Lisboa was formed in 1947, by artists and literati who practiced (or sympathised with) Neo-Realism, among them the painters Cândido Costa Pinto (who had met Breton in Paris but would be expelled from the group), Marcelino Vespeira, Fernando de Azevedo, António Domingues and Moniz Pereira; poets Mário Cesariny and Alexandre O’Neill; and art critic and historian José-Augusto França. They were joined by António Pedro. Following the dissention of 1949, poet and painter Mário Cesariny formed the group Os Surrealistas with Cruzeiro Seixas, Mário Henrique Leiria, António Maria Lisboa and Pedro Oom. 33 On the catalogue cover of their first exhibition, in January 1949, the Grupo Surrealista de Lisboa asked: “After 22 years of fear will we still be capable of a Freedom act? It’s absolutely necessary to vote against fascism”. With this statement the group publicly supported general Norton de Matos, the opposition’s candidate in the elections against President Oscar Carmona. Censorship immediately forbid the catalogue. Norton de Matos would give up running for the presidency shortly after, claiming the election process was not transparent. 34 Like Marcelino Vespeira (1925–2002), who after some neo-realist paintings (like Apertados pela Fome, 1945, exhibited the following year at Gerais) became a surrealist in 1947. He trav-

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mained a singular case because of his political denouncement of the country’s colonial reality. Fernando Lemos (born 1926) also deserves to be mentioned as a key Surrealist to have counterbalanced “the triumphant force of destructive form to overcome the note of violence”,35 which was characteristic of the Portuguese reality back then, with its culture of suspicion and repression. With a multifaceted oeuvre that spans from graphic design and drawing to painting, photography and poetry, Lemos is a painter in whatever medium he uses.36 Between 1949 and 1952, for instance, he handled the camera as a painting brush, undermining perspectival conventions by exploring framing, distance, dislocation, rotation, juxtaposition, shadows and tonal differences, often with remarkable effects.37 Still lives, cityscape fragments, random scenes and portraits, among which the extraordinary portraits of his Surrealist companions, deconstructed and shattered the visual mimetic assumptions which the Portuguese public had interiorized and come to admire so much. In 1952 he presented his photographs at a furniture shop, within what one critic described as “the most scandalous exhibition Lisbon had seen” since Amadeo’s rejection in 1916,38 resulting in Lemos and two fellow artists being branded as “sexually perverse”39 by shocked viewers who reported them to authorities. In 1953 he emigrated to Brazil, where he still lives. On the other side of the Atlantic Lemos got immediate praise, soon exhibiting his drawings at the Museu de Arte Moderna and the Bienal de São Paulo. His photographic “transfiguration[s] of the banal”40 would take longer to be widely recognised in Portugal as masterpieces of mid-century art.

|| elled to Angola and Mozambique in 1956, and African musical rhythms influenced several of his subsequent works, either in painting or illustrations for novels. 35 Translated by the author. Acciaiuoli, Margarida, Fernando Lemos, Lisboa 2005, 11. 36 Almeida, Bernardo Pinto de, Arte Portuguesa no Século XX, 216. 37 Proença, Miguel, Fernando Lemos: “Eu Sou a Fotografia”, Master Dissertation in Contemporary History of Art, Lisbon, FCSH/Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2010, 81–87. https://run.unl.pt/handle/10362/5539 (Stand: 28.05.2019). 38 França, José-Augusto, “Fernando Lemos expõe”, in: Diário de Lisboa, 14/6/1973, apud Acciaiuoli, Margarida, Fernando Lemos, 13. 39 According to Lemos, apud Aciaiuoli, Margarida, Fernando Lemos, 12. The artists were Lemos, Fernando de Azevedo and Marcelino Vespeira. 40 Almeida, Bernardo Pinto de, Arte Portuguesa no Século XX, 216.

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A Concluding Note of Photography One could expect that the Neo-Realists, who were in many ways related to Surrealist and abstraction impulses but explored more conventional and direct approaches to reality, would have chosen photography as a preferential medium. Yet the Gerais, which gathered architects concerned with real housing problems, and stimulated graphic artists and filmmakers paid little attention to photography, which only earned a dedicated section in 3 of its 10 editions. 41 Despite of the impulse coming from humanist photography, and despite the increasing number of Portuguese photo-salons, photo-clubs and photo-reportages, photography was mostly left aside in the Gerais. While the medium was used to document social and aesthetic enquiries, the Gerais refused aesthetic status to the photographic documentary42, did not exhibit some of the most interesting young photographers43 and barely presented photography as art, which in hindsight can be considered a major Neo-Realist paradox. Nonetheless, it was through photography that another powerful counterimage of the country was launched. Two years after the end of the Gerais one of the exhibitions’ co-organisers, architect Victor Palla (1922–2006), and his fellow architect Manuel Costa Martins (1922–1996), produced a photobook, which they called a graphic poem and which combined references to European and American photography, cinema and painting. Entitled Lisboa, Cidade Triste e Alegre, the work is a masterpiece of montage that balances out composed photographs of a melancholic Lisbon in grey tones with texts and poems telling of an “imprisoned capital”. In this “silent revolution of intimacy”, 44 now internationally acclaimed as one of the best photobooks of the twentieth century,45 lies perhaps the most accomplished multilayered synthesis of the mid-century quest for the real Portugal. || 41 In 1946, with works by Mário Novais. In 1950, with works by Adelino Lyon de Castro, Rodrigo de Vilhena, Manuel Peres and Francisco Keil do Amaral. And in 1955, with works by Frederico Pinheiro Chagas, Manuel Correia, Avelino Braga, Augusto Cabrita, Alberto Cardoso, Francisco Keil do Amaral, Joaquim Bento d’Almeida, Manuel Moreira and Victor Palla. 42 Photographs of the famous missions of Ciclo do Arroz (rice cycle), used as observation and memory aides to produce “fine art” works, were never exhibited at Gerais. Tavares, Emília, Batalha de Sombras – Colecção de Fotografia Portuguesa dos Anos 50 do Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea-Museu do Chiado, Vila Franca de Xira 2009, 47. 43 For instance, Gérard Castello-Lopes, Carlos Afonso Dias, Carlos Calvet and António Sena da Silva. 44 Sena, António, Une Histoire de la Photographie – Portugal 1839 à 1991, Lisbon 1991, 106. 45 Badger, Gerry/Parr, Martin, The Photobook: a History, Phaidon Press, 2014.

Mariana Pinto dos Santos

State-commission in Modern Times Realism and Modernism in the Mural Paintings of the Artist Almada Negreiros (1893–1970) State-commissioned art is what Reger calls the paintings hanging on these walls, including even the White-Bearded Man [by Tintoretto]. The so-called old masters only ever served the state or the Church, which comes to the same thing, as Reger says time and again, they served an emperor or a Pope, a duke or an archbishop. Just as the so-called free man is a utopia, so the so-called free artist has always been a utopia, Reger often says. Thomas Bernhard, Old Masters (1985) The ancient world knew that the public needed circuses as well as bread. And, policy apart, its rulers for their own glory and satisfaction expended an important proportion of the national wealth on ceremony, works of art and magnificent buildings. John Maynard Keynes, “Art and the State”, The Listener, BBC, 26 August 1936

In the 1940s the Portuguese artist José de Almada Negreiros (from now on referred to as Almada, as he preferred to sign his work), a multimedia artist (writer, dancer, painter, actor) who had been a major figure of the local futurist and avant-garde movement from the early twentieth century, was commissioned by the then fascist and colonial Portuguese regime to decorate two modern Shipping Terminals that were to be inaugurated in the country’s capital, Lisbon.* (Figs. 81–86) The Shipping Terminals were planned to receive the large passenger ships that until then had been unable to disembark directly in Lisbon, and Almada's paintings, seven metres high, were expected to be welcoming images to tourists and travellers. The Terminals were part of a policy for a massive renovation and construction of public buildings led by the dictatorship and directly related to the will to both modernise the country and to promote the regime’s image under the sign of novelty and modernity. The mural paintings the artist Almada made for these Shipping Terminals can be seen as a knot of tied temporalities where a complex interaction between realism and modernism takes place.

|| * This article was written in the context of the project Iberian modernisms and the primitivist imaginary (PTDC/ART-HIS/29837/2017) — co-financed by COMPETE 2020, Portugal 2020 and European Union (European Fund for Regional Development). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-028

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Almada had long played a leading role in the Portuguese literary and artistic avant-garde of the beginning of the century, having written four key Portuguese avant-garde manifestos between 1915 and 1917. He presented himself as a pictorial artist, but historians have considered the visual art production of his youth scarce, consisting mostly of drawings (he drew compulsively), graphic work and humorous cartoons. Actually, his art from the period was much more performative, and therefore only survives in a fragmented and mostly documentary way: he convened a famous futurist conference, choreographed and danced ballets inspired by the Ballets Russes, made public scandals (to use the expression preferred at that time) in the streets and cafes of Lisbon, and he also wrote poems and fiction in a performative and inventive pictorial language, which combined futurism, cubism and the pictorial ideas of the Delaunay couple (who lived in Portugal from 1915 to 1916), that put to practice the literary and artistic discussions in which he was involved with other avant-garde actors of the Portuguese art scene, most notably the poet Fernando Pessoa. At these meetings, some of the artists who had travelled to Paris would share their experiences, letters would be read from those who were still abroad, and they discussed the whole avant-garde European scene. The ones who had never left the country at the time, like Almada, would interpret this second-hand knowledge and recreate it at will. For instance, the idea of futurism, known to him only by manifestos, poems and avant-garde typography, was reinvented in his poems, fiction and drawings, that differed from the canonical futurist pictorial production he had never actually seen. It can be argued that the issue is not that Almada did not make enough visual art, but that his eclectic avant-garde practices were based in the idea that the visual was the basis of all art — and that resulted in the new inventive visual language performed in his writings.1 Most art history about late nineteenth and twentieth century Portuguese art has been no different from the conventional master narratives, ordering artists and their practices chronologically, one artistic movement or style succeeding the other and so on, sectioning time and generations, usually parting them in decades,2 determining how much correspondence they had with an artistic cen-

|| 1 This has been developed in the introduction to Almada Negreiros, José de, Ficções Lisboa 2016, 5–13, and also in several essays and catalogues, such as Vasconcelos, Ana (eds.), The Delaunay Circle, Lisboa 2015; and Pinto dos Santos, Mariana (eds.), José de Almada Negreiros: a way of being modern, Lisboa 2017. 2 The way José-Augusto França, the most prolific art historian from the twentieth century who shaped the Art History discipline in Portugal, parted the centuries in generations is analyzed by Salgueiro, Ana Rita, A Arte em Portugal no século XX (1911–1961). José-Augusto França e a

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tre (Paris), and their consequent belatedness towards that centre, praising those who managed to have an international career, fitting them in the usual lineage of avant-garde/ return to order/ realism/ abstractionism/ neo-avant-garde and so on. These arts and artists have systematically been regarded as being in a state of insufficiency.3 Almada has therefore traditionally been approached through his differing phases — caricaturist, futurist, modernist, abstractionist. The broader scope of contexts of art production in his time as well as the politics in which they depended have usually been dealt with only in the fields of cultural studies, anthropology, sociology or history. A critical art historical analysis of art production and its conditions in the periphery tends to produce a parallax effect (to use the well-known Hal Foster reference),4 which not only situates peripheral art and artists with regard to the set of constraints they are subjected to, but also reconfigures our perspective on the usual master narratives, so that they can be kept at bay.5 Focusing on the mural paintings by Almada, there are two main topics I would like to consider: one is the notion of the role of the artist and how it relates to the idea of state commissions; the other is the question of the dynamic between generational gaps and overarching shared temporalities and references. Eventually, this will contribute to some reflections on realisms and modernisms.

|| perspectiva Sociológica. Master dissertation presented at School of Social Sciences, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2012, printed document, 62f.; 82ff. 3 On the topic of belatedness in Portuguese art history, see Pinto dos Santos, Mariana, “Estou atrasado! Estou atrasado! – Sobre o atraso da arte portuguesa diagnosticado pela historiografia” in: André Barata/António Santos Pereira/José Ricardo Carvalheiro (eds.), Representações da Portugalidade, Lisboa 2011, 231–242. On the question of the periphery as a temporal unit implying belatedness, instead of a geographical indicator, see Vlachou, Foteini, “Why Spatial? Time and the Periphery” in: Vlachou, Foteini, The Disappointed Writer. Selected Essays, Lisboa 2019, 333–352. 4 Foster, Hal, The Return of the Real. Cambridge, London 1996. 5 For example, in Portugal, surrealism started more or less at the same time as realism, and endured until the 1970s, and was very much interconnected with experimental art and poetry of the late 1960s. This cannot be regarded a handicap or deficiency; instead, it must be taken into consideration as related to the specific conditions for artistic production and artistic reception, as well as the timings and context for artistic creation and the affirmation of artistic movements, in a peripheral European country.

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The artist’s role Almada always worked on commissions, as did many artists of the early twentieth century: making drawings for newspapers, paintings to decorate cafes and nightclubs, collaborating with architects, writers, musicians. This also happened most prolifically in Madrid, where he established himself after the military coup of 1926 that installed the dictatorship that would last until after his death, in 1974. There was relative freedom in these commissions (as much as a commission can provide freedom), both in Lisbon and in Madrid, which ended definitely in 1933, when Salazar altered the Constitution in order to forbid elections and legitimise his single-party government – the Estado Novo [New State]. Salazar had already been Minister for the Economy for the authoritarian regime established since 1926, but he in 1933 he was altering the dictatorship in such a way that it couldn’t be dismantled, and modelling it on the images of the other European fascisms.6 One of his new measures was the creation of the Secretariado da Propaganda Nacional [Secretariat for National Propaganda] (SPN) to promote the image of the regime and the nation. The agency was led by António Ferro, the ideologist who, observing the other dictatorships, would conceive for Portugal a propaganda (and correlated censorship) machine that would rely on modern art as much as on nationalist revivalism, praising and inventing ancient national heroes and cultivating national styles (like manuelino). In short, inventing a useful tradition. As pointed out by the anthropologist Vera Marques Alves,7 Portugal’s image as constructed by the SPN – aiming to promote it abroad as a simultaneously modern and picturesque country, as well as to further the nationalist indoctrination of the country’s middle and upper classes –, was the outcome of a combination of modernism and tradition, with the latter especially being explored through the appropriation, manipulation, and also invention, of folk art and culture. The name of this policy was Política do Espírito [Politics of Spirit], derived from the title of a conference by Paul Valéry that António Ferro attended in 1932.8

|| 6 The European models for Portugal’s fascism were studied by Rosas, Fernando, Salazar e os Fascismos, Lisboa 2019. 7 Alves, Vera Marques, Arte Popular e Nação no Estado Novo. A Política Folclorista do Secretariado de Propaganda Nacional, Lisboa 2013, 121–122. 8 This policy was thoroughly studied by Ramos do Ó, Jorge, Os Anos de Ferro. O Dispositivo Cultural durante a «Política do Espírito», 1933–1949, Lisboa 1999.

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As Anne-Isabelle Richard has demonstrated,9 the question of the “European Spirit” was in the mind of many authors after World War I and the Soviet Revolution, who were trying to come to terms with the role intellectuals should have, to keep peace between nations in a time of crisis while mourning the loss of a “European soul”.10 This crisis was also seen as an opportunity for a new Europe — even if it meant returning to the past in search of the lost national soul — but there was antagonism between those who defended nationalism and those who defended cooperation between countries. The conclusion, a compromise that resulted from the Conference on the Spirit of Europe in 1933 by the Intellectual Committee on Intellectual Cooperation was that intellectuals should remain apolitical. António Ferro used Valéry’s title with a nationalistic intent, having decided that it would provide a model for the leading part played by artists in the promotion of the regime and in the construction of its modernised image.11 This intention was recognized by Almada and he would react against it. Between 1932 and 1936, while accepting commissions from the State for official stamps and posters as a means to earn a livelihood, he also presented a series of conferences each having an urgent political character. Sometimes this was done through the use of allusions and allegories, something that was an essential characteristic of his essays but also necessary to avoid censorship. In a newspaper interview, he will say, clearly referring to the basic needs of artists: “Art is not solely Spirit; it has head, body, arms and legs”.12 Moreover, in a conference also from 1936, he talks about the roman Maecenas, who used his influence on the emperor Augustus to protect the arts and the poets Virgil, Horace, Propertius, saying: “Meceneas had the honour of never interfering in the works of Virgil, Horace or Propertius; his great honour is to have made their works possible”.13 The Portuguese word for “patronage” derives from this name, “mecenato”.

|| 9 See Richard, A.-I., “Huizinga, intellectual cooperation and the spirit of Europe, 1933–1945”, in: M. Hewitson/M. D’Auria (eds.), Europe in Crisis: Intellectuals and the European Idea, 1917– 1957, New York 2012, 243–258. 10 See “Introduction” in: Hewitson/D’Auria (eds.), Europe in Crisis, 1. 11 Echoing the way Stalin designated artists in 1932 as “soul engineers”. For the impact of the Socialist Realism ideals in Portugal and the way this designation, “soul engineers”, was used by communist intellectuals to determine aesthetic norms see Madeira, João, Os Engenheiros de Almas. O Partido Comunista e os Intelectuais, Lisbon 1996. 12 Almada Negreiros, José de, “Não é preciso apenas um Ramalhão mas sim muitos Ramalhões”, Diário de Lisboa, 22 April 1936. 13 Almada Negreiros, José de, “Elogio da Ingenuidade ou as Desventuras da Esperteza Saloia”(1936) in: Manifestos e Conferências, Lisboa 2006, 255.

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Almada was leaving a message, saying that the patrons of art should never mess with what art should be. His position would be reinforced in further writings, but mostly on an unpublished draft that addresses directly the relationship between art and the state in which he strongly accuses the SPN and António Ferro of manipulating and appropriating modernism to its own ends, and present it as official art.14 So how does an artist that made the avant-garde in Portugal, that insulted publicly well-established writers and artists for being romantic and symbolist, that scandalized Lisbon with controversial performances in the middle of cafes, that had made his own humorous version of Marinetti’s Futurism Manifest (1917) and read it out loud in a Chaplinesque costume15 — how could he accept patronage, even if he tried, in a more or less pathless way, to demand no interference? As mentioned before, Almada always worked on commission, and, as most of the artists of his time, he had to earn his living through his art (he married and had children in 1934 and always lacked financial resources). However, there is a further reflection that can be made on the role the avant-garde opened for the artist. The manifestos written by Almada, like their international counterparts, advocated the end of museums, the praise of experience of the present and the rejection of history, celebrating war as the means with which to destroy all that was inherited from the past. Also, they promoted the idea of an affirmative Portuguese art that by its novelty and intensity could become international. This did not mean, however, nor then nor in later years, the rejection of past. They rejected a particular use of the past.16 The way late symbolism and romanticism used the past had a nostalgia flavour, the “saudade” feeling, an untranslatable Portuguese word that expresses the feeling of missing something or somebody. “Saudade” was strongly rejected in Almada’s manifestos (as well as what the Estado Novo would present as the official national music, fado). This had to do with the revivalist quest, and the belief that things were better in the past, and that they represented better the nation’s soul and thus had to be revived – in fact, the quest for the European

|| 14 Almada Negreiros, José de, “Não António Ferro Não” (unpublished manuscript, 1936), facsimile edition in: Colóquio Letras n. 190, 2015. 15 For the humorous character of Almada’s futurist conference and his clownish appearance in it see “Introduction” in Almada Negreiros, José de, Manifestos, Lisbon 2016. The Chaplin-like costume was very well noticed for the first time by Bru, Sascha, The European Avant-Gardes, 1905–1935. A portable guide, Edinburgh 2018, 72. The Portuguese narratives usually identified it as worker’s or aviator’s outfit. 16 I take this expression from Enzo Traverso’s title Le passé: mode d'emploi. Histoire, memoire, politique, Paris 2005.

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Spirit, or a national Spirit, mentioned previously extends back beyond the 1933 Conference. In a 1977 essay, entitled “The Revival”, Giulio Carlo Argan says that in the revival there is no return to the past, but a return of the past, and that there is an update of the past by recovering it in the present.17 Nevertheless, there is an idealisation of the past, and its actualisation in the present emphasises the lack that cannot really be fulfilled. But, he argues, art history is made of revivals, and he traces a genealogy of the revival from the Renaissance to Picasso, that, although signalling differences, tends to flatten complexities and to mitigate ruptures. There are, I argue, important differences in the uses of the past between the romanticism or naturalism and the avant-garde or modernisms. They do not praise a return of the past. They use and transform the past to reinvent the present, and they believe in their ability to transform it, to make it new.18 Thus, the so-called primitivisms, which include not only the fascination for African masks or pre-Columbian culture but also the attention to popular and regional art, to art of the non-educated, of the children or of the mentally disturbed, was a means to make a break with naturalism, and to transform representation, reinventing the real. This anti-naturalistic quest, shared with many artists of the early twentieth century, was solidly consolidated in Almada’s ideas on modernism throughout his life.19 Primitivism worked for the avant-garde and to modernisms as classical art worked for the Renaissance: they both used the past in order to innovate art, believing in the possibility of surpassing their models of inspiration, not in order to revive the past or to recover its “Spirit”. It should come with no surprise, then, that Almada portrays himself as an artist of the Renaissance in one of his self-portraits and that the role of the artist is for him one analogous to the Renaissance man: multitask, master of his arts – his work shall be required by the prince. Only there are no princes anymore, but dictators. It is with a desperation that he makes his claims for artistic freedom; they are quite hopeless.

|| 17 Argan, Giulio Carlo, “El Revival”, in: Gustavo Gil (eds.): El passado em el presente, Barcelona 1977, 7–28. Thank you to Joana Cunha Leal for this reference. 18 As said the Ezra Pound’s motto. 19 See for instance, his conference about the movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs by Walt Disney, where he states that cinema has found its true meaning in animated images, for that meant a departure from naturalism that the photography-based movies still had. Almada Negreiros, José de, “Desenhos Animados, Realidade Imaginada” [1938], in: Manifestos e Conferências, Lisboa 2006, 271–281.

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Fig. 79: José de Almada Negreiros, [Self-portrait], 1926, graphite on paper, 33.5 x 27 cm. Signed/Dated Inscription: “The eyes are meant to see / and what the eyes see only / the drawing will know. / To my friend / Mario Ribeiro / Sintra 26”. Private collection. © Carlos Azevedo, Gulbenkian Foundation.

The common idea in Portuguese art history that the modernists artists, Almada included, were collaborators of the regime needs to be reevaluated, taking into account not only how the State needed a domesticated modernism and virtually became the only employer for artists, but, as well, as how the modernist artists conceived their role in society. They made the artistic break in the early century and were now the master artists in service, with their skills and expertise, responding and acting in the present – the time of a dictatorship.

Generation Gap The next issue I would like to address relating to these murals is the generation gap between neo-realist artists and modernists. Neo-realism was a euphemism created in 1938, when Almada was 46 years old, by the writer Joaquim Namorado,20 to designate realist art and literature practised and defended by the new generation of young artists, that constituted the cultural and political opposition to the regime. The understatement was necessary to avoid censorship, for

|| 20 Namorado, Joaquim, “Do neo-realismo. Amândio Fontes”, in: O Diabo, 31 December 1938.

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the author meant “socialist realism” at the time he wrote it. However, Portuguese neo-realism would never coincide entirely with the Soviet rules for art. Neo-realists defended mural painting and later also engraving and prints as way of bringing art to the people, to make them aware of its capacity to change their lives — in a nutshell, to contribute to the path to revolution. For literature the creative method mostly proposed (if not practised) was journalistic: to report the life of peasants, workers, their poverty, etc., as if truth could be better achieved if the reporter maintained his neutrality. For painting, the method of mirroring reality was contested from early on and instead it was proposed the method of deformation21 – that is, it was prescribed the interpretation of reality and the rejection of a strict naturalistic approach. Politically active in the clandestine communist party, and in the newspapers and magazines which opposed the regime and fought censorship in every issue, the two major theoretical figures of neo-realism, the painters Júlio Pomar (1926–2018) and Mário Dionísio (1916–1993), would write about the Mexican muralists or the Brazilian Cândido Portinari, reproducing images of their paintings in black and white (and a painting of Portinari was shown in Lisbon in 1940, in the Brazilian Pavilion at the celebratory nationalistic exhibition Exposição do Mundo Português).22 It is worth noticing that the point of reference for the Mexican Muralists whose art was deeply tied with the Mexican Revolution that started in 1910, were, amongst others, the Renaissance mural paintings. José Clemente Orozco tells in his autobiography (1945) how he was impressed by the descriptions of the Sistine Chapel brought by his teacher, Doctor Alt., and how he made his students paint models that looked like the condemed sinners from the Last Judgement.23 There was also another important principle in Mexican muralism which Orozco writes about: the both democratic and nationalistic principle of giving the brushes and the paints to peasants, children, women, and everyone in Mexico who was willing to paint with no previous art education. The embrace

|| 21 Dionísio, Mário, Conflito e Unidade da Arte Contemporânea, (SNBA, 1957), Eds. Galeria Municipal de Arte, Almada 1992. See also Pita, António Pedro, “A árvore e o espelho. Elementos para a interpretação da heterogeneidade neo-realista”, in: Encontro Neo-Realismo — reflexões sobre um movimento / perspectivas para um museu, Eds. Museu do Neo-Realismo, Vila Franca de Xira 1999, 145–158. 22 It was however before 1940 that the first images of the Mexican muralists were reproduced – 1935 was the first time that a realist painting was in a newspaper in Portugal, Diego Rivera's mural El Ingenio. Caldeira, Heliodoro, “A pintura mural mexicana: Rivera e Siqueiros” in: O Diabo 74, 24 November 1935. Apud Santos, Luísa Duarte, “Portinari: a descoberta do pintor d'além Atlântico”, in: Nova Síntese 8, 2015. 23 Orozco, José Clemente, Autobiografia, Mexico City 2014 (1945), 20.

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of this naïve art questioned all the knowledge of painting techniques – infantilismo is the way Orozco called it – that became pivotal for the Mexican muralists.24 Primitivism was thus also an operative tool for realism. The search for an authentic identity in “tradition”, in the vernacular, in folk culture, is a distinctive feature both of the European authoritarian regimes and the primitivisms assumed by a considerable part of modernist art as modern structural values. The subject has been studied by Mark Antliff and Patricia Leighten.25 Both give a sense of the broader spectrum in which primitivism should be understood, which includes locating it also in the different approaches of realism: “Far from requiring a colonial other, modernists could as easily accommodate rural and urban peasants to primitivist categories of authenticity and outsider-hood, looking to folk art of the rural peasantry or popular art of the urban working class to lend greater authenticity to their own expressions of artistic and social criticism”.26 Mural painting, as a means of propaganda, and in the context of the policy of public building construction, was also a tool for the Portuguese dictatorship regime. The neo-realists promoted mural painting but were not allowed to do it and Júlio Pomar’s mural paintings for a cinema in the northern city of Porto were considered subversive and destroyed. They had no access to the state commissions which Almada did. What he chooses to depict in the Shipping Terminals would be largely informed by what was happening in the national and international art scene.27 In the first one (Alcântara, finished in 1945) Almada painted working women, with large hands and feet, transporting coal, one of the hardest jobs on the wharf. These were however balanced by other themes which were in tune with the nationalist quest of the government. In the tryptich Lá vem a nau Catrineta [Here comes the ship Catrineta] he illustrates a popular poem from the oral tra-

|| 24 Orozco, Autobiografia, 56–57. 25 Antliff, Mark, “Fascism, Modernism and Modernity”, in: The Art Bulletin, vol. 84, 2002 no. 1; Antliff, Mark / Leighten, Patricia, Cubism and Culture. London, New York 2001; Antliff, Mark, Avant-Garde Fascism: The Mobilization of Myth, Art and Culture in France, 1909–1939, Durham 2007. 26 Antliff, Mark/Leighten, Patricia, “Primitive”, in: Robert Nelson/Richard Shiff (eds.), Critical Terms for Art History, Chicago 2003, 727. Also: “Above all we should think of the concept of the primitive as the product of the historical experience of the West and more specifically as an ideological construct of colonial conquest and exploitation.”, ibid., 688. 27 Raquel H. da Silva has mentioned the neo-realist themes of Almada’s murals for the Shipping Terminals in “Arte pública neo-realista: algumas reflexões exógenas”, in: David Santos (eds.): Batalha pelo Conteúdo, Vila Franca de Xira 2007, 198–206.

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dition that tells the story of a Portuguese ship from the so called “discoveries” era. However, the humorous way he treats this subject, for instance dressing sixteenth century characters with contemporary outfits or claiming the sailors as protagonists, instead of the usual “heros”, was atypical. It was probably his depiction of the working women that led to the poor official reception of the panel. The regime avoided all the images of poverty (in the censoring of films it was poverty sometimes more than eroticism that was the aim of the censor;28 and Júlio Pomar’s destroyed murals depicted images of poverty). It was probably there that the regime saw affinities with Cândido Portinari, in the large bare hands and feet, or maybe they didn’t like the humour conveyed in the panel of the ship. The director of the National Museum of Ancient Art who defended Almada’s work, João Couto, felt the need to guarantee in his letter to the authorities that his case was not that of Portinari’s, he would not cause trouble as had the Brazilian painter.29 João Couto was probably aware that Portinari had just finished the mural paintings for the Library of Congress in Washington, where he depicted the Portuguese “discoveries”, a word used from early on as a euphemism for “conquest”,30 in an unflattering way. In the second Terminal (Rocha do Conde de Óbidos), finished in 1949, Almada (himself mixed-race, grandson of an Angolan black woman) painted African women fishmongers, scenes of poverty and an emigrants’ departure, displeasing the State to the point of being willing to destroy them.31 There is a preparatory sketch that shows a different composition, probably the one expected by the regime, in which Almada depicts or names the famous Portuguese discoverers, as well as Ulysses. Almada changed this in the final paintings.

|| 28 Mozos, Manuel, Censura: alguns cortes, film documentary, 1999. Thank you to Érica Rodrigues for this reference. 29 The copy of the official report dated 11 April 1946 sent by João Couto, director of the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga (MNAA) [National Museum of Ancient Art], defending Almada’s Alcântara murals and mentioning Portinari, can be found at João Couto’s Estate, MNAA Library, Dossier 57 (first mentioned by Lobo, Paula, “Almada and the maritime stations: the portrait of Portugal that the dictatorship wanted to erase”, in: Revista de História da Arte, série W, N. 2, 2014). 30 See Ramos, Afonso, “Filipe II também mandou usar a palavra ‘Descobrimentos’”, in: newspaper Público, 22 July 2018. 31 About the poor reception of the Rocha do Conde de Óbidos murals see the testimony of Almada’s wife Sarah Affonso in: Conversas com Sarah Affonso, Lisboa 1983, 70–71. She states that if they had indeed destroyed the murals, the artist would have had to return all the money he had been paid for the commission.

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Fig. 80: José de Almada Negreiros, study, graphite on paper. Private collection. © Paulo Costa, Gulbenkian Foundation.

These murals are much more graphic and have synthetic and geometric qualities to the depiction of the bodies, leaving aside all the picturesque references to Lisbon that can still be seen in the first murals. The depiction shows the exact place where it stands, the point of departures of ships and what happens while they arrive and leave. Street performers ask for alms in change for their performance. The mural paintings were not destroyed, again due to the intervention of Almada’s friends.32 Also, because the regime had just destroyed Júlio Pomar’s mural paintings in Porto in 1948, perhaps they thought it would not be wise for its image in the international community in a post-second world war context.

|| 32 João Couto will write another report dated 10 November 1949 to Junta Nacional de Educação, praising Almada’s work at Rocha do Conde de Óbidos, and describing the emigrants’ departure as the arrival of a big transatlantic ship, aiming at convincing the authorities that the theme depicted was not against the regime. He always refers to this panel as “Pier”. Also, Pardal Monteiro, the architect of the Shipping Terminals will also testify in an official document that Almada had correctly accomplished at the panel “Pier” what was asked of him and that it was in harmony with the architecture. See Monteiro, Porfírio Pardal, document dated 1 November 1948, Processo Rocha do Conde de Óbidos (IPA.0007086), SIPA, National Archive at Forte de Sacavém. In 1953 Almada will state in an interview (without mentioning his name) that it was João Couto’s report that prevented the Rocha do Conde de Óbidos murals from being destroyed (see Negreiros, José de Almada, “Diga-nos a verdade Almada Negreiros” [interview], in: Diário de Lisboa, 28 January 1953).

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It is now known that Almada had in his studio a large scale reproduction of Picasso’s Guernica, and it has long been referred that Picasso was his major reference since the 1910s.33 His second set of murals is informed by Picasso’s language, although transformed.34 If for Almada Picasso was a modernist reference, for the neo-realists, he was also a very significant reference, albeit a realist one. In 1946 – accepting the invitation of the heterodox neo-realist Ernesto de Sousa, who was then 25 years old – Almada contributed to the Semana de Arte Negra [Black Art Week Exhibition], an exhibition of comparison between African art and modern art. For the exhibition, which showed reproductions and the Sociedade de Geografia’s [Geography Society] collection of Benin sculptures, Almada lent his painting by the avant-garde Portuguese painter Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, and lent one of his own drawings.35 The faces depicted in his second set of murals are masks-like, some of them emphasising angst and sadness and can be seen as Picassian, yet they probably are even more directly related to that (then recent) exhibition. Also in 1946, Almada writes of Picasso: “his art is to show pain. His art does not attack the programs that bring pain to humanity. Picasso doesn’t waste time. He shows us in painting what he sees: he only sees pain. To show pain is to call each one to oneself. And that is what is more important: that each one is in himself, and not in the programs.”36 Picasso was then a showcase for realism and political engagement, and he was also working on commissions. In the previous quote one can testify that Almada is inscribing Picasso into a genealogy between modernism and realism which ties both together while affirming that that cannot mean to succumb artistic freedom and individuality to any “programs” – and with this, he clearly puts himself in an analogous position to Picasso’s. Picasso was a shared reference with the neo-realists, but there were more things in common. When Portinari visited Portugal in 1946, Mário Dionísio took him near the river to see the fishmongers, the boats, the bare feet, and the painter exclaimed “What a subject! Don’t your painters paint this?”37 He did not show him the paintings by Almada that did depict that subject, just a few metres || 33 The first thorough study on the artist was França, José-Augusto, Almada, o Português sem Mestre, Lisboa 1974. 34 Almada even infiltrates a little Picassian girl in the composition: see Caption 5 (left panel). 35 Sousa, Ernesto de, Re Começar. Almada em Madrid, Lisboa 1983, 40. 36 Negreiros, José de Almada, Manifestos e Conferências, Lisboa 2006, 319. 37 Dionísio, Mário, “Com Portinari, no Tejo”, in: O Globo, 31 Maio 1946. Citado por Luísa Duarte Santos.

452 | Mariana Pinto dos Santos

away. The generation gap – and the political gap – was to be maintained. Almada, being a modernist, was seen by Dionísio as a collaborationist and could never be an example to show to Portinari. Today, it can be understood that when Almada painted the Shipping Terminals, it was indeed to the younger painters and their references he was looking to and not the other way around. The question is, in my view, that it was Almada who was learning from neorealists, contradicting the common art history approach of assuming that a younger generation should follow the older. If the neo-realists refused the older master, he did not refuse them. Modernism and realism shared more than it may seem and that they would be willing to admit.

Modernism and realism at your service It is pertinent to recover the parallel between the uses of the past made by Renaissance artists and avant-garde artists to reconsider how an artist like Almada, working in his early fifties, would see himself as a modern version of the old masters, ambitioning their prestige and promoting his reliability for patronage in a peripheral country. He will write that the State may commission from modern artists, but the service they are committed to, is art: “Our service as artists is not official, it is Art”.38 State and art should be separated, both performing their service: one in commissioning, the other in art production. This position, which he would stand for until the end of his life,39 is very close to the ideas of John Maynard Keynes expressed in 1936 in the essay “Art and the State”, where he defends the State patronage but also writes: “[The artist] needs economic security and enough income, and then to be left to himself, at the same time the servant of the public and his own master”.40 That idea of service was well established also in realism, the service to the revolution – Orozco and Rivera were also like the old masters, painting the walls and ceilings of a revolutionary Mexico. Furthermore, it was the constraints that Júlio Pomar found in the aesthetic neo-realist rules, always in debate and in

|| 38 Negreiros, “Não António Ferro Não”. 39 As he says in an interview to Vitor Silva Tavares one year before he died. See Tavares, V.S., “Alma até Almada ou de como a reportagem entrou na fita”, in: Diário de Lisboa, 24 April 1969. 40 Keynes, John Maynard, “Art and the State” (The Listener, London, 26 August 1936), in: The collected writings of John Maynard Keynes, Vol. XXVIII: Social, Political and Literary Writings, Eds. Donald Moggridge, Cambridge 2013, 344.

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crisis, that led him to become more and more detached of the political enterprise of realism. Almada was not at the service of the revolution, but his idea of art as service – to society, to humanity – meant that the artist’s role was to work for the contemporary princes, whomever they were. That did not mean to be willing to make official art, and although demanding to work free of constraints in a dictatorship was a battle he lost several times, in these murals he used his modernist heritage and his modernist pass to access state-commission to embrace the younger artists’ quest for realism.

454 | Mariana Pinto dos Santos

Fig. 81: José de Almada Negreiros, mural paintings in the Alcântara Shipping Terminal, architect Porfírio Pardal Monteiro, 1945, 620 x 350 cm (each panel) “Lá vem a nau Catrineta que tem muito para contar” [Here comes the Catrineta ship that has a lot to tell]. © CML | DMC | DPC | José Vicente 2013.

Fig. 82: José de Almada Negreiros, mural paintings in the Alcântara Shipping Terminal, architect Porfírio Pardal Monteiro, 1945, 620 x 350 cm (each panel) “Dom Fuas Roupinho” © CML | DMC | DPC | José Vicente 2013.

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Fig. 83: José de Almada Negreiros, mural paintings in the Alcântara Shipping Terminal, architect Porfírio Pardal Monteiro, 1945, 620 x 350 cm (each panel) “Quem não viu Lisboa não viu coisa boa” [He who has not seen Lisbon, has not seen what’s good] © CML | DMC | DPC | José Vicente 2013.

Fig. 84: José de Almada Negreiros, mural paintings in the Alcântara Shipping Terminal, architect Porfírio Pardal Monteiro, 1945, 620 x 350 cm (each panel) “Ó terra onde eu nasci” [Oh land where I was born] © CML | DMC | DPC | José Vicente 2013.

456 | Mariana Pinto dos Santos

Fig. 85: José de Almada Negreiros, mural paintings in the Rocha do Conde de Óbidos Shipping Terminal, architect Porfírio Pardal Monteiro, 1949, fresco paintings, 720 x 380 cm (each panel) “Domingo lisboeta” [Sunday at Lisbon] © CML | DMC | DPC | José Vicente 2013.

Fig. 86: José de Almada Negreiros, mural paintings in the Rocha do Conde de Óbidos Shipping Terminal, architect Porfírio Pardal Monteiro, 1949, fresco paintings, 720 x 380 cm (each panel) “Cais” [Pier] or “Partida de emigrantes” [Emigrants Departure] © CML | DMC | DPC | José Vicente 2013.

| Things/Thingness/Objectivity?

Helmut Lethen

Unter dem Pflaster ist die Kanalisation Oder war das Böse das wirklich Reale der Historischen Avantgarden? Unter dem Pflaster ist die Kanalisation – der Titel visiert kein verborgenes Terrain an, kein unterirdisches System, durch das die Abfälle des oberirdischen Systems der sozialen oder moralischen Hygiene zuliebe abgeführt wurden. Im 20. Jahrhundert lag die finstere Kanalisation aufgedeckt vor uns, auch eine Leistung der Avantgarden. Dort befand sich keine geheime Tiefenstruktur mit Plantagen verbotener Drogen und versteckten Waffenlagern. Nein, das 20. Jahrhundert hatte den Vorteil, dass es im Scheinwerferlicht technisch in Höchstform getriebener Apparate den moralischen Untergrund und die Schaulager des Gemetzels sichtbar ausstellte, wie sie auch auf niedrigerem technischen Niveau im 17. Jahrhundert, aus dem die Avantgarden viele Inspirationen empfangen hatten, ausgestellt worden waren.

Neolithische Kindheit Im heißen Sommer 2018 konnte man im Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin die fabelhafte Ausstellung Neolithische Kindheit. Kunst in einer falschen Gegenwart, ca. 1930 besichtigen.1 Der Katalog beginnt mit einer Kritik an der Avantgardeforschung. Sie habe nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg die „radikalsten Elemente der Avantgarde“ neutralisieren müssen, um sie „für den neuen westlich bürgerlichen Kanon reklamieren zu können“.2 Man denkt oft, die Demokratie sei ein „Allesfresser“, wie Heiner Müller einmal bemerkte.3 Das ist nur insofern wahr, als sie Brisantes in der Regel ausscheidet. Wo steht das Neutralisierungsunternehmen der europäischen Avantgardeforschung heute und welchen Normen ist sie verpflichtet?

|| 1 Neolithische Kindheit. Kunst in einer falschen Gegenwart, ca. 1930, hrsg. von Anselm Franke und Tom Holert, Berlin 2018 (nachfolgend NK). 2 NK, 13. 3 Kluge, Alexander, Ich bin ein Landvermesser. Gespräche mit Heiner Müller. Neue Folge, Hamburg 1996, 45. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-029

460 | Helmut Lethen

„Neutralisiert“ wurden in der Nachkriegsrezeption krasse Merkmale der Avantgarden wie ihre „Depotenzierung des Humanen“,4 ihre Feier des „teuflischen Chaos“, ihr Einsatz der Sprache als Desinfektionsapparat der Moral, ihr faschismusaffiner Biologismus und ihre Verachtung demokratischer Tugenden der Balance und des Austauschs, d.h. ihre Liebe zum Absturz in Zonen, in denen Gefahr die Berührung mit dem Realen garantieren sollte. Archaische Orte der „Naturvölker“ oder Stierkampf, Schlachthof, Schauplätze der Revolution, Boxring, Schützengraben, Bordell und Psychiatrie waren Orte, die sie aufsuchten oder mit Vorliebe imaginierten. Wahrscheinlich hätten sie sich darauf einigen können, dass, wie Heiner Müller sagte, hinter den Kulissen der Demokratie eine stabile Sphäre „des Bösen, also eine gewisse Menge an Bestialität, eine gewisse Menge von Gewalt“ versteckt sei, die der Avantgardist aufspüren müsse, um ihren ästhetischen Reiz mit Erkenntnisgewinn oder Vergiftungswillen auszustellen.5 Die Historischen Avantgarden nahmen jedenfalls die Grundfesten einer aus ihrer Sicht schwachen, d.h. humanistisch gefärbten Anthropologie auseinander, die die Natur des Menschen als demokratiekompatibel begreifen wollte. Der Einzelne als Individuum und moralische Größe wurde von ihnen demontiert. 1931 schrieb Carl Einstein, der den Begriff der „Neolithischen Kindheit“ geprägt hat und dem die Berliner Ausstellung gewidmet ist: „Der Mensch war nicht mehr ein stabiler Typus, sondern ein Bündel schwer überschaubarer Vorgänge, die man allzulange verheimlicht hatte, um das Ebenbild Gottes intakt zu halten“.6 Diese Kränkung hatten im 19. Jahrhundert schon der Darwinismus, der Marxismus und die Psychoanalyse dem humanistischen Menschenbild zugefügt. Jetzt wendet man die aus dieser Verletzung resultierende Wut gegen den „Liberalismus“, ein diffuses aber allgegenwärtiges Feindbild der Avantgarden. Der habe, so Einstein, die „Fähigkeit zum Notwendigen“ eingebüßt. Es gelte nun, aus dem „trüb wogenden Schlamm“ des Liberalismus einem „neuen gewaltsamen Geschick“ zum Durchbruch zu verhelfen. Ernst Bloch ergänzt 1935: der Relativismus der Liberalen habe eine „allgemeine Müdigkeit“ erzeugt, so dass jetzt die antihumanen Bestände der Vorzeit wie ein „Magma der Vorzeit“ durch die dünne Eisdecke der Zivilisation brechen könnten.7 Die Bannflüche gegen den Liberalismus, die im Katalog der „Neolithischen Kindheit“ versammelt sind, klingen verteufelt nach Parolen der Konservativen

|| 4 NK, 43. 5 Kluge, Landvermesser, 33. 6 NK, 50. 7 NK, 52.

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Revolution. Bekanntlich waren die Avantgardisten in Frankreich und Italien enger mit den faschistischen Bewegungen verbunden als in Deutschland,8 Sorels „revolutionärer Mythos“ hat aber viele Intellektuelle auch in Deutschland angesteckt. Frappierend sind die „biologistischen“ Elemente in Manifesten der französischen Avantgardisten. Ihre Nähe zu faschistischem Gedankengut ist eklatant. Eine wirklich heikle Angelegenheit für die Ausstellungsmacher der „Neolithischen Kindheit“. Waren die Avantgardisten durch ihren gemeinsamen „Bildraum der Biologie“ anschlussfähig an faschistische Strömungen? Eigentlich nicht, meint der Kurator Tom Holert, obwohl „die Ideologien des Imperialismus und Faschismus in doktrinärer Unverfrorenheit mit biologistischen Theoremen und Sprachbildern ausgestattet waren“.9 Hätte man den Vitalismus besser in dem geschützten Raum der Kunstautonomie des Surrealismus eingehegt, statt ihn in den politischen Raum auszuwildern? Oder anders gefragt: war die historische Avantgarde die ästhetische Auswilderung lebensgefährlicher Strömungen? Wurde im Kunstraum der Avantgarde die Scham über das den Menschen Mögliche im Ofen des Bösen verbrannt? Jedenfalls haben die Kuratoren der Berliner Ausstellung große Mühe mit Werken, die keine „kritische Figuration“ der Gegenwart leisten, sondern sich in einen „faschistischen Kosmos“ eingliedern lassen, in dem „das Volk in einem monumentalen und nach allen Seiten hin phobischen Volkskörper verschmilzt“.10 Carl Einstein ist frei von diesem Verdacht. Immerhin war er Sozialist und Spanienkämpfer, auf der Flucht vor den Nazis beging er 1940 Selbstmord; das macht es schwerer, finstere Dimensionen seines Denkens um 1930 wahrzunehmen. Die Kuratoren der Neolithischen Kindheit neutralisieren nun ihrerseits radikale Elemente der Avantgarde, oder genauer: sie spalten eine politisch gefährliche Avantgarde von einer Spielavantgarde ab und verlagern den ontologischen Drive auf die moralisch diskreditierte Seite. Man sieht, die Demokratie gehorcht auch als „Allesfresser“ Normen der Exklusion. Das weist auf ein Dilemma der Avantgardeforschung hin: einerseits verbündet sie sich mit den wilden Attacken gegen den Liberalismus, natürlich nur als ästhetisch reizvolles Unternehmen; andererseits benutzt sie dessen Grundwerte zur Abgrenzung gegen politisch tabuisierte Bewegungen.

|| 8 NK, 403ff. 9 NK, 385. 10 NK, 65.

462 | Helmut Lethen

Das Aussetzen der Evolution Als Marcel Mauss im Jahre 1938 in einem Vortrag die Entwicklung der Fundamental-Kategorie „Person“ von der Maskerade der in heiligen Dramen der Vorzeit ausgefüllten Rolle zur individuellen Figur moralischen Werts verfolgte, schloss er nicht aus, dass diese Entwicklung auch rückgängig gemacht werden könnte: „Wir haben große Güter zu verteidigen,“ warnt er am Schluss seines Vortrags: „mit uns kann die Idee (des Individuums, HL) verschwinden“.11 Die Avantgardisten hatten sie bereits weitgehend eliminiert. Eines ihrer reizvollen Spiele im ersten Drittel des 20. Jahrhunderts hatte darin bestanden, die Stufenleiter der Herausbildung der „Person“ im moralischen Verstande bis in die Zeit der „Masken-Zivilisation“ hinabzusteigen, in der sich der Mensch in Ritualen seine Person erstellt.12 Das Konzept der Evolution hatte aus der Vorgeschichte eine lange schon hinter uns liegende Zeitspanne gemacht, einen Raum, den man in Australien oder Südafrika verortete, wo lebende Fossilien der Steinzeit, die „Wilden“, zu finden waren. Das Unternehmen „Neolithische Kindheit“ im Haus der Kulturen der Welt stellt viele Quellen aus, die beweisen dass die Avantgardisten die Idee einer Stufenfolge der Zivilisation außer Kraft setzen wollten, die Barbarei als Endpunkt der Entwicklungsgeschichte hielten sie nicht für unwahrscheinlich. Zumindest erschien ihnen dieser Zustand als ästhetisch reizvoll. 1933 entdeckte Brassai mit seinem Fotoapparat an den Mauern Pariser Fabriken die Gesten von Menschen, die einst auf Höhlenwände gemalt hatten. Brassai glaubte, in den Graffiti den Sieg der Ethnologie über die Geschichte erkennen zu können, sah in ihnen aber auch den Triumph der Fotografie über das normale Sehvermögen. 1933 schrieb er: „Allein durch das Eliminieren des Faktors Zeit führen lebendige Analogien zu schwindelerregenden Annäherungen durch alle Zeitalter hindurch. In Lichte der Ethnografie ...wird die Steinzeit zu einem Geisteszustand“.13 Unter den Automatismen des modernen Lebens

|| 11 Mauss, Marcel, „Eine Kategorie des menschlichen Geistes. Der Begriff der Person und das ‚Ich‘“ (1938), in: Marcel Mauss, Soziologie und Anthropologie, Bd. II, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Wien 1978, 221–251. 12 Lethen, Helmut, Verhaltenslehren der Kälte. Lebensversuche zwischen den Kriegen, Frankfurt 1994, S. 60ff. 13 Stavrinaki, Maria, „Warum haben sich die 1930er Jahre mit der Steinzeit identifiziert?“, in: NK, 84–97, 89.

Unter dem Pflaster ist die Kanalisation | 463

hatte die Steinzeit „überlebt“. Sie war ein Jungbrunnen, eben: „Neolithische Kindheit“, wie Einstein fand. Es geht Avantgardisten wie Brassai nicht um die Rekonstruktion eines linearen Progresses der Kulturen. Es geht um die Eliminierung des Faktors Zeit, es geht ihnen, wie Maria Stravinaki in ihrem Kommentar erläutert, um die schwindelerregende Präsenz der Vorzeit. Statt einer Stufenfolge der Evolution nehmen sie die ebenbürtige Präsenz aller Stufen wahr. Darum konnten Avantgardisten die 30er Jahre mit der Steinzeit identifizieren. Hat man erst einmal den Evolutionismus verabschiedet, zeigen sich Analogien zwischen den vermeintlich „Zivilisierten“ und den „Primitiven“. Hatten bei den alten Völkern Religion und Totenkult die Masken zu einem rituellen Kopfschmuck gemacht, erkennen die Surrealisten jetzt Pendants bei den modernen Weißen mit ihren gegen unsichtbare Feinde gerichteten Gasmasken. „Kolonialismus und Krieg sind der Karneval und das Gesellschaftsspiel des weißen Wilden, die Gasmaske das wahre Gesicht des Okzidents“.14 Die Vertiefung in die Vorgeschichte versprach, ungeahnte „Möglichkeitsräume“ der Jetztzeit zu erschließen,15 alle gleich ursprünglich oder ursprungslos wie die Gegenwart. Die Avantgardisten starteten den Versuch, wie Erhard Schüttpelz erkennt, die eigene Universalität durch den Rekurs auf eine fremdartig bleibende aber universal präsente „Welt der Primitiven“ in ihrer „undurchsichtigen Verschränkung von kolonialer Außenwelt und grauer Vorzeitigkeit“ zu steigern.16 Dunkel, rätselhaft und nur bruchstückhaft erschlossen, bot sich die Vorgeschichte als ein offener Horizont an, ohne spezifischen Ursprung, mit ungenauen Anfängen, ohne organische Abfolge, „Niemandes Herkunft und niemandes Erzeuger.“ (Identitätslos wie die Avantgardisten und wir, ihre Enkel!) Jetzt wird erkennbar, warum die Ausstellungsmacher Schriften der Konservativen Revolution, die im Wortlaut ähnlich klingen wie die bisher zitierten Sprüche der Avantgardisten, ausgegrenzt haben. Die Konservativen dringen in den durch den Universalismus der Avantgarde hergestellten Hohlraum der Herkunftslosigkeit ein, besetzen ihn mit Mythen des Ursprungs, Genealogien des Blutes, Heldenliedern der Nation und Gewissheit der Identität und beziehen dadurch eine unheimliche Sprengkraft. Ihre Halluzinationen blamierten sich dann in den Mordstaaten der SU ebenso wie im NS-Staat.

|| 14 Albers, Irene, „Ethnologie du blanc“, in: NK, 251. 15 Stavrinaki, „Warum haben sich die 1930er Jahre […]“, 90. 16 Schüttpelz, Erhard, „Bumerang-Effekt“, in: NK, 240–244.

464 | Helmut Lethen

Hätten die Kuratoren Gottfried Benns surrealistische Collage der Dorischen Welt von 1934 in die Neolithische Kindheit integrieren können? Keine Spur davon. Das hat Gründe.

Sparta als Ort der Avantgarde Im Mai 1928 eröffnete im Pavillon Marsan des Musée des Art décoratifs in Paris die Ausstellung Les Arts ancien de l’Amérique. In Kommentaren zur Ausstellung findet man George Batailles Essay über die Grausamkeit der Azteken. Der formalen Aufwertung der Kunst der „Primitiven“ und der Sehnsucht nach Partizipation am vorlogischen Denken der Naturvölker setzt er einen sadistischen Primitivismus entgegen – die Vision einer Kultur, die von Gewalt, Menschenopfern im Dienst bösartiger Götter und „schwarzem Humor“ beherrscht wird.17 Gottfried Benns Dorische Welt von 1934 ist ein deutsches Pendant des „sadistischen Primitivismus“, allerdings nicht der eines frei schwebend surrealen Sadismus, wie der des Franzosen, sondern der eines herrschaftskonformen Einverständnisses mit den Grausamkeiten der politischen Gegenwart 1934. Wer will, kann darin schwarzen Humor erkennen. Der Möglichkeitsraum ist zum realen Raum geworden, das war nicht lustig. Um 1930 finden wir bei Benn die gleichen Motive eines Primitivismus-Kults wie bei den Franzosen, neu sind nur seine Anleihen bei der Gehirnforschung. Er kombiniert Sigmund Freuds Traumdeutung mit Levy-Bruhls Denken der Naturvölker und übernimmt die positive Ladung des Begriffs „Regression“, um 1930 in der Berliner Funkstunde zu verkünden: „Wir tragen die frühen Völker in unserer Seele und wenn die späte Ratio sich lockert, in Traum und Rausch, steigen sie empor mit ihren Riten, ihrer prälogischen Geistesart und vergeben eine Stunde mystischer Partizipation“.18 In seiner Lyrik finden sich keine sanft homogenen Bilder mythischer Ursprungslandschaften, in denen die Spuren der modernen Gegenwart ausgelöscht sind. Seine Südsee-Strände sind von städtischer Kanalisation durchzogen, seine mythischen Gestalten tragen ModeAccessoires der 20er Jahre. Erst nach 1930 verbündet Benn sich mit dem Politischen Existenzialismus der Konservativen Revolution. Dessen Grundgedanken findet man bei allen

|| 17 Albers, „Ethnologie du blanc“. 18 Benn, Gottfried, „Der Aufbau der Persönlichkeit“, in: Ders.: Sämtliche Werke, Bd.3, 271. Vgl. Lethen, Helmut, Der Sound der Väter. Gottfried Benn und seine Zeit, Berlin 2006, 141ff.

Unter dem Pflaster ist die Kanalisation | 465

Avantgardisten: In der Demokratie herrschen Sekuritätsbedürfnisse, Hygiene, Versicherungen, Telefonnetze und Printmedien, die die Alltäglichkeit mittlerer Gefühlslagen stabilisieren. Sie sind für den Verlust an Intensität verantwortlich und entfremden vom wirklich Realen. Avantgardistische Ästhetik sucht das Reale unterhalb der Sekuritätssphäre. Unter der Schicht des „endlosen Palavers“ liegt die Zone der Psychiatrie oder eines anderen Ernstes, der in der Todesgefahr spürbar wird. Die Jagd nach neuen Objekten der Wahrnehmung zieht die Avantgardisten in diese Zonen, weil sie tabuisiert sind und als Quelle des Bösen gelten. „Das Leben kräftigt sich am Born des Bösen, die Moral leitet ab in den Tod“ wird man später bei Carl Schmitt lesen.19 Benns Dorische Welt, die 1934 in der Europäischen Revue erscheint, besteht zu 80% aus Exzerpten der Altertumsforschung und Beschreibungen von Sparta beim Historiker Carl Jacob Burckhardt. Aus diesen Fragmenten klebt Benn sein Bild von Sparta zusammen. Die surreale Collage soll ein idealer Schauplatz für die „weiße Rasse“ sein. Mit Schere, Leim und Papier verschiedener Archive soll ein steinerner Monolith entstehen, in dem sich der NS-Staat wiedererkennen soll. In Benns Sparta werden die Kinder einer grausamen Erziehung unterworfen: „Die Knaben schlafen nackt auf dem Schilf, das sie ohne Messer aus dem Eurotas reißen müssen, essen wenig und schnell”. Sparta garantiert gestählte Köper, luftgewöhnt, glänzend von Öl, schön getönt. Eugenische Maßnahmen sorgen für die Züchtung des idealen Körpertyps: „Man ging wie in Gestüten vor, man vernichtete die schlechtgelungene Frucht“. Statuen der Bildhauer auf den Plätzen Spartas, wo der „Kopf noch keine größere Bedeutung hatte als der Rumpf“, sind Leitbilder der Körperertüchtigung.20 Benns sehr privat-sadistische Halluzination des NS-Staats. Bald wird sie sich für dessen Bewohner in Nichts als der Normalität des Sekuritätsgefühl eines Wohlfahrtsstaates mit leicht verdrängt hintergründigem Terror auflösen. Carl Einstein hatte in seinem Aufriss zur Neolithischen Kindheit bemerkt, dass „die Verfertigung von Kunstwerken zahlreiche grausame und mörderische Elemente enthält“.21 In Benns Dorischer Welt waren sie in Fragmenten zum Greifen nah gerückt, das entsprach Einsteins Vorstellung: „durch Enthauptung und

|| 19 Vgl. Lethen, Helmut, Die Staatsräte. Elite im Dritten Reich: Gründgens, Furtwängler, Sauerbruch, Schmitt, Berlin 2018. 20 Benn, Gottfried, „Dorische Welt“, in: Ders.: Sämtliche Werke, Bd. 4, 136. Vgl. Lethen, Der Sound der Väter, 132ff. 21 Einstein, Carl, „Neolithische Kindheit“, in: NK, 74–84, 74.

466 | Helmut Lethen

Zerstückelung isoliert man, was entscheidend ist: die konzentrierte Besessenheit und den Sadismus”.22

Der gesprenkelte Realismus der Moderne Alexander Kluge: Du sabotierst den Realismus? Heiner Müller: Ja, auch mich selbst.23

Es geht den historischen Avantgarden nicht um Realismus. Sie zerschneiden dessen Schreib- und Grafik-Muster, um einen Durchbruch ins Reich des Realen zu erzielen. 1928 veröffentlicht D. H. Lawrence „Chaos in Poetry“. Den englischen Schriftsteller verehren die französischen Avantgardisten aufgrund seiner Durchbrechung von Sexualtabus. In seinem Essay findet sich die folgende Passage: Was ist chaotischer als ein gefleckter Leopard der durch fleckigen Schatten trottet? Und was ist unser Leben eigentlich? Warum sollen wir versuchen, uns weißzuwaschen? Oder uns selbst mit einem künstlichen Chaosmuster zu tarnen? Wir müssen nur das wahre Chaos, das wir sind, anerkennen: wie der mit schwarzen Sonnen auf Gold gesprenkelte Jaguar.24

Die Farbpracht des Fin de Siècle, grundiert, wie Tom Holert beobachtet, mit seinem „Bildrepertoire des Kolonialismus des britischen Empire“ und Rudyard Kiplings Dschungelbuch, mit der hier D. H. Lawrences „Glaube an den gesprenkelten Leopard des gemischten Selbst“ dargestellt wird. Avantgardistisch kann ich das Bild des „Gefüges der mobilen Fell- und Schattenflecken“ nicht finden. Der gefleckte Leopard, der durch den fleckigen Schatten trottet – bildet er nicht viel eher eine Tapete des modernistischen Realismus und Symbolismus, von Böcklin, Rousseau oder Klimt gemalt und in seinen Ambivalenzen von Rainer Maria Rilke, Thomas Mann, Alfred Döblin, James Joyce, André Gide, T.S. Eliot, Heimito von Doderer geschildert? Die Avantgardisten, scheint mir, zerschnitten die Ambivalenztapeten der modernistischen Realismen, kollationierten die zerstückelten Ganzheiten, an denen der Realismus festhielt und genossen die Kopflosigkeit ihrer Resultate.

|| 22 Einstein, „Neolithische Kindheit“, 75. 23 Kluge, Landvermesser, 61. 24 Holert, Tom, „Der gefleckte Leopard der gemischten Seele. Chaostheorie, ca.1930“, in: NK, 40–52, 48.

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Sie zielten auf die „Montage von Attraktionen“, wie Meyerhold fordert, und Heiner Müller, ein Nachfahr der Historischen Avantgarde, befindet. Die Realität kann man nur sehen, „wenn man sie in Teile zerlegt, in Segmente“ schneidet.25 Die Zerstückelung muss nicht mit der Schere hergestellt werden. Bob Wilson, nach den Wurzeln seines Theaterkonzepts gefragt, erzählt gern von Experimenten, die amerikanische Mediziner oder Psychologen mit amerikanischen Müttern, die ihre Neugeborenen im Arm hielten, filmten. Wenn man die Filme in Zeitlupe habe ablaufen lassen, habe man plötzlich erkannt, dass es „fressende Mütter“ waren. Küssen und Streicheln, hart am Rande des Kannibalismus. Das habe man durch Zerlegen des Zeitstroms in der Zeitlupe erkennen können.26 Fast alle Wahlsprüche der Avantgardisten beziehen eine gemeinsame Kampffront gegen den Liberalismus und der Realismus scheint für sie zur Innenausstattung des liberalen Systems zu gehören. Sammelplätze gefährlichen Lebens suchen sie an der Peripherie. Nichts scheint ihnen langweiliger zu sein als eine Gesellschaft, die den Ausgleich agonaler Kräfte anstrebt. Noch einmal Carl Einstein 1931: Das Wirkliche als Hypothese oder Meinung ist zu Ende, damit ist die liberale Utopie vom frei wollenden Individuum beendet und von neuem verdichtet sich ein hartes besessenes Geschick, dessen Ersatz bisher Naturgesetz und Kausalität erfolglos gebildet hatten. Das leichte Spiel versank. Furcht kreist über den Menschen.27

Die Welt der Hypothesenbildung wurde im literarischen Realismus abgebildet. Und der war zu widerlegen. Außerdem waren weder Leopard noch Jaguar sowie andere edle Raubkatzen aus der Begleitmannschaft des Dionysos Wappentiere der Avantgardisten. Im „Jahrhundert der Wölfe“, wie Nadeschda Mandelstam das 20. Jahrhundert nannte, war der Wolf ihr Wappentier, wie er es schon im 17. Jahrhundert gewesen war.

Das Zeitalter der Wölfe Den Menschen als gutmütiges Wesen zu betrachten galt den Avantgardisten als frommer Wunsch. Ernst Jünger spricht vom „schrecklichen Hohnlachen der

|| 25 Kluge, Landvermesser, 43. 26 Kluge, Landvermesser, 43. 27 NK, 86.

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Natur über die Unterstellung unter die Moral“.28 Gottfried Benn amüsiert sich: „Der Geist dringt nur mit dreckigem Grinsen durch die Lücken, die die Natur ihm lässt“. Ein Leitmotiv der Politischen Anthropologie, der viele Avantgardisten folgten, hat Brecht in seiner Ballade von der Unzulänglichkeit menschlichen Planens in acht Zeilen so subtil wie schlagfertig formuliert: Der Mensch ist gar nicht gut Drum hau ihm auf den Hut. Hast du ihm auf den Hut gehaun Dann wird er vielleicht gut. Denn für dieses Leben Ist der Mensch nicht gut genug Darum haut ihm eben Ruhig auf den Hut!29

Der Rückgriff auf Denkmotive des 17. Jahrhunderts, in denen das zerstörerische Potential der Triebnatur betont und Mittel zu ihrer Bändigung ausgeheckt wurden, ist in den zwanziger und dreißiger Jahren bei Avantgardisten jeder politischen Couleur zu beobachten. In der Rechtsphilosophie, auf der Opernbühne und im gelehrten Traktat fesselt der Wolfssprung ins 17. Jahrhundert. Die Gestalt des rohen Wolfsmenschen, die seinerzeit als Bild inmitten der Glaubenskriege kursierte, faszinierte ebenso wie der Schrecken, den die gegen ihn aufgebotene Staatsmaschine ausübte. Die Gewalttätigkeit der Menschen im „Naturzustand“ wurde durch künstliche Gewalten des Staatsapparats mehr schlecht als recht in Schach gehalten. Die neue Politische Anthropologie der 20er Jahre nimmt diese Grundsätze wieder auf. Sie sind von sprichwörtlicher Simplizität, haften nachhaltig bis heute und lauten: Alle echten politischen Theorien gehen davon aus, dass der Mensch ein von Natur aus gefährliches Wesen ist.30 Man kann alle Staatstheorien auf ihre Anthropologie prüfen und danach einteilen, ob sie bewusst oder unbewusst einen von Natur bösen oder einen von Natur guten Menschen voraussetzen. Staatsphilosophen des 17. Jahrhunderts wie Hobbes, Spinoza, Pufendorf wussten noch, dass die handelnden Subjekte in den Staaten „böse“, wie von Trieben bewegte Tiere sind. Auch ein Pionier der neueren Philosophischen Anthropologie wie || 28 Jünger, Ernst, Der Arbeiter, Hamburg 1941, 18. 29 Brecht, Bertolt, „Das Lied von der Unzulänglichkeit menschlichen Strebens“, in: Ders., Werke, hrsg. von Werner Hecht u.a., Bd. 2, Frankfurt 1988, 291. 30 Vgl. Lethen, Die Staatsräte, 130ff.

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Helmuth Plessner hat 1931 in seinen Überlegungen über Macht und menschliche Natur den Menschen als ein gefährliches Wesen gezeichnet, das, wenn er es aus eigener Kraft nicht zustande bringt, durch den starken Staat in Form gebracht werden müsse. Gegen die Versuche, die dunkle, auf Aggression geeichte Natur des Menschen aus dem Verborgenen herauszubringen, in die sie durch die mächtigen liberalen Fassaden der Selbsttäuschung gebracht wurde, stemmen sich bis heute Widerstände. Die Einsicht, machttriebgesteuert zu sein, erträgt der Liberale nicht. Selbst Sigmund Freud ist mit seiner Entdeckung des Destruktionstriebs auf heftige Abwehr gestoßen. Bekannt ist sein Seufzer: „Denn die Kindlein, sie hören es nicht gerne, wenn er über die angeborene Neigung des Menschen zum ‚Bösen’, zur Aggression, Destruktion und damit auch zur Grausamkeit aufgeklärt werden solle“.31 Die Demokraten haben zu lange in einer liberalen Kultur gelebt, deren Zweck darin bestand, die Menschen über ihre Tendenz zur Destruktion zu täuschen. Es ist nicht leicht, sich aus der behaglichen Innenausstattung des Liberalismus zu lösen. Aber die in der Natur angelegte Zerstörungslust muss zumindest erkennbar gemacht werden. Carl Schmitts Konzept von Freund und Feind will die Fackel des Begriffs in die Tabuzonen des Liberalismus, in das von ihm negierte und verdunkelte Kriegs- und Bürgerkriegsfeld tragen. Das Wolfsbild täuscht; denn die Tierwelt kennt soziale Regulationen. Hobbes sieht, dass der Mensch viel unsozialer als ein Tier ist, voll Angst und in die Zukunft schauernder Sorge.32 Es sind unglücklicherweise auch keine „reinen“, sondern mit Intelligenz begabte Wölfe, die den Krieg aller mit allen im Naturzustande führen. Hier ist seine Staatskonstruktion heute noch modern. Das Unglück besteht darin, dass der Satz: Der Mensch ist dem Menschen ein Wolf, nicht mehr gilt. Es nützt nichts, Wölfe in Staatsbürger zu verwandeln. Die Gefahr besteht nach den Erfahrungen im 20. Jahrhunderts in Folgendem: Der Mensch ist dem Menschen ein Mensch! Atemloser Schrecken, diese Grundsätze der schwarzen Anthropologie aus dem Mund des „Kronjuristen des Dritten Reiches“, Carl Schmitt, zu erfahren. Aber auch in Brechts Fragment Fatzer trifft man sie an: „Der Mensch ist der Feind und muss aufhören!“33

|| 31 Freud, Sigmund, „Das Unbehagen in der Kultur“, in: Sigmund Freud, Das Unbewußte. Schriften zur Psychoanalyse, hrsg. von Alexander Mitscherlich, Frankfurt 1950, 391. 32 Schmitt, Carl, Der Leviathan in der Staatslehre des Thomas Hobbes. Sinn und Fehlschlag eines politischen Symbols, Stuttgart 2018, 56. 33 Kluge, Landvermesser, 137.

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Das Glück des mechanischen Balletts Das Wolfsbild greift nicht mehr. Das der Leoparden noch weniger. Ein anderes Moment aus der Denkwelt des 17. Jahrhunderts besitzt dagegen noch immer große Anziehungskraft und ist heute im Netz der digitalen Medien wieder aktuell: es ist Hobbes‘ Einsatz der Physik als Begründungswissenschaft der Ethik, sein Entwurf des Menschen als Bewegungsmaschine. „Die Kältetendenz“, bemerkt Ossip Mandelstam 1930, rührt „vom Eindringen der Physik in eine moralische Idee“.34 Hobbes‘ Wahrnehmung der Wirklichkeit ist physikalisch getönt, die Welt besteht aus sich bewegenden Körpern, mentale Prozesse sind als Elemente in dieses Bewegungssystem eingelassen, Subjektivität erscheint als Ding unter Dingen. Der Film wird später das Medium sein, auf das der physikalische Blick hat warten müssen. Er macht Subjektivität als dinghafte Geste sichtbar. Die Vernunft ist eine Art Ausgleichsapparat im Bewegungssystem Mensch, sie soll die Triebdynamik im Einklang mit der Staatsgewalt regulieren. Diese Aspekte einer vom Psychologisierungskult des 19. Jahrhunderts verschütteten Anthropologie wurden von Avantgardisten begierig aufgegriffen. Sie filterten Spuren des humanistischen Horizonts, in dem Hobbes‘ Anthropologie noch lagerte, heraus, um die kinetischen Momente des Zusammenlebens zu betonen. In Jüngers Traktat Der Arbeiter, eines der unbekannteren Manifeste der deutschen Avantgarde, ist der physikalische Blick ins Extrem getrieben. Über 200 Seiten wird alles regellos wuchernd Organische, jedes Gebüsch, alles Sumpfige aus dem Text entfernt. Kein Obst und Gemüse. Sogar Getränkeartiges fehlt. Wie eine eugenische Walze35 hat die Schrift des „Arbeiter“ die Erscheinungsformen des rauschenden Lebensdranges und fluider Interaktionen weg planiert. Der trockenste aller Avantgardetexte! Mit Menschen als Eisenskulpturen und elektrischen Gehirnen im Netz telekinetischer Verbindungen. Bilder eines mechanischen Balletts, manchmal von arglosen Ballettmeistern im Bauhaus choreographiert oder als „Tillergirls“ der Unterhaltungsindustrie auf die Bühne gebracht, dann wieder von Organisatoren von Massenornamenten im NS-Staat oder der Sowjetunion inszeniert.

|| 34 Mandelstam, Ossip, „Gespräch über Dante“, in: Ossip Mandelstam, Gespräche über Dante. Gesammelte Essays 1925 – 1935, hrsg. von Ralph Dutli, Frankfurt 1994, 160. 35 Vgl dazu Hamacher, Werner, „Working through Working“, in: Modernism/Modernity, 3, 1996, 1, 23–56.

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Der große Dankchoral der Avantgarde Diese Bande Inkorrekter, das Sammelsurium europäischer Avantgardisten, soll, so meine Befürchtung, auf dieser Konferenz wissenschaftlich geläutert werden. Es waren Liebhaber von Chaos und stählerner Ordnung – und wenn ich hier bewusst von Liebhabern spreche, so, um die großen Frauen der Avantgarde wie Hanna Höch, Lu Märten, Meret Oppenheim, Madame d’Ora, Emmy Ball und viele andere nicht in diese fatale Männerhorde einzugliedern. Ist in ihren Werken die Subversion von Männer-Mythen zu beobachten? Möchte man hoffen. Von ihnen gewinnen wir zumindest einen ironischen Blick auf die Chaos-Lover. Sie ahnen oder wissen, dass sie selbst das von den Männern am meisten gefürchtete Chaos verkörpern sollen. Aber, wie Heimito von Doderer einmal spöttisch zu den virilen Chaos-Tauchern bemerkte, man soll „nie glauben, dass man im reinigenden Bad des Chaos zu tief untertauchen könnte; getrost; leider getrost; die uns umschließende Korkweste falscher Ordnung treibt uns bald wieder an die Oberfläche“.36 An die Oberfläche der Realismen, die es aufgegeben haben, die große Unbekannte, das Reale, in Akten der Zergliederung zu suchen. Es wäre ein erhabener Moment, die erste Keynote der Konferenz der europäischen Avantgardeforschung mit einem Dankchoral zu beschließen. Aber kann man einer gottlosen Bande zumuten, ihr Unternehmen mit einer KirchenliedReminiszenz aus dem 17. Jahrhundert, Joachim Neanders Choral aus dem Jahr 1680: „Lobet den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren“, vertont von J. S. Bach, zu beginnen? Bert Brecht machte mit seiner Kontrafaktur, dem Großen Dankchoral der Hauspostille, eine Hymne der Avantgardeforschung daraus. Bitte erheben Sie sich von ihren Plätzen, machen das Schloss in Münster zu einer Kirche der Avantgarde und singen Sie: Lobet die Kälte, die Finsternis und das Verderben! Schauet hinan: Es kommet nicht auf euch an Und ihr könnt unbesorgt sterben.37

|| 36 Doderer, Heimito von, Repertorium. Ein Begreifbuch von höheren und niederen Lebenssachen, München 1996, 43. 37 Brecht, Bertolt, „Großer Dankchoral“, in: Ders., Werke, Bd. 11, 77.

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Die Wiedertäufer in den drei eisernen Körben am Turm der Lambertikirche hätten es vielleicht singen sollen.38

|| 38 (Anmerkung des Herausgebers:) Mit dem gemeinsamen Absingen dieses Chorals endete die denkwürdige erste Keynote auf der EAM-Konferenz in Münster 2018. Der mündliche Charakter wurde deshalb im letzten Absatz dieses Beitrags beibehalten.

Christoph Schaub

Modernistischer Realismus der Arbeiterbewegungsliteratur Die Rezeption der literarischen Produktion der Arbeiterbewegung seit der Novemberrevolution von 1918/1919 ist in Deutschland und über dieses hinaus von einem literaturtheoretischen Diskurs bestimmt worden, der eine an die Realismen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts anschließende Literatur und eine avantgardistische bzw. modernistische Tradition einander gegenüberstellt.1 Varianten dieser normästhetischen Dichotomie finden sich in dem an Franz Mehring angelehnten, insbesondere von Gertrud Alexander vertretenen Literaturverständnis der kommunistischen Tageszeitung Die Rote Fahne, in Georg Lukácsʼ Ablehnung der Dokumentarverfahren Ernst Ottwalts und Willi Bredels in der späten Weimarer Republik, im sogenannten Expressionismus-Streit des Exils und in der Programmatik des sozialistischen Realismus, die eine sozialistische Weltliteratur von jeglicher modernistischen Tendenz freihalten wollte.2 Diese die öffentlichen Debatten des linken literarischen Feldes strukturierende Dichotomie überschattete historisch zum einen weitaus flexiblere Realismusauffassungen von Arbeiterbewegungsschriftstellern wie Bertolt Brecht und Anna Seghers, die von einer Pluralität realistischer Formen ausgingen und zu diesen ausdrücklich avantgardistische Verfahren zählten.3 Sie verhinderte zum anderen die literaturgeschichtliche Analyse einer durch das Zusammentreffen von Avantgarden und Arbeiterbewegung entstehenden Form realistischen Schrei-

|| 1 Der vorliegende Aufsatz basiert auf Teilen – sowohl Materialien als auch Formulierungen – meiner Monografie Proletarische Welten. Internationalistische Weltliteratur in der Weimarer Republik. Studien und Texte zur Sozialgeschichte der Literatur, Bd. 150. Berlin, Boston 2019. 2 Vgl. Fähnders, Walter/Rector, Martin (Hrsg.), Linksradikalismus und Literatur. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der sozialistischen Literatur in der Weimarer Republik, Bd. 1, Reinbek 1974, 96–129; Lukács, Georg, „Reportage oder Gestaltung? Kritische Bemerkungen anläßlich eines Romans von Ottwalt“, in: Fritz Raddatz (Hrsg.), Marxismus und Literatur. Eine Dokumentation in drei Bänden, Bd. 2, Reinbek 1969, 150–158; Lukács, Georg, „Über Willi Bredels Romane“, in: Die Linkskurve, 3, 1931, Nr. 11, 23–27; Cohen, Robert, „Expressionismus-Debatte“, in: Wolfgang Fritz Haug (Hrsg.), Historisch-kritisches Wörterbuch des Marxismus, Bd. 3, Hamburg 1997, 1167– 1183; Radek, Karl, „Die moderne Weltliteratur und die Aufgaben der proletarischen Kunst“, in: Internationale Literatur, 4, 1934, Nr. 5, 3–25. 3 Vgl. Brecht, Bertolt, „Notizen über realistische Schreibweise“, in: Bertolt Brecht, Werke. Große kommentierte Berliner und Frankfurter Ausgabe, Bd. 22.1, Werner Hecht u.a. (Hrsg.), Frankfurt 1993, 620–640; Seghers, Anna/Lukács, Georg, „Ein Briefwechsel zwischen Anna Seghers und Georg Lukács“, in: Fritz Raddatz (Hrsg.), Marxismus und Literatur, Bd. 2, 110–138. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-030

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bens, die ich als modernistischen Realismus der Arbeiterbewegungsliteratur bezeichne. Diesen modernistischen Realismus diskutiere ich hier am Beispiel des 1888 als Sohn eines Uhrmachermeisters in Oberschlesien geborenen und aus den expressionistischen und dadaistischen Bewegungen stammenden Schriftstellers und linkskommunistischen Aktivisten Franz Jung. Dieser schloss sich zum Zeitpunkt der Novemberrevolution der Arbeiterbewegung an, gründete u.a. die Kommunistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands (KAPD) mit und bemühte sich sowohl um die Theoretisierung einer proletarischen Literatur als auch um ihre praktische Entwicklung in Form eigener literarischer Werke, editorischer Arbeit und literaturpolitischer Organisationsversuche. Muss der modernistische Realismus im Zusammenhang mit der auch in der Weimarer Republik stattfindenden Rezeption des russischen Proletkults gesehen werden, gehört er ebenso zum Bereich des „neuen Realismus der Avantgarden“, der sich, wie Susanne Knaller vorgeschlagen hat, im Sinne verschiedener Füllungen des „Postulats ‚Kunst als Wirklichkeit‘“ fassen lässt.4 Meine Bezeichnung modernistischer Realismus der Arbeiterbewegungsliteratur rechtfertigt sich aus mehreren Gründen.5 So kommt es bei Jung und anderen Künstlern dieser Strömung, zu denen neben Seghers und Brecht beispielsweise auch Egon Erwin Kisch und Klaus Neukrantz zu zählen sind, zu einer Adaptierung modernistischer Verfahren wie insbesondere der Montage und des Dokumentarismus. Im Sinne des von Stephen E. Bronner benannten „modernist impulse“6 mobilisiert der modernistische Realismus diese Verfahren zur Schaffung einer neuen „Weltbeziehung“,7 welche hier im Unterschied zu den meisten modernistischen Strömungen jedoch einer an sozialer Revolutionierung ausgerichteten politischen Massenbewegung zuarbeiten sollte. Literatur bestimmt sich im Kontext der Arbeiterbewegungsliteratur deshalb in einem relativ heteronomen Verhältnis zum politischen Feld und füllt das avantgardistische „Postulat ‚Kunst als Wirklichkeit‘“ durch die literarisch-politische Konstruktion kollektivistischer Weltbeziehungen. Während der modernistische Realismus mit

|| 4 Knaller, Susanne, Die Realität der Kunst. Programme und Theorien zur Literatur, Kunst und Fotografie seit 1700, Paderborn 2015, 88/97. Hervorhebung im Original. 5 Ich verwende „modernistisch“ im Sinne des englischen Begriffs modernism, der semantisch deutlich weiter als der deutsche Begriff Modernismus ist und tendenziell den gesamten Bereich dessen umfasst, was in der deutschsprachigen Debatte als literarische Moderne bezeichnet wird, und dabei insbesondere auch die historischen Avantgarden. 6 Bronner, Stephen Eric, Modernism at the Barricades. Aesthetics, Politics, Utopia, New York 2012, 6. 7 Vgl. Rosa, Hartmut, Resonanz. Eine Soziologie der Weltbeziehung, Frankfurt 2016.

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der literarischen Moderne die Tendenz zur „kategorische[n] und permanente[n] Hinterfragung von Modernisierungsprozessen“8 teilt und diese vor allem auf Klassenstrukturen und proletarische Lebenswirklichkeiten konzentriert, muss der modernistische Realismus vom für die avantgardistische Bewegung des Dadaismus typischen „assault on representation“9 abgrenzt werden, dem eine Infragestellung der Möglichkeit von Wirklichkeitsdarstellung unterliegt. Der modernistische Realismus verbindet stattdessen den „modernist impulse“ und die Befragung von Modernisierung mit einer emphatischen Repräsentation gesellschaftlicher Wirklichkeit aus vorgeblich oder tatsächlich proletarischer Perspektive, die in ihren Darstellungsmodi zwischen der Rhetorik authentischer Zeugenschaft und dokumentarischen Strategien oszilliert und diese auch kombiniert. Franz Jungs 1921 erschienener Montagetext Joe Frank illustriert die Welt ist paradigmatisch für diesen modernistischen Realismus der Arbeiterbewegungsliteratur.10 Der Text verbindet – mit Knallers Vokabular ausgedrückt – „rationalrepräsentative“ und „konstruktiv-performative“ Formen realistischen Schreibens.11 Der Text hat also eine dezidiert referentielle Dimension, insofern er insbesondere die historischen Gegenöffentlichkeiten der Arbeiterbewegung darstellen soll, aus denen er auch entstanden ist: eine Funktion des „Abbildens“.12 Zugleich hat er eine Funktion des „Bildens“,13 insofern er dazu beitragen soll, eine neue soziale Wirklichkeit zu schaffen. Jungs modernistisch-realistischem Schreiben lag dabei eine Auffassung von Wirklichkeit als grundsätzlich revolu-

|| 8 Becker, Sabina/Kiesel, Helmuth, „Literarische Moderne. Begriff und Phänomen“, in: Sabina Becker/Helmuth Kiesel (Hrsg.), Literarische Moderne. Begriff und Phänomen, Berlin, New York 2007, 9–35, hier: 13. 9 McBride, Patrizia C., The Chatter of the Visible. Montage and Narrative in Weimar Germany, Ann Arbor 2016, 15. 10 In den letzten Jahren ist Jung wiederholt in Debatten über Neukonzeptionen realistischer und modernistischer Schreibweisen diskutiert worden. Vgl. Fähnders, Walter, „‚… auf der Plattform innerer Bereitschaft‘. Franz Jung und die ‚Neue Sachlichkeit‘: ‚Gequältes Volk. Ein oberschlesischer Industrieroman‘“, in: Sabina Becker/Christoph Weiss (Hrsg.), Neue Sachlichkeit im Roman. Neue Interpretationen zum Roman der Weimarer Republik, Stuttgart, Weimar 1995, 69–88; Fore, Devin, Realism after Modernism. The Rehumanization of Art and Literature, Cambridge, MA 2012, 87–115; Hake, Sabine, The Proletarian Dream. Socialism, Culture, and Emotion in Germany, 1863–1933, Berlin, Boston 2017, 193–204. 11 Vgl. Knaller, Susanne, „Realitätskonzepte in der Moderne. Ein programmatischer Entwurf“, in: Susanne Knaller/Harro Müller (Hrsg.), Realitätskonzepte in der Moderne. Beiträge zu Literatur, Kunst, Philosophie und Wissenschaft, München 2011, 11–28. 12 Knaller, „Realitätskonzepte“, 15. 13 Knaller, „Realitätskonzepte“, 15.

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tionierbar zugrunde. Zur tatsächlichen Revolutionierung dieser Wirklichkeit, deren Utopien für Jung in manchen Momenten der frühen Weimarer Republik „mehr wirkliche Tatsachen als Utopien“14 waren und zu anderen Zeitpunkten in dem seine Werke kennzeichnenden Modus der enttäuschten Revolutionserwartung erschienen, sollte Literatur durch eine kollektivistische Subjektivierung der sie Lesenden beitragen: Literatur fungierte für Jung als „Psychotechnik dieser Utopien“.15 Jedoch war der referentielle Bezug bei Jung kein selbstverständlich gegebener und garantierter, ist Joe Frank illustriert die Welt doch durch eine selbstreflexive Dimension gekennzeichnet, die die referentielle Bezugnahme auf Wirklichkeit als literarisch geformte selbst zum Gegenstand macht. Jungs modernistischer Realismus kann so als eine epistemologisch schwache „Verhandlungsform eines nicht selbstverständlich festgestellten Realen“ verstanden werden, als die Veronika Thanner, Joseph Vogl und Dorothea Walzer realistisches Schreiben bestimmt haben.16 Ein „prekärer Bezug zur Wirklichkeit“17 liegt bei Jung vor, insofern die repräsentierte Wirklichkeit eine durch den Text performativ miterzeugte und politisch umstrittene ist, die sich zudem im historischen Zustand eines radikalen gesellschaftlichen Wandels befindet.

Gegenöffentlichkeit und die literarische Erzeugung einer kollektiven Weltbeziehung Wie die meisten Werke seiner von ihm selbst so bezeichneten „roten Jahre“18 der frühen Weimarer Republik entstand Joe Frank illustriert die Welt im Gefängnis, zu dem Jung wegen seiner politischen Aktivitäten wiederholt verurteilt worden

|| 14 Jung, Franz, Werke, Bd. 9.1, Lutz Schulenburg (Hrsg.), Hamburg 1996, 54. Im Folgenden wird aus der Werkausgabe Jungs zitiert als „Jung, Werke“ mit Bandnummer und Seitenzahl. 15 Jung, Werke 6, 81. 16 Thanner, Veronika/Vogl, Joseph/Walzer, Dorothea, „Die Wirklichkeit des Realismus. Einleitung“, in: Veronika Thanner/Joseph Vogl/Dorothea Walzer (Hrsg.), Die Wirklichkeit des Realismus, Paderborn 2018, 10. Ich bezeichne Jungs modernistischen Realismus als epistemologisch schwach, weil er nicht auf eine „konstitutive Nicht-Feststellbarkeit des Realen“ (Thanner/Vogl/Walzer, „Die Wirklichkeit des Realismus“, 10), sondern tendenziell eher auf eine historisch-situative „Nicht-Feststellbarkeit“ abhebt. 17 Thanner/Vogl/Walzer, „Die Wirklichkeit des Realismus“, 10. 18 Jung, Franz, Der Weg nach unten. Aufzeichnungen aus einer großen Zeit, Hamburg 2000, 107.

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war. Organisiert in zwei Teile, die jeweils mehrere kurze Episoden in Beziehung setzen, berichtet der Text von revolutionären Erhebungen in den USA, Finnland, Irland und Deutschland und erzeugt ein brüchiges Bild der internationalistischen Arbeiterbewegung. Als „Form der operativen Agitationsprosa“,19 adressierte Jungs literarische Produktion in erster Linie proletarische Gegenöffentlichkeiten: Seine Texte, so schreibt er in einem Brief, hätten „keineswegs Anspruch auf literarische Gunst […] und [wurden] zu dem Hauptzweck geschrieben, der damals aufblühenden linken Tagespresse Feuilletonromane aus der Gegenwart zu vermitteln“.20 Konsequenterweise erschienen Abschnitte, die sich auch in Joe Frank illustriert die Welt finden, erstmals in einer Reihe linkskommunistischer sowie dem Proletkult nahestehender Zeitungen (so z.B. in der Kommunistischen Montags-Zeitung, in Die Aktion und der Räte-Zeitung), bevor der Text als Buchfassung 1921 als zehnter Band der Literarischen AktionsBibliothek im Verlag von Die Aktion publiziert wurde. Außerdem basierten Episoden des ersten Teils von Joe Frank illustriert die Welt auf Texten, die in den Gegenöffentlichkeiten der Arbeiterbewegung transnational zirkulierten, wobei sich Jung speziell Artikel der amerikanischen Zeitschrift The Liberator aneignete, welche der syndikalistischen Gewerkschaft Industrial Workers of the World nahestand.21 Jungs Text war somit das Resultat der transnational vernetzten Gegenöffentlichkeiten der Arbeiterbewegung, von denen er zugleich berichtete und zu deren Entwicklung er beitragen sollte. Damit positionierte sich Jung in einer Auseinandersetzung um das, was als Wirklichkeit öffentlich intelligibel war. Die Grenze des Sagbaren verlief für Jung zwischen proletarischen und bürgerlichen Öffentlichkeiten, was in seinem Roman Die Eroberung der Maschinen (1923) deutlich wird: „Man verschlang die alten Nachrichten und fieberte nach neuen, und das Gesicht war überall gleich. Natürlich nur, was die sogenannte öffentliche Meinung anlangte, die die Politik macht. (Die wahre Arbeiterpresse dringt nicht in den Gesichtskreis eines Menschen von öffentlicher Bedeutung.)“22 Die Wirklichkeit, auf welche sich Jungs Texte bezogen, war also keinesfalls als Bezugspunkt gesichert, sondern Gegenstand von Kämpfen um Deutungshegemonie. Joe Frank illustriert die Welt kann als eine Montage der zuvor publizierten Materialien verstanden werden, die durch einen Erzähler, jenen Joe Frank des

|| 19 Fähnders/Rector, Linksradikalismus und Literatur, 189. 20 Jung, Werke 9.1, 324f. 21 Dies ist erstmals nachgewiesen in: Fähnders/Rector, Linksradikalismus und Literatur, 181; 363. 22 Jung, Werke 4, 143.

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Titels, in ein Textganzes integriert werden. Diese Deutung wird durch eine metafiktionale Passage des Textes plausibel: „Dann nehme man eine Zeitung und klebe die Polizei- und Gerichtschronik hintereinander und streiche etwaige Wiederholungen und setze immer nur ein und denselben Namen ein.“23 Auf diesen das eigene welterzeugende Verfahren thematisierenden Satz folgt eine Aussage des Erzählers, die das Verhältnis einzelner Menschen als eines der Isolation beschreibt: „Ach ja, die Menschen verstehen sich noch nicht. Sie haben noch ein sehr unvollkommenes Bindemittel zueinander.“24 Dass diese zwei Sätze direkt aufeinander folgen, erlaubt ihre Assoziation: Montage funktioniert als „Bindemittel“. Dies gilt nicht nur in einem textlichen, sondern auch in einem übertragenen Sinne: Joe Frank illustriert die Welt stellt ein neues Verhältnis verschiedener Orte zueinander her, indem der Text diese durch die Montage verbindet. Die Gegenüberstellung einzelner Episoden wird in Joe Frank illustriert die Welt ganz ausdrücklich nicht als disjunktiv, sondern vielmehr als sinnproduzierendes Verfahren bestimmt: „Diese Geschichte hätte gar keinen Sinn, schon weil sie so alltäglich gegenwärtig ist, wenn man ihr nicht einen Vorgang gegenüberstellen könnte.“25 „Sinn“ entsteht durch die Gegenüberstellung ähnlicher Ereignisse an verschiedenen Schauplätzen, die die einzelnen Episoden des Textes in ein Entsprechungsverhältnis stellen: Die Welt wird als Zeitraum von miteinander zusammenhängenden Arbeitskämpfen und revolutionären Bewegungen neu erfassbar. Damit übersetzt der Text die in der Diegese geschilderten Bildungen von Kollektiven auf eine formale Ebene, die eine kollektivistische Selbsterfahrung durch die Interaktion mit dem Text anregen soll. Diese Betonung von Kollektivität verbindet Jung zum einen mit Aleksandr Bogdanov, dem prominentesten, auch von Jung rezipierten Theoretiker des russischen Proletkults, dessen Hauptthese lautete, „daß proletarische Dichtung sich durch die Kategorie der Kollektivität von der auf das Individuum zugeschnittenen bürgerlichen Situation unterscheide“;26 zum anderen wird hieran deutlich, wie Jung „modernist strategies in a conception of collective agency beyond the psychology of suffering and compassion“27 mobilisiert. Sich als Teil eines Kollektivs erfahren zu können, beantwortet laut Jung nämlich ganz grundsätzlich die Frage

|| 23 Jung, Werke 2, 40. 24 Jung, Werke 2, 39f. 25 Jung, Werke 2, 36. 26 Fähnders/Rector, Linksradikalismus und Literatur, 132. 27 Hake, The Proletarian Dream, 195.

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der „Menschen“ danach, „wozu sie leben“.28 Der „Sinn des Lebens“ bestehe darin, „sich zu vollenden, sich zu steigern, sich über das Einzelich hinauswachsen zu lassen, eins zu werden mit der Gemeinschaft, gemeinsam die Gemeinschaft zu leben und die lebendige Gemeinschaft zu steigern nach der Breite wie nach der Tiefe des Glücks, des gemeinschaftlichen Glücks wie des Eigenglücks“.29 Wie Jung in seinem Roman Arbeitsfriede (1922) hinsichtlich des sprachlichen Rhythmus, der von diesem Autor als wichtigste Technik der Herstellung einer kollektiven Weltbeziehung konzipiert wurde,30 selbstreflexiv ausführt, sollte diese kollektive Weltbeziehung durch ein interaktives Verhältnis von Text, Lesenden und Autor performativ erzeugt werden: Ich will dem Leser schon vorher sagen, was ich will und wie das technische Problem liegt. Er soll beim Lesen mithelfen an der Lösung und Gestaltung, prüfen wo das Tempo ins Stocken gerät, und so die wirkliche Verbindung zwischen Autor und Leser herstellen, die der wesentliche Inhalt dieses Buches ist. Jeder Inhalt, den man darstellen will, gewinnt dadurch einen neuen Rhythmus. Es wird nicht mehr so sehr ausschließlich Handlung, die sich aufbaut, sondern ein Teil unseres Selbst, der Geschehnisse in und mit uns, unserer Empfindungen, des als lebendige Gemeinschaft Miteinanderverbundenseins.31

In Joe Frank illustriert die Welt tritt Montage als ein Verfahren neben den Rhythmus, das eine kollektive Erfahrung herzustellen helfen soll. Proletarier in den USA, Finnland, Irland und Deutschland werden durch die Montage als Teil eines transnationalen Zusammenhangs gezeigt, in den zudem die Lesenden durch direkte Adressierungen des Erzählers eingebunden werden: Der Text ermöglicht einen „dialogic process“32 zwischen Lesenden und dem Erzähler/Autor. Das durch die Montage erzeugte internationalistische Kollektiv, die Lesenden sowie der Erzähler/Autor bilden damit die Koordinaten, durch deren Verhältnis eine kollektive Erfahrung erzeugt wird. Die Lesenden werden zum Teil einer Gemeinschaft, indem der Erzähler die Lesenden beispielsweise dazu auffordert, die eigenen Erfahrung und die geschilderten Ereignisse ins Verhältnis zueinander zu setzen: „Mehr als Zehntausend traten den ‚bewaffneten Marsch‘ an, um County Logan aus der Tyrannei zu erlösen. ‚[…] Sie ließen sich zur Rückkehr bewegen. Keeny war aus Pittsburg zur Hilfe gerufen worden.‘ // Achtet darauf, auch drüben gelang es noch einer schuftigen Gewerkschaftsbü|| 28 Jung, Werke 4, 166. 29 Jung, Werke 4, 166. 30 Bei Jung fungiert der Rhythmus seiner Werke als Gegenentwurf zur zeitlichen Struktur des Kapitals; vgl. Fore, Realism after Modernism, 102f. 31 Jung, Werke 2, 105. 32 Hake, The Proletarian Dream, 204.

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rokratie die Massenbewegung im Interesse der Regierung zu stoppen.“33 Durch Aussagen, direkte Adressierungen und die Montage versucht der Text den Lesenden also eine internationalistisch-kollektivistische Weltbeziehung zu ermöglichen, während er durch die metafiktionale Diskussion des Montageverfahrens selbstreflexiv auf seinen konstruktiv-performativen Charakter verweist. Die Produktion einer kollektiven Erfahrung war für Jung deshalb so wichtig, weil er, die gesellschaftspolitische Analyse der KAPD teilend, den Grund für das Ausbleiben einer Revolution in Deutschland nicht in objektiv-ökonomischen, sondern in subjektiv-psychologischen Bedingungen sah.34 Eine literarisch erzeugte kollektive Weltbeziehung traf sich dann ganz konkret mit dem politischen Ziel der KAPD, die deutsche Gesellschaft nach dem Rätemodell zu reorganisieren. Literarische Verfahren wie die Montage und die direkte Adressierung der Lesenden, die „Gemeinschaftsutopie[n]“35 entwerfen und erfahrbar machen sollten, fungierten für Jung in diesem Sinne als „Psychotechniken dieser Utopien“.36 Ähnlich den Experimenten der Sowjetavantgarde und im Unterschied zu herrschaftsförmigen Sozialtechnologien in der Weimarer Republik sollten sie zur Bildung eines neuen Menschen beitragen, indem sie „die Rhythmik utopischer Vorstellungs- und Denkweisen [freilegen sollten], um utopische Empfindungsintensität bewußt werden zu lassen“.37 Literatur stellt für Jung also Wirklichkeit her, indem sie Individuen in eine neue Beziehung zueinander und zur Welt bringt. Indem Jung diesen „modernist impulse“ explizit an den Anforderungen einer politischen Massenbewegung ausrichtete, also zur Schaffung eines revolutionären Bewusstseins beitragen wollte, stellte er seinen modernistischen Realismus durchaus heteronom in den Dienst der Revolutionierung der Gesellschaft.

|| 33 Jung, Werke 2, 9. Wie wiederholt in der Forschung gezeigt worden ist, entspricht die Darstellung von Proletariern und proletarischen Kollektiven bei Jung nicht den restriktivnormativen Parametern, die sich beispielsweise in der politischen Imagination der KPD finden; vgl. z.B. Fore, Realism after Modernism, 100f. 34 Vgl. Fore, Realism after Modernism, 358f; Hake, The Proletarian Dream, 197f. 35 Jung, Werke 6, 82. 36 Jung, Werke 6, 81. 37 Jung, Werke 6, 81. Zur Psychotechnik vgl. Vöhringer, Margarete, Avantgarde und Psychotechnik. Wissenschaft, Kunst und Technik der Wahrnehmungsexperimente in der frühen Sowjetunion, Göttingen 2007; Killen, Andreas, „Weimar Psychotechnics between Americanism and Fascism“, in: Osiris, 22, 2007, Nr. 1, 48–71.

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Dokumentarismus, Zeugenschaft, Selbstreflexivität Zum modernistischen Realismus wird Joe Frank illustriert die Welt aber erst, insofern er neben einer konstruktiv-performativen auch eine rationalrepräsentative Dimension hat. Die referentielle Bezugnahme auf historische Wirklichkeit äußert sich erstens unausgesprochen, insofern sich Jungs Text nachahmend zu den Gegenöffentlichkeiten verhält, auf die er wirken sollte. Die performativen Sprechakte von Jungs Text, also die direkten Adressierungen der Lesenden, ahmen nämlich Sprechakte in der zeitgenössischen Arbeiterbewegung nach. Die Elemente des Textes, die aus rezeptionsästhetischer Perspektive als direkte Adressierungen der Lesenden durch den Erzähler erscheinen, sind in der Diegese Teile einer Rede des Erzählers auf einer politischen Versammlung, also Ansprachen an ein Publikum im Text: „Der Kampf ist dann von dem euren verflucht verschieden. Dort kennt man keine Versammlungen. Aber seid stiller. Was ich euch jetzt erzähle, verträgt keine Zwischenrufe.“38 Die intendierte Rezeption von Joe Franks Erzählungen wird hier zudem als eine öffentliche präsentiert, nicht als eine individuelle und private. Der Rezeptionsakt wird selbst zu einer kollektivierenden literarischen Praxis.39 Zweitens ist es symptomatisch, dass Jungs Werke im Sinne einer rationalrepräsentativen Funktion rezipiert worden sind, ihnen ein Abbilden der Wirklichkeit zugesprochen wurde. Seine Texte „spiegelt[en] das Bild dieser Tage getreulich wieder“40 und würden „eine Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung unserer Tage“41 schreiben, wobei von den Rezensenten zudem auf einen journalistisch-dokumentarischen Stil verwiesen wurde: auf „den sachlichen Extrakt des Ereignisses in der Art einer Zeitungsnotiz“ und die „nüchterne[n] Tatsachen-

|| 38 Jung, Werke 2, 11. 39 Jungs Werke sind auch in diesem Sinne verstanden worden. So bezeichnet es zum Beispiel ein Rezensent als „wünschenswert, wenn bei Diskussionsabenden Stücke aus einem solchen Buche zugrunde gelegt würden; […] man könnte viel daraus lernen“. Kurt Kersten, „Die Eroberung der Maschinen“, in: Das Wort, 30. September, 1923. Nachgedruckt in: Walter Fähnders/Andreas Hansen (Hrsg.), Vom Trottelbuch zum Torpedokäfer. Franz Jung in der Literaturkritik 1912–1963, Bielefeld 2003, 131f. 40 [o.V.], „Die Rote Woche“, in: Nachrichten des Gebietsvollzugskomitees der Wolgadeutschen, 7. November 1921. Nachgedruckt in: Vom Trottelbuch zum Torpedokäfer, 107. 41 Weltmann, Lutz, „Franz Jung: Die Eroberung der Maschinen“, in: Berliner Tageblatt, 9. September 1923. Nachgedruckt in: Vom Trottelbuch zum Torpedokäfer, 129.

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feststellungen“.42 Lässt sich dieser richtig festgestellte Dokumentarismus auf Jungs Auseinandersetzung mit den Dokumentarästhetiken der zeitgenössischen sowjetischen Literatur zurückführen,43 stellten die Rezensenten außerdem eine biographische Nähe Jungs zur proletarischen Lebenswirklichkeit fest. Jungs Texte erzählten „[n]icht von oben herab oder von außen her, sondern aus dem Kern, aus dem Eingehen in die Luft dieser Schicht, aus dem mit ihr Leben“.44 Diese in der zeitgenössischen Rezeption hervorgehobenen Merkmale einer dem Journalismus angeähnelten Dokumentarästhetik und einer Rhetorik der Zeugenschaft finden sich zugleich in der Selbstinszenierung des Ich-Erzählers. Nach eigenem Bekunden berichtet er die amerikanischen Episoden aufgrund der diskutierten journalistischen Quellen, denen er treu folge: „Ich erzähle euch auf Grund von Angaben der amerikanischen Zeitschrift ‚Liberator‘. Dort hat einer Bericht gegeben von dem, was ich hier noch einmal übermitteln will. Es ist die reine Wahrheit. Es ist nichts hinzugesetzt.“45 Andere Episoden wie die finnische basierten ihm zufolge auf eigenen Erlebnissen sowie Berichten von Zeugen, denen er selbst begegnet sei: „Ein Freund, der mit dabei war, hat das mir genau so geschildert. Den langen Olansson habe ich selbst kennengelernt und gesprochen […].“46 Der Erzähler präsentiert sich als mittelbarer und unmittelbarer Zeuge des Berichteten, dessen Wahrhaftigkeit durch seine autobiografische Erfahrung verbürgt wird. Durch beide Strategien wird ein Anspruch auf akkurate Wirklichkeitsrepräsentation artikuliert; es wird hervorgehoben, dass der Text im Sinne einer referentiellen Bezugnahme auf eine außertextliche, repräsentierbare Wirklichkeit verstanden werden will, ihm also – mit anderen Worten – eine rational-repräsentative Realitätskonzeption zugrunde liegt, welche die konstruktiv-performative Dimension des Textes ergänzt. Trotz dessen, dass Joe Frank illustriert die Welt Wirklichkeit nicht nur bilden, sondern eben auch abbilden will, verfällt der Text keinem naiven Abbildrealismus, den Brecht später an der Neuen Sachlichkeit, deren Verfahren Jungs Schreiben durchaus antizipierte, mit der Formulierung kritisieren sollte, „daß weniger denn je eine einfache ‚Wiedergabe der Realität‘ etwas über die Realität aussagt. Eine Fotografie der Kruppwerke oder der AEG ergibt beinahe nichts

|| 42 Rosenfeld, Fritz, „In den Tiefen der Erde“, in: Bildungsarbeit, Juli/August 1923. Nachgedruckt in: Vom Trottelbuch zum Torpedokäfer, 129. 43 Vgl. Jung, Werke 5, 169–180, insbesondere 170f. 44 Hermann-Neiße, Max, „Franz Jung“, in: Der Oberschlesier, Mai 1924. Nachgedruckt in: Vom Trottelbuch zum Torpedokäfer, 149. 45 Jung, Werke 2, 7. 46 Jung, Werke 2, 11.

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über diese Institute.“47 Die Selbstreflexivität von Jungs Text – wie auch sein konstruktiv-performativer Charakter – arbeitet einem solchen Vorwurf entgegen, indem sie die literarische Konstruktion der referentiellen Bezugnahme auf Wirklichkeit selbst zum Thema macht. Dies erfolgt erstens durch die metafiktionale Thematisierung der Organisation des Textes, die nicht nur die narrativen und rezeptionsästhetischen Funktionen einzelner Textteile anspricht, sondern auch mögliche alternative Akzentsetzungen, durch die die Geschichte anders hätte erzählt werden können.48 Joe Frank illustriert die Welt thematisiert so subtil die Aufgabe des Schriftstellers, die Jung in seiner Kurzgeschichte „Zwei unterm Torbogen“ (1928) ausdrücklich benennt: „Der Schriftsteller […] hat nicht nötig, große Geschichten zu erfinden. Seine Aufgabe ist es, Tatsächliches aus dem täglichen Leben wiederzugeben und in einer erklärenden Form der Beschreibung den Versuch zu machen, die näheren Umstände, Umgebung und andere Möglichkeiten […] auf eine allgemeine Plattform zu heben.“49 Zweitens thematisiert Joe Frank illustriert die Welt, die Grenze zwischen faktischen und fiktionalen Literaturformen. Sowohl belletristische als auch nicht-belletristische Genres gehören laut dem Ich-Erzähler, der – wie Jung – beide geschrieben hat, dem Bereich der literarischen Konstruktion an: „Um die Leser mit meinem Rekord bekanntzumachen: 5 Romane, Stücker 20 Novellen, darunter ein Drama, eine Masse Essays und Tausende von Handelstelegrammen, die ja auch bloß Schwindel sind.“50 Indem Joe Frank illustriert die Welt die Lesenden auf sich selbst als literarischen Text aufmerksam macht, der durch narrative Strategien Welt literarisch mitkonstruiert, fordert er die Lesenden dazu auf, kritisch über Wirklichkeitsnarrative nachzudenken. Dies geschieht jedoch, ohne dass die grundsätzliche Repräsentierbarkeit von Wirklichkeit in Frage gestellt würde. Eine solche Darstellung war vor dem Hintergrund eines Kampfes um gesellschaftliche Deutungshegemonie auch politisch notwendig und deshalb ein integraler Teil des modernistischen Realismus der Arbeiterbewegungsliteratur, welcher eine proletarische Moderne aus proletarischer Perspektive überhaupt erst sichtbar machen sollte.

|| 47 Brecht, Bertolt, „Der Dreigroschenprozess. Ein soziologisches Experiment“, in: Bertolt Brecht, Werke. Große kommentierte Berliner und Frankfurter Ausgabe, Bd. 21, Werner Hecht u.a. (Hrsg.), Frankfurt 1992, 448–514, hier 469. Fähnders hat bereits ein ähnliches Argument hinsichtlich Jungs Werk der späten Weimarer Republik entwickelt, vgl.: „‚… auf der Plattform innerer Bereitschaft‘“, 78f. 48 Vgl. Jung, Werke 2, 24; 28; 29; 34; 36; 40. 49 Jung, Werke 1.1, 296f. 50 Jung, Werke 2, 21.

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Ausblick: Modernistischer Realismus jenseits von Jung Der hier an Jungs Joe Frank illustriert die Welt diskutierte, durch das Zusammentreffen von russischem Proletkult, Avantgardebewegungen und linkskommunistischer Arbeiterbewegung entstandene modernistische Realismus ließe sich über seinen unmittelbaren Entstehungskontext in der frühen Weimarer Republik hinaus verfolgen. Literaturgeschichtlich auf Joe Frank illustriert die Welt folgende Texte der Arbeiterbewegungsliteratur sind durch verschiedene Verhältnisse der rational-repräsentativen und der konstruktiv-performativen Funktion gekennzeichnet, wobei diese Dimensionen unterschiedlich stark ausgeprägt sein können und außerdem die für Jungs Werk charakteristische Selbstreflexivität nicht immer festgestellt werden kann bzw. in manchen Fällen sogar einem absoluten Wahrheitsanspruch weicht. Diese Werke, von denen einige abschließend kurz vorgestellt werden, verband allerdings grundsätzlich, dass sie modernistische Verfahren der Montage und/oder des Dokumentarismus mobilisierten, um einerseits die proletarische Moderne zu repräsentieren und andererseits zur Bildung bzw. Stärkung der Gegenöffentlichkeit der Arbeiterbewegung und ihr zugehöriger Subjektivierungen beizutragen. Ein Beispiel, das zur Literaturgeschichte des modernistischen Realismus gehört, sind die Reportagen Egon Erwin Kischs, die er auf der Grundlage einer kommunistischen Sprechposition ab Mitte der Weimarer Republik verfasste und durch die er sich im Kontext der transnational vernetzten Gegenöffentlichkeiten der Arbeiterbewegung verortete. Als in erster Linie einem referentiellen Wirklichkeitsbezug verpflichtete Texte zeichnen sich Kischs Reportagen zudem durch einen selbstreflexiven Umgang mit diesem Bezug selbst sowie mit ihrem Verhältnis zur eigenen Gattungsgeschichte aus. Während Kisch im Gegensatz zu Jung eher selten Kollektive darstellt, inszenieren seine Texte ein dialogisches Verhältnis zwischen Reporter und Proletariern, das – aufgrund der Parteilichkeit des Reporters – auch ein solidarisches Verhältnis zwischen Reporter, Autor und Lesenden ermöglicht. Neben Kisch ist Klaus Neukrantzʼ Roman Barrikaden am Wedding zu nennen, der 1930 als vierter Band der Reihe Der Rote Eine-MarkRoman erschien. Gegen Ende des Textes fügt Neukrantz ein Kapitel in die Narration ein, das ausschließlich aus einer Montage von Ausschnitten aus Polizeiberichten, Zeitungartikeln und amtlichen Dokumenten besteht. Das dokumentarische Verfahren dient dazu, die Darstellung der gewaltsamen Niederschlagung der Demonstrationen am Maifeiertag 1929 in Berlin durch den Roman als authentisch zu legitimieren, gerade auch weil der Text die vorgeblich wahre Sicht

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der Ereignisse als massenmedial unsichtbar gemacht repräsentiert. Schließt der Text durch Montage und Dokumentarismus an den modernistischen Realismus an, ersetzt er die bei Jung und Kisch zu findende literarische Selbstreflexivität durch eine Rhetorik absoluter Wahrheit. Schließlich kann auf Anna Seghersʼ 1932 veröffentlichten Debütroman Die Gefährten verwiesen werden. Im Roman, der die globale Entwicklung der Arbeiterbewegung seit der Niederschlagung der europäischen Rätebewegung darstellt und dessen Zeugenschaftscharakter durch retrospektive paratextuelle Rahmungen evident wird, entwickelt Seghers eine innovative Form der Montage, um eine transnationale proletarische Moderne zu erzeugen und zu repräsentieren sowie um den Lesenden eine internationalistische Weltbeziehung zu ermöglichen.51 Diese kurze Skizze einiger Beispiele, die über Jung und die frühe Weimarer Republik hinausreichen, sollte abschließend deutlich gemacht haben, dass der modernistische Realismus der Arbeiterbewegungsliteratur als eine ästhetisch – und auch politisch – heterogene Strömung neuer, im Spannungsfeld der Avantgarden und der Arbeiterbewegung entstehender realistischer Schreibweisen zu konzeptualisieren ist.

|| 51 Zu Kisch und Seghers vgl. Schaub, Proletarische Welten, 146–156; 193–214; zu Neukrantz vgl. Schaub, Christoph, Weimar Contact Zones. Modernism, Workersʼ Movement Literature, and Urban Imaginaries, Dissertation, Columbia University 2015, 219–228. Der modernistische Realismus, den ich in diesem Aufsatz als literaturgeschichtliche Strömung diskutiert habe, lässt sich auch im Medium des Films finden, nämlich in Kuhle Wampe oder Wem gehört die Welt? (1932); vgl. Schaub, Christoph, „Labor Movement Modernism. Proletarian Collectives between Kuhle Wampe and Working-Class Performance Culture“, in: Modernism/Modernity, 25, 2018, Nr. 2, 327–348.

Till Huber

Das Ich und die Dinge Nach-avantgardistischer Konsumrealismus in Irmgard Keuns Das kunstseidene Mädchen Nach den klassischen Avantgarden stehen die Texte der Neuen Sachlichkeit bekanntlich für ein realistisches Erzählen, das in Abgrenzung zu Expressionismus, Dadaismus und Futurismus auch einen neuen (nüchternen) Umgang mit Dingen und Alltagsgegenständen pflegt. Jüngst schlug Oliver Jahraus vor, Expressionismus und Neue Sachlichkeit anhand der Leitdifferenz Ding/Sache als „antagonistische ästhetische Prinzipien“ zu begreifen. Die neusachliche „Reduktion auf das Immanente und Gegebene“ stehe demnach im Gegensatz zur expressionistischen „Überhöhung und Transzendierung“.1 Dabei tendiere der Expressionismus zur Verdinglichung, insofern sich „die Objekte selbst […] ausdrücken, ihren Objektcharakter transzendieren und so eine eigene, ihnen inhärente ästhetische Wahrheit sichtbar machen können.“ Nach Jahraus nehmen die Objekte „im Prozess der Verdinglichung nahezu einen Subjektstatus“ an. Gegen diese Auflösung einer Grenze zwischen Subjekt und Objekt richte sich die Versachlichung mit ihrem „Phantasma eines objektiven Blicks“, die auf der Trennung von „erkennendem Subjekt und Erkenntnisobjekt“2 insistiert. Mit ähnlichen Dichotomien beschreibt schon die zeitgenössische Literaturkritik der Weimarer Republik das Verhältnis von Expressionismus und Neuer Sachlichkeit. Kurt Pinthus, der 1919 mit Menschheitsdämmerung als Herausgeber der maßgeblichen Anthologie expressionistischer Lyrik in Erscheinung trat, zieht gegen Ende des neusachlichen Jahrzehnts folgendes Resümee: Während der Jüngling des Expressionismus durch aufgerissenes Gefühl, aufreißendes Wort, zukunftsheranreißende Idee wirkte, Wirklichkeit, Natur und Kosmos sprengte, um ‚aus dem Geist‘ eine neue Welt zu schaffen, – bemüht sich die gegenwärtige Literatur, Dinge, Ereignisse und Empfindungen mit kurzem, scharfen Blick und Wort zu fassen, begnügt sich der Mann mit der klaren, oft handwerklichen Tat, mit realer Wirkung im kleinen Bezirk. Nicht das Unerreichbare, Ferne, Unendliche, sondern das Greifbare, Bescheidene, Wirkliche wird gesucht; das Gegebene wird hergenommen, um überwältigt zu

|| 1 Jahraus, Oliver, „Leitdifferenz und Pluralismus“, in: Ders./Michaela Nicole Raß/Simon Eberle (Hrsg.), Sache/Ding. Eine ästhetische Leitdifferenz in der Medienkultur der Weimarer Republik, München 2017, 13–30, 15. 2 Jahraus, „Leitdifferenz und Pluralismus“, 16. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-031

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werden. Die Erscheinungen der Realität werden nicht übersteigert oder zur Explosion gebracht, sondern beim rechten Namen genannt.3

Die personifizierende Dichotomie Jüngling/Mann betont im Einklang mit der Leitdifferenz Ding/Sache den ‚klaren‘ und ‚handwerklichen‘ Zugriff auf die Dinge im neusachlichen Schreibverfahren: „Es spricht der Mann, der nicht schreit und jammert, sondern klärt und feststellt – und damit selber klar und fest wird“.4 Nimmt der erwachsene Mann als Repräsentant des neusachlichen Subjekts damit eine streng nüchterne Haltung gegenüber den Dingen ein, ließe sich dies mit Dorothee Kimmichs Essay Lebendige Dinge in der Moderne (2011) auch problematisieren. Sie geht mit Bezug auf Bruno Latour von einem unheimlichen „undercurrent“ der modernen Literatur aus, dem im Folgenden anhand von Irmgard Keuns Roman Das kunstseidene Mädchen nachgegangen werden soll. Kimmich konstatiert, dass die Moderne die Welt zwar ohne belebte Dinge erkläre, die Dinge in Texten der literarischen Moderne aber dennoch „oft lebendig oder fast lebendig oder so etwas Ähnliches wie lebendig“5 seien. Folglich seien lebendige Dinge vor allem für „moderne, erwachsene Menschen“ unheimlich, für „Kinder, Menschen aus ‚vormodernen‘ Kulturen und […] Verrückte“6 seien sie dagegen Teil eines gültigen Erklärungsmodells der jeweiligen Lebenswelt.

Dinge – Vom Expressionismus zur Neuen Sachlichkeit Eben diese Orientierung an Wahnsinn, Vormoderne und Irrationalismus findet prominent in den expressionistischen Verfahren statt, sodass lebendige Dinge vor allem hier zu finden sind.7 Einen Topos bildet dabei, um nur ein Beispiel zu nennen‚ die Gewaltausübung gegenüber Blumen. In Alfred Döblins Erzählung Die Ermordung einer Butterblume (1910) wird die Blume, indem ihre Ermordung

|| 3 Pinthus, Kurt, „Männliche Literatur“ [1929], in: Anton Kaes (Hrsg.), Weimarer Republik. Manifeste und Dokumente zur deutschen Literatur 1918–1933, Stuttgart 1983, 328–335, 328f. 4 Pinthus, „Männliche Literatur“, 329. 5 Kimmich, Dorothee, Lebendige Dinge in der Moderne, Konstanz 2011, 11. 6 Kimmich, Lebendige Dinge in der Moderne, 12. 7 Vgl. hierzu ausführlich den Beitrag „Dinge als Akteure in (neo)avantgardistischen Texten“ von Sabine Kyora im vorliegenden Band, 547–558.

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von einem „psychopathischen Kleinbürger“8 imaginiert wird, zum belebten Ding. Dies wird in Friedrich Wilhelm Murnaus expressionistischem Film NOSFERATU. EINE SYMPHONIE DES GRAUENS (1922) aufgegriffen, wenn der Hauptfigur Thomas Hutter vorgeworfen wird, Gewalt gegenüber Naturdingen auszuüben. So fragt Ellen Hutter9 ihren Mann, der ihr gerade einen frisch gepflückten Blumenstrauß überreicht hat: „Warum hast Du sie getötet ......... die schönen Blumen ...?!“10 Mit Anton Kaes lässt sich hier die ‚Gewalt‘ gegenüber Dingen als „premonition of events to come“11 lesen. Demnach handle es sich bei Thomas Hutter um eine Figur, die im Laufe der Handlung traumatisiert wird: „The film tells the story of Hutter, a naïve young man who is sent east by his elders (like the generation of 1914 was sent to the eastern front), only to return traumatized by ‚bloody rites of passage.‘ His encounter with Nosferatu, the vampire, allegorizes his encounter with death“.12 Beide Blumen-Tötungen können somit als psychopathologisch gerahmt gelten. Das Naturding tritt dabei bald als Identifikationsobjekt (Murnau), bald, wie bei Döblin, als antagonistisches oder doch ambivalentes – in jedem Fall aber belebtes – Etwas in Erscheinung. Die genannten expressionistischen Belege lokalisieren die Dinge in Naturnähe und stellen sie als lebendig dar, es lassen sich im expressionistischen Jahrzehnt aber auch Übergangsformen von den expressionistischen zu den realistischen Verfahren der Neuen Sachlichkeit finden, die in der urbanen Sphäre angesiedelt sind. So kommt es in Oskar Loerkes Erzählung Die Puppe (1919) zu einem „Realismus-Anspruch […], der für den Expressionismus ganz untypisch ist“,13 wenn die Hauptfigur ein Reklameschild mit dem Slogan „Putzt mit Siriol“14 sieht, die Diegese also im Konsumkapitalismus lokalisiert wird.15

|| 8 Sander, Gabriele, Alfred Döblin, Stuttgart 2001, 116. 9 Der Vorname Ellen taucht auch bei Döblin auf – sein Protagonist Michael Fischer gibt ihn der von ihm ‚ermordeten‘ Butterblume: „Wenn er die Blume nur rufen könnte. Aber wie hieß sie denn? Er wußte nicht einmal wie sie hieß. Ellen? Sie hieß vielleicht Ellen, gewiß Ellen.“ (Döblin, Alfred, „Die Ermordung einer Butterblume“, in: Die Ermordung einer Butterblume. Gesammelte Erzählungen. Gesammelte Werke, Bd. 2, Christina Althen [Hrsg.], Frankfurt 2013, 59–71, 64). 10 Murnau, Friedrich Wilhelm (Regie), NOSFERATU. EINE SYMPHONIE DES GRAUENS, 00:05.57– 00.06.15. Zitiert nach dem Zwischentitel. 11 Kaes, Anton, Shell Shock Cinema. Weimar Culture and the Wounds of War, Princeton 2009, 89. 12 Kaes, Shell Shock Cinema, 88. 13 Baßler, Moritz, Deutsche Erzählprosa 1850–1950. Eine Geschichte literarischer Verfahren, Berlin 2015, 350. 14 Loerke, Oskar, „Die Puppe“, in: Prosa des Expressionismus, Fritz Martini (Hrsg.), Stuttgart 1970, 272–281, 275.

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Auch in Robert Müllers Erzählung Irmelin Rose. Die Mythe der großen Stadt (1914) finden sich reichlich Passagen mit (realistischem) Bezug auf Konsumobjekte, so etwa die folgende, in der die Protagonistin im Blick auf die in den Schaufenstern präsentierten Auslagen bemerkt: „Was es für Dinge auf der Welt gab! Irmelin mochte sich die Perlen um den Hals legen und die Vasen und Statuetten daheim auf dem Nachtisch [sic] oder auch auf der Kommode stehen haben. In den Läden waren Bilder ausgestellt, nach denen sie eiferte“.16

Verdinglichung Im Zuge der nach-avantgardistischen Versachlichung ist das belebte Ding scheinbar weniger präsent. Das Interesse richtet sich auf die Oberfläche, auf Fakten statt Utopien, und durch die Ausdifferenzierung des Konsumkapitalismus in den 1920er Jahren wird diese Oberfläche in neusachlichen Texten häufig auch als eine von Konsumartikeln geprägte Sphäre beschrieben. Dies lässt sich gut anhand von Irmgard Keuns Roman Das kunstseidene Mädchen (1932) beobachten, in dem die autodiegetische Erzählerin Doris von ihren zahlreichen Liebesbeziehungen und Affären im Berlin Anfang der 1930er Jahre berichtet. Diese sind allesamt mit Konsum und konsumästhetischen Aspekten verknüpft. Die diskutierten Marken und Produkte werden im Detail genannt, sodass sich hier von einer neuen Form von neusachlichem „Konsumrealismus“17 sprechen ließe. Gegen das Versachlichungs-Paradigma ließe sich mit Kimmichs Formulierung aber behaupten, dass die Dinge in Keuns Roman doch „so etwas Ähnliches wie lebendig“ sind und es – wenn auch in ein realistisches Verfahren eingebettet – zu einer „Grenzüberschreitung zwischen Objekten und Subjekten“18 kommt, die Sabine Kyora in Bezug auf die erste Phase der Avantgarde konstatiert.

|| 15 Vgl. hierzu Baßler, Deutsche Erzählprosa 1850–1950, 350–352. 16 Müller, Robert, „Irmelin Rose. Die Mythe der großen Stadt“, in: Ders., Irmelin Rose und andere verstreute Texte, Paderborn 1993, 7–52; 42. Vgl. hierzu ausführlich: Erdbeer, Robert Matthias, „Der Einkaufsbummel als Horrortrip. Ein diskursgeschichtlicher Versuch zur Attraktionskultur in Robert Müllers ‚Irmelin Rose‘ (1914)“, in: Hofmannsthal-Jahrbuch zur europäischen Moderne 8, 2000, 311–355. 17 Diesen Begriff verwenden auch in einem anderen literargeschichtlichen Kontext: Baßler, Moritz/Drügh, Heinz, „Schimmernder Dunst. Konsumrealismus und die paralogischen PopPotenziale“, in: Pop. Kultur und Kritik, 2012, Heft 1, 60–65. 18 Kyora, „Dinge als Akteure in (neo)avantgardistischen Texten“, 545–556.

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Zwar strebt Doris durch ihre Liebschaften vor allem eine Teilhabe am Konsum an und verhält sich abgeklärt, kalkulierend und manipulativ im Umgang mit ihren Liebhabern – also ganz im Sinne des neusachlichen Programms. Der Text tendiert aber auch in Richtung einer Verdinglichung, kommt es in Doris’ Umgang mit Konsumobjekten doch zu einer Störung der Subjekt-ObjektPolarität, da Konsumobjekte die Sehnsüchte der Protagonistin spiegeln und zur Subjektkonstitution beitragen. So werden die Dinge lebendig, insofern Doris inmitten der Dinge in Szene gesetzt wird und als eine von Dingen, d.h. von Konsumobjekten, bedingte Größe in Erscheinung tritt. Auf der Ebene des Diskurses muss der neusachlich-objektivierende Blick auf die Oberfläche durch die mit den Konsumobjekten verstrickte Subjektivität der Ich-Erzählerin also gleich wieder ein Stück weit relativiert werden. Durch das autodiegetische Erzählen wird das Verhältnis von Ich und Dingen besonders unmittelbar reflektiert. So bemerkt Annette Keck, dass der Roman „über die vermeintlich naive Perspektive einen anderen Blick auf die Welt [bietet], auf die unterschiedlichen Selbstinszenierungen von Bedeutsamkeit, wie Sprachstil, Kleidung, Wohnungseinrichtungen und Lektüren“.19 Statt Ich-Zerfall und Bedrängung des Subjekts durch belebte Dinge kommt es, bedingt durch die Ausdifferenzierung der Marken-, Waren- und Konsumkultur, gerade zur Ich-Konstitution im Verweis auf Konsumdinge. Das Ich kann als Summe von Dingen und Ding-Diskursen begriffen werden,20 so will Doris „auch bißchen nette Kleider, weil man ja sonst noch mehr ein Garnichts ist. Und will auch mal ein Kaffee mit Musik und ein vornehmes Pfirsich Melba in hocheleganten Bechern“.21 Wenn es in Das kunstseidene Mädchen weiter heißt: „Ich nehme heimlich meinen Koffer und tat ihn vor die Tür. Ich habe ein paar meiner Sachen vergessen, das kann ich mir eigentlich nicht leisten“,22 ist dieser Satz || 19 Keck, Annette, „Vater unser, mach mir doch mit einem Wunder eine feine Bildung – das übrige kann ich ja selbst machen mit Schmincke“, in: Irmgard Keun: Das kunstseidene Mädchen. Mit zwei Beiträgen von Annette Keck und Anna Barbara Hagin, Berlin 2017, 221–228; 224. Vgl. hierzu auch Stockinger, Claudia, „‚daß man mit ein bißchen Nachdenken sich vieles selber erklären kann.‘ Irmgard Keuns Verfahren der reflektierten Naivität“, in: Irmgard Keun. Text+Kritik, H. 183, 2009, 3–14. 20 Maren Lickhardt begreift Doris in diesem Sinne als Figur, die als „Medium für intertextuelle Bezugnahmen fungiert“ (Lickhardt, Maren, „Zu den Anfängen des deutschen ‚Pop‘ in der Weimarer Republik. Irmgard Keuns Romane im Spannungsfeld von Konsum und Ästhetik“, in: Jahrbuch zur Kultur und Literatur der Weimarer Republik, 19, 2018, 43–63; 51). 21 Keun, Irmgard, Das kunstseidene Mädchen, Nach dem Erstdruck von 1932, mit einem Nachwort und Materialien herausgegeben von Stefanie Arend und Ariane Martin. Berlin 2005, 171. 22 Keun, Das kunstseidene Mädchen, 197.

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insofern doppeldeutig, als Doris es sich finanziell nicht leisten kann, auf die Sachen zu verzichten, aber eben auch nicht hinsichtlich ihres IdentitätsHaushalts. Hier befindet sich der 1932 erschienene Roman im Einklang mit aktuellen sozialwissenschaftlichen Theorien zu Waren und Konsum. So bemerkt der Sozialphilosoph Axel Honneth: „Der Konsummarkt ist heute überfüllt mit sogenannten ‚identity goods‘, die man nicht nur polemisch so bezeichnen sollte, sondern von denen man annehmen kann, dass ihr Konsum tatsächlich der Aufrechterhaltung persönlicher Identität zu Gute kommt. Es ist heute kaum mehr vorstellbar, dass Individuen zu einer sozialen Identität gelangen, ohne diese in einem Ensemble persönlich konsumierter Güter auszudrücken“.23 Statt Konsum in kulturkritischer Tradition zu verurteilen, wird in der aktuellen Debatte davon ausgegangen, dass Identität nicht vollständig ohne Konsumgüter zustande kommen kann und diese „mittels einer Reihe von Ritualen und Praktiken“ in das Leben der Konsumenten integriert sind. Es gehe, so Heinz Drügh, nicht mehr nur darum, dass man die Waren „‚haben möchte‘ und dann eben verbraucht, sondern umständlicher: begehrt, umschleicht, sich dann aneignet, sie aufhebt, sammelt, säubert, hegt und pflegt oder auch verschenkt, am Ende freilich dann doch auch häufig wegwirft“.24 In diesem Sinne fungiert in Das Kunstseidene Mädchen ein Feh-Mantel als starkes identity good, heißt es über ihn doch in einer häufig zitierten Passage: Da sah ich an einem Haken einen Mantel hängen – so süßer, weicher Pelz. So zart und grau und schüchtern, ich hätte das Fell küssen können, so eine Liebe hatte ich dazu. Es sah nach Trost aus und Allerheiligen und nach hoher Sicherheit wie ein Himmel. Es war

|| 23 „Kolonien der Ökonomie“. Gespräch zwischen Axel Honneth, Rainer Forst und Rahel Jaeggi, in: polar, 2, 2007, URL: http://www.polar-zeitschrift.de/polar_02.php?id=93#93 (Letzter Abruf: 22.08.2019). Dies bestätigt auch die amerikanische Bürgerrechtlerin Judith Levine, die in einem Selbstversuch ein Jahr lang auf jegliches Shopping verzichtete und in ihrem 2006 veröffentlichten Buch Not buying it darüber berichtete. In einem Fernsehinterview wurde sie gefragt, wie sie ihr konsumfreies Jahr verändert habe; die Antwort lautete: „In some ways, it was surprising. I didn’t think of myself as a shopper, and yet, I kind of missed the things of the consumer culture. I didn’t long to buy items, products, but I found that the consumer culture gives us a way to express our identities, to have a social life, to have a cultural life, even to have a political life. So, sometimes I felt lonely. I couldn’t go to a bar and have a drink with a friend. I felt sort of stupid, I didn’t see the movies that everyone was seeing or read the books that everyone was reading. So that was the downside of it.“ URL: https://vimeo.com/3765672 (Letzter Abruf: 29.08.2019). 24 Drügh, Heinz, „Einleitung: Warenästhetik. Neue Perspektiven auf Konsum, Kultur und Kunst“, in: Ders./Christian Metz/Björn Weyand (Hrsg.), Warenästhetik. Neue Perspektiven auf Konsum, Kultur und Kunst, Frankfurt 2011, 9–44; 21.

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echt Feh. Zog ich leise meinen Regenmantel aus und den Feh an, und gegen mein alleingelassenes Regenstück bekam ich ein trauriges Gewissen, als wenn eine Mutter ihr Kind nicht will, weil es häßlich ist. Aber ich sah aus! Und faßte den Entschluß, so vor Hubert zu treten.25

Das Kleidungsstück kommt hier inmitten des neusachlichen Konsumrealismus ansatzweise als lebendiges Ding daher, was den von Kimmich proklamierten undercurrent der modernen Literatur bestätigt. Der Mantel wird personifiziert (er sei „schüchtern“) und ist in der Lage, in Doris ein schlechtes Gewissen gegenüber ihrem ebenfalls personifizierten Regenmantel hervorzurufen. Der Feh sei, so Doris, „wie ein seltener Mann, der mich schön macht durch die Liebe zu mir“,26 und tatsächlich tritt der Feh gewissermaßen mit dem realweltlichen Liebhaber in Konkurrenz: „Um mich war der Mantel und hatte mehr schlagendes Herz für mich als Hubert.“ Wo das Ding belebt ist, wird wiederum der lebendige Hubert durch dinghafte Markendiskurse beschrieben, wenn es heißt, er „hatte Ringe um die Augen wie Continentalreifen“.27 Björn Weyand stellt in seiner Studie Poetik der Marke (2013) heraus, dass die Personifizierungen in Keuns Roman zugleich einen Topos in der Markenwerbung der Weimarer Republik bilden. Anhand einer 1928 erschienenen Anzeige für Bemberg-Strümpfe – eine Marke, die auch in Das kunstseidene Mädchen eine zentrale Rolle spielt – zeigt Weyand, dass das Produkt „zu einem geliebten Subjekt erhoben wird, wenn der Strumpf aus Bembergseide als ‚Liebling der Frauen‘ beworben wird“. Der Strumpf werde auf diese Weise „verlebendigt“.28 In der oben genannten Passage aus Keuns Roman werden Feh und Regenmantel zu lebenden Dingen, doch mit dem Ausruf „Aber ich sah aus!“ wird möglicherweise auch eine Überwindung der avantgarde-haften Verdinglichung angedeutet. Das Ding (und seine Semantik) wird nun vor allem auf das Ich bezogen, das nicht mehr als ein von den Dingen bedrängtes, schwaches Subjekt auftritt. Vielmehr verhilft das Ding als identity good dem Ich zu seiner Konstituierung, denn so, also mit Feh, will sich Doris gerne vor Hubert zeigen. Die Dinge werden also durch die Verknüpfung mit der ökonomischen Ordnung lebendig gemacht und sinnhaft auf das Ich bezogen, aber sie sind nicht ‚aus sich heraus‘ oder durch eine wahnhafte Projektion – siehe Butterblume – lebendig.

|| 25 Keun, Das kunstseidene Mädchen, 59f. 26 Keun, Das kunstseidene Mädchen, 62. 27 Keun, Das kunstseidene Mädchen, 60. 28 Weyand, Björn, Poetik der Marke. Konsumkultur und literarische Verfahren 1900–2000, Berlin, Boston 2013, 194.

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Es kommt in der zitierten Feh-Passage, wie Kyora bemerkt, zu einem „ineinander von subjektiven Wünschen und der Attraktion des Dings“, und in der subjektiven Innensicht der Erzählerin werde „das Verhältnis von Triebökonomie und der Ökonomie der Dinge erkennbar“.29 Es kann also gut belegt werden, dass die Dinge in Keuns Text, anders als im Expressionismus, vor allem durch die Affekte eines Ichs belebt sind, das als ein massenmedial geprägtes Subjekt daherkommt. So äußert Doris den Wunsch: „Ich will so ein Glanz werden, der oben ist. Mit weißem Auto und Badewasser, das nach Parfüm riecht, und alles wie Paris“.30 Diese von Doris genannten Dinge sind den zeitgenössischen Leser/innen aus Magazinen und Filmen bekannt. Insgesamt lässt sich sagen: Es gibt im Kunstseidenen Mädchen keine prädiskursiven Dinge; hierin mag auch ein Verstoß gegen die Prinzipien der Avantgardepoetik liegen, denn „[d]er Expressionismus will […] Sprache und Welt von Grund auf neu bauen und daher so wenig wie möglich auf vorgefertigte Frames und semantische Besetzungen zurückgreifen“.31 Den Dingen wird über den durch Markenwerbung kommunizierten „Fiktionswert“32 Leben eingehaucht – diesen Begriff prägte der Kunsthistoriker Wolfgang Ullrich als Ergänzung zum Gebrauchs- und Tauschwert nach Marx. Es gehe darum, „Waren über den Gebrauchswert hinaus symbolisch aufzuladen und zu Dingen zu entwickeln, die ihren Besitzern schmeicheln, sie in ihrer Einstellung unterstützen oder sogar transformieren“.33 Die im Kunstseidenen Mädchen dargestellten Konsumobjekte spiegeln die medial geprägten Sehnsüchte der Ich-Erzählerin, umgekehrt ist Doris darum bemüht, ihr Selbst mit Hilfe des Dings nach außen zu spiegeln. Tatsächlich finden sich in Keuns Roman auch verstärkt Motive des Sich-Spiegelns im Zusammenhang mit Filmen, Schaufenstern und Lichtreklame:34 „‚Ich sehe – mich in Spiegeln von Fenstern und dann finde ich mich hübsch, und dann gucke ich

|| 29 Kyora, Sabine, „Nebensachen. Zur Bedeutung von Accessoires und Interieurs in neusachlichen Texten“, in: Dies./Stefan Neuhaus (Hrsg.), Realistisches Schreiben in der Weimarer Republik, Würzburg 2006, 77–88, 79. 30 Keun, Das kunstseidene Mädchen, 44 31 Baßler, Deutsche Erzählprosa 1850–1950, 350. 32 Ullrich, Wolfgang, Habenwollen. Wie funktioniert die Konsumkultur? [2006]. Frankfurt 2009, 46. 33 Ullrich, Habenwollen, 13. Vgl. hierzu auch Ullrich, Wolfgang, „Philosophen haben die Welt immer nur verschieden interpretiert – verändern Produktdesigner sie auch?“, in: Heinz Drügh/Christian Metz/Björn Weyand (Hrsg.), Warenästhetik. Neue Perspektiven auf Konsum, Kultur und Kunst, Berlin 2011, 111–128; 112. 34 Vgl. hierzu ausführlich: Weyand, Poetik der Marke Poetik der Marke, 204–214.

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die Männer, und die gucken auch“.35 Helmut Lethen bezeichnet Keuns Protagonistinnen Doris und Gilgi als „Menschen, die sich permanent im Spiegel der Fremdwahrnehmung definieren, Nähe und Distanz auf ihren Bewegungsspielraum hin taxieren, Wahrnehmungsformen der Massenmedien auf sich beziehen, Moden als Orientierungsmarken benutzen“. Der psychische Hintergrund dieses neuen Typs sei „von diffuser Angst grundiert; sie nährt seine Alarmbereitschaft und hält das ruhelose Beobachten in Gang“.36 Weniger pathologisierend klingt Kerstin Barndts Einschätzung: „Doris liebt den Feh wie die Fiktion, die sie sich im begehrenden Blick des anderen von sich selbst macht“.37 Auch Simone de Beauvoir erwähnt diese Qualität des Mantels in ihrer Schrift Das andere Geschlecht von 1949: „Ein deutscher Roman, Das kunstseidene Mädchen, erzählt, welche Leidenschaft ein armes junges Mädchen für einen echten FehMantel empfindet. […] Unter kostbaren Pelzen liebt sie ihr eigenes verwandeltes Ich. Endlich besitzt sie die Schönheit der Welt, die sie nie umfangen hatte, das strahlende Schicksal, das nie ihr eigen geworden war“.38 Auf die Tatsache, dass der Feh in Keuns Roman als „so ähnlich wie lebendig“ erscheint, verweist auch der Literaturwissenschaftler Thomas Wegmann, wenn er bemerkt, die zeitweise obdachlose Doris trage „den gestohlenen Pelzmantel […] wie eine anthropomorphisierte Schnecke ihr Haus“.39

Versachlichung Es wurde nachgewiesen, dass im Kunstseidenen Mädchen weiterhin verdinglichende Aspekte vorhanden sind, wenn sich diese auch, stärker eingebettet in den Konsumkapitalismus, ganz anders manifestieren als in den AvantgardeTexten vor 1920. Abschließend sollen einige versachlichende Aspekte des nachavantgardistischen Konsumrealismus in den Blick genommen werden. So wie sich Doris mit dem Fehmantel identifiziert, oder besser gesagt, wie sie ihn mit sich identifiziert, werden auch andere Figuren im Kunstseidenen

|| 35 Keun, Das kunstseidene Mädchen, 99. 36 Lethen, Helmut, Verhaltenslehren der Kälte. Lebensversuche zwischen den Kriegen [1994]. Frankfurt 2018, 242f. 37 Barndt, Kerstin, Sentiment und Sachlichkeit. Der Roman der Neuen Frau in der Weimarer Republik, Köln 2003, 200f. 38 Beauvoir, Simone de, Das andere Geschlecht [1949]. Reinbek 1989, 514. 39 Wegmann, Thomas, Dichtung und Warenzeichen. Reklame im literarischen Feld 1850–2000, Göttingen 2011, 330.

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Mädchen mittels eines Ding-Diskurses bewertet. Björn Weyand weist im Blick auf zeitgenössische Markenwerbung nach, inwiefern Doris die Menschen in ihrem Umfeld streng an ihrem Konsumverhalten bemisst, sodass sich von einem „Denken in Marken“40 sprechen lässt. In der folgenden Passage des Romans sitzt Doris in einem Café und stellt folgenden Beobachtung an: Und er bestellt Zigaretten zu acht, wo er sonst immer nur zu vier raucht. Das Schwein. Wenn einer welche zu acht bestellt, weiß man ja Bescheid, welche Absichten er hat. Und wenn einer wirklich solide ist, raucht er zu sechs mit einer Dame, denn das ist anständig und nicht übertrieben […]. Mir hat ein Alter mal welche zu zehn bestellt – was soll ich sagen, der war Sadist, und was er genau gewollt hat, ist mir peinlich niederzuschreiben.41

Die Marken der Zigaretten werden nicht genannt, aber der Stückpreis, so zeigen die zeitgenössischen Anzeigen, die Weyand analysiert hat, gilt Ende der 1920er Jahre als „ökonomisches Kriterium, das in zeitgenössischen Anzeigen für Zigarettenmarken dominant platziert wird“.42 Dieser Stückpreis-Diskurs war den Leserinnen und Lesern der Zeit bekannt, und womöglich trugen diese Bezüge auf eigene Alltagserfahrungen und medial geprägte Wirklichkeit gerade zum Erfolg des Romans bei. Wie geläufig der Zigaretten-Diskurs war, zeigt die Tatsache, dass er auch in dem ebenfalls 1932 erschienen Roman Kleiner Mann – was nun? von Hans Fallada zum Thema wird. Hier lässt sich erkennen, dass die beiden Hauptfiguren Johannes Pinneberg und seine Frau Emma, genannt ‚Lämmchen‘, in weniger glanzvollen Kreisen verkehren und ein bodenständigeres Konsumverhalten an den Tag legen: ‚Du, Lämmchen‘, sagt er. ‚Ich will dir auch kein Haushaltsgeld geben. Zu Anfang des Monats tun wir alles Geld in einen Topf, und jeder nimmt sich, was er braucht.‘ ‚Ja‘, sagt sie, ‚und wir sind furchtbar sparsam. Vielleicht lerne ich auch noch Oberhemden plätten.‘ ‚Fünf-Pfenning-Zigaretten sind auch Unsinn‘, sagt er. ‚Es gibt schon anständige zu drei‘.43

Sowohl bei Keun als auch bei Fallada kommt es zu einem sachlich-nüchternen Blick auf die Dinge: Anhand der Stückpreise der Zigaretten „wird das Subjekt […] in die ökonomische Ordnung integriert“.44 Lämmchen und Pinneberg || 40 Weyand, Poetik der Marke, 172–179. 41 Keun, Das kunstseidene Mädchen, 13f. 42 Weyand, Poetik der Marke, 175. 43 Fallada, Hans, Kleiner Mann – was nun? [1932]. Ungekürzte Neuausgabe. Mit einem Nachwort von Carsten Gansel. Berlin 2016, 32. 44 Kyora, Sabine, „Nebensachen. Zur Bedeutung von Accessoires und Interieurs in neusachlichen Texten“, 78.

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schrauben ihre Ansprüche angesichts ihrer desolaten wirtschaftlichen Lage herunter und orientieren sich an einem Stückpreis von drei Pfennigen und damit am Gebrauchswert des Produkts. Pinneberg entlarvt den Fiktionswert der teureren Zigaretten als „Unsinn“, wobei hier eine leise Trauer über den Abschied von diesen Fiktionen mitschwingen mag, worauf auch die folgende Passage hindeutet, in der die Eheleute Pinneberg diskutieren, wie sie in ihrer ersten gemeinsamen Wohnung mit zwei statt bisher vier Herdplatten kochen können: ‚Mit zwei Flammen‘, ergänzt Lämmchen traurig. ‚Wie ich das machen soll, das ist mir noch schleierhaft. Auf zwei Flammen kann doch kein Mensch ein Essen kochen. Mutter hat vier Flammen.‘ ‚Aber natürlich geht es mit zweien.‘ ‚Nun pass doch mal auf, Junge…‘ ‚Wir wollen ganz einfach essen, da reichen zwei Flammen vollkommen.‘ ‚Wollen wir auch. Aber ’ne Suppe willst du doch haben: erster Topf Und dann Fleisch: zweiter Topf. Und Gemüse: dritter Topf. Und Kartoffeln: vierter Topf. Wenn ich dann zwei Töpfe auf den beiden Flammen warm habe, sind unterdes die beiden andern kalt geworden. Bitte –?‘ ‚Ja‘, sagt er gedankenvoll. ‚Ich weiß doch auch nicht …‘ […] ‚Das hab ich mir ganz anders gedacht‘, sagt er traurig.45

Insgesamt ist die Sachlichkeit in Falladas Roman von einer Semantik des downsizing und einem Abschied vom Fiktionswert geprägt. Dagegen bleibt Doris’ Handeln bestimmt von einem starken Glauben an den Fiktionswert, an den „Glanz“ der Waren. Doch auch in der zitierten Passage aus dem Kunstseidenen Mädchen wird die Tendenz zur Versachlichung deutlich, indem Doris desillusioniert die Stückpreise der Zigaretten als Währung für sexuelle Gegenleistungen herausstellt. Der Zigarettenkonsum bleibt also mit Kalkül verbunden. Auch in Marieluise Fleißers Roman Eine Zierde für den Verein (1931) werden Zigaretten zum ökonomischen Kriterium, und das nicht nur, weil der Protagonist Gustl Gillich als Tabakwarenhändler tätig ist. Über Minze, den Sohn seines Vermieters, heißt es: „Sein Prestige erfordert, daß er drei Gelbe Sorte kauft“.46 Schon von Berufs wegen pflegt Gustl einen kalkulierenden Blick auf seine Umwelt. So urteilt er folgendermaßen über eine Gruppe von Kindern, die sich vor seinem Laden aufhält.

|| 45 Fallada, Hans, Kleiner Mann – was nun? [1932]. Ungekürzte Neuausgabe. Mit einem Nachwort von Carsten Gansel, Berlin 2016, 42f. Herv. T.H. 46 Fleißer, Marieluise, Eine Zierde für den Verein. Roman vom Rauchen, Sporteln, Lieben und Verkaufen [1931], Frankfurt 2016, 12.

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Er muß den Abweisenden spielen, wenn sie nicht wie die Ameisen bei ihm ein und aus wimmeln wollen. Das ist nicht die Sorte Kinder, der man die bunten Bildchen verehrt, weil sie an der Hand des Erwachsenen wandelt. Das ist die taube Sorte, die ihren Tauschhandel unerkannt und folgenlos unter sich ausmacht. Jede Nachgiebigkeit gegen sie würde eine ewig verschwendete Handreichung bleiben. Gustl ist kein solcher Tor. Er scheucht das Gewürm von der Straße ja nicht mit harten Worten weg, von Scheuchen ist keine Rede. ‚Hier gibt es nichts zu verschenken,‘ sagt er frisch, ‚hier wird nur verkauft‘. Zwischen seinen Augen erscheint eine drohende Falte, aber seine Worte drohen nicht, sie sind bloß ein für allemal klar.47

Was Baßler über Keuns Protagonistinnen sagt, ließe sich auch auf Gustl beziehen: „Diese ‚neue Generation‘ hat nichts mehr mit der spätexpressionistischen Utopie des Neuen Menschen am Hut. Ihre illusionslosen Verhaltenslehren der Kälte (stehlen, sich prostituieren) reagieren sachlich auf die Verhältnisse“. Diese Figuren seien „durchaus zu menschlicher Wärme befähigt, doch wird diese Menschlichkeit dezidiert nicht als Lösung der gesellschaftlichen Problemlage, als gültiger Verhaltenscode der Texte angeboten“.48 In Gustls Fall äußern sich diese desillusionistisch-kalten Verhaltenslehren in der Konzentration aufs Verkaufen, was sich etwa darin zeigt, dass der Begriff „Sorte“ sachlich-taxierend für Kinder („das ist die taube Sorte“) wie auch für Waren („Gelbe Sorte“) verwendet wird. So lassen sich im nach-avantgardistischen Konsumrealismus versachlichende und verdinglichende Tendenzen konstatieren. Keuns Roman ist einerseits geprägt von einem neusachlichen, nüchternen Blick auf die Dinge – mit Pinthus gesprochen, von einer ‚männlichen Literatur‘, obwohl es sich ja um eine weibliche Erzählerin handelt. Andererseits kommt es zur besagten IchKonstitution über warenästhetisch und massemedial vermittelte Dinge, die im Kontext des aufstrebenden Konsumkapitalismus „so etwas Ähnliches wie lebendig“ werden.

|| 47 Fleißer, Eine Zierde für den Verein, 11. 48 Baßler: Deutsche Erzählprosa 1850–1950, 309.

Janka Wagner

“… this is without a doubt the most despicable barbarism one could attain” Perspectives on the Negative Reception of Nieuwe Zakelijkheid in Dutch Literary Criticism Unlike many other art movements, the birth of the Neue Sachlichkeit is quite clear to define. In the summer of 1925 the director of the Kunsthalle Mannheim, Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, organised an art exhibition he called “Neue Sachlichkeit. Deutsche Malerei seit dem Expressionismus” (Neue Sachlichkeit. German Painting since Expressionism), including painters like George Grosz, Otto Dix and Karl Hubbuch.1 With his exhibition, Hartlaub aimed to give a comprehensive overview of current German painters striving for an objective way of representing their themes.2 Despite a negligible number of visitors and a heterogenic set of artworks at the exhibition, the term Neue Sachlichkeit itself was quite successful and coined a new art concept. Starting with painting, it quickly spread like wildfire to different fields of art, such as literature and architecture, and surpassed national borders. In the Netherlands, the loanword Nieuwe Zakelijkheid was applied in various contexts in the late 1920s and was presented as an expression of modern times. However, from the 1930s enthusiasm surrounding the concept had already started receding. Dutch literary critics, such as Hendrik Marsman, faulted the realistic journalistic style of Nieuwe Zakelijkheid and branded its authors to be no more than reporters as opposed to “real” artists.3 The negative literary judgements reached a first peak in 1932.4

|| 1 Unless otherwise indicated, all translations of Dutch and German quotations are my own. As Dorleijn rightly underlines, the Dutch word zakelijk is difficult to translate because “it combines notions like businesslike, thinglike, objective, impersonal, pragmatic and down-toearth” (Dorleijn, Gillis J. , “Challenging the Autonomous Realm of Literature. Nieuwe Zakelijkheid and Poetry in the Dutch Literary Field”, in: Ralf Grüttemeier/Klaus Beekman/Ben Rebel [eds.], Neue Sachlichkeit and Avant-Garde, Amsterdam 2013, 21–50, here 24). For this reason, I have left (nieuw-)zakelijk and its variations untranslated as well as the German terms (neu)sachlich, which covers almost the same connotations. 2 Hartlaub had already developed the idea for his exhibition in 1923, but the economic crisis deferred his plans. For a detailed reconstruction of the historical origin of the exhibition see: Buderer, Hans-Jürgen/Fath, Manfred (eds.), Neue Sachlichkeit. Bilder auf der Suche nach der Wirklichkeit, München 1994, 15–37. 3 Marsman, Hendrik, “De aesthetiek der reporters”, in: Forum, 1, 1932, 141–150. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-032

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Those positions cannot be taken as a response to Dutch literature itself, considering that by 1932 only two Dutch novels of Nieuwe Zakelijkheid were on the market, whereas the bigger part was published in the years thereafter. By speaking of Nieuwe Zakelijkheid literary scholars, as well as contemporary critics, mainly focus on a core group of four writers: M. Revis (8100 000 m3 Zand (8100 000 m3 Sand), 1932; Gelakte hersens (Varnished Brains), 1934), Ben Stroman (Stad (City), 1932), Jef Last (Partij Remise (Tied Game), 1933); Zuiderzee (1934), and W.A. Wagener (Sjanghai, 1933). All of these writers worked as journalists and (except for Last) debuted in literary circuits with these novels. The time gap between critical evaluations and literary production leads to the question how the negative consensus among Dutch literary critics by 1932 can be explained. Because the term was inherited from Germany, one could assume that literary discourses on that concept were also transferred into the Netherlands. Apart from that, the original term Neue Sachlichkeit was coined as a reference to visual art. Consequently, the debates in the Dutch field of visual arts were initiated first and may have determined similar literary discourse. In this paper I will investigate these two external influences on Dutch literary criticism, with the goal of pointing out possible functions of such an anticipative negative position held by Dutch critics. Therefore, I will first outline the primary points of Dutch literary criticism towards Nieuwe Zakelijkheid, before those judgements are analysed in relation to the German reception, and finally within the scope of Dutch reception of visual arts.

The Dutch Literary Reception of Nieuwe Zakelijkheid At the start of Dutch literary discussions on Nieuwe Zakelijkheid, reviews of especially German literature were quite frequent. At the same time, there were

|| 4 This paper is based on former research conducted as part of my doctoral thesis, in which I systematically analysed the reception of Nieuwe Zakelijkheid in Dutch interwar newspapers. Therefore, on the one hand the literary debate on Nieuwe Zakelijkheid was considered in its institutional contexts, and on the other hand in the broader context of other cultural discourses, such as painting, architecture, music or photography. One result was, that a negative consensus in the literary debates already established in 1932 (see: Wagner, Janka, “Sachlichkeit ist tödlich für das Wesen der Kunst”. Funktionen der Debatte um Nieuwe Zakelijkheid im niederländischen Kunstfeld der Zwischenkriegszeit aus feldtheoretischer Perspetive, Oldenburg 2019, Carl von Ossietsky Universität [unpublished Dissertation])

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also contributions discussing Nieuwe Zakelijkheid without referring to a specific author or text, but implying an attitude of rejection toward the concept. The main objections against nieuw-zakelijke literature were at the one hand the alleged commercial character thereof and on the other, the objective style of writing. Instead of creating a reality, novels of Nieuwe Zakelijkheid are considered as being limited to a representation of reality. Critics often compared these writers with reporters or photographers. They associated the impersonal style of the literature with modern technical attributes by referring to it as “literary x-ray photography”,5 “reportage-literature-film-ragout”6 or as “the method of exact photographic fidelity”,7 and to its authors as displaying the “perception of a surgeon”.8 In the context of the respective reviews, it seems clear that all these metaphors are intended to discredit writers of Nieuwe Zakelijkheid and their literary abilities. Given the professional background of the novelists, the comparison to journalism is not surprising. However, the harsh polemics indicate that the critique is not only about the novels themselves. The literary evaluations suggest an urge to distinguish literature – or in general terms art – from (modern) competitive phenomena. In one of the key essays on Nieuwe Zakelijkheid published in the powerful literary journal Forum, Hendrik Marsman criticised the banalisation of literature by emphasizing the boundaries between literature and journalism: “the artist is not the slave, the follower, the reporter of his object, but the absolute autonomous ruler of everything he attempts”.9 According to Marsman it is the artistic freedom that separates the writer from the reporter and as a result, he qualifies the objective demand of Nieuwe Zakelijkheid as “the most despicable barbarism one could attain”.10 But Marsman is not the first critic to raise this reproach. In Het Vaderland (The Fatherland) – in cultural terms, one of the most powerful newspapers of the interbellum – head-critic Henri Borel condemns the trends of German theatre at the time. In 1929, with reference to German critic Alfred Kerr, Borel already claims that “the term Zakelijkheid is already deadly to the essence of the term art”.11 And in 1930 his colleague in the German section, Friedrich Markus Huebner, criticises the lack of variety in this literature: “the technique of telling, the way in which the topic is exposed, is the same thing everywhere. One avoids roman|| 5 Tazelaar, Christiaan, “Vitalistische Kunst”, in: De Reformatie, 7 April 1933. 6 Borel, Henri, “Twee boeken van de jongere generatie”, in: Het Vaderland, 3 April 1932. 7 Huebner, F.M., “Dichterlijk proza”, in: Het Vaderland, 5 April 1931. 8 de Jong, A.M., “Een kreet van afschuw”, in: Het Volk. 18 July 1933. 9 Marsman, “De Aesthetiek der Reporters”, 149. 10 Marsman, “De Aesthetiek der Reporters”, 150. 11 Borel, Henri, “Dramatische kroniek”, in: Het Vaderland, 18 August 1929.

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ticism as much as possible. One comes close to reportage”.12 Similar argumentative patterns are held forth by various other critics of the time. The opponents of literary Nieuwe Zakelijkheid not only criticised intersections with journalism, but also the fact that the simple, sober style did not stand out from everyday language: “This zakelijk prose can be used to utter everything in the same way – a whispered word of love does not differ from advertising messages: Strawberry jam on sale. Buy now!”13 Huebner accuses nieuw-zakelijke writers of undermining a specific literariness of language, that these authors trivialise art. Furthermore, the making equal of literature and advertising, suggests a connection between Nieuwe Zakelijkheid and commercial circles. In fact, Huebner is not the only critic linking the concept to a profit-orientated literature. Menno ter Braak, one of the leading critics of the time, also argued that Dutch novels of Nieuwe Zakelijkheid are only copies of international bestsellers. By imitating methods of authors like the Russian Il’a Erenburg,14 Dutch writers intend to gain commercial success: “The patent of the sausage machine has been issued; the number of topics are limitless; Let’s take topics and stuff them into the machine to see what type of literature it vomits”.15 With his factory-metaphor, ter Braak not only points to a commercial orientation, but also negates the originality of the novels by comparing them to a reproducible product. He argues that Nieuwe Zakelijkheid literature is not written for the literary connoisseur but addresses the mainstream, or in ter Braak’s words the “quickly emotionalised (but as quickly dozed off) big city public, which demands film instead of laborious reasoning, and montage instead of psychology”.16 Rather than a composed, united narrative, Nieuwe Zakelijkheid only offers fragments of reality and therefore cannot achieve the status of literature. Like these critical positions illustrate, a harsh negative stance toward Nieuwe Zakelijkheid had already been set in the early 1930s, although the actual literary products were still in the making. Critics disqualified this literature for its lack of creation, originality, and unity. These requirements that literature needs to meet, can be associated with an idealistic aesthetic,17 which is used as

|| 12 Huebner, F.M., “Nieuwe Zakelijkheid”, in: Het Vaderland, 14 December 1930. 13 Huebner, “Nieuwe Zakelijkheid”. 14 About the position of Il’a Erenburg in Dutch debates on Nieuwe Zakelijkheid, see: Grüttemeier, Ralf, “The Function of Ilja Ehrenburg Concerning the Dutch Prose of the Nieuwe Zakelijkheid”, in: Grüttemeier et al. (eds.), Neue Sachlichkeit and Avant-Garde, 229–254. 15 ter Braak, Menno “Ehrenburg maakt school”, in: Het Vaderland, 25 March 1934. 16 ter Braak, “Ehrenburg maakt school”. 17 For a detailed representation of the concept, see: Bürger, Peter, Zur Kritik der idealistischen Ästhetik, Frankfurt 1990 [1983]. For the specific context in the Netherlands, see: Grüttemeier,

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a poetological statement, but also as an instrument to demarcate the borders of what is considered as literature in this time. Apparently, critics felt the urge to defend the literary field from new stylistic influences, such as journalism. An investigation into the German reception and debate around Nieuwe Zakelijkheid will follow. Accordingly, the possibility can be considered that similar arguments can be found in Dutch discourse on the subject, which can serve as an explanation to the premature negative position of Dutch critics.

Nieuwe Zakelijkheid in the Light of German Debates on Neue Sachlichkeit During the interwar period, foreign literature had a high impact on the Dutch book market. In fact, in the 1930s more than sixty percent of the novels offered by Dutch publishers were (translations of) international fiction.18 The high interest in especially European literature became apparent in Dutch newspapers as well. Most journalistic arts sections had only just established around 1920 and the number of critics were rather limited.19 However, nearly every national newspaper held a special column on foreign languages. Besides a head-critic for Dutch literature, there were particular employees in charge of at least English, French and German literature. Those connoisseurs, as the earlier mentioned Friedrich Markus Huebner, functioned as cultural mediators and introduced the Dutch audience to new literary phenomena like Neue Sachlichkeit in Germany.20 Although the Neue Sachlichkeit is considered as the dominant art movement of the Weimar Republic,21 many German critics also were not very openminded about the objective style and new techniques. From 1929 onwards, neg-

|| Ralf, Hybride Welten. Aspekte der “Nieuwe Zakelijkheid” in der niederländischen Literatur, Stuttgart 1995, 41–45 et passim. 18 Sanders, Mathijs, “Het buitenland bekeken”, in: Helleke van den Braber/Jan Gielkens (eds.), In 1934. Nederlandse cultuur in internationale context, Amsterdam 2010, 301–303. 19 van Dijk, Nel, “Tussen professionalisering en verzuiling. Kunstkritiek in de Nederlandse dagbladpers tijdens het interbellum”, in: Gillis J. Dorleijn/Kees van Rees (eds.), De productie van literatuur. Het literaire veld in Nederland 1800–2000, Nijmegen 2006, 123–142. 20 Huebner worked for both, German and Dutch newspapers and hence, aided the cultural transfer between these literary fields [see: Roland, Hubert, Leben und Werk von Friedrich Markus Huebner (1886–1964), Münster 2009]. 21 Becker, Sabina, Neue Sachlichkeit. Die Ästhetik der neusachlichen Literatur (1920–1933), vol. 1, Köln 2000, 365.

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ative perspectives on the concept were already growing and the term itself became an “inflationary used buzzword”.22 Powerful critics like Georg Lukács, Béla Balázs or Walter Benjamin displayed their disliking position in several essays. Even a former supporter, Joseph Roth, proclaimed in 1930: “Pull the plug on Neue Sachlichkeit!”23 Even though Roth’s article implies a more sophisticated evaluation than the title alleges, he devaluates Neue Sachlichkeit as a temporary fashion. Roth appreciates an objective style of writing in general, but distinguishes between a literary version and conventional reportages: While the reporter has to document the facts “in exact detail”, the writer is free to form reality in an “arbitrary and creative” way.24 Roth warns, that as soon as the document “starts to replace and suppress the creation”,25 the final product would be no more than “photographic plates”.26 Georg Lukács raises the same argument against Neue Sachlichkeit two years later – except that he rejects any kind of documentary style for literature. In Lukács’s opinion, objectivity is reserved for science and journalism, whereas in literature “the creation of the entire process is the basis for a right composition of the novel”.27 He argues that the goals of a reportage literature, which Lukács defines as overcoming “arbitrariness and the subjectivism”,28 disqualifies Neue Sachlichkeit from the literary field. Regarding these critical positions, the way Neue Sachlichkeit (Germany) and Nieuwe Zakelijkheid (Netherlands) were discussed in the respective national literary circuits, reveals some striking analogies. First and foremost, these similarities result from the poetological criteria, which can be ascribed to an idealistic aesthetic. Both in Germany and in the Netherlands this concept is considered as the dominant view of literature at that time.29 However, the similarities are not limited to poetological aspects, but are also perceptible on a rhetoric level. Several years before Menno ter Braak compares the writing style of Nieuwe Zakelijkheid to a sausage machine, Béla Balázs had already defined

|| 22 Becker, Neue Sachlichkeit, 58. 23 Roth, Joseph, “Schluß mit der ‘Neuen Sachlichkeit’!”, in: Die literarische Welt, 6, 1930, no. 3, 3–4; no 4, 7–8. 24 Roth, “Schluß mit der ‘Neuen Sachlichkeit’!”, 4. 25 Roth, “Schluß mit der ‘Neuen Sachlichkeit’!”, 7. 26 Roth, “Schluß mit der ‘Neuen Sachlichkeit’!”, 7. 27 Lukács, Georg, “Reportage oder Gestaltung? Kritische Bemerkungen anläßlich des Romans von Ottwalt. I.”, in: De Linkskurve, 4, 1932, no. 7, 23–30, here 29. 28 Lukács, “Reportage oder Gestaltung?”, 27. 29 For the German discussions, see: Becker, Neue Sachlichkeit, 25–27. For the Dutch context, see: Grüttemeier, Hybride Welten, 27–36.

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Neue Sachlichkeit as “aesthetics of the assembly line”.30 In his contribution, this metaphor also functions to question the literary ambitions of neusachliche writers by presenting their work as a commercial product. Neue Sachlichkeit is customised for the common taste and hence “just a permit for the lacking talent of uninspired, insensitive, banal factual poets”.31 As a result, both Balázs and ter Braak not only blame the writers for this – in their eyes – regress in literature, but also the “petty-bourgeois-dull-witted public” of the time, which “simply has no use for writers”.32 Similar reproaches against Neue Sachlichkeit can be found in Walter Benjamin’s writings. In his article “Linke Melancholie” (Left-Wing Melancholy) from 1931 Benjamin declares the function of Neue Sachlichkeit and its writers as, “from the literary standpoint, not schools but fashions; from the economic standpoint, not producers but agents”33 who accomplish the needs of the book market perfectly and in doing so “make a great display of their poverty, and a banquet out of yawning emptiness”.34 Benjamin makes no pretence of his disdain for neusachliche writers, like Erich Kästner or Kurt Tucholsky, and diminishes their books to a “consumer article”.35 In his opinion their literary work cannot be taken seriously, because of their adaptive capacity of (literary) supply and demand. Like many other critics of that time, Benjamin considers Neue Sachlichkeit as a temporary phenomenon and accuses those writers to be servants of the literary market. On the one hand, these analogies in argumentation and rhetoric support the assumption of a German impulse for the Dutch discourse on Nieuwe Zakelijkheid. On the other hand, there is no definite evidence for this influence. Apart from Borel, mentioning Alfred Kerr in his early rejection of Nieuwe Zakelijkheid, Dutch critics do not refer explicitly to German critical authorities. Moreover, the German writers reviewed as neusachlich in Dutch newspapers also indicate differences between the German and Dutch discourse. In the Dutch critiques

|| 30 Balázs, Béla, “Sachlichkeit und Sozialismus”, in: Die Weltbühne, 24, 1928, 916–918, here 917. 31 Balázs, “Sachlichkeit und Sozialismus”, 917. 32 Balázs, “Sachlichkeit und Sozialismus”, 916. 33 Benjamin, Walter, “Linke Melancholie” [1931], in: Walter Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 3: Kritiken und Rezensionen, Frankfurt am Main 1980, 279–283, here 280. Quoted in English translation in: Benjamin, Walter , “The Author as Producer”, trans. Edmund Jephcott, in: Michael W. Jennings/Brigid Doherty/Thomas Y. Levin (eds.), The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media, Cambridge 2008, 79–95, here 88. 34 Benjamin, “The Author as Producer”, 88; see also: Benjamin, “Linke Melancholie”, 281. 35 Benjamin, “Linke Melancholie”, 281.

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one finds authors like Otto Flake,36 Kasimir Edschmid,37 Hermann Kesten38 or Alfred Neumann.39 By comparing this selection to Becker’s study, which is probably the most comprehensive academic work on the German literary discourse, only Kesten is directly associated with Neue Sachlichkeit. However, Becker claims that Kesten had already distanced himself from the term in 1929 and in reverse preferred the term Neue Romantik.40 The name Alfred Neumann does not even appear in Becker’s study, whereas Edschmid is only mentioned once in a listing of authors (including Otto Flake) regarding a new form of naturalism. Flake himself mostly appears as a critic, not a writer, and is once even presented as a literary counterpart of Neue Sachlichkeit.41 For these reasons it seems valuable to discuss another potential source of influence: the Dutch discourse on the visual arts.

Nieuwe Zakelijkheid in the Light of Dutch Debates in Visual Arts In March 1926, when Hartlaub’s circulating exhibition was still touring through Germany, the term Nieuwe Zakelijkheid was mentioned for the first time in Dutch newspapers by Kasper Niehaus.42 Niehaus was a painter, but mainly built up a reputation as head-critic of one of the biggest Dutch papers, De Telegraaf (The Telegraph). Between 1926 and 1940 he published more than 40 contributions involving the term Nieuwe Zakelijkheid. Because of his international network and his gusto for realistic painting, Niehaus was well aware of the artistic developments in Germany.43 Nevertheless, in his reviews he neither refers to

|| 36 de Graaff, Chris, “Otto Flake. Sommerroman”, in: Algemeen Handelsblad, 9 June 1927. 37 de Graaff, Chris, “Kasimir Edschmid. Sport um Gagaly”, in: Algemeen Handelsblad, 29 September 1928; “Kasimir Edschmid. Lord Byron”, in: Algemeen Handelsblad, 12 October 1929. 38 Huebner, “Nieuwe Zakelijkheid”. 39 de Graaff, Chris, “Alfred Neumann. Der Held”, in: Algemeen Handelsblad, 20 December 1930. 40 Becker, Neue Sachlichkeit, 58/247. 41 Becker, Neue Sachlichkeit, 182. 42 Niehaus, Kasper, “Werken van Sal. Meyer”, in: De Telegraaf, 24 March 1926. 43 In 1926 Niehaus reviewed Franz Rohs study Nach-Expressionismus (1925), which is considered as one of the first theoretical approaches to Neue Sachlichkeit (see: Anonymous [Kasper Niehaus], “Post-expressionisme, door Franz Roh”, in: De Telegraaf, 26 January 1926). Moreover, he was close friends with German painter and magical realist Franz Radziwill (see:

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Hartlaub, nor to his exhibition. Instead, Niehaus declares Nieuwe Zakelijkheid an “international movement”44 and relates the term to the Dutch artist groups De Brug (The Bridge) and De Onafhankelijken (The Independents). In his early reviews Niehaus was really enthusiastic about the realistic style of Nieuwe Zakelijkheid, but warned at the same time that there are still “too much anxious talents, who confound cold accuracy with art and who forget that if you imitate a subject slavishly you would have two subjects but still no art piece”.45 Niehaus’s implied aesthetic requirement – the need to create a certain reality – is plain to see. In fact, this criterion is not only specific to his reviews, but can be detected with almost every critic participating in the debates on Nieuwe Zakelijkheid,46 and even in the literary discourse of a few years later. At the same time, not only the poetological analogy between art- and literary criticism seems remarkable, but also the wording Niehaus uses here and in later reviews from 1931 and 1938.47 It is the same slave-metaphor Marsman picks in 1932 to delimit Nieuwe Zakelijkheid from art. Although such influences are difficult to prove, it seems rather unlikely that Marsman did not take notice of such a productive and powerful critic as Niehaus. Besides, this similarity is not the only connection between the discourses in painting and literature. The various analogies literary critics drew between Nieuwe Zakelijkheid and technology had been discussed in circuits of visual arts as well. For example, a critic from the socialist newspaper Het Volk (The Nation) condemns the paintings of Nieuwe Zakelijkheid as “bigoted machine- and tractor-worshipping”,48 and artist Jan Hartman warns that the “Zakelijkheids-madness” will gradually degenerate humans to “brainmachines”.49 Niehaus’s articles are also augmented by technical metaphors. In a review on a Brug-exhibition in 1926 he characterises those

|| Koopman, Ype , Te waar om mooi te zijn. Het kritische realism van Dix & Co 1920–1940, Arnhem 2010, 36). 44 Niehaus, Kasper, “Tentoonstelling Vereeniging ‘De Brug’”, in: De Telegraaf, 4 December 1926. 45 Niehaus, “De Brug”, 4 December 1926. 46 As I investigated in my doctoral thesis, the formation of reality is one of the main poetological criterions of the artistic debates, which is used both for and against Nieuwe Zakelijkheid by nearly every reviewer, no matter what political or religious programme the newspaper is associated with (see: Wagner, “Sachlichkeit ist tödlich für das Wesen der Kunst”, 127–149). 47 Kasper Niehaus, “Studies in elk materiaal”, in: De Telegraaf, 17 April 1931; “Werken van Leo Gestel uit verschillende perioden”, in: De Telegraaf, 20 May 1938. 48 H.J., “Socialistische Kunst Heden”, in: Het Volk, 28 November 1930. 49 Anonymous, “Tentoonstelling Frans Hartman en Hendri Verbrug”, in: Het Vaderland, 22 July 1933.

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paintings as “hard [and] sharp as seen through an x-ray apparatus”,50 a comparison he uses once again in a later review.51 Apart from this theoretical discourse, the first time a wider Dutch public got in touch with German paintings of Neue Sachlichkeit was in the spring of 1929. The artist group De Onafhankelijken invited German painters to a co-exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, for which Niehaus provided the catalogue. Although this exhibition was a successor of Hartlaub’s circulating exhibition, only a few painters of the original collective from Mannheim were represented in Amsterdam. The international event, which was also the only exhibition outside Germany, caught a lot of attention in the newspapers, where the critical positions were quite divergent: Here, we see “neue Sachlichkeit” as a childish attempt, as a clumsy (intentional or unintentional) naivety, but also as the lethargic photographic-mechanical representation, only established by bringing a selected element to a certain composition. Furthermore, we find primitive indifferent representation, that we only find in topographic prints and which sometimes reminds of old optic plates. And finally, the sober perceived reality, but seen through the eyes of an artist, who is susceptible for the fine curve of a line, for the smooth tones of colour.52

Despite the nuanced judgement of the nieuw-zakelijke paintings, the critic leaves no doubt that for him photography embodies a counterpart to “true” paintings. The same opposition can be reconstructed in many reviews dealing with Nieuwe Zakelijkheid, wherein photography is taken synonymously with an unpretentious reproduction of reality: “in rational terms, one can appreciate these sharp satires, but artistically they finally do not surpass the arranged photo-pages our time is famous for”.53 Most critics present Nieuwe Zakelijkheid as contradictory to the requirements of “real” art. In fact, even critic Maria Viola, a principal proponent of realistic paintings, argues in her review of the Onafhankelijken exhibition that especially the German samples are “closer to banal advertising pictures than art pieces”.54

|| 50 Niehaus, “De Brug”, 4 December 1926. 51 See: Niehaus, Kasper, “Beelden uit circus en variété”, in: De Telegraaf, 18 February 1935. 52 Anonymous, “Stedelijk Museum te Amsterdam. De Onafhankelijken. II”, in: Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, 30 May 1929. 53 H.J., “‘De Onafhankelijken’. Valsche en zuivere zakelijkheid”, in: Het Volk, 8 June 1929. 54 Viola, Maria, “‘Nieuwe Zakelijkheid’ in het Stedelijk Museum”, in: Algemeen Handelsblad, 26 May 1929.

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By comparing Nieuwe Zakelijkheid to commercials,55 bill-boards,56 utility art or photography, the concept is represented as part of a reproducible mass culture. And even if the debates in visual arts offer more diverse reflections on Nieuwe Zakelijkheid than the positions in literary criticism, the supporters of these paintings, like Niehaus or Viola, were not unconditionally positive in their evaluations either. Apparently, critics feared the growing influence of technology on art and the infiltration of artistic standards by new phenomena such as photography or film. The term Nieuwe Zakelijkheid is mostly associated with these new art forms and is utilised as a marker to outline the border of the artistic field. 57

Conclusion Even though the reasons for the negative literary reception of Nieuwe Zakelijkheid could not be discussed in detail, the positions presented above show some plausible arguments regarding international and interdisciplinary interreferences with Dutch literary discourse: The comparative analysis of the German and Dutch reception offered some conspicuous similarities in arguments and figurative expressions, even if direct references are missing. Apart from that, similar rhetorical patterns had already dominated the discourse in visual arts since the late 1920s, and more importantly a happening, like the Neue Sachlichkeit exhibition in 1929, heated up the critical discourse and certainly caught the attention of writers and literary critics as well. Furthermore, the small editorial departments of the arts sections in Dutch newspapers probably also contributed to an interdisciplinary exchange. Usually only a handful of critics wrote articles for the arts section, so they were well-informed about their colleague’s work or even shared the responsibility for several sections, as was common practice in the socialist newspaper Het Volk, for example. Taking these aspects into account, the dominant negative reviews are presumably based on an interplay of different parameters. No matter what direction gave the specific impulse, it seems clear that Nieuwe Zakelijkheid had no good breeding ground in the Netherlands. By putting the various positions out|| 55 See: Niehaus, Kasper, “Kunst der reclame”, in: De Telegraaf, 2 July 1931. 56 See: Anonymous, “Stedelijk Museum te Amsterdam. De Onafhankelijken. I”, in: Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, 24 May 1929. 57 See: de Gruyter, W., “De nieuwe postzegels van den architect Piet Zwart”, in: Het Vaderland, 7 January 1931.

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lined above into the broader context of the Dutch art field, the harsh polemics and metaphors not only imply a poetological judgement but might also indicate the institutional power struggles they are used in. By functionalising the term Nieuwe Zakelijkheid as a benchmark, critics aim to outline the borders of the artistic field. They try to prevent art from new groups of cultural producers (like journalists, copywriters, photographers or film directors) forcing their way into the artistic field. Nieuwe Zakelijkheid was marginalised as a short-dated fashion trend, although the term was quite ubiquitous in Dutch art debates, as this contribution indicates.58 In fact, these harsh judgments not only affected contemporary artistic debates on Nieuwe Zakelijkheid but also had a determining influence on the literary historical representation of the concept. After World War II Dutch critics of the literary journal Forum, like Menno ter Braak and Hendrik Marsman, were praised as icons of literary criticism. This was partly due to influential studies, such as Oversteegen’s Vorm of vent (Form or Guy).59 Against this background, it is not surprising that the concept of Nieuwe Zakelijkheid has been a blank spot in Dutch literary studies over a long period of time. It was in the 1980s that first approaches on this topic were made, but even in these studies the depiction of Nieuwe Zakelijkheid is dominated by the judgements of its contemporary opponents ter Braak and Marsman.60 Instead of asking why Nieuwe Zakelijkheid was strongly condemned in contemporary debates, literary scholars took the judgements of ter Braak and Marsman at face value and doomed the concept of Nieuwe Zakelijkheid as such. By disregarding the polemic institutional contexts in which literary judgments evolve, those literary studies established a biased negative image of Nieuwe Zakelijkheid, which should be treated with caution.61

|| 58 See for the other discourses in architecture, politics, education, fashion, music, theatre, film and photography: Wagner, “Sachlichkeit ist tödlich für das Wesen der Kunst”, 150–223. 59 In his study, Oversteegen analysed literary conventions of the interwar period by presenting Forum as one of the leading journals of that time. For more details see: Oversteegen, J.J., Vorm of vent. Opvattingen over de aard van het literaire werk in de Nederlandse kritiek tussen de twee wereldoorlogen, Amsterdam 1969. 60 See: Anten, Hans, Van realisme naar zakelijkheid. Proza-opvattingen tussen 1916 en 1932, Utrecht 1982; M.C. van den Toorn, “Nieuwe zakelijkheid. Oorsprong en ontwikkeling van een term”, in: De nieuwe taalgids, 80, 1987, no. 1, 40–54; Jaap Goedegebuure, Nieuwe Zakelijkheid, Utrecht 1992. 61 According to the German debates Becker sketches a similar development, which dominated the literary reception of Neue Sachlichkeit until the 1990s (see: Becker, Neue Sachlichkeit, 26– 28).

Daniel Schneider

“Everything Is Symbolical” Explorations of Thingness in George Eliot’s Middlemarch and Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse In Middlemarch, Mr. Brooke complains about a painting by Will Ladislaw, saying that “[e]verything is symbolical, you know – the higher style of art: I like that up to a certain point, but not too far – it’s straining to keep up with, you know”.1 These words express Mr. Brooke’s wish for things in art to be represented without any signification beyond their mere existence. Yet, Mr. Brooke is not depicted as the smartest character of the novel and many passages of Middlemarch show George Eliot’s awareness that contrary to Mr. Brooke’s remark, things inevitably get connected to ideas. The semantisation of things in Middlemarch, however, runs contrary to traditional concepts of realist literature as referring merely to the surface of everyday objects. Roland Barthes argues that realist literature depends on items that are devoid of narrative purpose, as they point to a reality that itself is not characterised by semantic density either. According to Barthes, such “‘useless’ details”2 create a ‘Reality Effect’ in which “the ultimate significance of this insignificance”3 resides. In contrast, the rise of a stronger literary emphasis on things is usually located in modernism. “No Ideas but in Things” – this line from William Carlos Williams’s poem “Paterson” is often regarded as epitomising the close attention that the modernist avant-garde paid to the way material objects are connected to human thinking and feeling. The madeleine in Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu, the taste of which catapults the narrator back to his childhood, is probably the best-known literary example for this modernist “faith that ideas reside in things”.4 By juxtaposing Middlemarch and Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse as an outstanding novel of English modernism, I will argue that the role of things in

|| 1 Eliot, George, Middlemarch, London 2007 [1871–1872], 347. 2 Barthes, Roland, “The Reality Effect”, in: Tzvetan Todorov (ed.), French Literary Theory Today: A Reader, trans. R. Carter, Cambridge 1982, 11–17, here 11. 3 Barthes, “The Reality Effect”, 12. 4 Brown, Bill, The Material Unconscious. American Amusement, Stephen Crane, & the Economies of Play, Harvard, Cambridge 1996, 17. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-033

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realist and modernist literature should be understood in terms of continuity rather than disruption. I will analyse how, contrary to Barthes’s claims, realist fiction in its intention to capture reality as exhaustively as possible already considered thingness in ways which would be taken up and extended by modernist fiction. At the same time, I will understand the preoccupation of both periods with things as a quest for stability that results from a rising awareness of the unsettled state of language and its insufficient capacity to capture meaning. The analyses of things in Middlemarch and To the Lighthouse thus will show how realism anticipated the modernist preoccupation with semantic instability, while modernism continued the realist endeavour of grasping as many dimensions of life as possible. Methodologically, this endeavour will be based on two dichotomies that illuminate each other: I will first apply the metaphor-metonymy-distinction that Elaine Freedgood makes use of in her monograph The Ideas in Things: Fugitive Meaning in the Victorian Novel. Second, I will distinguish objects from things by reverting to Martin Heidegger’s writings on thingness and Bill Brown’s thingtheory, which point to those dimensions of objects that tend to be overlooked in everyday life. It will be shown that the continuing reliance on things in the transition from realism to modernism can be conceptualised as a shift from metaphor to metonymy, which aims at an increasing disclosure of the thing within any object.

Metonymy and Metaphor as Two Different Ways to Turn Objects into Things Freedgood distinguishes metonymy and metaphor as two different ways in which literary texts make meaning of objects: While metonymies open up objects for endless plays with signification, metaphors establish clearer links between objects and ideas and thus promise “startling, knowledge-producing connections”.5 This differentiation ties in with Roman Jakobson’s conceptualisation of the two tropes according to which metaphor is based upon similarity, whereas metonymy follows the looser principle of contiguity,6 which can also

|| 5 Freedgood, Elaine, The Ideas in Things. Fugitive Meaning in the Victorian Novel, Chicago 2006, 12. 6 See: Lodge, David, The Modes of Modern Writing: Metaphor, Metonymy, and the Typology of Modern Literature, London 1977, 79.

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comprise personal memories or associations. Consequently, metonymy brings along a “potential vagrancy” in its “inability to stop wandering and the unpredictability of the associations that it may spark in the minds of readers”,7 whereas “its possibilities are inevitably reined in by metaphor”8: “Metaphor defines and stabilizes; metonymy keeps on going, in any and all directions”.9 In order to understand how these two tropes can be applied to objects, it is fruitful to distinguish the terms ‘object’ and ‘thing’, which are frequently used synonymously. While an object designates a material entity with regard to a more or less clearly defined function (which implies its application by a corresponding subject), the term ‘thing’ denotes items that are regarded as detached from their primary purpose and thus become open for alternative interpretation. In his essay “Das Ding” (“The Thing”), Martin Heidegger takes a closer look at the etymology of the eponymous word and its derivation from the Old Germanic ‘thing’ (sometimes also spelled ‘dinc’), which used to designate a tribal gathering where current issues or disputes were negotiated.10 According to Heidegger, the garnering of “what pertains to man, concerns him and his interests in any way or manner”11 constitutes the main quality of a thing: “The thing things. Thinging gathers”.12 Thingness thus refers to any type of meaning that is stored in objects and that goes beyond their primary function, e.g. memories, associations or the potential to function as a metaphor. Evidently, any object can acquire meaning outside of its immediate purpose. Thus, as Bill Brown writes, “thingness […] inheres as a potentiality within any object”.13 Yet, the thingness of objects tends to be overlooked, as it is “obscured by their everyday use as objects”.14 The object-thing-distinction provides a useful addition to Barthes’s and Freedgood’s arguments. The “insignificance” Barthes ascribes to objects in realist fiction is precisely their lack of thingness, i.e. of significance beyond their object function. In contrast, metaphors and metonymies explore those layers of meaning within objects that constitute their thingness. Freedgood points to that

|| 7 Freedgood, Ideas in Things, 13. 8 Freedgood, Ideas in Things, 14. 9 Freedgood, Ideas in Things, 14. 10 Heidegger, Martin, “The Thing”, in: Martin Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter, New York et al. 1971, 161–184, here 175. 11 Heidegger, “The Thing”, 176. 12 Heidegger, “The Thing”, 174. 13 Brown, Bill, Other Things, Chicago, London 2015, 5. 14 Brown, Bill, A Sense of Things. The Object Matter of American Literature, Chicago, London 2003, 9.

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when she writes that “an object in a novel, in order for it to have meaning, cannot be itself […]. Objects become metaphorical (and meaningful) through a loss of many of their specific qualities”.15 The loss of the object’s “specific qualities” represents the detachment from their function that thingness calls for and is accompanied by the acquisition of the more personal or metaphorical qualities that mark the object’s entry into thingness. There is, however, a difference in the ways metaphors and metonymies restrict the thingness they explore: While metaphors, based upon similarity, relate objects to a limited area within their thingness, metonymies relinquish any clearly circumscribed semantisation in favour of suggestion. In this way, metonymy invites potentially endless rambling associations and other unconstrained semantisation that is based upon contiguity. It can open up infinite explorations of an object’s thingness – or none at all.

Thingness in George Eliot’s Realism and Virginia Woolf’s Modernism Even with the arisen interest in things initiated by the New Materialisms, objects in Realist fiction are generally still not considered to embody the meanings which modernist literature allocates to them: The Victorian novel describes, catalogs, quantifies, and in general showers us with things: […]. These things often overwhelm us at least in part because we have learned to understand them as largely meaningless: the protocols for reading the realist novel have long focused us on subjects and plots; they have implicitly enjoined us not to interpret many or most of its objects. Even with the recent critical attention to the detail, the fetish, and material culture, the ‘things’ of novels still do not get taken seriously […].16

A new look at realism that considers how it paved the way for the modernist stance “that ideas and things should somehow merge”17 requires an understanding of the two periods as continuous rather than antipodal. After for a long time, “critics have overwhelmingly considered literary modernism as a movement away from the conventions of nineteenth-century realism”,18 more recent

|| 15 Freedgood, Ideas in Things, 10. 16 Freedgood, Ideas in Things, 1. 17 Brown, Sense of Things, 3. 18 Olson, Liesl, Modernism and the Ordinary, Oxford 2009, 3.

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literary historiography approached the transition in a more integrating manner. Pericles Lewis, for instance, points out that modernist literature did not reject mimesis and realist conventions as radically as modernist art: Despite the more radical experiments of the literary avant-garde, […] literature in general clung stubbornly to reality. Although writers might stress the importance of the sounds of words or the visual organization of words on the page, words tended, except in extreme cases, to maintain their referential function; in addition to being, they meant. Literature therefore continued to represent reality, sometimes in distorted forms […], but usually with some implicit ideal of mimesis underlying all the literary experiments. Modernist literature seldom went as far as modern art in the direction of pure abstraction […].19

Modernist literature thus was not only playing self-referentially with its literary texture and its constructedness but also referring to a reality outside the text. Hence it should be viewed as an intensification of realism in the sense that it attempted to capture a more multi-layered reality than its predecessor movement. In the words of Richard Murphy, realism and modernism constitute a “continuing progress of realism as a means of recording and registering the details of life”, aiming at “a more complete sense of control and mastery over reality”.20 This also became manifest in an intensified exploration of the thingness in objects, which can be conceptualised as a shift from a metaphorical to a metonymical treatment of objects. This can be studied in a juxtaposition of the role things play in Middlemarch and in To the Lighthouse.

Metaphors as Restrictions of Thingness in Middlemarch Contrary to Barthes’s Reality Effect, George Eliot’s novel Middlemarch, which J. Hillis Miller considers “perhaps the masterwork of Victorian realism”,21 counteracts the insignificance of objects. In Middlemarch we do not just encounter surfaces of objects that outwardly portray English provincial life in the 1830s but also explorations and even determinations of their deeper meaning. As Freedgood argues, Eliot was not only already highly aware of the ideas that || 19 Lewis, Pericles, The Cambridge Introduction to Modernism, Cambridge 2015, 4. 20 Murphy, Richard, Theorizing the Avant-Garde. Modernism, Expressionism, and the Problem of Postmodernity, Cambridge 1999, 92. 21 Miller, J. Hillis, “Optic and Semiotic in Middlemarch”, in: Harold Bloom (ed.), George Eliot’s Middlemarch, New York et al. 1987, 9–25, here 10.

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reside in things but also of “the extent to which the range of such ideas cannot be anticipated”.22 Consequently, Eliot time and again gives a “subtle prescription for the assignment of ideas to things”,23 thereby “set[ting] the rhetorical stage”24 for a semantisation of things that would peak in modernism. In line with this, thingness in Middlemarch is disclosed by carefully confined metaphors rather than by open metonymies. An example for this is the chain-work that Rosamond Vincy, the daughter of a wealthy family in Middlemarch, holds in her hand in one of her conversations with the town’s new doctor and her future husband Tertius Lydgate when the two have individually discovered but not yet openly expressed their romantic feelings for each other. After having drawn nearer to each other during Lydgate’s frequent visits to the Vincy house in the course of the illness of Rosamond’s brother Fred, Lydgate one day encounters Rosamond alone and is so embarrassed that “instead of any playfulness, he began at once to speak of his reason for calling, and to beg her, almost formally, to deliver the message to her father”.25 The ramifications of Lydgate’s demeanour for their relationship are expressed by the chain-work that Rosamond then drops accidentally: Rosamond […] was keenly hurt by Lydgate’s manner; […] she assented coldly, without adding an unnecessary word, some trivial chain-work which she had in her hands enabling her to avoid looking at Lydgate higher than his chin. […] Lydgate rose to go, and Rosamond, made nervous by her struggle between mortification and the wish not to betray it, dropped her chain as if startled, and rose too, mechanically. Lydgate instantaneously stooped to pick up the chain. […] He did not know where the chain went […].26

The metaphorical character of the chain-work is unmistakeable: It represents the still fragile link between Rosamond and Lydgate, which, as they are not yet engaged, could break or vanish as easily as the chain-work. Lydgate’s instantaneous attempt to recover the chain-work demonstrates his willingness to restore this link after disturbing it with his awkward behaviour. Despite the obviousness of this metaphor, it is up to the reader to understand it. In other passages, Eliot is more anxious to make sure that her readers do not wander off too far in their own explorations of thingness. Miller writes that Eliot’s aim in Middlemarch is not only “to present a total picture of provin-

|| 22 Freedgood, Ideas in Things, 112. 23 Freedgood, Ideas in Things, 131. 24 Freedgood, Ideas in Things, 116. 25 Eliot, Middlemarch, 317. 26 Eliot, Middlemarch, 317.

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cial society in England at the period just before the first Reform Bill of 1832” but also “to interpret this picture totally”.27 Eliot’s “enterprise of totalization”28 is also reflected in her approach to objects. See, for example, this passage: An eminent philosopher among my friends, who can dignify even your ugly furniture by lifting it into the serene light of science, has shown me this pregnant little fact. Your pierglass or extensive surface of polished steel made to be rubbed by a housemaid, will be minutely and multitudinously scratched in all directions; but place now against it a lighted candle as a centre of illumination, and lo! the scratches will seem to arrange themselves in a fine series of concentric circles round that little sun. It is demonstrable that the scratches are going everywhere impartially and it is only your candle which produces the flattering illusion of a concentric arrangement, its light falling with an exclusive optical selection. These things are a parable. The scratches are events, the candle is the egoism of any party now absent – of Miss Vincy, for example.29

Eliot could have juxtaposed the scratches on steel and Rosamond’s tendency to interpret events around her in her favour with some room for the reader to explore the exact connection between the two, but she chose instead to determine the link precisely with the words “These things are a parable”, of which she then goes on to decode every single element. With such semantic constrictions, Eliot makes sure that the objects in her novel always serve as metaphors and never become metonymies. Eliot’s attempts at a “totalization”30 of both representation and interpretation certainly also result from her awareness of the insufficiencies of language as a medium to capture reality and meaning. As the narrator of Middlemarch comments, “we all of us […] get our thoughts entangled in metaphors, and act fatally on the strength of them”.31 For John Rignall, this remark not only hints at “[t]he problematic nature of figurative language”, but it also starts “to raise the possibility that all speech is intrinsically metaphorical”32 and hence a mere stand-in. Rignall qualifies this observation as one of Eliot’s “anticipations of future developments in the fiction of modernism”33 and ties it to Friedrich Nietzsche’s essay “Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinne” (“On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense”) with its claim that “we possess nothing

|| 27 Miller, “Optic and Semiotic in Middlemarch”, 9. 28 Miller, “Optic and Semiotic in Middlemarch”, 9. 29 Eliot, Middlemarch, 277. 30 Miller, “Optic and Semiotic in Middlemarch”, 9. 31 Eliot, Middlemarch, 85. 32 John Rignall, George Eliot, European Novelist, Farnham 2011, 159–160. 33 Rignall, George Eliot, 158.

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but metaphors for things – metaphors which correspond in no way to the original entities”.34 Seen in this light, Eliot’s preoccupation with the metaphorical potential of objects turns into an attempt to find in them the stable meaning that language cannot provide.

Metonymies as Pursuits of Thingness in To the Lighthouse A related nexus of an engagement with objects and a quest for stability can be discerned in Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. Liesl Olson points to a direct continuity between the two authors, stating that “Woolf elicits our sympathy for characters by virtue of the small detail, a method learned from the great nineteenth-century writers whom she admired, especially George Eliot”.35 These small details that Woolf uses are often entrenched in the material world: “Although Woolf sought to strip away novelistic conventions to render the inner workings of the mind, she knew that the modern novel could not flee from the external world of everyday things […]”.36 While Woolf’s use of material detail for the exploration of the inner life of her characters epitomises the modernist synthesis of things and ideas, it also parallels and extends Eliot’s attempts to find in objects those types of meaning that cannot be attained via language alone. In order to understand how Woolf widens Eliot’s use of things from metaphor to metonymy, it is important to point out a major difference between the narrative structures of Eliot’s and Woolf’s novels. Even though Middlemarch presents to us a variety of experiencing selves, their thoughts and feelings are always conveyed to us via an omniscient narrator. In To the Lighthouse, we encounter such a central authority only in the “Time Passes” section, which describes the decade between 1910 and 1920, in which the Scottish summerhouse of the Ramsay family remains unvisited. In contrast, the two much longer parts of the novel, which describe the life of the Ramsays and their friends in their summerhouse in 1910 and 1920 respectively, provide a plurality of experiencing and narrating selves. Consequently, thingness here also is explored not by one narrator but by the broad range of focalising and narrating characters that we come across in Woolf’s novel.

|| 34 Quoted in Rignall, George Eliot, 160. 35 Olson, Modernism, 22–23. 36 Olson, Modernism, 57.

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This plurality of perspectives is part of the modernist venture into the deepest layers of reality, as Erich Auerbach writes: The essential characteristic of the technique represented by Virginia Woolf is that we are given not merely one person whose consciousness […] is rendered, but many persons, with frequent shifts from one to the other […]. The multiplicity of persons suggests that we are here after all confronted with an endeavor to investigate an objective reality […]. The design of a close approach to objective reality by means of numerous subjective impressions received by various individuals […] is important in the modern technique which we are here examining. It basically differentiates it from the unipersonal subjectivism which allows only a single […] person to make himself heard and admits only that one person’s way of looking at reality. In terms of literary history, to be sure, there are close connections between the two methods of representing consciousness – the unipersonal subjective method and the multipersonal method with synthesis as its aim. The latter developed from the former, and there are works in which the two overlap, so that we can watch the development.37

Auerbach’s thesis that multiperspectivity in To the Lighthouse fosters and continues the enterprise of realism, which he describes as “unipersonal subjectivism”, also applies to the explorations of thingness by Woolf’s characters, among whom at times very conflicting views on the world of objects can be discerned. When the painter Lily Briscoe, a friend of the Ramsay family, reminisces about the philosophical discussions between Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay, for example, she seems to be bewildered by the abstract interest the philosophy professor took in objects, by his questioning whether a table is still a table “when you’re not there”38 or “whether the table was a real table”39 in the first place. As Roger S. Foster points out, Mr. Ramsay’s philosophical conception of the table “as an abstract form” is countered by Lily Briscoe’s “artistic sense for the capacity of ordinary things to undergo a transfiguration, releasing the sensuous fullness of their potential for meaning from underneath the deadening weight of convention and the habitual associations which bury perception beneath the imperatives of utility and custom”.40 While Mr. Ramsay is struggling with the existence of objects as objects, Briscoe is interested in their thingness:

|| 37 Auerbach, Erich, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, trans. Willard R. Trask, Princeton 2003 [1946], 536. 38 Woolf, Virginia, To the Lighthouse, Oxford 2008 [1927], 22. 39 Woolf, Lighthouse, 129. 40 Foster, Roger S., Adorno and Philosophical Modernism: The Inside of Things, Lanham et al. 2016, 220.

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What was the problem then? She must try to get hold of something that evaded her. It evaded her when she thought of Mrs Ramsay; it evaded her now when she thought of her picture. Phrases came. Visions came. Beautiful pictures. Beautiful phrases. But what she wished to get hold of was that very jar on the nerves, the thing itself before it has been made anything. Get that and start afresh; get that and start afresh; she said desperately, pitching herself firmly again before her easel. It was a miserable machine, an inefficient machine, she thought, the human apparatus for painting or for feeling; it always broke down at the critical moment; heroically, one must force it on.41

Such an experience of things enables an engagement with otherness whose immediacy transcends language. Consequently, Foster relates Briscoe’s approach to things to the ideal of a non-identical stance towards concepts in Theodor W. Adorno’s Negative Dialectics, arguing that via Briscoe’s musings, To the Lighthouse promotes an “ethical relation […], an exposure to how things are that makes us receptive to the singular, the unique and the new in experience”.42 The inexhaustibility of the thingness that inheres in any object creates a respect for other persons as well, whose inner lives can never be understood and judged in their entirety either. The “sudden intensity of the sensuous-mimetic attunement to the object, with which language can never ultimately get on level terms”43 instigates an ethics of unabstracted feeling for others that respects their idiosyncrasies because it does not level them in the way that language inevitably would. Briscoe’s interest in the potential boundlessness of thingness – an interest that opens up empathy and compassion for others – approaches objects by way of metonymy: It does not semantisise objects in a clearly circumscribable manner but is driven by a curiosity and openness for any thingness that may be found in them. In this way, Briscoe’s approach opposes Mr. Ramsay’s philosophical focus on objects with his dismissal of everything individual that would turn the object into a thing – a look that, as Foster suggests, contains a certain brutality.44 A very different fascination with things is provided by Mrs. Ramsay, who finds “a coherence in things, a stability; something […] immune from change”45 that consoles her and appears to her as desirable: [T]here rose to her lips always some exclamation of triumph over life when things came together in this peace, this rest, this eternity […]. Often she found herself sitting and look-

|| 41 Woolf, Lighthouse, 158. 42 Foster, Adorno, 225. 43 Foster, Adorno, 218. 44 See: Foster, Adorno, 221. 45 Woolf, Lighthouse, 85.

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ing, sitting and looking, with her work in her hands until she became the thing she looked at […]. It was odd, she thought, how if one was alone, one leant to inanimate things; trees, streams, flowers; felt they expressed one; felt they became one; felt they knew one, in a sense were one; felt an irrational tenderness thus (she looked at that long steady light) as for oneself.46

Peter Schwenger connects Mrs. Ramsay’s musings to Freud’s death drive.47 Indeed, she brings the exploitation of thingness as a haven of stability to its peak: The peace of things has turned them into a metaphor for death – a metaphor that is all-devouring, because the literal meaning of “metaphor” as “to carry over” is fulfilled entirely when Mrs. Ramsay wants her entire self to be carried over to the inanimate realm. Thingness here is no longer just explored but aspired to as a state to be in. Mrs. Ramsay’s wish to be taken up with her whole person in thingness thus is a pinnacle of metonymy, too, as there is no limit to what she projects onto things. The role of things as harbours of stability in To the Lighthouse is underlined by the “Time Passes”-section. What would appear to be the main events of the decade from 1910 to 1920 – Mrs. Ramsay’s decease, Prue Ramsay’s death in childbirth as well as a shell explosion in France that kills Andrew Ramsay and many other young men – is only briefly recounted in brackets, whereas the description of the objects that are left behind in the summerhouse, of how they are veiled in darkness and gather dust is the focus of the narrator. This goes to show how things have come to the centre of attention in modernism and have turned into protagonists themselves: So with the house empty and the doors locked and the mattresses rolled round, those stray airs, advance guards of great armies, blustered in, brushed bare boards, nibbled and fanned, met nothing in bedroom or drawing-room that wholly resisted them but only hangings that flapped, wood that creaked, the bare legs of tables, saucepans and china already furred, tarnished, cracked. What people had shed and left – a pair of shoes, a shooting cap, some faded skirts and coats in wardrobes – those alone kept the human shape and in the emptiness indicated how once they were filled and animated; how once hands were busy with hooks and buttons; how once the looking-glass had held a face; had held a world hollowed out in which a figure turned, a hand flashed, the door opened, in came children rushing and tumbling; and went out again.48

|| 46 Woolf, Lighthouse, 53–54. 47 See: Schwenger, Peter, The Tears of Things. Melancholy and Physical Objects, Minneapolis, London 2006, 4. 48 Woolf, Lighthouse, 105–106.

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The objects that have been left behind in the summerhouse thus lose their primary qualities and become metonymies for the human life they once were a part of. Anything that once took place in the summer house has entered their thingness and is kept alive therein. This turns them into objects of nostalgia as well as into a haven of stability vis-à-vis the ephemerality of human life and meaning, especially in war times. Similarly, Olson writes that in “the literary still life of ‘Time Passes’”,49 “[d]omestic objects become more powerful than they once were; they seem to endure longer than humans do. […] Stability is found in a ‘jug and basin… the sharp edges and firm bulk of a chest of drawers’ [… T]he objects in “Time Passes” represent firm elements of habitual, ordinary life, which a world war cannot stamp out”.50 In this way, they are “the place where shock is absorbed, a place where life asserts itself, continuing”51 – without the presence of any language at all.

Conclusion In this article I sought to reverse the traditional conceptualisation of literary historiography that locates the rise of meaningful objects in modernism. I showed that contrary to Roland Barthes’s claim that objects in realist literature do not acquire signification beyond their primary purpose and hence do not become things, George Eliot as a major proponent of English realism is highly conscious of the meaning the objects in her novel Middlemarch unavoidably assume and seeks to constrict it via the limitations of metaphor. At the same time, Eliot’s preoccupation with things can already be seen as a result of a growing mistrust towards language as an immaterial conveyor of meaning – an issue that is usually connected to modernism. The tendency to revert to things as havens of stability is increased in Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. The characters of Woolf’s novel are so entranced by things and the infinite potential of meaning that thingness stores that they at times even aspire to thingness as a state to be in, hence conceiving of objects in terms of the less constricted trope metonymy. With regard to the role of objects, the transition from realism to modernism can thus be conceptualised as a shift from metaphor to metonymy; more and more layers of thingness are explored with an increasing willingness

|| 49 Olson, Modernism, 82. 50 Olson, Modernism, 81. 51 Olson, Modernism, 82.

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to accept the wayward manner in which objects capture and emanate meaning. Considering how realism anticipated modernism’s mistrust of language and how modernism continued realism’s attempts to capture reality as exhaustively as possible, it makes sense to speak of a modernist character of realism as much as of a realism of modernism.

Marijan Dović

“Reism” in Slovenian Neo-Avant-Garde Literature and Art For a humanist, the measure of all things is a Human; for a Reist, it is a Thing.1

The first avant-garde wave in Slovenian art of the 1920s, commonly referred to as the “historical avant-garde”, was followed in the mid-1960s by a more radical wave, usually labelled the “neo-avant-garde”.2 At its core was the conceptualist OHO group, whose manifesto was published in the student magazine Tribuna in 1966 by the poet Iztok Geister (born 1945) and the visual artist Marko Pogačnik (born 1944).3 The new generation of artists and theorists initiated a wide movement that included Geister, Pogačnik, Tomaž Brejc (born 1946), Matjaž Hanžek (born 1949), Aleš Kermavner (1946–1966), Vojin “Chubby” Kovač (1949–1985), Lado Kralj (born 1938), Naško Križnar (born 1943), Milenko Matanović (born 1947), Rastko Močnik (born 1944), David Nez (born 1949), Braco Rotar (born 1942), Andraž Šalamun (born 1947), Tomaž Šalamun (1941–2014), Rudi Šeligo (1935–2004), Marko Švabič (1949–1993), Franci Zagoričnik (born 1933), Slavoj Žižek (born 1949), and many others. The neo-avant-garde art reached its first peak in connection with the student protests of 1968 and thrived especially in the decade from 1965 to 1975, when indispensable media support was provided by the magazines Problemi (Problems) and Tribuna (Tribune), which kept bringing in a flood of samples of new art while at the same time maintaining an enthusiastic platform – relatively independent in the Yugoslav context – for publishing the artistic and theoretical production of the group. Although this production was often intermedial and conceptual (exhibitions, happenings, and performances), it is sufficiently documented in numerous innovatively designed

|| 1 Kermauner, Taras, Na poti k niču in reči: porajanje reizma v povojni slovenski poeziji, Maribor 1968, 77. 2 This article was written at the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts as part of the research project “May ’68 in Literature and Theory: The Last Season of Modernism in France, Slovenia, and the World” (J6-9384) and the research program “Studies in Literary History, Literary Theory, and Methodology” (P6-0024), both of which were financed by the Slovenian Research Agency. 3 I.G. [Iztok Geister] Plamen and Marko Pogačnik, [“OHO Manifesto”], Tribuna, 6, 23 Nov. 1966, no. 17, 5. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-034

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anthologies and individual volumes.4 Hence, the heritage of the Slovenian neoavant-garde appears to be surprisingly extensive, artistically relevant, and interesting in a wider context. The new movement did not rely on the heritage of the Slovenian historical avant-garde very much; instead, it drew upon the concurrent European and North American (neo-)avant-gardes. Although its creative stimuli were quite varied, its protagonists also proposed two innovative critical concepts; namely, ludism (Sln. ludizem, from Latin ludus ‘play’) and reism (Sln. reizem, from Latin res ‘thing’), which later became indispensable for analysis of the period. With regard to the “realism of the avant-garde”, reism proves to be particularly relevant, all the more so because in the second half of the 1960s reism became a prominent stylistic orientation, even one of the central currents of Slovene modernism – initially in (concrete) poetry and visual arts, and later in narrative prose. What, in fact, is the meaning of reism, as understood and practiced by literati, visual artists, theorists, and researchers of the Slovenian neo-avant-garde? The term itself was introduced in the mid-1960s by Taras Kermauner (1930– 2008), a literary critic, and a companion and interpreter of the new movement, who envisioned reizem (originally written resizem) as a new epoch of post-war poetry and even employed the term in the title of his book published in the rebellious year of 1968. Much later, the key features of Slovenian reism were summarized in an encyclopaedic entry by the literary historian Janko Kos as follows: R.[eism] supersedes the psychological descriptions of the human experience of the world by describing the objectivity, the real environment, even the very person as a mere body, which exists just like any other object. By doing this, a human loses his central role, becoming a mere thing, even in a positive sense, because he no longer appropriates the world and does not impose his “sense”. . . The term . . . encompasses the formal characteristics as well as contents of prose and to some extent poetic works that tend to exclude the individual’s personality with its metaphysical, anthropological, and socio-moral problems

|| 4 The first collective volume titled Eva was (self-)published in Kranj in 1966; it was followed by Katalog (The Catalogue, special issue of Problemi, 1968), Katalog 2 (The Catalogue 2, 1969), pericarežeracirep (A Washerwoman is Cutting a Duck’s Tail [a palindrome], 1970), and the “serialist” thematic set “Programirana umetnost” (Programmed Art, special issue of Problemi, 1970). While many publications (for example, Šalamun’s Poker, OHO’s early visual-literary coproductions) were self-published in the first stage, after 1968 the key avant-garde works came out as issues of a (state-subsidized) book series, Znamenja, a brand of Maribor-based Obzorja publishing.

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from the literary text; the text should represent the world as it is, as a pure reality without any meaning.5

The condensed description by Kos is quite appropriate for narrative prose, but somewhat less for poetry and visual art. For this reason, I shed light on the complex artistic reality of Slovenian reism from four angles, addressing: 1) its theoretical articulations, 2) the OHO group, which in its initial phase attempted to implement reism in artistic practice, and a brief analysis of markedly reist texts, including 3) the poetry of Tomaž Šalamun and Iztok Geister, and 4) the narrative prose of Rudi Šeligo. In this way, I demonstrate that the Slovenian reist movement is relatively heterogeneous and relies on various intellectual impulses, but nevertheless remains a connected whole through an innovative, even revolutionary attitude toward “reality” – a whole that, through successful artistic realizations, managed to raise important questions that are still relevant today.

Reism in Theory: Kermauner and Pirjevec As already mentioned, the first consistent theoretical articulation of reism was penned by the theorist and critic Taras Kermauner. Kermauner derived the concept from contemporary Slovenian poetry and related it more specifically to the poetics of Tomaž Šalamun and his notorious debut collection Poker (1966); he explicated it in his book Na poti k niču in reči: porajanje reizma v povojni slovenski poeziji (On the Way to Nothing and the Thing: The Emergence of Reism in Post-War Slovenian Poetry, 1968), in particular in the chapter on Šalamun, written in the spring of 1966.

|| 5 Kos, Janko, “Reizem”, in: Enciklopedija Slovenije, vol. 10, Ljubljana 1996, 156. Unless stated otherwise, the translations from Slovenian are by the author.

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Fig. 87: Title page of the collection Poker by Tomaž Šalamun, self-published, 1966.

Kermauner is fascinated by Šalamun’s glittering irony and on the other hand in particular by negation, the game of Nothing in the “punctured” world that “releases its soul”.6 Although the poet virtually swallows himself, the objective world of Things remains intact: The living Thing is not alive, because a human would change into it; it is alive – alternatively – because it is purified of all that is human […] Metahumanism begins after the total human absence; the World becomes what it is (without a man) […] The Things (the World) will not stink anymore. They will become what they were before they were shrouded and enslaved by History. The human kingdom, the era of human rule (human-ism), has ended. The era of Things (res-ism) has begun.7

In Šalamun’s poetic world, things begin to live independent lives. The poet presents them precisely and objectively; indeed, the world of things is sober, clear, and precise: “Things have their meaning in themselves, they are identical

|| 6 Kermauner, Na poti, 61. 7 Kermauner, Na poti, 64. Emphasis added by the author.

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with themselves”.8 As Kermauner explains, in the course of History, man has been violently appropriating the world, imposing Sense on the world and proclaiming himself its master. However, a thousand-year-old human quest for “Purpose, Action, and Sense” reveals itself as a project doomed to failure: “And this blind, hopeless manoeuvre, this game of human existence is called poker by Šalamun”.9 It is hardly possible to overlook the socially critical, even moralist overtones in the background of Kermauner’s analysis: the tribe from which Šalamun “emigrated” – as the lyrical subject boldly states in the opening of Poker – is a tribe of consumers, a tribe commodified, massified, and utterly banal, one that measures everything only from the perspective of immediate consumption, instant digestibility. Such a society is extremely distant from the true nature of things and their authenticity; it perceives the world as a “department store in which there are continuous rock-bottom sale prices”.10 If such a critical stance seems to be quite relevant at the beginning of the new millennium, it becomes even more remarkable if one recalls that this is not a critique of consumer society in mature capitalism (developed, for example, by the Frankfurt School with such an impact on the global New Left of the 1960s), but is directed against the social condition in the country of socialist self-management.11 In Kermauner’s analysis, however, there are other accents as well, including ones critical to the legacy of Yugoslav revolutionary communism and its eschatology. Kermauner – who sees Šalamun, Geister, and Zagoričnik as the most prominent reist poets – interprets reism as a “logical and meaningful continuation of earlier periods” which “thus concludes the developmental line of Slovenian poetry”.12 This line, however, is such that in its gradual evolution “the truth of its starting points; i.e., the nihilistic foundation of secularized eschatology”13 is becoming increasingly evident – including the foundational myths of the new social order. All in all, Kermauner’s reism is seen as a response of poetry to the final stage of European metaphysical nihilism.

|| 8 Kermauner, Na poti, 65. 9 Kermauner, Na poti, 66. 10 Kermauner, Na poti, 68. 11 This feature should be further contextualized within the May ’68 student movement in Yugoslavia. Here, it should suffice to state (if somewhat generalized) that in the revolutionary years the Yugoslav potentates – in contrast to those in the Soviet bloc – were criticized “from the left”. 12 Kermauner, Na poti, 200. 13 Kermauner, Na poti, 150.

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Quite obviously, the primary impulse of Kermauner’s speculations does not come so much from French structuralism or the nouveau roman, which are usually mentioned as theoretical stimuli of reism. The sources of Kermauner’s analysis – although the author never mentions them in the book – can be found elsewhere; namely, in philosophy, especially in (Sartrean) existentialist phenomenology, and even more in Heideggerian reflections on Being that significantly shaped the Slovenian intellectual climate of the period.14 At this point, Kermauner’s thoughts relate to the influential theoretical opus of his charismatic colleague Dušan Pirjevec (1921–1977), a former Partisan political commissar and professor of comparative literature at the Ljubljana Faculty of Arts from 1963 onward. With his original analyses of the history of the European novel and other writings, Pirjevec profoundly influenced generations of writers and humanists.15 In his extensive essays, such as “Vprašanje o poeziji” (The Question of Poetry), written in 1968 as a theoretical apology of the bold artistic innovations of the contemporary avant-garde,16 Pirjevec, evidently influenced by Heidegger, raises the question of the true essence of poetry. Slovenian poetry, Pirjevec ponders, was forced to play a nation-building role throughout its history, but at the moment when its national goals are achieved it can turn away from Action and finally re-turn to itself. Only then can it revive itself in its true existence: neither as action nor as rational cognition, but as a game – one that reveals things in the authentic glare of their Being: “Poetry, which is a game, touches and nominates things that are touched and nominated in a very special way […]. Its “touching” leaves everything as it is, and so through the game it “demonstrates” that everything that is, first and foremost simply is”.17 In Pirjevec’s reflections, which resonated in the writing of (not only) Kermauner, one can identify the foundations of the two major concepts pertinent to Slovenian neo-avant-garde art; namely, reism and ludism. Moreover, the Heideggerian understanding of Being (“everything that is, first and foremost simply is”), the tendency to abandon instrumentalization and utilitarianism, and put things

|| 14 The first book of Heidegger’s philosophical texts in Slovenian translation was published in 1967. It included the essays “Vom Wesen der Wahrheit”, “Über den ‘Humanismus’”, and – particularly important – “Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes”. 15 On Pirjevec, see: Juvan, Marko, “The Charisma of Theory”, in: Călin-Andrei Mihăilescu and Takayuki Yokota-Murakami (eds.), Policing Literary Theory, Leiden 2018, 89–110. 16 The new art came under attack by the official discourse, as testified by the declaration “Demokracija da, razkroj ne!” (Yes to Democracy, No to Decay!; the title curiously paraphrases De Gaulle’s 1968 statement), published by the major Slovenian daily Delo on 8 November 1968. It was labelled “pessimist” and “nihilist” and discredited as “lavatory”. 17 Pirjevec, Dušan, Vprašanje o poeziji. Vprašanje naroda, Maribor 1978, 85.

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into the perspective of authentic “gazing”, are also the features that fundamentally mark the reist efforts of the OHO group.

The OHO Group: The “Reist” Phase How then does reism resonate in the activities of the most successful Slovenian neo-avant-garde formation that explicitly referred to the new concept in their initial phase? The OHO brand brought together a group of young artists who set up to undertake radical, often provocative, publications, performances, and conceptual projects. Their breakthrough dates back to 1966, when the manifesto by Geister and Pogačnik was published in Tribuna; in the same year, the two artists created a book titled OHO, and the collection EVA, a prototype of later collective publications, was published.18

Fig. 88: The title page of the collective volume EVA, Kranj, self-published, 1966.

|| 18 The term OHO is a neologism combining the Slovenian expressions for ‘eye’ (OkO) and ‘ear’ (uHo). See Marko Pogačnik, “Uvod v spomin OHO / Introduction to memory OHO”, in: Brejc, Tomaž, OHO. 1966–1971, Ljubljana 1978, 3–9. In everyday speech, oho is also an interjection that expresses amazement or enthusiasm. After the reist phase, the core of the group (Pogačnik, Matanović, Nez, Andraž, and Tomaž Šalamun) continued with conceptualism, performances (for example, the notorious sculpture Triglav), body art, and land art.

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Especially in the years 1966–1968, the OHO members explicitly proclaimed reism as a basis of their work: in this way, they intended to undermine the prevalent anthropocentric perspective in which a human is superior to the world of objects. In a reist world, the situation is the opposite: whereas humans lose their privileged place, objects become self-sufficient. In particular, with the innovative presentation of objects, reists tried to radically challenge the perception of the observer and enable him to truly enter the world of things, experiencing it at the fullest. As Metka Zupančič summarizes the thoughts of the OHO theoretician Tomaž Brejc: the first manifestation of a reist movement is characterized by a completely new and changed attitude to an object that we normally perceive in an alien, rational, inauthentic way; however, for the OHO group, an object simply ceases to be something instrumental for a human: only by placing the object “in the light of wonder”, of “authentic”, “immediate gaze”, can one surpass its functionality and “nomination of the object according to its usefulness.”19

How are these principles reflected in reist visual production? Instead of classic artworks, OHO produces “artefacts” and objects of everyday consumption (for example, bottle castings and matchboxes), attempts to minimize subjective expressiveness, and plays with the concept of poor art, arte povera, where a stack of hay, corn husks, bricks, and soil can figure as artefacts. From a reist perspective, the 1966 manifesto by Geister and Pogačnik is quite illustrative. It is framed in the caption OHOHOHO . . . , with a simple drawing of a shoe above the text, which begins with the description of this drawing: What is it on the newspaper paper from the printing ink in the drawing that descends and rises in an arc, then drops past three points and runs a part of the length straight and steeps down and sharply turns back, steeped, sharply lowered and longitudinally aligned and in an arc it rises, to the corner, from where it drops and rises in an arc, then drops past three points […].20

This deliberately naive and absurdly detailed description resembles an anthropological note of an observer from another planet that “doesn’t know” what a shoe looks like. Later on, more complicated philosophical slogans are employed, but as a whole the intonation of this manifesto remains predominantly reist: “Things are real. We approach the reality of things by accepting the thing

|| 19 Zupančič, Metka, “Reizem, OHO in poskus celostne umetnosti”, in: Primerjalna književnost, 9, 1986, no. 1, 33–37, here 34. 20 Plamen and Pogačnik, “OHO Manifesto”, 5.

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in the way it is”.21 In practice, therefore, OHO requires a regression toward the “thing itself”, which is demonstrated by its fondness for simply imprinted everyday objects that acquire, exhibited in a gallery, “an appearance of direct presence which is to us, being used to their utility only, completely alien”.22 Approaching the original experience of things is also demanding for the viewer because he needs to train the eye to be able to perceive the beauty of immediate presence of the here-existing objects, for the ear to catch the approaching sound of their existence . . . The OHO drawing presents only basic recognition of an object, descriptive elements which never become interpreters of its “essence”, because a drawing runs as a continuous trail on the imaginary line of presence of objects – and nothing else.23

The focus on the thing itself, pursued by the OHO drawing, tries to enforce the shift from interpretation to observation. This is well documented in a series of reist book editions by Pogačnik and Geister that deconstruct the established notions of what the book as a medium should look like – for example, OHO, Dve pesmi (Two Poems) from 1966, Steklenica bi rada pila (The Bottle Would Like to Drink) from 1967, Embrionalna knjiga (The Embryonic Book), Gobe v knjigi (Mushrooms in a Book), Pegam in Lambergar (Pegam and Lambergar) from 1968, and Ikebana (the title refers to the Japanese art of arranging flowers) from 1969.

|| 21 Plamen and Pogačnik, “OHO Manifesto”, 5. 22 Tomaž Brejc, OHO. 1966–1971, Ljubljana 1978, 12. The book is bilingual; quoted is the English translation of Brejc’s Slovenian text by Henrik Ciglič. 23 Brejc, OHO. 1966–1971, 12–14.

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Fig. 89: Title page of Pegam in Lambergar by Iztok Geister and Marko Pogačnik, self-published, 1968.

A successful and perhaps the most plastic presentation of the OHO reist doctrine is “Svetloba teme” (The Light of Darkness) from the volume Katalog (The Catalogue, 1968), another joint venture by Geister (under the pseudonym Benjamin Luks) and Pogačnik, in which the two artists present their “reistic turn” in the form of comics. The story begins with the rebellion of light bulbs that simply stop shining; they are followed by matches, lighters, batteries, buttons, shoelaces, and all sorts of other accessories. Eventually, man-made technology wholly collapses: the characters of the comic book begin to perceive things “as such”, as singular designs, and start to marvel at their uniqueness: a lamp, a pipe, a fork, a match, and a cigarette become objects of observation and wonder: “Mom, what are you doing? I admire the pipe. I’ve never noticed it before.” Thus, “a true treasure hidden from the eyes” is revealed, which, in fact, is “not hidden, it is only ignored”.24 In the manifestations of OHO reism, echoes of Heideggerian phenomenology (mediated by Pirjevec) are clearly visible through the tendency to approach the “true nature” of things. At the same time, at least one other possible refer-

|| 24 Benjamin Luks [Iztok Geister] and Marko Pogačnik, “Svetloba teme, strip”, in: Katalog, eds Iztok Geister et al., Problemi, 6, 1968, no. 67–68, 24–38, here 37–38.

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ence – although never mentioned explicitly – seems to be present in the background: namely, Russian formalism, in particular Viktor Shklovskii’s procedure of defamiliarization/estrangement (ostranenie) as explained in his famous 1917 essay “Art as Technique” (Iskusstvo kak priëm). From this perspective, OHO’s reist efforts do not appear so much as a (nihilistic) stage in the history of Being, but above all as a new, artistically convincing implementation of the estrangement technique, which already in Shklovskii’s conceptualization serves to grasp literary realism (even Tolstoi) in an attempt to think, and contribute to, an aesthetic revolution.

Reism in Modernist Poetry Poker by Tomaž Šalamun is regarded today as a pivotal book of post-war Slovenian poetic avant-garde. A daring young poet that shortly before infuriated the regime with his parodic satire “Duma 1964”, earning himself a short prison sentence,25 fascinated the readers of his poetic debut with relaxed irony and playful ludism. Most evidently, he approached the poetics of reism in the cycle titled “Things” especially in the final, seventh poem: I’ll draw a cross

serpentines on my rocking chair how pathetically the shirt hangs once the body leaves it yet it’s still a shirt and here’s what clinches our defeat both a suitcase and a T-bar have you ever seen a chair running from the bathroom toward the kitchen or vice-versa it doesn’t matter hysterically asking what about my eternal life?

|| 25 Marjan Dolgan, “Tri Šalamunove parodične satire in njihov kontekst”, in: Primerjalna književnost, 27, 2004, no. 1, 25–60.

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have you ever seen a balcony railing saying I’ve had enough I’ve had enough I’ve had enough I too am fond of my modest life I too must have my share and if you’ve walked down the Glagoljaška Street and seen an old boot lying between house number four and the well left there from that year when the last nighttime regattas took place and Mario won did the boot ask you hello excuse me for bothering you here on the street but doesn’t it seem to you doesn’t it seem to you doesn’t it seem to you Things are inscrutable in their craftiness Unattainable to the rage of the living invulnerable in their endless flight you can’t catch up with them you can’t seize them motionless in their gaze26

In this case, the reist descent to things “as such” – in spite of a surprisingly explicit closing formulation – is blended with typically ironic overtones. In Šalamun’s second collection Namen pelerine (The Purpose of a Raincoat, 1968), reism is even more pronounced; Kermauner assesses that the reist structure prevails in it: the poem becomes “mere information about something that has happened or that exists – without any depth and background”.27 An example would be the “measurement” poem, written in a dull, descriptive diction of instructions: one’s height is measured in the morning one must be barefoot must stand on his feet the head must be in such a position that the straight line between the angle of the eye and the centre of the ear is horizontal if there is no altimeter we carefully draw the dimensions on a flat board

|| 26 Šalamun, Tomaž, The Four Questions of Melancholy. New and Selected Poems, trans. Michael Biggins, ed. Christopher Merrill, Fredonia, New York 1997, 27–28. 27 Kermauner, Taras, “Dve interpretaciji”, in: Katalog, eds. Iztok Geister et al., Problemi, 6, 1968, no. 67–68, 7–23, here 23.

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or a piece of cardboard that we attach to the wall or doorpost without the edge below we put a triangle on the head with the right angle against the measuring scale and one cathetus on the head the other on the scale28

Apart from the aforementioned comics by Geister and Pogačnik, other important reist texts were also published in Katalog (1968); for example, concretist poetry by Milenko Matanović, Naško Križnar, Matjaž Hanžek, and Vojin “Chubby” Kovač. Whereas Matanović included some beautifully subtle typographic solutions that shed new light on simple alphabetical signs, Kovač opted for a detailed description of seven different brands of condoms, later complemented by a phallic concretist composition. Slavoj Žižek also appears with a hybrid text, “The Spy Who Loved Me”, in which the future star of global philosophy synchronously fuses “Bond” genre fiction in English and a demanding materialistic discourse in Slovenian. Geister, the other prominent poet of Slovenian reism, contributed a cycle of typical four-verse poems that once again interact with the esteemed OHO object: the shoe. The cycle ends with the following poem: a trodden foot hurts a man a trodden shoe hurts no one29

|| 28 Šalamun, Tomaž, Namen pelerine, Ljubljana 1968, 30. Translated by Marijan Dović and Mojca Šorli. 29 Katalog, eds Iztok Geister et al., Problemi, 6, 1968, no. 67–68, 93. Translated by Marijan Dović and Mojca Šorli.

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Fig. 90: Title page of Katalog, special edition of Problemi, summer 1968.

Katalog 2, edited by Dušan Pirjevec, was published in 1969 as a continuation of the previous volume. It provided some new features; for example, “Tapete” (The Wallpapers) by the most radical Slovenian concretist Franci Zagoričnik, Tomaž Šalamun’s poems with added photos, and Matjaž Hanžek’s poems, based on the permutation technique. Among the markedly reist products, Geister’s cycle “Ranunculus L., Zlatica” stands out. It begins with a list of botanical abbreviations used and continues with a precise description of forty-one species of buttercups, each time supplemented with a four-verse poem. In each poem, two things are “approaching” the current variety of a buttercup: the first one is usually a phenomenon from the world of nature, whereas the other – often in sharp contrast – comes from the human world; for example, a compressed tube of toothpaste. The first variety of a buttercup is depicted as follows: The st.[em] is normally positioned, often rooted at the node. The kidney-shaped, rounded, or triangular l.[eaves] are juicy, soft, and glowing. The heart-shaped bottom edges of the l.[eaf] do not overlap. The fl.[owers] are golden yellow. The fr.[uits] are firm and have shorthairs. In shady places.

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Lesser celandine, R. ficaria L. once it is approached by a northern caddisfly another time by heavenly glory30

Geister’s learned flirting with botany and entomology is a playful yet quite specific example of a reist poetic practice. However, a look at the broader spectrum of poetry of the late 1960s, as evidenced by other collections and numerous poems in magazines (especially in Tribuna), confirms that reism left a significant mark on Slovenian poetry during this period – not only in the works of Geister and Šalamun, but many other poets as well. Reist ideas were manifested in a wide variety of poetic realizations, ranging from typographic and other concrete experiments through multimedia projects to hybrids between poetry and scientific description.

Reism in Narrative Prose The short novel Triptih Agate Schwarzkobler (The Triptych of Agatha Schwarzkobler) by Rudi Šeligo was published in 1968 as the fourth volume of the Znamenja31 book series and soon became a paradigmatic narrative text of Slovenian reism. In his essay accompanying the 1982 reprint of the novel, Taras Kermauner maintained that it had become a literary classic because Šeligo inspired “many followers and imitators when a whole new epoch was created on the basis of his invention”.32 Kermauner’s assessment – an attempt to canonize a colleague writer as well as to corroborate his own theoretical and critical approach to the Slovenian avant-garde – may be somewhat overblown from today’s perspective. Nevertheless, Šeligo certainly introduced a new way of weav|| 30 I.G. [Iztok Geister] Plamen, “Ranunculus L., Zlatica”, in: Katalog, 2, ed. Dušan Pirjevec, Maribor 1969, 51–65, here 53. The northern caddisfly is a species of a winged insect (Limnephilus rhombicus). Translated by Marijan Dović and Mojca Šorli. 31 The book series has been published since 1968 by Obzorja in Maribor and edited by Dušan Pirjevec; Marko Pogačnik was responsible for the illustrations. It included many key works of Slovenian modernism; for example, Katalog 2 (1969), pericarežacirep (1969), and poetry collections (by Geister, Zagoričnik, Šalamun, Jesih, Svetina, and others). 32 Kermauner, Taras, “Med nemočjo in fascinacijo”, in: Rudi Šeligo, Triptih Agate Schwarzkobler, Ljubljana 1982, 81–99, here 81.

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ing a prose narrative that influenced his contemporaries, including Braco Rotar, Dimitrij Rupel, Marko Švabić, and others. The beginning of Triptih reads: The key with a negligently engraved number 28 gets stuck in the lock just as almost every morning. The blade of the key hits something hard, unsmoothed, which then gets a firm grip on it, so that it is difficult even to turn it back again. The key is hollow and very carelessly nickel-plated, on the edges of the handle yellowish metal appears from underneath the very thin surface. The hand reaching into the notch under the drawer grips something, the fingers are bent and tense in the knuckles, then loosened, they travel back to join the right hand, now both hands pushing the key deeply into the lock, loosening it inside a little at first, as if searching for the most favourable position of the blade, then turning it firmly to the right, and the lock opens.33

In Šeligo’s writing, the “objective” world seems to take precedence. As the author himself explained, it is a “prose in which things will speak on their own, which means unfolding, undressing things (of course, human relationships, relationships, and events as well) to the extent that I do not add my meaning as a writer”.34 In the manner of phenomenological descriptivism – simplified syntax and limited abstraction – the text is presented as a kind of objective report in which events are void of any sense, of any psychological dimension. The human organs are mechanized and emancipated (hand, palm, and fingers), and the description becomes ultra-realistic and obsessively detailed, such as in this fascinating description of a phone call: The left hand, however, is very light and, much like a picking instrument, launches itself toward the black phone receiver, removes it from the holder, drops it onto the board, the three thin fingers hide in the palm of the hand, the extended trigger finger digging promptly into the first digit of the round dial. When the area of the circle punctured ten times runs backwards, making a sound like that of a pile of chain sliding down rocks, the thin trigger finger hovers readily above it, as if on the prowl or as if eager to control the circle’s return to a still position. Then there are many different numbers, and for each one the circle runs back, making the sound of a released chain.35

The reader is thus only painstakingly recollecting a broader picture: the story takes place in an office where the female character works as a secretary (her name is Agata, but the reader has to guess it from the title and a few references

|| 33 Šeligo, Rudi, Triptih Agate Schwarzkobler, Ljubljana 1982, 5. All excerpts from Šeligo translated by Marijan Dović and Mojca Šorli. 34 Poniž, Denis, “Zrenje Agate Schwarzkobler”, in: Šeligo, Triptih, 100–118, here 106. 35 Šeligo, Triptih, 13.

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to her “agathean body”);36 only through minutely described daily rituals, such as drinking coffee, is the puzzle made up of her relationships with her boss and (female) co-workers. Things are put into a whole new perspective by a process that can again be compared to formalist estrangement: much like in the description of a shoe, the narrator behaves like an alien, merely recording in the manner of a film camera – he interprets nothing because he understands nothing and does not grasp any causal links. The rare moments when the narrator reveals himself in his omniscient, auctorial position, and demonstrates his actual control of the narrative, thus almost seem to be technical glitches.

Fig. 91: Title page of the short novel Triptih Agate Schwarzkobler by Rudi Šeligo, 1968.

There is no doubt that the development of Slovenian reist prose was substantially marked by the French nouveau roman – which, as Denis Poniž has noted, strongly influenced Šeligo through its programmatic and theoretical texts as well as interviews (published especially in Problemi from 1965 onwards), but

|| 36 Šeligo’s novel refers intertextually to the canonical text of Slovenian late realism Visoška kronika (The Visoko Chronicle, 1919) by Ivan Tavčar.

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much less by direct examples.37 The inspiration of Alain Robbe-Grillet is quite evident in Triptih, which also pays homage to the French author with the fact that Agata and her (boyfriend) Jurij are watching Alain Resnais’s controversial L’Année dernière à Marienbad (Last Year in Marienbad, 1961), based on a screenplay by Robbe-Grillet. In the second part of the triptych, Agata and her lover find themselves in a movie theatre. The lover’s intentions are transparent: he begins touching and harassing her: Then the fingers turn to form a palm, which is now able to hold the entire bulge and is flexible and firm under the smooth cover of the bra […]. Like a smooth small board or a spring, the stretched out palm whisks in the direction of her dress where it is already cut off, just above the knees, with her thighs ajar.38

The “caressing”, during which the reader can alternately follow the events on the film screen in italicized passages, becomes increasingly violent, nearing an outright attempt at rape. Agata escapes and wanders along the road; soon, she is picked up by a random driver (who assumes she is a prostitute), and he takes her to the river. They perform a mechanical sexual act in which only the organs, estranged in a reist manner, seem to be involved; Agata’s arms lie on the ground like “broken branches of some white tree”.39 Here, the narrator assumes her perception, listening to the voices of the fly and the crow and noticing the ants crawling up the grass stems. In the third, concluding part of the triptych, Agata spends a delirious night in an unfinished building; eventually even her lacquered black headdress – its impeccability had thus far linked the various episodes of her day as a metaphorical thread – dissolves. As Kermauner has already noted, “the absence of a subjective – humanist – criterion […] is what manages to impregnate the text with ambiguity”.40 What does this flood of ultra-realist description, employing minimal causality and hardly any interpretation, tell a reader? It could be noted that, despite the consistently reist narrative technique, Šeligo’s text as a whole does not simply appear to be an apathetic affirmation of the “world of Things”; quite the contrary, it can easily be understood as a critical, even engaged social reflection. Such an

|| 37 See Poniž, “Zrenje”, 104–105. The most influential authors were Alain Robbe-Grillet, Nathalie Sarraute, and Lucien Goldmann, and to some extent also Michel Butor, Phillipe Sollers, and Roland Barthes. See also Zupančič, “Reizem”. 38 Šeligo, Triptih, 39. 39 Šeligo, Triptih, 56. 40 Kermauner, “Med nemočjo”, 91.

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impression is reinforced if some of Šeligo’s other works are taken in consideration; for example, his prose debut Stolp (The Tower, 1966), which reads like a critique of the socialist cult of work. Instead of glorifying the work process, Šeligo reveals its dark sides, emphasizing “the difference between the free work of an artist and non-free industrial production that enslaves a human worker to a machine and reifies him”, and exposes the assembly line as “a torturous monotonous repetition, almost suffering […] the sense, goal, purpose, emotion, gift, passion, joy, etc. have disappeared”.41 In this respect, Šeligo’s implicit messages resonate with Kermauner’s understanding of reism as a critique of middle-class objectification and “reification”. In his description of Agata’s day – despite the ambiguity mentioned – the sediments of humanist criticism are clearly visible. Agata is portrayed as a specimen of the “mass human”, alienated in the world of (socialist!) production and consumption; her job is routine, her workdays cyclically monotonous. Thus, Šeligo’s “split between camouflaged humanism and intended reism”42 is quite evident. In other words, as Janko Kos observes, reism is not always “fully in accord with its program principles: subjective, socio-critical, and humanistic elements exist even in the most distinctive works of Šeligo”.43

Conclusion Reism developed in the second half of the 1960s as one of the major currents of Slovenian modernism and appears to be a unique, innovative, multifaceted, and artistically convincing phenomenon that critically questions complex relations between art and social reality in very specific ways. The above analysis has shown that Slovenian reism – apart from the general tendency to reduce the world to concrete objects – did not have a direct connection with philosophical reism as developed at the beginning of the twentieth century by Franz Brentano and in particular by Tadeusz Kotarbiński. It also turned out that, contrary to common belief, the strongest impetus for its evolution did not come from contemporary French literature and theory (the nouveau roman, Tel Quel, and structural poetics). Although French literature and theory had a major (technical) impact on reist prose, Slovenian reism as a whole relied much more inti-

|| 41 Kermauner, “Med nemočjo”, 82–83. 42 Kermauner, “Med nemočjo”, 98. 43 Kos, “Reizem”, 156.

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mately on Heideggerian phenomenology – which was, interestingly, a formative influence even for Slavoj Žižek, who later helped spread anti-Heideggerian structuralism around the globe. Looking from a broader perspective, however, one must bear in mind that from the early 1960s on the Slovenian artists and critics were (mostly through Tribuna and Problemi) extremely well-informed about the major international avant-garde currents in contemporary literature, art, and theory – including the ideas of “ready-made”, intermedial, and conceptual art, which were significant especially for the reism of the OHO group. As demonstrated, the manifestations of reism in Slovenian neo-avant-garde – in theory, visual/conceptual art, poetry, and prose – appear quite varied at first. On the other hand, however, reists in all branches managed to develop successful strategies of new sensibility that go hand in hand with the requirements of Shklovskii’s ostranenie (if without the revolutionary impetus of, say, Brechts’s Verfremdungseffekt). By means of an innovative artistic procedure, they replaced the automated perceptions with more vibrant ones, allowing the audience to discern “things” – such as Šeligo’s lock, Geister’s buttercups, or Šalamun’s chair – outside of their usual contexts. In contrast to the OHO group, whose members soon earned a noteworthy acclaim both in Slovenia and abroad,44 most Slovenian literary authors of the neo-avant-garde period – with the exception of Tomaž Šalamun who reached a status of an international poetic icon – never managed to become famous. On the contrary, many were all but forgotten even in their homeland – very much like the entire Slovenian neo-avant-garde movement. Nevertheless, the lively intellectual climate of the Slovenian (Yugoslav) 1960s and the mighty outburst of the avant-garde art that culminated in the ’68 revolution and its aftermath remains an interesting phenomenon on its own. While some ambitious attempts to reassess its legacy are currently under way,45 I would like to indicate at the end that it is precisely this legacy that represents an important context that must not be ignored if one wants to understand the emergence of two further major export items of contemporary Slovenian culture – namely, the NSK (Neue

|| 44 After a breakthrough in Yugoslav art institutions in 1969, the endeavors of the OHO group were canonized in the prestigious context of New York’s MOMA in 1970. Their activities and presence in Belgrade in 1969 inspired the turn towards performance art by young Marina Abramović, as she recently recalled in her memoirs Walk Through Walls (New York 2016, 44). 45 In November 2019 an international conference “From May 1968 to November 1989: Transformations of the World, Literature and Theory”, hosted by ZRC SAZU Institute of Slovenian Literature and Literary Studies, took place in Ljubljana. It was accompanied by the exhibition “The Last Season of Modernism: May ’68 in Literature and Theory’ which presented the legacy of the Slovenian neo-avant-garde.

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Slowenische Kunst) “retro-garde” artistic formation and especially the Ljubljana school of psychoanalysis, famously embodied by Žižek.46

|| 46 Obviously, discussing these is beyond the scope of this essay. For the NSK phenomenon and especially its musical and conceptual outlet Laibach group, see: Monroe, Alexei, Interrogation Machine: Laibach and NSK, (Cambridge 2005; with the preface by Slavoj Žižek). For the Ljubljana school of psychoanalysis, its origins and leading philosophers (Žižek, Mladen Dolar, Alenka Zupančič), see: Irwin, Jones and Motoh, Helena, Žižek and his Contemporaries: On the Emergence of the Slovenian Lacan, London 2014.

Sabine Kyora

Dinge als Akteure in (neo)avantgardistischen Texten Schlägt man im Reallexikon der Literaturwissenschaft ‚Realismus‘ nach, findet man in der Wortgeschichte die Ableitung von ‚Res‘, lateinisch ‚das Ding‘, als Kern dessen, was den literarischen Realismus ausmacht.1 Dass realistische Texte von Dingen berichten, scheint also schon im Begriff angelegt. Wie aber ist das Verhältnis zwischen Dingen und (neo)avantgardistischen Schreibweisen, die eher nicht realistisch die Welt und ihre Dinge abbilden wollen? Möglicherweise zeigen (neo)avantgardistische Texte deswegen ein anderes Verhältnis zwischen Subjekten, Dingen und Sprache. Als Realismus wird im Reallexikon definiert „die Darstellung der fiktiven Welt als ‚real‘, d.h. bestimmt durch die Faktizität raumzeitlicher Natur und die Intersubjektivität der Erfahrungswelt“.2 Realistische Texte sind deswegen gekennzeichnet durch die „Konkretheit und Plastizität der Gegenstandsbeschreibung“.3 Also lassen sich in ihnen etwa geographisch erkennbare Landschaften, sozial zuzuordnende Interieurs oder Kleidung und Accessoires von Figuren, die diese charakterisieren, finden. Gerade in realistischen Texten sind diese scheinbaren Nebensachen unverzichtbar, um die Repräsentation der jeweiligen Wirklichkeit plausibel zu machen. So ‚gehört‘ zur Novelle Der Schimmelreiter von Theodor Storm die Nordseelandschaft, ordnen die Wohnung des Professors und die Villa des Fabrikanten die soziale Wirklichkeit in Fontanes Roman Frau Jenny Treibel und erhält der Protagonist in Kellers Roman Der grüne Heinrich seinen Namen durch seine Kleidung, die aus der grünen Uniform seines Vaters geschneidert ist. Dabei sind diese Elemente der Handlung und den Figuren zugeordnet, sie haben also kaum ein Eigenleben, das über die Repräsentation der Wirklichkeit innerhalb der Fiktion hinausginge. Dass Dinge in der Moderne gerne auch ein Eigenleben führen, hat Dorothee Kimmich bereits ausgeführt.4 Diese Entwicklung ist nicht nur an Franz Kafkas || 1 Ritzer, Monika, „Realismus (1)“, in: Jan-Dirk Müller/Georg Braungart (Hrsg.), Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft, Bd. 3, Berlin u.a. 2007, 217–221, 218. 2 Ritzer, „Realismus“, 217. 3 Ritzer, „Realismus“, 218. 4 Kimmich, Dorothee, Lebendige Dinge in der Moderne, Konstanz 2011; vgl. Kyora, Sabine, „Nebensachen. Zur Bedeutung von Accessoires und Interieurs in neusachlichen Texten“, in: Sabine Kyora/Stefan Neuhaus (Hrsg.), Realistisches Schreiben in der Weimarer Republik, Würzburg 2006, 77–88. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-035

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„Odradek“ in der Erzählung Die Sorge des Hausvaters erkennbar, wie Kimmich es beschreibt, dort aber besonders auffällig.5 Bei Kafkas Wesen ist nicht ganz klar, ob es lebt und also kein Ding ist, oder ob es sich um eine besonders aktive Garnspule handelt. Eine ähnliche Neigung zur Grenzüberschreitung haben auch Stuhl, Spind und Kandelaber in Alfred Döblins Stück Lydia und Mäxchen. Tiefe Verbeugung in einem Akt. So sagt der „STUHL: Eine neue Zeit bricht für uns an. Man hat uns verleumdet und verleugnet. Wir sind lebendig, von großem Einfluß, und ich glaube, er hilft uns zu unserem Recht, der Dichter. Warum fürchtet er uns nur?“6 und „Wir stehen hier nicht mehr als Kulissen herum. […] Wüsten wir wie Hunnen umher, wenn der Augenblick gekommen ist; mit Mut und Gebrüll“.7 Hier haben wir es zunächst einmal mit Artefakten zu tun, also mit vom Menschen hergestellten Dingen, die üblicherweise auf der Bühne in ‚Kulissen herumstehen‘ oder in Texten die Kulissen bilden. Im Gegensatz zur Landschaft handelt es sich nicht um natürliche Dinge. Gut erkennbar ist im Redebeitrag des Stuhls die Unterordnung der Dinge (als Kulissen) unter die Handlung und die Figuren, die der Grund für seine Rebellion ist.8 Der Dichter wiederum kann ihn aus dieser Position befreien und ihm zu seinem Recht verhelfen. Damit deutet sich hier ein Verhältnis zwischen Objekten und Subjekten an, das – vermittelt über den Eingriff des Dichters – auch vermeintliche Objekte als Subjekte zulässt. Diese Form der Gleichberechtigung könnte als eine Balance zwischen Objekten und Subjekten verstanden werden, die die Unterordnung von Objekten unter Subjekte aufhebt. Ein solches, gleichberechtigtes Verhältnis hat Bruno Latour in seinem Essay Wir sind nie modern gewesen als Infragestellung der modernen, von den Naturwissenschaften konzipierten Subjekt-ObjektTrennung beschrieben. Nach Latour konstituiert sich die Moderne als eine Kultur, die zwischen Natur und Gesellschaft, Naturwissenschaften und Gesellschaftswissenschaften, Objekt und Subjekt eine Trennung einzieht. Diese Trennung führt dazu, dass ein ständiger Reinigungsprozess des einen Elements vom anderen stattfinden muss, Ziel dieser Reinigung ist die Aufrechterhaltung der Trennung. Gleichzeitig spricht Latour auch davon, dass wegen dieser Trennung eine Übersetzungs|| 5 Kimmich, Lebendige Dinge, 24–25. 6 Döblin, Alfred, „Lydia und Mäxchen. Tiefe Verbeugung in einem Akt“, in: Alfred Döblin Werkausgabe in Einzelbänden, Drama Hörspiel Film, Erich Kleinschmidt (Hrsg.), Olten, Freiburg 1983, 9–31, 12. 7 Döblin, „Lydia und Mäxchen“, 16. 8 Vgl. dazu Kleinschmidt, Erich, „Nachwort“, in: Alfred Döblin Werkausgabe in Einzelbänden, Drama Hörspiel Film, 579–669, 586.

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leistung erbracht werden muss, um Naturdinge für die Gesellschaft zu erklären oder Objekte den Subjekten. So entstehen Hybride, also verdeckte Mischungen zwischen dem einen und dem anderen. Gegen dieses Paradox der Moderne setzt Latour ein symmetrisches Konzept der Subjekt-Objekt-Konstruktion, denn: „Das Menschliche läßt sich ja, wie wir inzwischen wissen, nicht erfassen und retten, wenn man ihm nicht jene andere Hälfte seiner selbst zurückgibt: den Anteil der Dinge. Solange der Humanismus sich im Kontrast zu einem Objekt bildet, welches der Epistemologie überlassen bleibt, verstehen wir weder das Menschliche noch das Nicht-Menschliche.“9 Nach Latour ließe sich der Zusammenhang von Objekten und Subjekten also angemessener beschreiben, wenn Objekte symmetrisch, nicht getrennt von den Subjekten und ihnen untergeordnet, verstanden werden. Zudem würde sich dann die Grenze zwischen ihnen auflösen und die „Allianzen und ihr Austausch“ würden erkennbar werden.10 Diese Allianzen versteht Latour als Netzwerk von Praktiken, die Subjekte und Objekte miteinander verbinden, und darüber hinaus als Grundlage einer „symmetrischen Anthropologie“. Latour bietet auch für den Blick auf Dinge in literarischen Texten eine interessante Perspektive, weil er gegen die hierarchische Sicht auf die Dinge, die sich in realistischen Texten wiedergegeben findet, das Verhältnis von Subjekten und Objekten anders konstruiert. Mit diesem Entwurf einer alternativen Beziehung lässt sich eine Perspektive entwickeln, die es möglich macht, Subjekt-Objekt-Verhältnisse in nicht-realistischen Texten genauer zu analysieren. Blickt man nun zurück auf das Beispiel Döblin, dann sieht man hier zunächst eine Allianz zwischen dem Dichter und den Dingen, zudem treten die Dinge wie die anderen (menschlichen) Figuren auch auf und haben Rederecht. Der Dichter fürchtet (möglicherweise) die Dinge deswegen, weil sie seinen Subjektstatus bedrohen, er will eher die Trennung aufrechterhalten – nach Latour wäre er damit ein Repräsentant der Moderne. Dagegen sind die Dinge transgressiv, sie überschreiten die Grenzen und verstehen sich als sprechende und handelnde Subjekte. In Abgrenzung zu Döblins Dingen wären Dinge in realistischen Texten Ausdruck der Subjekt-Objekt-Trennung – um den Stuhl zu zitieren: Sie „stehen in den Kulissen herum“ –, den Subjekten untergeordnet und der Natur(wissenschaft) zugehörig, sie wären damit Ausdruck der ‚Reinigungsarbeit‘ der modernen Dichter.

|| 9 Latour, Bruno, Wir sind nie modern gewesen, Frankfurt 2008, 180–181. 10 Latour, Wir sind nie modern gewesen, 182.

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Avantgarde: expressionistische und dadaistische Dinge Ausgehend von der Konstellation bei Döblin werden im Folgenden einige Darstellungen von Dingen in den Avantgarde-Texten der 1910er und 1920er Jahre betrachtet. Bei den Auftritten der Dadaisten sind auch ganz real Dinge auf der Bühne, etwa durch die Kostüme, im Folgenden wird aber die Funktion der Dinge und ihr Verhältnis zu den Subjekten innerhalb der Texte im Mittelpunkt stehen. Wenn man sich hier eine Skala vorstellt, bei der der Realismus und die Unterordnung der Dinge langsam abnehmen, dann wäre als erste Stufe an symbolische Bedeutungen von Dingen zu denken, die sie mit den Subjekten verbinden und damit die Hierarchie von Subjekten und Objekten unterlaufen. Darunter kann als eine erste Variante die Vereinigung von Subjekt und Objekt gefasst werden. Als Beispiel kann eine Zeile aus dem Gedicht Ein alter Tibetteppich von Else Lasker-Schüler dienen: „Deine Seele, die die meine liebet,/ Ist verwirkt mit ihr im Teppichtibet“.11 Hier steht das Ding metaphorisch für die enge Beziehung der Liebenden. Trotzdem entwirft das lyrische Ich ein Bild, in dem die Seelen der Liebenden in den Tibetteppich hineingewoben sind,12 sodass es quasi zu einer Entgrenzung der Subjekte und des Objekts kommt. Allerdings geht es dabei immer noch um die Inszenierung der subjektiven Verbundenheit, auch wenn das Objekt in diesen Bund mit aufgenommen ist. Eine andere sprachliche Form, die bezogen auf die Funktion der Dinge strukturell parallel zu lesen wäre, ist die im Expressionismus häufige Personifizierung von Dingen. Wenn es in August Stramms Gedicht Patrouille heißt „Fenster grinst Verrat“,13 dann erhält das Fenster durch die Personifizierung Subjektcharakter und wird zum Akteur. In dieser sprachlichen Konstruktion wird der Charakter des Dings als Akteur deutlicher, weil es anders als bei Lasker-Schüler auch das Subjekt des Satzes ist.

|| 11 Lasker-Schüler, Else, „Ein alter Tibetteppich“, in: Dies.: Helles Schlafen, dunkles Wachen, München 1962, 50. 12 Vgl. Ehlers, Swantje, „Ein Spiel von Form und Inhalt. Zu Else Lasker-Schülers ‚Ein alter Tibetteppich‘“, in: Harald Hartung (Hrsg.), Gedichte und Interpretationen. Vom Naturalismus zur Jahrhundertmitte, Stuttgart 1983, 108–117, 116; dagegen versteht Hallensleben das Gedicht deutlich näher an avantgardistischen Schreibweisen, wie sie im Folgenden an dadaistischen Texten gezeigt werden: Hallensleben, Markus, Else Lasker-Schüler: Avantgardismus und Kunstinszenierung, Tübingen 2000, 131–150. 13 Stramm, August, „Patrouille“, in: Ders., Die Dichtungen, Jeremy Adler (Hrsg.), München 1990, 102.

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Gleichzeitig ist Stramms Gedicht kaum zu verstehen, wenn man nicht die Personifizierung des Dings als Ausdruck der Wahrnehmung eines Soldaten auf Patrouille liest, anders sind die Überschrift und der Rest des Gedichtes inhaltlich kaum in Zusammenhang zu bringen.14 Dabei wird etwas erkennbar, was Dorothee Kimmich als die Fremdheit der Dinge in der Moderne bezeichnet, die wiederum nach Latour durch die Grenzziehung hervorgerufen wird.15 Denn dem Ding „Fenster“ wird eine feindliche Haltung zugeschrieben – ähnlich wie die Dinge in Döblins Drama auch vorhaben, aggressiv „wie Hunnen“ gegen ihre Umgebung zu „wüsten“. Obwohl in der ethnologischen Theorie wie auch bei Kimmich ein Unterschied zwischen natürlichen Objekten und Artefakten gemacht wird,16 sind in den expressionistischen Texten Dinge aus der Natur wie Artefakte gleichermaßen mit Eigenleben versehen. So folgt auf die bereits zitierte Zeile in Stramms Gedicht die Personifizierung eines ebenfalls feindlichen Naturdings: „Aeste würgen“.17 Jenseits der Personifizierung in der expressionistischen Lyrik finden sich auch in der expressionistischen Prosa feindliche (Natur-)Objekte. Als Beispiel für diese Konstruktion kann Döblins Erzählung Die Ermordung einer Butterblume dienen, dort ist die Butterblume mit dem Protagonisten Herrn Michael Fischer in einen Kampf verstrickt, so als hätte sie Subjektcharakter. Als Ausdruck dieses Kampfes behauptet Fischer, Butterblumen seien sein „Leibgericht“: „Worauf alles in Gelächter ausbrach, Herr Michael aber sich zusammenduckte auf seinem Stuhl, mit verbissenen Zähnen das Lachen hörte und die Wut der Butterblume genoß. Er fühlte sich als scheusäliger Drache […]. Wenngleich er heimlich eine schwere Strafe von ihr erwartete“.18 Der „Guerillakrieg“19 zwischen Naturding und Subjekt zeigt ähnlich wie in Döblins Stück den Kampf der Dinge um Gleichberechtigung. Zumindest in Fischers Phantasie beansprucht die Butterblume Subjektstatus und bekämpft ihn, um diesen zu erreichen. Fischer versucht allerdings mit allerlei Tricks die symmetrische Beziehung zu verhindern, er ist einer von den Modernen, die die Grenze zwischen Gesellschaft und Natur um jeden Preis aufrechterhalten wollen. Dabei ist die Aufnahme realisti-

|| 14 S. dazu zuletzt: Iwertowski, Sven, Die Lyrik August Stramms, Bielefeld 2014, 614. 15 Kimmich, Lebendige Dinge, 20. 16 Kimmich, Lebendige Dinge, 17–18. 17 Stramm, „Patrouille“, 102. 18 Döblin, Alfred, „Die Ermordung einer Butterblume“, in: Ders., Erzählungen aus fünf Jahrzehnten, Olten, Freiburg 1979, 22–32, 30; resümierend: Kyora, Sabine, „Der Novellenzyklus ‚Die Ermordung einer Butterblume‘“, in: Sabina Becker (Hrsg.), Döblin-Handbuch. Leben – Werk – Wirkung, Stuttgart 2016, 29–41, 32. 19 Döblin, „Die Ermordung einer Butterblume“, 30.

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scher Erzählweisen bei Döblin ebenfalls erkennbar: So beginnt die Handlung auf einem Feierabend-Spaziergang eines bürgerlichen Kaufmanns, der Kampf um eine symmetrische Beziehung zwischen Subjekt und Objekt hebelt dann jedoch „die Faktizität raumzeitlicher Natur und die Intersubjektivität der Erfahrungswelt“,20 wie das Reallexikon sie für den literarischen Realismus definiert, aus. Gleichzeitig begegnen sich Figuren und Dinge hier jedoch auf einer Handlungsebene, die die Konstruktion von Subjekt-Objekt-Hierarchien zumindest noch voraussetzt. Auch der Subjektcharakter, der den Objekten zugeschrieben wird, macht sie eher anthropomorph, als dass sie ein Eigenleben entwickeln würden, das ‚dingspezifisch‘ wäre. Die Grenzüberschreitungen, die im Expressionismus eher motivischen Charakter haben, werden deutlich radikaler in Texten inszeniert, die dem Dadaismus nahestehen. Das ist vor allem deswegen möglich, weil das Sprachspiel hier im Vordergrund steht. So verwischt in Hans Arps Opus Null die Grenze zwischen Ich, Er und den Dingen so, dass keines dieser Elemente mehr als Subjekt oder Objekt zu identifizieren ist: „Er schwingt als Pfund aus seinem Stein / die eigene Braut im eigenen Sack. / Der eigene Leib im eigenen Kreis / fällt nackt als Sofa aus dem Frack“.21 Die Überschreitung der Subjekt-Objekt-Grenzen führt, wie von Kimmich beschrieben, zu einer Fremdheit der Dinge, die aus ihren konventionellen Gebrauchs- und Funktionsweisen gelöst werden. Sie führt aber ebenso zu einer Verfremdung des Subjektstatus: Das Subjekt ist nicht mehr der Akteur, es ist nicht mehr klar, was zu ihm gehört, und seine Ganzheit löst sich in Fragmente auf. Dabei spielt es auch keine Rolle mehr, ob auf der Objektseite ein natürliches Ding („Stein“) oder ein Artefakt („Sofa“) dem Subjekt begegnet, Subjekte wie Objekte gehen ineinander über, sie werden allein durch die Syntax noch auseinandergehalten. Der spielerische Charakter ist bei Arp deutlich erkennbar und führt zu einer Art sprachlichem Ringelreihen, bei dem sich Subjekt und Objekt beständig ablösen. Eine poetische Praktik, die Subjekte und Objekte strukturell im Satzbau als gleichberechtigte Elemente behandelt, weil sowohl konventionell als Subjekt wie als Objekt verstandene Entitäten gleichermaßen die Rolle des Subjekts im Satz übernehmen können. Was sich bei Arp als spielerischer Wechsel von Subjekten und Objekten zeigt, sind syntaktische Strukturen, die den Wechsel, aber auch das Prozessieren des Textes erst ermöglichen. Im Gegensatz zu den expressionistischen Tex-

|| 20 Ritzer, „Realismus“, 217. 21 Arp, Hans, „Opus Null“, in: 113 dada Gedichte, Karl Riha (Hrsg.), Berlin 1982, 47–48, 48; Lischeid, Thomas, Minotaurus im Zeitkristall. Die Dichtung Hans Arps und die Malerei des Pariser Surrealismus, Bielefeld 2012, zur Subjektivität, 42; zum Sprachverständnis, 45.

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ten gewinnt hier die sprachliche Materialität die Oberhand, Anklänge an die realistische Repräsentation und die motivische Verknüpfung verlieren damit fast vollständig an Bedeutung. Noch deutlicher wird diese Entwicklung bei ‚Sprachdingen‘, die gar nicht mehr auf das reale Ding rekurrieren, sondern Buchstaben als Teil eines Zeichengebildes vorführen, das nicht auf ein außersprachliches Signifikat bezogen ist. Ein Beispiel für diese Tendenz ist Schwitters’ Text Cigarren [elementar], der das Wort mehrmals phonetisch buchstabiert: “Cigarren/ Ci/ garr/ ren/ Ce/ i/ ge/ a/ err/ err/ e/ en/[…]“.22 Das Adjektiv „elementar“ im Titel bezieht sich also nicht auf das konventionell mit diesem Wort bezeichnete Ding, sondern auf die elementaren Bestandteile des Wortes. Wenn es hier um ein Ding geht, dann um das Wort Cigarren. Lesen kann man das als Abstraktion vom realen Ding, aber auch als Erforschung von etwas, nämlich dem Wort, was sonst vom sprechenden Subjekt quasi verdinglicht gebraucht wird, ohne es in seiner Materialität zu würdigen. Döblins sprechender Stuhl und Schwitters zerlegtes Wort, die kämpfende Butterblume und Arps Subjekt-Objekt-Vermischungen: Die Dinge sind nicht nur lebendig, sie werden auch als den Subjekten symmetrisch inszeniert. Das kann spielerisch oder eher als Kampf passieren, deutlich wird auf jeden Fall die Grenzüberschreitung zwischen Objekten und Subjekten, die die Texte dieser ersten Phase der Avantgarde kennzeichnet. Gemessen an realistischen Konzepten ist einerseits auf die Abstraktion im Gegensatz zur (realistischen) „Plastizität“ hinzuweisen, die besonders bei Arp und bei Schwitters erkennbar die Darstellung der Dinge dominiert, gleichzeitig aber die Materialität der Sprache in den Vordergrund treten lässt. Andererseits zeigt sich in der Grenzüberschreitung von Subjekt und Objekt bei Döblin und Stramm die Ablösung von der Faktizität raumzeitliche geordneter Natur, die neue Handlungsmöglichkeiten von Figuren und Dingen eröffnet.

Neo-Avantgardistische Dinge Der Ausgangspunkt für die Dinginszenierung in den folgenden Beispielen, die zwischen 1951 und 1968 veröffentlich wurden, ist die Rezeption und die An|| 22 Schwitters, Kurt, „Cigarren [elementar]“, in: 113 dada Gedichte, 136; zu Schwitters Umgang mit Sprache als Material: Van den Berg, Hubert, „‘Worte gegen Worte‘. ‚Entformeln‘ als formale Methode? Kurt Schwitters’ Poetik und die formalistische Schule“, in: Walter Delabar/Ursula Kocher/Isabel Schulz (Hrsg.), Transgression und Intermedialität. Die Texte von Kurt Schwitters, Bielefeld 2016, 93–117.

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knüpfung an die Avantgarde der 1910er und 1920er Jahre, die bei allen in diesem Kapitel behandelten Autorinnen und Autoren nachweisbar ist. Interessant ist dabei einerseits, ob sich nach 1945 in experimentellen Texten und durch die Verarbeitung der Vorkriegsavantgarden neue Tendenzen im Verhältnis von Subjekten und Dingen zeigen. Andererseits ist die Frage zu stellen, ob die Rebellion gegen die von Latour als Konstellation der Moderne beschriebene Trennung von Subjekten und Objekten anhält. Die Nachkriegsrealität mit ihren (fehlenden) Dingen ist als Thema natürlich ebenfalls in realistischen Texte gegenwärtig, etwa in Wolfgang Borcherts Kurzgeschichte Die Küchenuhr (1947), in der der Gegenstand das Symbol für den Verlust der Familie ist, oder in Günter Eichs bekanntem Gedicht Inventur (1948), in dem das lyrische Ich alle seine noch vorhandenen Dinge aufzählt („dies ist meine Mütze / dies ist mein Mantel“) und damit einen Ausdruck für die Nachkriegsrealität findet, bei dem jedoch die Dinge ihren Objektcharakter behalten, sie „dienen“ dem sprechenden Ich. Am deutlichsten wird diese Unterordnung bei der Bleistiftmine, welche die Verse schreibt, die das lyrische Ich nachts erdacht hat.23 Arno Schmidts Erzählung Brand’s Haide von 1951 schildert zwar eine ganz ähnliche Ausgangslage wie Eich in seinem Gedicht: Auch hier kommt ein Soldat und Schriftsteller aus der Gefangenschaft zurück und muss mit seinem Mangel an Dingen in der Nachkriegsgesellschaft überleben. Bei aller Nähe zu realistischen Erzählweisen zeigt Schmidts Text jedoch auch einen engen Zusammenhang zwischen Artefakten, natürlichen Objekten und dem Subjekt. So wird gleich zu Beginn ein Ahornblatt begutachtet und als „meisterhaft“ bezeichnet, als wäre es ein Artefakt; der Wald wird mit einem „Gerät“ ausgefegt, das auch zum Saubermachen des Zimmers verwendet werden kann und das am Waldrand zwischen zwei Blicken des Ich-Erzählers anscheinend von selbst, als wäre es lebendig, verschwindet. Die Personifizierungen aus dem Expressionismus sind in Schmidts Roman ebenfalls wieder zu finden: „dörflich glomm die Butzenscheibe des Mondes hinterm Wacholder […]“.24 Die Vermischung von Artefakt und Subjekteigenschaften ist bei Schmidt allerdings eher selten, während in den (vom Expressionismus inspirierten) Personifizierungen durchaus || 23 Eich, Günter, „Inventur“, in: Ders., Sämtliche Gedichte, Frankfurt 2006, 43. 24 Schmidt, Arno, „Brand’s Haide“, in: Sämtliche Werke. Bargfelder Ausgabe Bd. I.1.1, Zürich 1987, 115–199, 158; zu Schmidts Verhältnis zum Expressionismus: Rathjen, Friedhelm, „Schmidt und der Expressionismus, oder: Im Banne des Soergel. Eine Materialsichtung zu Arno Schmidts Expressionismus-Rezeption“, in: Bargfelder Bote 313–314 (2008), 3–39; Drews, Jörg, „Arno Schmidt und August Stramm. Beobachtungen zu den expressionistischen Stilelementen in den frühen Romanen“, in: Ders., Im Meer der Entscheidungen. Aufsätze zum Werk Arno Schmidts, Axel Dunker (Hrsg.), München 2014, S. 83–92.

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Artefakte (Butzenscheibe), Natur (Mond) und menschliche Gesellschaft (dörflich) in eine Konstruktion zusammengefügt werden. Schmidt würde mit dieser Konstellation also eher zu den Autoren zu zählen sein, die in der Nachkriegszeit die von den Expressionisten entwickelten Grenzüberschreitungen von Subjekt und Objekt aufnehmen. Anders als bei Schmidt sind bei den Autorinnen und Autoren, die zum Umkreis der Wiener Gruppe und der Konkreten Poesie zu zählen sind, Anknüpfungen an die sprachmaterialen Tendenzen erkennbar, die in den Vorkriegsavantgarden konzipiert wurden. Deswegen entstehen in den 1950er und frühen 1960er Jahren experimentelle Texte, die unter anderem vom Dadaismus inspiriert sind. So formulieren Friederike Mayröcker und Ernst Jandl, die zum Umfeld der Wiener Gruppe gehören, in ihren Gedichten aus den 1950er Jahren häufiger Überschreitungen von Subjekt-Objekt-Grenzen, allerdings aus ganz unterschiedlichen Perspektiven. Mayröckers Gedicht wie ich dich nenne/ wenn ich an dich denke/ und du nicht da bist (entstanden zwischen 1944 und 1954) besteht aus einer Liste von ‚Namen‘ für den abwesenden Geliebten: „meine Walderdbeere/ [...]/ meine Trosttüte/ [...]/ mein Vielvergesser/ mein Fensterkreuz“.25 In diesen Benennungen vermischen sich Naturdinge (Walderdbeere), Eigenschaften des Subjekts (Vielvergesser), Artefakte (Fensterkreuz) und vom lyrischen Ich erfundene Gegenstände wie die „Trosttüte“. Dabei ist die reduzierte Syntax der Liste die Struktur, die die Gleichberechtigung und ein „Netz“ der Akteure, also von sprechendem Ich, den Dingen und dem Liebesobjekt, durch die Praktik des Benennens anzeigt. Durch die Mischung aus konventionell als unbelebt verstandenen Dingen (Fensterkreuz) und der Anrede des (oder der) Geliebten werden die Dinge in der Wahrnehmung des lyrischen Ichs zu Stellvertretern des abwesenden Geliebten. Renate Kühn hat bereits anhand anderer Gedichte Mayröckers auf die Gleichordnung als poetisches, quasi syntaktisches Prinzip aufmerksam gemacht, wie es hier durch das Personalpronomen vollzogen wird.26 Wie im Gedicht von Hans Arp wird die Syntax so zu einem entscheidenden Teil des Netzwerks von Subjekt und Objekt. Das Lebendigwerden der Dinge durch die Wahrnehmung des Subjekts nimmt Ernst Jandl in seinem Gedicht „leben kleben“ (1957) auf und reflektiert es innerhalb des Textes: „leben/ kleben/ […] die Dinge/ mit Augen […]/ die Dinge/

|| 25 Mayröcker, Friederike: „wie ich dich nenne“, in: Dies., Gesammelte Gedichte, Frankfurt 2004, 32–33. 26 Kühn, Renate, „Herme(neu)tik. Zur ersten Sequenz von Friederike Mayröckers ‚langem Gedicht‘‚ Text mit den langen Bäumen des Webstuhls“, in: Dies. (Hrsg.), Friederike Mayröcker oder ‚das Innere des Sehens‘. Studien zu Lyrik, Hörspiel und Prosa, Bielefeld 2002, 41–104, 44.

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mit Augen/ bekleben// sehen/ sehen/ sehen“.27 Aus den (möglicherweise lebendigen) Dingen mit Augen werden Dinge, die mit Augen beklebt sind – das heißt, das Subjekt ist der Akteur, es beklebt oder belebt Dinge, indem es sie ansieht. Dabei ist durch den Infinitiv des Verbs nicht einmal klar, wer sieht, der Akt des Sehens wird jedoch mit der Lebendigkeit des Dings verbunden. So entsteht eine Reflexion der Verbundenheit zwischen Subjekt und Objekt, das heißt, das Netz zwischen Dingen und Menschen wird wie bei Latour und strukturell ähnlich in der Reflexion dieses Verhältnisses sichtbar. Damit zeigt sich bei Jandl wie bei den dadaistischen Texten die Nähe des Gedichtes zur Abstraktion, allerdings in einer sprachlich anderen Inszenierung. Mayröcker und Jandl lassen also im Umgang mit dem sprachlichen Material die Tätigkeit des Subjekts, das die Sprache gebraucht, erkennbar werden. Jandl knüpft aber auch an die dadaistischen Textformen an, die Dinge wie bei Schwitters durch die Aneinanderreihung von Buchstaben als Sprachdinge erkennbar werden lassen. Jandls Gedicht „strickleiter“ (1957) zeigt zunächst deutliche Parallelen zu Schwitters’ Text: „ssst/ […]/ rrrrrrr/ ick/ l“, reagiert aber gleichzeitig auf das Subjekt, das mit der Strickleiter beschäftigt ist. Es ist insofern weniger „elementar“, als es die Buchstaben und die Phonetik mit einer Emotion des sprechenden Ich verbindet. In den Buchstabenreihen taucht nämlich „keine Angst“ und „aaaaaaa/gst“ auf.28 Dadurch entsteht wieder eine Verbindung vom Ding zum Sprecher, möglicherweise auch zur Gebrauchsweise des realen Dings, das schwankt und Höhenangst auslösen könnte, wenn man es benutzt. Bei Jandl ist jedoch die Gebrauchsweise der Dinge bezogen auf ihre Materialität als Wort und auf die Gebrauchsweise von Worten.29 Sowohl die Reflexion von Subjekt-Objekt-Beziehungen wie die gegenüber den Texten aus den 1910er und 1920er Jahren neue Einbeziehung der Gebrauchsweise von Dingen lassen sich ebenfalls bei Helmut Heißenbüttel finden, der in den 1950er Jahren in den Kontext der konkreten Poesie gehört. In seinen Gedichten etwa ein Ping-Pong-Ball oder eine Billardkugel und Traktat, entstanden zwischen 1955 und 1960, sind beide Tendenzen ablesbar. Während in den wiederholten Bewegungen des Ping-Pong-Balles, „Abprallen aufprallen abpral-

|| 27 Jandl, Ernst: „leben kleben“, in: Poetische Werke, Bd. I, Andere Augen verstreute Gedichte 1 deutsches Gedicht, Klaus Siblewski (Hrsg.), München 1997, 123. 28 Jandl, Ernst, „strickleiter“, in: Poetische Werke, Bd. 1, 133–135. 29 Stuckatz, Katja, Ernst Jandl und die internationale Avantgarde. Über einen Beitrag zur modernen Weltdichtung. Berlin, Boston 2016, 238–239; Stuckatz verweist auch auf Jandls Frankfurter Poetik-Vorlesungen und auf das Gedicht „chanson“ als Beispiel für seinen Umgang mit Sprachmaterialität, 242–243.

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len aufprallen“,30 seine Gebrauchsweise erkennbar wird, die ihn mit dem (den Schläger haltenden) Subjekt verbindet, reflektiert das „Traktat“ das Verhältnis von Subjekt und Objekt: „Dies ist die Art von Ding in der ich drin bin und ich weiß nicht was das für ein Ding ist aber ich weiß daß ich immer gewußt habe daß es eine Art von Ding ist von der ich nicht weiß was es für ein Ding ist“.31 Mit der Textform Traktat werden dabei besonders die Parallelen zur Abstraktion aufgerufen, die vermutlich daraus resultieren, dass der Text versucht, das Verhältnis zwischen Subjekt und Ding vorzuführen und zu reflektieren. Dabei führt der syntaktisch falsche Gebrauch des Relativpronomens zu einer Irritation des abstrakten Denkens, weil er Assoziationen des Lesers ermöglicht, nämlich z. B. darüber, was das für ein Ding ist, das weiblichen Geschlechts ist. Die Gebrauchsweisen von Dingen wie dem Ping-Pong-Ball wie sprachliche Gebrauchsweisen von Relativpronomen werden durch die Texte vorgeführt und zumindest im Traktat auch irritiert. Die Einbeziehung der Gebrauchsweisen, die Subjekt und Objekt verbinden, entspricht Latours Begriff der Praktik. In den Texten Heißenbüttels, Mayröckers und Jandls werden diese Praktiken quasi im abstrakten Raum des Textes und seiner Konstruktion aufgenommen und erscheinen nicht in einem als realistisch zu verstehenden Kontext. Die Praktiken werden aus realistischen Szenerien (wie sie selbst in Kafkas Die Sorge des Hausvaters oder in Döblins Die Ermordung einer Butterblume noch als Rudimente zu finden sind) herausgelöst. So können sie nicht mehr als (auch sprachlich vorgeprägte) Routinen ablaufen und werden als Konstruktionen erkennbar. Das Interesse für Gebrauchsweisen von Dingen, die durch ein Netzwerk von Praktiken mit dem Subjekt kommunizieren, ermöglicht auch wieder Annäherungen an konkrete Dinge, wie sie in der deutschsprachigen Popliteratur der späten 1960er Jahre zu finden sind. Deswegen wird als letztes Beispiel Hubert Fichtes Roman Die Palette (1968) betrachtet. Fichte hat einerseits durchaus realistische Elemente – etwa Jäckis Gänge durch Hamburg – integriert, andererseits wird auch das Subjekt-Objekt-Verhältnis reflektiert und mit Kenntnis der Vorkriegsavantgarden inszeniert. Am auffälligsten ist aber, dass die Gebrauchsweisen von Dingen entgegen der etablierten, konventionellen Routinen

|| 30 Heißenbüttel, Helmut, „etwa ein Ping-Pong-Ball oder eine Billardkugel“, in: Ders., Textbücher 1–6, Stuttgart 1980, 53–55, 54; zu Heißenbüttels Auseinandersetzung mit den historischen Avantgarden: Kyora, Sabine, „‚Reduzierte Sprache‘: Heißenbüttels Poetik nach den historischen Avantgarden“, in: Hans Edwin Friedrich/Sven Hanuschek (Hrsg.), Reden über die Schwierigkeiten der Rede. Das Werk Helmut Heißenbüttels, München 2011, 33–47. 31 Heißenbüttel, Helmut, „Traktat“, in: Ders., Textbücher 1–6, 71–73, 72.

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geschildert werden: „Jäcki geht vier Stufen hinunter: Vor Schafställen gibt es keine Stufen. Schafe steigen nicht gerne Treppen. In Pissoirs geht man Stufen hinunter, in Bunker, in Krematorien, in die Pathologie, in Weinkeller. Es lassen sich mythologische Beziehungen zum Hinabsteigen herstellen. Jäcki braucht ungefähr drei Sekunden, um die vier Stufen zur Palette hinunterzugehen – [so, S.K.] daß er nach drei Jahren etwa sechstausend Sekunden vor der Palette verbracht haben wird“.32 Die Praktik wird einerseits vervielfältigt, andererseits in ihrer Wiederholung erkennbar – so ähnlich wie beim Ping-Pong-Ball, wobei sich dadurch das Subjekt und das Ding, die Treppe, in einem Vorgang verbinden, der drei Sekunden dauert. Eckhard Schumacher hebt bei den Praktiken der Palette ihre performative Qualität heraus,33 die Dinge wie Subjekte im Moment ihrer Verwendung hervorbringt. An der zitierten Stelle geschieht das durch die Verbindung von Subjekt, Ding und zeitlicher Dauer. Fichte skizziert dieses Verfahren am Ende des Romans selbst: „Einen Roman, der die Dinge nicht benennt und die Vorkommnisse, sondern ersetzt: […] Sie nachmachen in Wörtern“.34 Mit seiner Absicht, die Dinge nicht zu benennen, sondern sie in Worten nachzumachen, lässt sich Fichtes Roman mit den Schreibweisen von Schwitters und Jandl in Beziehung setzen, die ähnlich, wenn auch sprachlich elementarer, das Ding durch die Sprache hervorbringen. Der (realistischen) Unterordnung und Trennung von Subjekt und Objekt setzen (neo)avantgardistische Entwürfe Varianten der Subjekt-Objekt-Netze entgegen: Die (auch syntaktische) Vermischung von Subjekt und Objekt, Objekt-Subjekt-Vertauschungen, Sprachdinge, die Reflexion des Verhältnisses von Subjekt und Objekt, schließlich die Formulierung und Entroutinisierung von Gebrauchsweisen und Praktiken, die Subjekte und Objekte verbinden – in den (neo)avantgardistischen Texten steckt schon lange vor Latours Überlegungen eine symmetrische Anthropologie.

|| 32 Fichte, Hubert, Die Palette, Frankfurt 2005, 12. 33 Schumacher, Eckhard, Gerade Eben Jetzt. Schreibweisen der Gegenwart, Frankfurt 2003, 178. 34 Fichte, Die Palette, 331.

| New Sincerity/New Openings in the Twenty-First Century?

Steen Bille Jørgensen

Rewriting the Real – Dialogic Perspectives of Interventionist Strategies in Contemporary French Literature In 2005, the writer Jacques Jouet published his book Cantates de proximité, subtitled Scènes et portraits de groupes (Proximity Cantatas. Scenes and Group Portraits). On the back cover of the book, the poet explains his use of the word “cantatas” from musical history in relation to poetry. But he also explains how his project depicts various authentic and socially defined groups as well as groups that we find in images and works of art: “In parallel, other cantatas deal with groups found in press photos and even on picture trails in a museum: Valentin de Boulogne, Gustave Courbet, Max Beckmann”.1 It may seem surprising that a poet like Jouet, inventing new forms which adhere to Oulipo constraints and principles, refers to the realist painter Courbet. One of the reasons why he does so is indicated in the title Enterrement à Ornans, which presents the last text of the volume, a relatively long narrative poem which repeats the title of Courbet’s painting from 1851 almost to the letter. Following texts on groups in various “authentic settings”, this poem confronts the reader with a rewriting of a painted assembly and, as the ultimate, liminal poem of the volume, Jouet’s text appears to be some kind of meta-literary document with a comment on the writing process. It is even tempting to see this as a programmatic text defining the whole book project as a reconsideration of the group as a notion even before the poet made arrangements with the various groups portrayed in the series of texts. But why would a contemporary poet imitate or rewrite a painting like Un Enterrement à Ornans? Before we have a closer look at Jouet’s position in literary history, it is probably necessary to consider very briefly the subject matter of this painting. In fact, the painter represents an enigmatic situation, confronting the beholder with a procession gathered around a hole in the ground in the Ornans cemetery, where we might expect to see a coffin and some kind of hint regarding the person to be buried. But no clue is given, and the dead person is paradoxically absent.

|| 1 Quote from the text on the back of the cover. See http:// www.pol-editeur.com/ index.php?spec=livre&ISBN=2-84682-072-4 (consulted 3.12.2019). All translations of quotations in this article are by the author, except noted otherwise. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-036

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Whereas Courbet had prepared his canvas by painting individual portraits of the citizens of Ornans in his parents’ attic, Jouet ironically chooses to enter the territory of the dead. In this way, the idea of proximity and dialogue is no longer simply a question of paying attention to the presence of fellow beings but has become a question of entering into conversation with the dead and, as we shall see, confronting a configuration of death, which is not less surprising than Courbet’s. Seeking to grasp the concreteness of presence and avoiding, at the same time, any kind of spectral dimension, Jouet decides to enter into dialogue with an individual artist belonging to a past long gone: question, brief poem – What are you burying, dear sir, at Ornans since we seem to know that it is not anyone? answer, long poem2

By posing the question related to the enigmatic absence in the painting, the poet in fact promises his reader an answer – even though the reader may well intuitively understand that the quest for certainty is of a relative kind and mainly related to Jouet’s own practice. However, in his “long answer” Jouet develops the idea of a question related to the void or enigma which he finds in Courbet’s painting. Still, he also questions the idea of representation as such, making the reader ponder the effect of poetic and narrative artifice as a part of this kind of formal (and existential) questioning related to presence as such. In so far as the writer undertakes a kind of pilgrimage, we must follow the quest of the poet to the Courbet Museum and the authentic cemetery where the writer actually finds the trace of the 46 individuals portrayed by the nineteenth-century painter. Jouet even refers to the artist’s autobiography, suggesting the connection between the artwork and the artist’s concrete lived experience. Given this setting combining a concrete space and artistic inter-mediality, the question that I want to raise is related to the dynamics between (collective) convention and (individual) innovation. Can we say that the potential dimension of literature defended by Jouet moves beyond neo-avant-garde utopianism and paradoxically finds its strongest model in the emblematic figure of the his-

|| 2 “question, poème court / – Qu’est ce que vous enterrez, cher monsieur, à Ornans / puisque l’on croit savoir que ce n’est pas quelqu’un? / réponse, poème long”. Jacques Jouet, Cantates de proximité, P.O.L, Paris 2005, 219. In the following Cantates de proximité is referred to simply by page number in brackets.

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torical realist, who can be seen as a precursor of the avant-gardes?3 It certainly seems slightly hasty to follow Marjorie Perloff, who argues that the fact that Oulipo is a group means that it must be avant-garde.4 In my view, the crucial issue here concerns Jouet’s use of Oulipo principles, which are almost constantly confronted with everyday life and various artistic practices.5 While emphasising Jouet’s individual practices and poetics, I shall keep in mind Perloff’s idea regarding differential reading of radical texts.6 This is one of the reasons why it is important to consider the tension between theory and practice within the French neo-avant-garde groups. These groups should be seen as a backdrop to the development of new poetics of the concrete and the individual explorations of the quotidian. We must ask if Jouet’s inter-medial strategies should not be seen as forms of intervention implying both formal and ethical considerations.7 As I shall argue, this kind of reading even opens perspectives related to more radical performance-like uses of new media, which we find in the work of François Bon.

Realism beyond Neo-Avant-Garde Utopianism As suggested above, Courbet’s way of challenging the institution in the mid1850s has parallels to the impact of Marcel Duchamp’s conceptual art in the 20th century. Transfiguring the banal, he drew the individual’s attention to specific objects, and problematised the role of the artist by manipulating the artwork when he presented Fountain in 1917. The “artist’s signature” simultaneously signalled the artistic intention and subverted the privileged status of the individual artist. Defining her notion of “differential reading”, Perloff explicitly refers to Duchamp’s idea of the inframince, which implies a kind of double per-

|| 3 Potential (of a creative kind) perhaps being the common denominator, as suggested by: Gade, Rune, “Ready-made realisme”, in: Karin Petersen/Mette Sandbye (eds), Virkelighed, virkelighed, København 2003, 211–238. 4 Marjorie Perloff suggests that we should simply categorise Oulipo as avant-garde. See: Perloff, Marjorie, “Avantgardens traditioner og individuelle talenter”, trans. Claus Bratt Østergaard and Tania Ørum, in: T. Ørum et al. (eds.), En tradition af opbrud, København 2005, 61–73. 5 Taking into account the “convention of the unconventional”. See : Antoine Compagnon, Les Cinq paradoxes de la modernité, Paris 1990. 6 Perloff, Marjorie, Differentials, Alabama 2004. 7 Jouet, Jacques, Rumination de l’atelier oulipien, de l’improvisation et du potentiel, La Bibliothèque Oulipienne, no. 203, Paris 2014.

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ception of objects and texts to be read both according to ordinary sociological instrumental understanding and according to their artistic or literary contextualisation. Such strategies of re-contextualising or recycling became crucial to the Nouveaux Réalistes in what they regarded as their “new perceptual approaches of the real”.8 This mot d’ordre was written and signed by artists in paint and thus signalled both a playful ironic dimension and a concrete approach of the materiality of different media.9 The group emphasised intervention in public space and other formal strategies for manipulating objects, recycling, re-contextualising and rewriting, to challenge the stereotyped and ideological dimension of images, media and commercials. In this respect, realism is related to ways of dealing with objects and the social aspects of everyday materiality.10 As an important figure of the Nouveau Réalisme, Daniel Spoerri wanted, in his so-called snare pictures, to make us reconsider our more or less mechanical routines. For instance, he glued everything that was left after a dinner to a table and presented the napkin, plates, glasses, cigarettes and stains on the wall as a three-dimensional work of art. This is an example of leftovers from “real life”, which are integrated into a work of art and thus present a kind of story or fiction told through traces.11 The concrete elements in his art actually function as clues or signs of a past moment in time and simultaneously make us reconsider our own lives and routines, or the fleeting nature of any one moment in time, or even death itself. This kind of existential thinking is even more present in Topographie anecdotée du hazard (1962), in which Spoerri captured the objects present in the hotel room where he lived in Paris. The result was a minimalist text with simple descriptions of objects accompanied by drawn illustrations, a kind of infra-literary text. However, if we are to fully understand such strategies, we must take into account the international and collective dimension of the movement. As a French-Romanian, Spoerri collaborated with Robert Filiou, and he even published an English version of the book in the translation by British poet Emmett Williams. Williams both translated and augmented the volume during the col|| 8 Molinari, Daniel (ed.), 1960. Les Nouveaux Réalistes, Paris 1986, 216. 9 In an equally playful ironic manner Oulipo also commented on the notion of “potential literature”. They simply observed the lacuna in dictionaries where we could expect to find these words, thus attracting our attention to the concrete material dimension of language. Oulipo, La littérature potentielle, Paris 1973, 15. 10 See : Nicolas Bourriaud, Exforme, Paris 2018, 14. 11 It is no coincidence that Spoerri himself speaks of Sherlock Holmes when he writes his Topographie anecdotée du hasard.

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lective writing or rewriting process, thereby emphasising the general dynamics of life and artistic practice in An Anecdoted Topography of Chance – ReAnecdoted Version with illustrations by the artist Roland Topor. This interlingual and inter-medial experience can be seen as the expression of collective writing and friendship rather than theoretical concerns. In his artistic practices, Spoerri favoured process, proximity and intimacy. Rendering or grasping the presence ultimately becomes a question of the tension between concrete objects as constitutive elements of a particular atmosphere (or Stimmung). Any element of the culture of his time became a potential subject of re-contextualising and writing with potential inter-medial perspectives. During the 1960s writers became increasingly aware of the limits of representation. The activist dimension was emphasised, although the theoretical Marxist position, in retrospect, wanted to replace one ideology by the other. Different interventionist strategies opened up for different social and collective perspectives. The idea of recontextualising also became an essential aspect of the literary scene. On the one hand, Tel Quel adopted the “classical” revolutionary avant-garde position through theoretical ambitions. On the other, the Oulipo group defined itself as a discreet or even secret society. Whereas the Tel Quel group took a deliberately anti-realist position and defined their poststructural idea of literature through notions such as textual productivity and intertextuality, the position of the Oulipo group is more ambiguous, but clearly also implies an idea of intertextuality and even a notion of rewriting according to historical models.12 The Tel Quel crisis evoked by Marcelin Pleynet in 1966 is perhaps the ultimate example of the theoretical neo-avant-gardes failing to combine aesthetic and political revolution. In spite of new ideas on poetics and literary theory, any idea regarding historical tabula rasa has become illusory: “In our time, no more transgression, no more subversion, no more rupture… or rather, in my opinion, a parody of transgression, a parody of subversion, a simulacrum, repetition of rupture”.13 Insisting on the new post-structural, theoretical ways of considering textual practices, he contributes a great deal to the intellectual Tel Quel adventure, failing almost entirely to make ideas on literature materialise in lasting literary works or forms. This is far from being the case with the Oulipo group, whose

|| 12 Limat-Letellier, Nathalie, “Historique du concept d’intertextualité”, in: Nathalie LimatLetellier/Marie Miguet-Ollagnier (eds.), L’Intertextualité, Besançon 1998. 13 Rubin Suleiman, Susan, “As Is”, in: Denis Hollier (ed.), A New History of French Literature, Cambridge 1989, 1011–1018, here 1016.

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playful approach to literature left space for the individual to define a personal project, as is the case with Georges Perec, who commented on the Tel Quel crisis when he explained his own intertextual ideas based on montage strategies and the personal intertextual strategy, which he called lieux rhétoriques.14 However, Perec was not the only one to understand the limitations of the avant-gardes. Aragon, who had himself been a surrealist, had experienced the need for personal strategies at a time when Breton, in the 1920s, insisted on skipping prose writing in favour of poetry. Given these poetical implications, it is interesting to consider the fact that Perec and Aragon both rewrote one of the major realist works, namely Flaubert’s L’Éducation sentimentale, in the mid-1960s. Evidently, they were both very conscious of the post-structural theoretical position, and yet they both insisted on the historical and political dimension of their novels. In many ways, Aragon’s Blanche ou l’oubli (Blanche or Forgetting, 1967) can be seen as a critical commentary on Tel Quel and post-structuralism, whereas Georges Perec’s Les Choses (1965) opened new perspectives with his infraordinary, conceptual investigations of urban space topographies, very close to the ontological strategies of Spoerri. With regard to the poetics of the novel in these two cases, it is crucial to understand the writer’s particular, individual motivation according to a logic of generation. In his fragmented metafictional novel, Aragon uses collage techniques as a way of redefining the status of context and representation, marking the historicity of writing as such: writing becoming a process imitating the dynamics of everyday life. Aragon’s Blanche ou l’oubli is a psychologically and formally metafictional or reflexive novel on history and historical realism. Even so, the most important perspective is probably Aragon’s attempt to be the contemporary of his own time. In fact, he undertook archaeological readings of the political situation and “popular culture”, adopting the position of the “older generation”. Aragon adopted mise-en-abyme structures to grasp the subjectivity of the other by imagining a female narrator (Marie-Noire) to understand how he lost his Blanche, his loved one. Rewriting L’Éducation sentimentale and its partly autobiographical love story inspired by Flaubert’s fascination for Elisa Schlesinger, Aragon comments on this dimension by allowing the reader to understand that the fictional figure of Blanche is his own partner Elsa Triolet (which he explains in a postface). In many ways, this book is a creative innovation of

|| 14 Referring to individual writers’ ideas on “montage” (Maurice Roche) and “relais du réel” (Michel Butor). Perec, Georges, Pouvoirs et limites du romancier français contemporain, in: Mireille Ribière (ed.), Parcours Perec, Lyon 1990, 31–39, here 38.

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collage strategies as found in Le Paysan de Paris.15 In 1924 he explicitly commented on the metalinguistic dimension of his texts, or what Perloff would regard as the inframince: “I have also described sentences, when people believed I was writing them”.16 This kind of reflective view of language is developed in new directions by Georges Perec in the post-war period. When Perec published Les Choses with the subtitle Récit des années soixante (Story of the Sixties), he developed intertextual strategies on various levels by rewriting scenes taken from Flaubert and using the particular rhythm of the sentences of 19th-century writers. In this way, his minute descriptions, lists and catalogues of objects obeyed a metafictional logic; and he also made the reader ponder the status of objects, images and words in their concrete and phantasmagoric dimension. A few years later, Perec undertook ontological investigations of the everyday and details in urban space which we tend to ignore or (consciously/unconsciously) neglect, and his Oulipo strategies of rewriting became a part of such a detective-like reading of traces. Using models and fixed forms from the literary tradition, he explored and developed various intermedial strategies, making artistic ekphrasis an essential structure in La vie mode d’emploi (Life a User’s Manual). Macro- and micro-structures enter into a particular literary dynamics or process with ontological effects similar to those of conceptual art.

Literary Potential – Alterity and Proximity? In many ways, the Oulipo group is an exception in literary history. It has existed longer than any other group, and it claims to be classicist although its explicit ideal has always focused on the invention of new forms. But when we consider some of the members of the group, it is not obvious that writers like Raymond Queneau, Italo Calvino, Georges Perec, Jacques Roubaud, Jacques Jouet or Harry Mathews necessarily follow the same models or rules. However, the idea of rules and constraints, fixed forms and models implies an inter-disciplinary openness towards fields such as mathematics, painting, comics, photography, cinema and other aspects of cultural life. This is also the reason why the group published books with series of texts which were all rewritings of a concrete || 15 See: Leenhardt, Jacques, “Préface”, in: Louis Aragon, Écrits sur l’art moderne, Paris 1981, i– xv. 16 Bougnoux, Daniel, “Introduction”, in: Louis Aragon, Oeuvres romanesques complètes, vol. 5, Paris 2012, xvii–xlv, here xix.

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narrative model like Un Métier d’homme (A Human’s Occupation, 2010) and Le Voyage d’hiver et ses suites (Winter Journeys, 2013). Both rewriting and re-contextualising strategies are part of the formalist principles adopted by the group. However, instead of favouring certain forms (the poem) or strategies (intertextuality), each individual writer has the liberty to write according to principles of his or her choice. But even though the idea of constraint is at the core of the writing process, the group insists on imagination and simple exercises in contrast to actual literary works. Favouring both “research” and creativity at their meetings, they seek to develop ideas and new structures, which may ultimately result in genuine literary works. When Jacques Roubaud quotes Baudelaire in his La Forme d’une ville change plus vite, hélas que le cœur des humains (“The Form of a City Changes Faster, Alas, than the Human Heart”) and alludes to Perec with his title Tokyo infra-ordinaire, he signals the importance of literary models. In this way, he valorises different aspects of literary tradition when he writes about the urban space, but he also rethinks and innovates the role of the poet (in urban space). The works become a means of intervening simultaneously on the level of language and formally on the level of literary history. Such interventions may even cause the reader to engage with the text and reconsider or reread the real. This is where we can return to Jouet and his various writing activities. As an extremely active and prolific contemporary writer, he constantly nourishes different serial projects both of prose and poetry. He writes his burlesque feuilleton on the character Mek-Ouyes, distributing the episodes by email before publishing it more traditionally. In parallel, he writes series of historical poems partly based on documents, of which a first volume has been published (L’Histoire poèmes, 2010). He deliberately exposes himself by writing poetry in public spaces, thereby making his occupation visible. As we can see in his Poèmes de métro (2000), poetry ultimately implies an effort to give form to voice, a question of rhythm and a question of affecting the reader: For a poem in the other end to be readable and audible, it must clash with another voice that listens, in a position of listening and virtual ly of response,…17

The aim of the poem is its capacity to open an essential dialogic relationship, a way of “waking up” the world and the other: “Shaking the part of the world || 17 “Pour qu’un poème, à l’autre bout, soit lisible et audible, / il faut qu’il cogne une autre voix qui écoute, en position d’écoute et virtuel / lement de réplique,…” Jouet, Jacques, Poèmes de métro, Paris 2000, 22

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which passes through this little stream of ink”.18 In much the same way, writing or, as he puts it, “composing” a written portrait of another person becomes a way of both capturing the present and exposing his writing process to the view of the other, potentially provoking the reading, the utterance, and ultimately the writing of the other. In this perspective, it is not surprising that Jouet finds inspiration in portraits by painters.19 In Enterrement à Ornans, a paradox can be found in the fact that no appointment could be made, given the search undertaken of a dead person’s identity. The poet looks in vain for a funeral, but finds nothing, and Jouet must “improvise” another subject matter when he sees a living person: And suddenly in the graveyard, seen from up there, I find a character right there who, if he accepts, will be all mine20

Observing the cemetery in order to repeat Courbet’s portrait of a ceremonial group, he can only confront himself with death in the concrete form of a person killing weeds in the cemetery. In many ways, his quest for clarity regarding Courbet’s dead person is turned into dialogue with a living person: “and if I had to draw its portrait, I would say that it is death”.21 The person’s utterance is rendered as both indirect and direct discourse; but the reader may just as well retain the (authentic?) inscription in capital letters on the tank containing chemicals: He carries a yellow tank on his back VERMOREL 1300 BERTHOUD JARDIN Which he confirms is an atomiser with weed-killer22

Disappearing just as suddenly as he had appeared, the man who killed weeds becomes a kind of figure symbolising life and death. However, the reader understands that such an existential or even ontological question only emerges

|| 18 “dégourdir la part du monde qui passe par ce petit cours d’encre” (22). 19 de Bary, Cécile, “Aller sur un terrain qui est celui des peintres”, in: Marc Lapprand/Dominique Moncond’huy (eds.), Jacques Jouet – La Licorne, no. 118, Rennes 2015, 105– 114. 20 “Et voilà que dans le cimetière, vu de là-haut, je trouve un personnage / celui-là, s’il veut bien, sera tout à moi” (221) 21 “et si je devais en brosser le portrait, je dirais que c’est la mort” (221). 22 “Il porte un bidon jaune dans le dos VERMOREL 1300 BERTHOUD JARDIN / Qu’il me confirme être un pulvérisateur à désherbant” (221).

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thanks to the poet’s concrete use of the words. Ultimately, the writer’s interest in the other (artist) points to the fact that his own presence and life has a limit: In this way, after having identified all the figures and having determined their civil state we don’t know who is buried in A Burial at Ornans. But I know what I am burying, these days on the banks of the Loue. I am burying my book hoping it will reappear and I also know that I baptise, with straw wine or with champagne the poetring that I have begun to produce on the motif23

Apparently, the poet has been able to find the graves of the 46 individuals visible in Courbet’s painting, which means that he must have had the list of their names and succeeded in identifying them all according to the inscriptions on just as many tombstones. However, the aim of his visit to Ornans is not necessarily to find an answer to the opening question of the poem. Clearly, his understanding of Courbet’s act as an artist lies beyond simple mimetic representation. At the end of the day, the poet must rely on the certainty related to his own literary project which is about to end. The banal and quotidian is structured through reading and writing or the recognition of forms. When the poet evokes “le concret sévère”24 (“the serious concrete”) at the beginning of the poem, we understand that he is less interested in the dead than in what is possible for the living. In this way, he also makes explicit his idea of writing as poésir. This neologism, as a matter of fact, turns the process of writing into an activity and a question of presence (présence d’esprit). Meaning or truth becomes a question of differential reading through the painting and the concrete authentic setting. This is also the case with the seemingly prosaic conclusion “comme un con”, evoking in a formally inter-medial gesture another provocative but smaller painting by Courbet, namely L’Origine du monde (The Origin of the World). I had arrived, sweating, just like an idiot

|| 23 “Ainsi, après avoir identifié tous les personnages / et leur avoir rendu leur état civil / on ne sait pas qui l’on enterre dans Un Enterrement à Ornans. / Mais moi je sais ce que j’enterre, ces jours-ci au bord de la Loue. / J’enterre mon livre et qu’il ressorte / et je sais aussi que je baptise, au vin de paille ou au champagne / le poésir que j’ai commencé de faire sur le motif ” (222). 24 “I also hold the opinion that painting is an essentially concrete art form and can only exist in the representation of real and existing things.” Courbet, Gustave, “Lettre de Courbet aux jeunes artistes de Paris” in: Le Courrier du dimanche, 25 December 1861.

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I was there like an idiot confronted with his origins.25

Using textual sources and references, documentation becomes a part of artistic scrutiny, invention and intervention. But at the same time, the reader must take note of the way in which the writer observes the world through dialogue with another artist as a way of defining a new kind of realism. Jouet’s writing is an ironic but also partly melancholic search for concrete resonance and human proximity. Rewriting the real through “the artwork of the other”, the poet recognises the necessity of an indirect or mediated, formal apprehension of reality. Given the individual poet’s double reflection on the oral aspect of poetry and its inter-medial potential, the reader is ultimately the one who appreciates the portion of the real confronted by the writer. In this perspective, the very consistent use of oulipian-jouetian fixed forms does not exclude the rendering of social reality. On the contrary, the apprehension of reality necessitates a space for the writer and an understanding of literature as a concrete way of acting: I have made minor readers read poems because these poems were about them this reason is no more shameful than any other. And I wanted Courbet himself to know… and that he was an ardent soul, enough to be content with the reality of life and that he thought the ‘uninterrupted work useful to man, that it makes him grow and maintains his intelligence’ and that perhaps he reconnected to Caravaggio but here the subjects posed for their role even if the people of Ornans changed their mind a bit offended by the Parisians laughing at them and that he wanted his art to be “in direct correlation with contemporary social philosophy and economy” (“Autobiography”, 1872) and that portraits of Neruda’s proletarians (“The name of the earth is Jean in the General Song”) Hadn’t I read them myself?26

|| 25 “j’étais arrivé, suant, exactement comme un con / j’étais là comme un con devant son origine” (223). 26 “J’ai fait lire des poèmes à des peu lecteurs / pour ce que ces poèmes leur étaient consacrés / la raison n’est pas plus vergogneuse qu’une autre. / Et je voulais que Courbet le sache luimême… / et qu’il était une âme ardente assez / pour se contenter du réel de la vie / et qu’il

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In the perspective of realism, Jouet picks up on the relationship between the writer and various concrete aspects (human, material and linguistic) of the real, emphasising in particular the presence and the role of individuals, the theatricality or artifice of creation. Jouet even underlines the attention towards others – both artists and workers. He not only uses the inter-medial references to Courbet, but also intertextually insists on reading, writing and singing. In this way, he moves from the painted representations to the verbal and the idea of creation as a homage to or praise of someone or something, in this case ordinary people. This activity is essential for a rather simple reason: I insist on this, for the cocoon commands something from the world around it: that it comes to resonate, a thing that it would hardly be reasonable to reproach us for, on our behalf, to look for The world doesn’t expose itself, doesn’t provide any explanation of itself, of its supposed sense or nonsense27.

In Jouet’s poetry it has become the poet’s role and responsibility, on a daily basis, to interrogate portions of space and the people present. Moreover, avoiding conventional representation, the writer’s formal awareness consists of constantly re-activating and re-inventing literary strategies involving both participation and concrete forms of intervention in society. Writing becomes an act and a process in which the writer is constantly mobile and attentive, seeking to create links with people around him and even between others. Observing the manner of the painter just as much as the matter, the poet finds a new and original (inter-medial) use of the “collective portrait”. In this way, he defines his own cultural and ethical role as an occupation.28

|| croyait ‘le travail incessant utile à l’homme, / qu’il grandit et lui maintient son intelligence’ / et qu’il renouait peut-être avec le Caravage / mais ici les sujets posaient pour leur rôle / même si les Ornanais se raviseraient quelque peu / piqués que les Parisiens aient ri d’eux / et qu’il voulait son art « en corrélation directe avec la philosophie / et l’économie sociale actuelle (« Autobiographie », 1872) / et que les portraits de prolétaires de Neruda / (« La terre s’appelle Jean » dans le Chant général) / est-ce que je ne les avais pas lus, moi aussi ?” (223). 27 “J’insiste sur cela, car le cocon demande / quelque chose au monde qui l’entoure : de venir / et de résonner, chose qu’il ne serait guère raisonnable / de nous reprocher, de notre côté, de rechercher / Le monde ne s’y dénude pas, n’y donne aucune / explication de soi-même, de ses supposés sens ou non-sens” (219–220). 28 In French, the word for occupation is métier (meaning work), which we also find in métier à tisser, meaning “loom”. Thus, the connection between writing and working is clearly crucial for Jouet.

Rewriting the Real | 573

Another writer who invests considerable effort into meeting the other in various contexts is François Bon. Expressing his ideas of the writer’s role, Bon expands the field of action and evokes the importance of media and their inextricable relation with socio-historical reality: “Who of us would not have liked to write at the time of the appearance of serials and newspapers, like Dickens or Dumas […]”.29 Bon constantly explores new media, which evidently serve him in various kinds of almost theatrical performances, explored the last few years in his rather “low-tech” experiments with sound images and texts in public space (his vlogs in and on public spaces) and in his private “studio” (his online Service de presse). Like Jouet, Bon has written a “group portrait” of workers in Daewoo (2004) in which he integrates a reflection on performance and theatrical representation of dialogues. With Tumulte (2006) he also develops a clearly serial structure. The more than two hundred micro-narratives of this book, written in the course of a year, are structured in several series as the result of the recurring themes and forms.30 Moving beyond mimetic representation, both writers adopt formal means in dealing with social issues. Blurring the limits between fiction and the reality (of writing), François Bon, like Jacques Jouet, is constantly exploring the limits of experience and new means of investigating social and collective matters through portraits of groups and individuals. Paradoxically, such strategies of rewriting and remediation expose writing as a means of apprehending a specific social and collective reality, but also, at the same time, a means of subverting ideology as such.

Creative Potential and Dialogic Perspectives Whereas theoretical visions of avant-garde movements like Tel Quel have failed in many ways to define a political-artistic project, contemporary writers who are both formally and historically conscious seek to investigate the concrete experiences of the real through individually defined projects. Practising formal Oulipo strategies, Jacques Jouet constantly makes writing a part of acting in social settings. In this way, his use of fixed forms becomes a means of grasping various aspects of collective reality. Reading a painting like Un Enterrement à Ornans, || 29 Bon, François, “The Author not the Book” [unpublished manuscript presented at Aarhus University, spring 2017], 21. 30 Jouet’s use of series in Cantates de proximité, on the other hand, quite evidently follows some kind of elaborate programme based on fixed forms.

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Jouet actually succeeds in defining his own poetic practice as an investigation of the concret sévère. In a similar way, François Bon with his various, increasingly inter-medial projects, defines serial approaches of actual geographical and institutional settings. Paradoxically, through formal self-reflexivity, writers are able to define a dialogic space based on proximity. As socially committed writers, both Jouet and Bon investigate the limits of realism to find their own conceptual project based on historical-artistic experiences. Insisting on the dynamics between social settings and individual creativity, these writers inspire readers to constantly reconsider the importance of formal inter-medial strategies as ways of rewriting and reinventing the real. Through this kind of conceptual activity, the avant-gardes have paradoxically become a part of the tradition. Reconsidering the dynamics between ideas and practice, these writers have abandoned theoretical positions in favour of artistic approaches of the real. In their rewriting, we find ways of interrogating the ordinariness of everyday life close to Aragon’s collage strategies, Spoerri’s recycling and Perec’s metafictional writing. Defining interventions of a more or less activist kind, this new kind of realism conveys a historical awareness, based less on an ideological view than on the appropriation of earlier forms of creation. Strategies of remediating and rescaling become crucial as a way of creating effect and awakening the reader. In this ways, parts or portions of everyday life are revealed and presented all the more efficiently with their complex and yet constructive, ethical perspectives. Whereas utopian visions do no longer seem promising, concrete inter-medial avant-garde strategies point to ways of apprehending the real as a dynamic, dialogic relation to the other, which can be reinforced through formally dialogic strategies such as rewriting.

Burkhard Meltzer

Eine unzeitgemäße Zeitgenossenschaft? Über den Realismus des Designs in der Kunst der Gegenwart Abgestellte Fahrräder. Einige in Gruppen gegeneinander gelehnt, andere ruhen vereinzelt auf ihren Parkstützen. Die Situation erinnert an die städtische Umgebung vor öffentlichen Gebäuden – etwa Bahnhöfen, Universitäten oder Bibliotheken. Wäre man jetzt nicht in der Ausstellung Untitled von Kaspar Müller unterwegs, die 2016 in der Galerie Francesca Pia (Zürich) stattfand, so würde man sich mühsam einen Weg durch den Parcours hastig abgestellter Zweiräder bahnen, um zum eigentlichen Ziel zu gelangen. In den großzügigen weißen Hallen der Galerie sind es jedoch die Fahrräder selbst, die Anlass für einen Besuch bieten. Sie sind hier zugleich ab- wie auch ausgestellt.

Fig. 92: Kaspar Müller, Installationsansicht, Galerie Francesca Pia, Zürich 2016, Foto: Marc Asekhame.

Unterschiedliche Marken, Generationen und technische Varianten des Gefährts zeugen von diversen Zeitperioden und Lebenszusammenhängen. Doch inwiefern können die hier präsentierten Dinge eigentlich von einer Lebenswirklichkeit zeugen? Einerseits kann das durch die materielle Präsenz, die man mit einer vertrauten Alltagswirklichkeit verbindet, gelingen. Andererseits erlauben die gestalterischen Details eine Zuordnung zu Kontexten, in denen Design verspricht Wirklichkeit dar- oder sogar herzustellen. Das Design der Fahrräder und ihres teilweise mitgeführten Gepäcks bezeugt das Reale: als etwas, das existiert und das man so durchaus an öffentlichen Plätzen der Gegenwart wiederfindet.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-037

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Allerdings werden an dieser Stelle auch einige Brüche deutlich, die zwischen dem Realen und dem Realistischen auftreten: Während die Gestaltung vergangener und aktueller Lebensformen hier zweifellos realistisch wirkt, stellt sich die Frage, inwiefern dies tatsächlich auf bestimmte Lebenswirklichkeiten verweist. Begegnet man in den unterschiedlichen Designkonzepten nicht vielmehr einem ästhetisch formulierten Konzept des Realen, das man Realismus nennen könnte, als dem Realen selbst? Und: Wie wirkt sich dabei die gleichzeitige Präsenz unterschiedlicher Zeitperioden aus? Eine Auseinandersetzung mit diesen Fragen möchte ich mit zwei Ausstellungen zeitgenössischer Kunst beginnen, die ich 2016 besucht habe: einerseits mit der erwähnten Einzelpräsentation von Kaspar Müller, zum anderen mit dem Beitrag von Christopher Kulendran Thomas (in Zusammenarbeit mit der Kuratorin Annika Kuhlmann) zur IX. Berlin Biennale. In beiden Fällen spielt der Realismus des Designs eine wichtige Rolle. Vergangene und gegenwärtige Lebensformen überlagern sich in Müllers Fahrrad-Installation, während Kulendran Thomas’ New Eelam (seit 2016) eher Projektionen einer zukünftigen Lebenswirklichkeit mit Erfahrungen der Gegenwart zusammenbringt. Was geschehen würde, wenn sich aus der aktuell prekären Situation von Sharing-Ökonomie, Big Data und Gentrifizierung eine Utopie gewinnen ließe, führt New Eelam exemplarisch vor. Ziel des Langzeitprojekts, das zugleich als Start-up und als Kunstwerk operiert, ist eine Art transnationale Staatsbürgerschaft, die nicht mehr auf einem bestimmten Territorium, sondern auf einer genossenschaftlich organisierten Mitgliedschaft in einem Netzwerk von Wohnungen weltweit beruht.

Fig. 93: Christopher Kulendran Thomas, Aus der fortlaufenden Arbeit New Eelam, 2016, in Zusammenarbeit mit Annika Kuhlmann, Design: Manuel Bürger, Foto: Joseph Kadow.

Eine unzeitgemäße Zeitgenossenschaft? | 577

Verbunden durch eine Smartphone-Anwendung, geteilte Fortbewegungsmittel sowie den internationalen Stil gehobener Wohnungseinrichtungen könnte man auf der „ ganze[n] Welt [...] Zuhause sein”.1 Design übernimmt hier eine doppelte Funktion in Bezug auf das Reale: als (im-)materielle Versicherung, dass eine solche Lebensform für viele möglich wäre und in der konkreten Verkörperung durch Marken, die schon heute eine solche Verwirklichung versprechen – allerdings zu den Bedingungen kapitalistischer Gewinnmaximierung. Und dies wird nicht nur in beispielhaften Einrichtungen deutlich, denen man in Kunstausstellungen begegnet, sondern auch in eigens produzierten Filmtrailern, einer immersiven Virtual-Reality-Website oder Faltblättern zum Mitnehmen. Es scheint, als sollte die utopische Lebensform in New Eelam weniger eine radikale Alternative zur Realität der Gegenwart bieten, sondern diese in hyperrealistischer Manier gleichsam übertreffen.2 Dass kunstkritische Stimmen darin nur einen „zynischen Witz” 3 erkennen können, erinnert an die gesellschaftskritische Erwartung, die eng mit Realismus verknüpft ist. Und für manche sind die Realismen in der Kunst der Gegenwart nicht nur zynisch, sondern einfach nicht gut genug, um der Realität gegenüberzutreten. Entweder handele es sich bloß um Reproduktionen einer von Marken geprägten Wirklichkeit, die im Vergleich mit ihren Vorbildern zu wenig realistisch daherkommen, oder aber zu oberflächlich sind, um einem Kunstanspruch an „tiefere Auseinandersetzung” zu genügen, hat David Joselit über die IX. Berlin Biennale bemerkt.4 In seiner Enttäuschung erinnert Joselit jedoch auch an eine Genealogie gelungener künstlerischer Methoden in der Mobilisierung von Markenstrategien seit den historischen Avantgarden – nur komme dieser Hintergrund leider in der Berliner Großausstellung nicht zur Sprache.5 Joselit erwähnt in diesem Zusammenhang die Marke als Leitmotiv, die in einem dynamischen Prozess permanent auf Lebenswirklichkeit reagieren muss, um wirksam zu bleiben. Zugleich treten Marken auch als mehr oder weniger schematische Vorbilder der Wirklichkeit in Erscheinung, die wiederum Lebensformen beeinflussen. Allerdings greift Joselits Kritik meines Erachtens in zweifacher Hinsicht zu kurz: in jener Diagnose,

|| 1 New Eelam, Begleitbroschüre zum Beitrag auf der Berlin Biennale IX, Berlin 2016. 2 Ugelvig, Jeppe, „New Eelam and the dispersion of critique”, in: DIS Magazine, 2016, http://dismagazine.com/discussion/83299/new-eelam-and-the-dispersion-of-critique/ (Stand: 2016). 3 Ferago, Jason, „Welcome to the LOLhouse: how Berlin’s Biennale became a slick, sarcastic joke”, in: The Guardian (London) vom 13.06.2016. 4 Joselit, David, „Short Cuts: Berlin Biennale 9. Vier Thesen zum Branding”, in: Texte zur Kunst, 103, 2016, 169–172. 5 Joselit, „Short Cuts”.

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die den künstlerischen Arbeiten tendenziell eine Geschichtsvergessenheit unterstellt und andererseits mit der These, es gehe hier hauptsächlich um Markenbildung. Dagegen möchte ich den Blick beispielhaft auf eine umfassende Design-Rezeption der zeitgenössischen Kunst lenken, womit auch ein bestimmtes Wirklichkeitsverständnis zum Ausdruck kommt. In einem zweiten Schritt werde ich mich der eigentümlichen Zeitlichkeit zuwenden, die avantgardistische und zeitgenössische Realismen in der Kunst verbindet. Der kunstkritische Kurzschluss, es gehe nur darum, bekannte Marketingstrategien oberflächlich nachzuahmen – oder im Jargon des 20. Jahrhunderts: um Warenästhetik –, sobald Logos und Markennamen in der Kunst auftauchen, blendet den kulturellen Zusammenhang des Designs weitgehend aus. Markenbildung bildet lediglich einen Teilaspekt der Disziplin industrieller Gestaltung, die sich parallel zu den historischen Avantgarden zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts entwickelt hat. So wird New Eelam durchaus als Marke mit einem Logo und einer Markenidentität vorgestellt, ist jedoch auch im umfassenden Sinn Teil der Designkultur.6 In einem kurzen Ankündigungsfilm schwenkt die Kamera durch das Interieur eines luxuriös eingerichteten Lofts, das Designklassiker wie den DSW Chair von Charles und Ray Eames zeigt, darüber hinaus geht es weiter mit dem RimowaKoffer zu einer Wohnung in Manhattan, durch das Smartphone wird die Tür aufgeschlossen. Nach einer kurzen Arbeitsphase mit einem Macbook von Apple geht es mit einem BMW i3 zur nächsten U-Bahn. Die gesamte Realität, auf die sich die Darstellung bezieht, beruht in ihren Räumlichkeiten, Handlungen, ihrer Kommunikation usw. auf einem Designbegriff, der gleichzeitig materialisiert auftritt und Immaterielles verspricht: durch Dinge, Software-Oberflächen und Marken, die die Überschreitung örtlicher, materieller und körperlicher Grenzen versprechen.7 Das Ziel scheint eine weltweit verfügbare Lebensumgebung im Airbnb-Stil – übrigens eines der wenigen großen Silicon-Valley-Startups, das von Designern gegründet wurde. Dies äußert sich nicht zuletzt auch in der Installation für die IX. Berlin Biennale, wo neben einem Kurzclip mit den geschilderten Szenen auch eine längere Version des Ankündigungsfilms zu sehen ist – auf mehreren Tablet-Bildschirmen, die entlang einer Theke aus Beton zur Verfügung stehen. Statt Reise-Hochglanzoptik dominieren hier jedoch verzweifelte Fluchtszenen an den scharf bewachten Wohlstandsgrenzen der Welt.

|| 6 Vgl. Julier, Guy, The Culture of Design, Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore 2008. 7 Eine Designtheorie der horizontalen Schichtung, wo digitale Territorien geographische, politische und materielle Gegebenheiten überlagern, hat Benjamin H. Bratton vorgelegt: Vgl. Bratton, Benjamin H., The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty, Cambridge, London 2015.

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Fig. 94: Christopher Kulendran Thomas, Aus der fortlaufenden Arbeit New Eelam, 2016, in Zusammenarbeit mit Annika Kuhlmann, Acryl auf Leinwand, Betonregal, LEDs, Pflanze New Eelam Film (HD, 14:06), Foto: Laura Fiorio.

Trotz allem: Man kann auf Barhockern des Designkollektivs New Tendency Platz nehmen, die Kopfhörer aufsetzen und sich mit der suggestiven Begleitmusik ganz in die filmische Vision einer transnationalen Wohnplattform vertiefen – gleichsam als Alternative zum millionenfachen Leid, das nationalstaatliche Grenzziehungen oft bedeuten. Mit hautfarbenen Schattierungen, sowie einigen flüchtigen Wellenbewegungen in schwarz, blau und grau sorgt die direkt anschließende Malerei für einen reibungslosen Übergang zwischen Mobiliar, Kunst und Architekturelementen. Zur wohnlichen Atmosphäre trägt auch eine Zimmerpflanze auf der Theke bei, deren Zweige gleichsam die Pinselbewegungen des Gemäldes im Hintergrund aufnehmen, während eine diskrete, indirekte Lichtquelle die Leinwand partiell wie einen angenehmen Lampenschirm leuchten lässt. Die unmittelbare Umgebung wird durch weitere Sitzgruppen sowie großformatige Flachbildschirme und Plakate mit dem Logo von New Eelam bestimmt. Und nicht nur jener Name, der an die blutig umkämpfte Vision eines tamilischen Staats auf Sri Lanka erinnert, betont an verschiedenen Stellen die politisch motivierte Basis des Projekts. Auch die Form des Logos selbst ähnelt einer Flagge – dem Emblem des Nationalstaats schlechthin –, wobei die untere Begrenzung fehlt und die entsprechende Fläche damit eher einen offenen Charakter erhält. Darüber hinaus wurden einzelne Arbeiten einer nach dem Bürgerkrieg aufblühenden zeitgenössischen Kunstszene Sri Lankas – kleine Skulpturen, aber auch großformatige Gemälde und Assemblagen – angekauft und in die Berliner Installation integriert. Kunst ist hier völlig in eine von Designprinzipien geleitete gesellschaftliche Utopie eingebettet. New Eelam greift dabei

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sowohl auf den besonderen Wirklichkeitsbezug des Designs wie auch auf dessen Verbindung mit den historischen Avantgarden zurück. Doch knüpft New Eelam nicht nur mit den besonderen zeitlichen Qualitäten des Designs oder im radikalen Gestus, einer neuen Lebensweise zum Durchbruch zu verhelfen, an historische Programme an. Vielmehr kommt dies auch ganz explizit zum Ausdruck – etwa durch die Integration zahlreicher Möbel des Designkollektivs New Tendency, das sich auf Bauhaus-Prinzipien beruft und aus der StudierendenGruppe My Bauhaus is better than yours an der Bauhaus-Universität Weimar hervorgegangen ist. Kaspar Müllers Fahrrad-Installation könnte man dagegen einen „Ramschladen der Kulturen und Ideologien”8 nennen, wie das eine Rezensentin zusammengefasst hat. Allerdings bleiben die von der Autorin identifizierten „verschiedenen Stile” und „Narrative”9 sehr vage in ihrer Aussage über das Verhältnis zu jener Realität, in der sich Kulturen, Ideologien und Stile ausgebildet haben. Nimmt man nicht nur das jeweils spezifische Design der Zweiräder sowie ihres teilweise mitgeführten Gepäcks in den Blick, sondern versteht Design als umfassendes Konzept des Realen, so lässt sich hier die Beziehung zwischen Realismus und Wirklichkeit vielleicht etwas deutlicher konturieren. Die auf den ersten Blick disparate Ansammlung aus diversen Fahrradmodellen, an Lenkern baumelnden Supermarkttüten oder auf einigen Gepäckträgern festgeklemmten Spielzeugen, Büchern oder Textilien vereint, dass alles aus industrieller Gestaltung, Produktion und Konsum stammt. Und im Gegensatz zu New Eelam sind es nicht große Marken und Designikonen, die sofort ins Auge springen, sondern eher die schier unüberschaubare Vielfalt eines gestalteten Alltags: von der Lidl- oder Alditüte über den Teddybär, den grün-braun-gelben Kunststoffball mit malerischen Farbübergängen bis hin zur Deutschlandflagge mit aufgenähtem Atomkraft-Nein-Danke-Logo. Design erscheint dabei als Angebot zur Verwirklichung einer Existenz in einer pluralistischen Gesellschaft – in materieller, ästhetischer und sozialer Hinsicht. Die in unterschiedliche Richtungen weisende Platzierung der Zweiräder erweckt ebenso wie die diversen Designkulturen den Eindruck einer politischen Demonstration. Allerdings haben wir es hier mit Angeboten zu tun, die oft schon gebraucht wirken, wahrscheinlich bereits konsumiert wurden und nun im Kunstraum abgestellt sind. Ihnen fehlt der projektive, zukunftsgerichtete und auf ein einheitliches Designkonzept ausgerichtete Charakter, der New Eelam prägt. Und natürlich liegt ein wichtiger

|| 8 Linn, Elisa R., „Kaspar Müller at Galerie Francesca Pia”, in: artforum.com, https:// www.artforum.com/picks/kaspar-mueller-64562 (Stand: 11.2016). Übersetzung des Autors. 9 Linn, „Kaspar Müller at Galerie Francesca Pia”.

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Unterschied zwischen beiden Arbeiten darin, dass Müller keineswegs ein Unternehmen für Fahrräder mit Zubehör präsentiert. Vielmehr stellt die FahrradInstallation einen Bruch mit der ökonomischen Realität des industriellen Designs und seiner Distribution dar, die in den auf Einzigartigkeit und individueller Autorenschaft basierenden Kunstmarkt überführt wird – im Gegenteil zu New Eelam, das in beiden Ökonomien parallel operiert. Dennoch findet man auch bei Müller selbstermächtigende Slogans wie „Ride off like a cowboy into your sunset”, die im ausgestellten Material das Potential der Verwirklichung hervorheben. Und dies steht durchaus im Kontrast zum desolaten Zustand, in dem sich manche Fahrräder befinden. So begegnet man an vielen Stellen der Installation nicht nur offensichtlichen Brüchen zwischen Gebrauchsnutzen und dem Anspruch auf Realisierung, sondern auch zwischen unterschiedlichen kulturellen und ökonomischen Werten. Zugleich überlagern sich hier zeitliche und räumliche Dimensionen vergangener Jahrzehnte bis hin zur Gegenwart. So entfaltet etwa eine minimalistische Kreuzung zwischen Stadt- und Rennrad, wie sie aktuell oft im urbanen Kontext anzutreffen ist, in unauffälligem Grau schon fast eine skulpturale Präsenz im Ausstellungsraum – es wirkt, als wäre das Gefährt erst vor wenigen Minuten abgestellt worden und könnte jeden Moment problemlos wieder in Bewegung gesetzt werden.

Fig. 95: Kaspar Müller, Installationsansicht, Galerie Francesca Pia, Zürich 2016, Foto: Marc Asekhame.

Andere Zweiräder erinnern durch deutliche Gebrauchsspuren, ihre auf ein bestimmtes Terrain ausgerichtete Funktionalität sowie ihren Look an Zeiten, in denen man sich möglichst geländegängig fortbewegen wollte. Design und die

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mit ihm verbundene Markenbildung erlaubt es, ungefähre zeitliche Zuordnungen vorzunehmen. Darüber hinaus ruft etwa ein Mountainbike von Klein nicht nur die frühen 1990er Jahre in Erinnerung, sondern kündet auch von einer Haltung sportlicher Effizienz, die sich offenbar mit dem Modell Attitude verbinden sollte.

Fig. 96: Kaspar Müller, Installationsansicht, Galerie Francesca Pia, Zürich 2016, Foto: Marc Asekhame.

Das leuchtende Blau des Klein-Modells könnte man jedoch auch als einen materialisierten Kommentar zum umstrittenen Vorgehen des gleichnamigen Künstlers Yves Klein verstehen – eine Position, deren performative Aufführung monochromer Malerei (und einem eigens dafür entwickelten Blauton) Ende der 1950er Jahre als Spektakel für eine bürgerliche Nachkriegsgesellschaft Kritik hervorrief. So sah Benjamin H. D. Buchloh in Kleins Arbeiten hauptsächlich einen neo-avantgardistischen Geschäftssinn am Werk, der das Ideal der Avantgarden, monochrome Malerei als Design zur Verwirklichung der Kunst im Leben zu begreifen, letztlich verraten hat.10 Eine etwas bekanntere, im Alltag bis vor Kurzem weit verbreite Fußnote zu dieser Debatte hängt überdies am Lenker eines noch älteren Fahrradmodells: Es handelt sich um jene Tüte, die Günter Frühtrunk 1970 für Aldi-Nord entworfen hat und die bis Februar 2019 dort erhältlich war. Ob dies einfach als Grafik-Gelegenheitsjob des konkreten Künstlers zu betrachten ist oder sich vielleicht in der mit Lebensmitteln gefüllten,

|| 10 Buchloh, Benjamin H.D., „The Primary Colors for the Second Time: A Paradigm Repetition of the Neo-Avant-Garde”, in: October, 37, 1986, 41–52.

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herumgetragenen Tüte mit dem prägnant diagonal blau-weißen Streifenmuster ein avantgardistischer Anspruch verwirklicht hat, ließe sich sicherlich ebenso kontrovers diskutieren. Vielleicht kommt es aber gar nicht darauf an, diese Frage möglichst eindeutig zu beantworten. Eher könnten sich gerade die uneindeutigen Überlagerungen verschiedener Produktionskontexte, Zeitlichkeiten und VerwirklichungsAnsprüche als Spielräume in Verhandlungen um das Realistische erweisen. In jedem Fall wird deutlich, dass sich die beiden hier skizzierten zeitgenössischen Arbeiten sowohl auf bestimmte historische Avantgardebewegungen beziehen, als auch auf die erwähnte künstlerische Praxis der Überlagerung zurückgreifen. Im folgenden Rückblick auf einige avantgardetheoretische Positionen möchte ich mich vor allem den Diskursen um die eigentümlichen zeitlichen Aspekte dieser Praxis zuwenden. Ruft man sich die Realismen der historischen Avantgarden ins Gedächtnis, kommt nicht die Welt in ihrer unmittelbaren Gegenwart zum Ausdruck, sondern vielmehr ihre Vergangenheit oder ihre mögliche Zukunft. Der merkwürdig unzeitgemäße Zugang der Avantgarden zur Wirklichkeit11 wird einerseits in surrealistischen, andererseits in konstruktivistischen Tendenzen deutlich – beide Strömungen stützen sich vielfach auf Design. Während konstruktivistische Tendenzen ihre zukunftsgerichteten Hoffnungen auf eine transformierende Kraft des Designs setzen, ja sogar in einigen Fällen als bessere Alternative12 sehen, thematisieren surrealistische Tendenzen vor allem ein Befremden angesichts der anonym hergestellten, schnell obsoleten und in überbordender Vielzahl verfügbaren Waren.13 Zudem begegnet das Kunstpublikum nicht mehr nur Abbildungen des Realen, sondern gewissermaßen dem Realen selbst: Industriell hergestellte Alltagsdinge sowie massenmediale Fragmente sind nun tatsächlich in Ausstellungen zu finden. Allerdings stellt gerade die Präsenz alltäglichen Materials das Verhältnis zur Wirklichkeit infrage: indem etwa montierte Zeitungsausschnitte die vergangenen Neuigkeiten von Vorgestern zeigen oder Möbelentwürfe die räumliche Transformation einer

|| 11 Bernd Hüppauf sieht den Realitätsbezug der Avantgarden gerade in ihrer „unzeitgemäßen” Distanz zur Gegenwart. Den Anspruch auf eine Verwirklichung der Kunst interpretiert der Autor eher als eine ästhetische Konvention denn als tatsächliche Aufforderung. Vgl. Hüppauf, Bernd, „Das Unzeitgemäße der Avantgarden: Die Zeit, Avantgarden und die Gegenwart”, in: Asholt, Wolfgang/Fähnders, Walter (Hrsg.), Der Blick vom Wolkenkratzer. Avantgarde - Avantgardekritik - Avantgardeforschung, Amsterdam, Atlanta 2000, 547–582. 12 Belting, Hans, „Stil als absolute Norm”, in: Ders., Das unsichtbare Meisterwerk. Die modernen Mythen der Kunst, München 1998, 375–393. 13 Adorno, Theodor W., „Rückblickend auf den Surrealismus”, in: Karlheinz Barck (Hrsg.), Surrealismus in Paris 1919–1939. Ein Lesebuch, Leipzig 1986, 693–698.

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zukünftigen Wirklichkeit ankündigen. Vielleicht gründet hierin auch ein Paradox, das die verschiedenen Realismen der Kunst begleitet und zugleich von dem unterscheidet, was man vor dem Hintergrund einer Lebenserfahrung als realistisch einschätzen würde. Ein Paradox, das sich einerseits in zeitlichen Brüchen, andererseits aber auch in gesellschaftlichen Ansprüchen äußert. So versuchen die Avantgarden gleichsam eine doppelte Transformation des Wirklichen: durch den zeitlich wie räumlich distanzierenden Transfer von Material aus einer Alltagswirklichkeit in einen Kunstkontext, aber auch durch den wirklichkeitsformenden, projektiven Charakter begleitender Manifeste. Wenn man diese Praktiken mit Realismus in Verbindung bringt, dann sowohl im Sinne einer Adressierung alternativer Realität(en) als auch durch die Behauptung einer Relevanz für die aktuelle Lebenswirklichkeit. Paradox daran ist wohl das, was Hans-Magnus Enzensberger einmal die „Ungleichzeitigkeit des Gleichzeitigen” genannt hat: „Vorläufer und Nachzügler sind in jedem Augenblick des Prozesses zugleich anwesend”.14 Der avantgardistische Anspruch auf einen Realismus erschöpft sich gerade nicht in einer absoluten Gegenwartsbezogenheit, sondern lässt sich nur in einem komplexen zeitlichen Geflecht erfahren. So sehr diese Überlagerungen zu faszinieren vermögen, so groß sind auch die Probleme im Umgang damit. Bei Enzensberger ist sogar von „Aporie” die Rede – von einer ausweglosen Situation, in der man die Avantgarden zwischen ihrem Anspruch des Vorauseilens sowie ihrer ökonomischen und politischen Indienstnahme findet, und die sie schon bald erstarren und veralten lässt. Vielfach sind es sogar die Protagonisten der Avantgarden selbst, die sich an dieser gesellschaftlichen Dynamik mehr oder weniger aktiv beteiligen – nicht zuletzt in der Hoffnung, ihre Auffassung von „Freiheit doktrinär durchzusetzen”.15 Es handelt sich dabei nicht nur um Einzelfälle, vielmehr offenbart sich darin für Enzensberger die Sackgasse des avantgardistischen Kunstbegriffs überhaupt. Sieht man von den Übertreibungen und Verallgemeinerungen der polemischen Stellungnahme Enzensbergers hier einmal ab, ließe sich daraus eine pointierte These zum Anspruch gewinnen, Wirklichkeit durch Kunst zu gestalten: Dass nämlich dieses Vorhaben keinesfalls in die absolute Gegenwart führt, sondern in eine eigentümliche Ungleichzeitigkeit.

|| 14 Enzensberger, Hans Magnus, „Die Aporien der Avantgarde”, in: Einzelheiten II. Poesie und Politik, Frankfurt 1980, 50–80, 58. 15 Enzensberger, „Die Aporien der Avantgarde“, 67.

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Versteht man unter Design eine sich parallel zu den Avantgardebewegungen etablierende Disziplin industrieller Gestaltung,16 so ist in den 1910er und 1920er Jahren davon auszugehen, dass ein Großteil der im Alltag verfügbaren Waren bereits diesem Feld zuzurechnen ist. Viele prominente Protagonisten sind Künstler, die – ausgehend von einer Kritik am Wirklichkeitsverhältnis eklektizistischer Gebrauchsdinge und autonomer Kunst gleichermaßen – eine Reformbewegung initiieren, die gegen Ende des 19. und zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts schließlich zur Ausbildung der neuen gestalterischen Profession führen: etwa William Morris, Henry van de Velde oder Peter Behrens, um nur einige Beispiele zu erwähnen. Man könnte sogar sagen, dass die Gründungsphase des Designs wesentlich von einem Programm des gestalterischen Realismus bestimmt wurde: weg von einer die „Wirklichkeit [...] übertrumpfen[den]”,17 überformenden Gestaltung, hin zu einem neuen und realistischen Umgang mit den Gebrauchsdingen. So sollen technische Konstruktionen oder serielle Herstellungsprinzipien nicht etwa durch historistische Motive kaschiert, sondern gleichsam als angemessener Ausdruck moderner Lebens- und Produktionsweisen hervorgehoben werden.18 Zugleich liegt diesem Programm – ähnlich wie bei späteren konstruktivistischen Avantgarde-Bewegungen – eine projektive Zukunftsdimension zugrunde. Einerseits sind die Auswirkungen tiefgreifender ökonomischer, technologischer und medialer Veränderungen des Alltags um 1900 kaum zu übersehen; andererseits gibt es viele Stimmen, die eher eine Gegenwelt zu modernen Lebens- und Produktionsweisen favorisieren. Für die neue Disziplin industrieller Gestaltung gilt es also, eine latente Wirklichkeit als gesellschaftlichen Mainstream erst noch durchzusetzen. Will man in diesem Zusammenhang von einem Realismus des Designs sprechen, so im Sinne eines umfassenden ästhetischen, gesellschaftlichen und historischen Anspruchs auf Verwirklichung.

|| 16 Entgegen der jüngst stark erweiterten Auffassungen von Design als Denkmethode (Design Thinking), als Modellierung sozialer Praxis (Social Design) oder im Sinne kreativer menschlicher Tätigkeit überhaupt, erscheint es mir sinnvoll, an jenem Designbegriff festzuhalten, der disziplinär verankert und historisch mit Industrialisierung verknüpft ist. Ich folge damit der begrifflichen Positionierung u.a. bei Feige, Daniel Martin, Design. Eine philosophische Analyse, Berlin 2018, 57, und: Mareis, Claudia, Theorien des Designs zur Einführung, Hamburg 2014, 49. 17 Hofmann, Werner, „Die Welt als Schaustellung”, in: Ders., Das irdische Paradies, München 1974, 86–111, 103. 18 Vgl. Pevsner, Nikolaus, Wegbereiter moderner Formgebung von Morris bis Gropius, Hamburg 1983.

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Wenn der Surrealist André Breton auf Flohmärkten oder in vergessenen Schaufenstern19 die Begegnung mit einer bereits obsoleten materiellen Realität sucht, um verborgene gesellschaftliche Ziele zu enthüllen, dann erscheint diese Realität ihren Zeitgenossen als eine äußerst widersprüchliche Angelegenheit. Die im traumgleichen Umherschweifen entdeckten Dinge bezeugen nicht das unmittelbar Gegenwärtige – sie bedürfen vielmehr erst einer künstlerischen Vergegenwärtigung, um aus ihrer vergangenen Rolle heraus eine aktuelle Bedeutung zu erlangen. Zugleich handelt es sich jedoch etwa bei Montagen oder Ready-Mades nicht mehr um Repräsentationen des Realen, sondern um einen Teil der realen Welt.20 Und dennoch folgt das scheinbar zufällige Umherschweifen einem bestimmten programmatischen Auftrag, der in den Manifesten des Surrealismus zum Ausdruck kommt: nämlich jenen Konflikten auf die Spur zu kommen, die hinter der Fassade einer nach naturwissenschaftlich-technischen Prinzipien ausgerichteten Industriegesellschaft schwelen.21 Die abgestellten Reste einer vergangenen industriellen Massenproduktion lassen kaum noch auf einen spezifischen Gebrauch schließen, auch ein umgebendes gesellschaftliches Milieu lässt sich – wenn überhaupt – nur noch vage erahnen. Was hier stattdessen hervortritt, ist vielmehr die ambivalente materielle Präsenz einer gestalterischen Disziplin, die fortwährend und in großem Umfang neue Dinge hervorbringt: Ambivalent erscheint dies sowohl in Bezug auf den eigenen gesellschaftlichen Anspruch des Designs, wie auch im Hinblick auf dessen Rolle in künstlerischen Arbeiten. Waren es doch gerade der oft zweifelhafte Gebrauchsnutzen, die schnelle Obsoleszenz sowie die dekorativ verborgene Konstruktion, die modernes Design durch eine andere Wirklichkeit ersetzen wollte. An Hoffnungen moderner Gestaltung, statt befremdender Dinge eine „echte Kultur“22 aufzubauen, knüpfen auch konstruktivistische Avantgarden der 1920er Jahre an. So spricht Alexander Rodtschenko ebenfalls von einem Streben nach „echte[n] Dinge[n]“,23 das sich ganz auf die Herstellung eines neuen, zu-

|| 19 Breton, André, Die kommunizierenden Röhren, München 1973, 85. 20 Panhans-Bühler, Ursula, Gegeben sei: die Gabe, Duchamps Flaschentrockner in der vierten Dimension, Hamburg 2009, 158. 21 Breton, André, „Manifest des Surrealismus”, in: Wolfgang Asholt/Walter Fähnders (Hrsg.), Manifeste und Proklamationen der europäischen Avantgarde (1909–1938), Stuttgart 1995, 329. 22 Muthesius, Herrmann, Kultur und Kunst, Jena 1909, 38. 23 Rodtschenko, Aleksander, „In Paris. Aus seinen Briefen nach Hause an Varvara Stepanova”, in: Anke Henning (Hrsg.), Über die Dinge. Texte der russischen Avantgarde, Hamburg 2010, 333–361, 347.

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künftigen Realen konzentrieren soll.24 Die konkreten Entwürfe – etwa für die Werbung oder das Interieur eines Arbeiterklubs – übernehmen dabei eine zeitliche Doppelfunktion: Sie künden einerseits von einer Zukunft, in der man partnerschaftlich mit den echten Dingen zusammenlebt,25 andererseits sollen sich bestimmte Eigenschaften dieser zukünftigen Situation bereits in konstruktivistischen Entwürfen der Gegenwart erfahren lassen. Sowohl Surrealismus als auch Konstruktivismus artikulieren Kritik an der Wirklichkeit ihrer Gegenwart – vielfach durch die Betonung einer zeitlichen Distanz. Im Rückgriff auf bereits obsolete Produkte oder im projektiven Charakter neuer Entwürfe erscheint eine andere Wirklichkeit möglich. Die Möglichkeit, eine Wirklichkeit etwa durch Dinge des Designs zu realisieren oder auch an dieser Realisierung zu scheitern, wurde oft von polarisierten politischen Debatten begleitet. Dabei ging es nicht nur um Darstellungs-, sondern auch um Herstellungsfragen, d.h. auf welche Weise andere gesellschaftliche Zustände hergestellt werden können. Dieses Streben nach einem anderen Realen rückt jedoch auch die Lücken zwischen einer angestrebten und einer tatsächlichen Wirklichkeit in den Blick. Im Verhältnis zur industriellen Massenproduktion und den darin produzierten Dingen kommt dies immer wieder zum Ausdruck. So schildert etwa Roland Barthes einen Wirklichkeitseffekt in der realistischen Literatur des 19. Jahrhunderts, der sich vor allem auf bedeutungslose – man könnte auch sagen: für die Erzählung auffallend überflüssige – Dinge stützt.26 Jene Dinge ohne Belang, die in privaten Interieurs (etwa bei Gustave Flaubert) oder auch in Kaufhäusern (etwa bei Émile Zola) geschildert werden, hat Jacques Rancière im Anschluss an Barthes jüngst wieder aufgegriffen, um darüber hinaus auf eine politische Fundierung dieses Wirklichkeitseffekts hinzuweisen.27 Aus der Perspektive Rancières bezeugen die überflüssigen Dinge nicht nur das Realistische ihrer eigenen Existenz, sondern auch ein „Sensoriu[m] radikaler

|| 24 Rodtschenko, Alexander/Stepanova, Warwara, „Produktivistenmanifest”, in: Wolfgang Asholt/Walter Fähnders (Hrsg.), Manifeste und Proklamationen der europäischen Avantgarde (1909–1938), Stuttgart 1995, 210–211, 210. 25 Rodtschenko, In Paris, 346. 26 Barthes, Roland, „Der Wirklichkeitseffekt”, in: Ders., Das Rauschen der Sprache, Frankfurt 2012, 164–172. 27 Vgl. Meltzer, Burkhard, „Dubiose Begegnungen. Über unauffällige Ausstellungssituationen”, in: Kathrin Busch/Burkhard Meltzer/Tido von Oppeln (Hrsg.), Ausstellen. Zur Kritik der Wirksamkeit in den Künsten, Zürich, Berlin 2016, 243–263.

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Gleichheit, das Kunst und Leben zu ein und derselben Sache macht“.28 Bei den Umwälzungen, die die Avantgarden zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts für den Kunstbegriff bedeuten, kommt der parallelen Etablierung des industriellen Designs laut Rancière eine Schlüsselrolle zu. Die massenhaft produzierten Formen für eine gemeinsam bewohnte Welt erfüllen eine politisch-ästhetische Doppelfunktion,29 auf die sich insbesondere die Avantgarden beziehen. „Der Begriff einer Kunst, die zum Leben wird, unterstützt nicht einfach nur demiurgische Projekte eines ,neuen Lebens’. Vielmehr webt er eine gemeinsame Zeitlichkeit der Kunst [...]. ,Reine’ und ,engagierte’ Kunst, ,freie’ und ,angewandte’ Kunst haben gleichermaßen an dieser Zeitlichkeit teil. Natürlich verstehen oder realisieren sie dies auf sehr verschiedene Weise”.30 Dies bedeutet für Ranciére allerdings keine Gleichzeitigkeit im Sinne einer umfassend synchronisierten Gegenwart, sondern „vielmehr [...] ein[e] Multiplizierung der Zeitlichkeiten der Kunst, die ihre Grenzen durchlässig macht”.31 Statt mit absoluter Gegenwart haben wir es in der Moderne mit „Szenarien der Latenz und ReAktualisierung”32 zu tun. Der Wirklichkeitseffekt des Designs, wenn man Rancières Gedanken zu beiden Themen in dieser Formulierung zusammenführen will, bestätigt also zugleich eine gegenwärtige Existenz wie er die Möglichkeit einer anderen Realität andeutet. Die Lücke zwischen einem angestrebten und einem tatsächlichen Realen ist immer eine Frage gesellschaftlicher Aushandlung, die sich gleichsam im Design materialisiert. Viele Kunstwerke, die eine materielle Realität der Lebensumgebung thematisieren, basieren seit den Avantgarden auf dieser spannungsreichen Beziehung. Handelt es sich dabei um ein Fortleben oder vielmehr um ein nachträgliches Begreifen des avantgardistischen Projekts, wie es Hal Foster in Bezug auf die Neo-Avantgarde einmal formuliert hat?33 Ich kann weder der einen noch der anderen Lesart zustimmen, da beides historische Kontinuitäten

|| 28 Rancière, Jacques, Der Wirklichkeitseffekt und die Politik der Fiktion”, in: Dirck Linck/Michael Lüthy/Brigitte Obermayr/Martin Vöhler (Hrsg.), Realismus in den Künsten der Gegenwart, Zürich, Berlin 2010, 141–157, 156. 29 Vgl. Rancière, Jacques, „Die Fläche des Designs“, in: Ders., Die Politik der Bilder, Berlin 2005, 107–125, 107. 30 Rancière, Jacques, „Die ästhetische Revolution und ihre Folgen. Erzählungen von Autonomie und Heteronomie“, in: Ilka Brombach/Dirk Setton/Cornelia Temesvari (Hrsg.), »Ästhetisierung«. Der Streit um das Ästhetische in Politik, Religion, Erkenntnis, Zürich 2010, 23–40, 29. 31 Rancière, „Die ästhetische Revolution und ihre Folgen“, 32. 32 Rancière, „Die ästhetische Revolution und ihre Folgen“, 32. 33 Foster, Hal, The Return of the Real: The Avant-Garde at the End of the Century, Cambridge 1996, 15.

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impliziert und damit die Avantgarden gewissermaßen als Vorbild für bestimmte künstlerische Methoden der Gegenwart voraussetzt. Wir leben heute jedoch in einer völlig anderen medialen und materiellen Situation als in den 1920er Jahren, womit sich auch unser Urteil darüber, was als realistisch einzuschätzen ist, verändert haben dürfte. In der heutigen Vertrautheit mit dem hergestellten Charakter des Realistischen rücken dessen mediale Produktionsbedingungen in den Fokus. Diese Abwendung von Realismus als mimetischer Spiegelung lässt sich auch schon bei den Avantgarden beobachten – nur war dies damals oft mit einem politischen Machtanspruch zur Durchsetzung einer bestimmten Lebensform verknüpft. Wenn man bei Kaspar Müller und Christopher Kulendran Thomas von Realismus sprechen will, so zielt dieser nicht darauf, verborgene gesellschaftliche Zustände aufzudecken oder zukünftige echte Dinge hervorzubringen. Vielmehr betont jene Vorstellung des Realen, die durch bestimmte Designkulturen hervorgerufen wird, gerade ihre Gemachtheit. Hier von Realismus zu sprechen, bedeutet also gleichzeitig ein ästhetisches Konzept des Realen zu adressieren wie auch auf der Wahrscheinlichkeit einer Realisierung zu bestehen. Zwischen beiden Auffassungen finden sich oft zeitliche Brüche, die in der Gegenwartskunst an Konstellationen der Avantgarden erinnern. Dies gründet aus meiner Sicht jedoch weniger auf einer ungebrochenen Genealogie avantgardistischer Arbeitsweisen. Dagegen würde ich Realismus mit dem Verweis auf Rancière als eine seit Aufklärung und Industrialisierung unabgeschlossene Verhandlung34 dessen auffassen, was zwischen Künsten und Gesellschaft als realistisch gelten kann.

|| 34 Vgl. Thanner, Veronika/Vogl, Joseph/Walzer, Dorothea, „Die Wirklichkeit des Realismus. Einleitung”, in: Dies. (Hrsg.), Die Wirklichkeit des Realismus, Paderborn 2018, 9–16, 10.

Sebastian Mühl

Historiographies of Realism in the Work of Chto Delat? We aren’t those people who Popkov depicted, and we’re living in 2004, not 1961.1

The renegotiation of art’s relationship with reality has been at stake throughout the history of modern aesthetic thinking. With regard to the ongoing interest in the formation, representation and transformation of reality through contemporary art, it is no surprise that realist working methods remain an important tendency in the field of a politically engaged art today. However, looking back at the twentieth century’s modernist and avant-garde movements, most of the historical realisms failed, and, even more, their theoretical foundations inevitably proved wrong. It is thus not at all clear what realism means today and to what reality contemporary art should refer. Despite the fact that there has been much debate on the status of the documentary and interventionist practices in art, few artists have critically addressed the problem of realism in a reflexive way.2 Drawing the lines and limits of a realist working method today would thus call for a twofold approach: reinvestigating the failures of modernist and avant-garde movements and contesting the deeply contentious character of reality itself. As I will try to show, this task has been taken up by the artists’ collective Chto Delat? from St. Petersburg. In a brief discussion of their work, I will put Chto Delat?’s approach into perspective by foregrounding their attempt at a more complex understanding of what a post-avant-garde realist practice in the arts could be. This is precisely by situating contemporary realist working methods in the field of a historiography of the twentieth century’s political arts movements. Founded in St. Petersburg in 2003, Chto Delat? originally started as a loose association of activists, artists and writers from St. Petersburg and Moscow. From the beginning, the group responded to an ever more complicated political situation in post-socialist Russia, which later also led to the formation of activist groups such as Voina and Pussy Riot. The artists’ section of the group has increasingly become known for a complex intertwining of radical political activ|| 1 Chto Delat?, Builders, 2005. 2 For a representative survey of the theoretical debates related to documentary and interventionist strategies in contemporary art since the early 2000s see: Linck, Dirck/Lüthy, Michael/Obermayr, Brigitte/Vöhler, Martin (eds.), Realismus in den Künsten der Gegenwart, Zürich 2010. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-038

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ism and aesthetic interventions, drawing mostly on Brechtian artistic strategies. Their work consists of ready-mades, re-enactments, films, staged performances and installations, as well as study rooms, contributions to public events and the publishing of a newspaper that interweaves their artistic work with theoretical discourses.3 More recently, the group has gained international recognition, mostly for their acclaimed museum and gallery shows, contributions to biennials and supporting programmes for conferences and events. In the following, I will focus on two of Chto Delat?’s major works, namely their re-enactment Builders from 2005 and the Perestroika Songspiel from 2008. Both works offer a historiographic perspective on past events from the political and cultural history of the Soviet Union, giving rise to a complex understanding of the actual conditions and limits of realism as a politicised practice in the early 21st century. Produced shortly after Chto Delat? was founded in 2003, the re-enactment Builders can be seen as an attempt to situate the group’s practice within a broader history of realism in the Soviet Union. At first sight, Builders refers to a famous painting by the Russian artist Viktor Popkov from 1961, The Builders of Bratsk. Even though Popkov was not an outstanding artist, this painting has become emblematic for socialist realist art during the period of the so-called thaw in the Soviet Union. It is nowadays part of the State Tretyakov Gallery’s collection, where Chto Delat? first encountered the work. As Popkov’s work is in many respects conventional, it nevertheless expresses the representational rules of socialist realism in its time. Chto Delat?, however, did not stage the painting but rather what it depicted, five workers from the industrial town of Bratsk in Southern Siberia. Whereas the painting was executed in oil on canvas, the re-enactment is a photographic slide-show documenting a performative event staged by Chto Delat? in present-day St. Petersburg, represented as an eight-minute video projection with voice-over comments by the artists. It is strikingly evident why the painting evoked the artists’ interest. Popkov depicted the five workers, four men and a woman, standing in front of a factory during their well-deserved cigarette break. They are shown as self-possessed people, conscious of their historical situation and their capacity to make sense of history and their role within the overall transformation of society. The slideshow, however, reconnects with this historical image, seeking to recover it and turn it into contemporaneity.

|| 3 See Koch, Alexander, Chto Delat: Time Capsule: Artistic Report on Catastrophes and Utopia, Accompanying booklet for the exhibition at KOW Berlin, 28.02.–18.04.2015, Berlin 2015, 31–32.

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As Chto Delat? embodies the five workers, they express concern about their actual attempt, that is, the recovering of a past collective socialist subject. Chto Delat? speak of their re-enactment as a kind of self-analysis, reflecting as much on their own historical situation as art workers in present-day Russia as on the mimicking the Builders of Bratsk themselves. The artists do not seem to be convinced that their re-enactment would work; there seems to be something missing, that is, the actual capacity of this self-possession, consciousness and will characteristic of the painted bodies. While we look at the artists adopting their postures, we can hear them commenting on the actual attempt at representational mimesis. The voice-over comments: Actually, we’ve been wanting to make a piece about our community for quite some time to tell about who we are and what we are doing. A kind of self-analysis, in other words. What inspired us was Viktor Popkov’s marvellous painting ‘Builders of Bratsk’. This is why we called it ‘Builders’. But we didn’t try to imitate the heroes of this painting. For us, the feeling that we’re building something is important, so we tried to find out what exactly we are building. Basically, this is Viktor Popkov’s only commonly-known painting. People are standing there tiredly, monumentally, standing and thinking of what they have done so far and what they will do in the future. But we’re in a different situation. […] We aren’t those people who Popkov depicted, and we’re living in 2004, not 1961.

Chto Delat? fails to bridge the historical situations of 1961 and 2004. However, this is hardly the only intention of their work. The re-enactment expresses irony and wit; it seems thus less inspired by the naïve intention to turn back the clock than to actually reflect on a possibility of grasping a lost movement of history itself. The situation remains ambiguous, the group confronts the painting, insisting on its unredeemed status quo. But by evoking past collectivity and giving it a new direction, they also try to push the times out of joint, recomposing the elements of the commons, as the group states. 4 The painting then seems to be re-enacted in order to break with the very present state of the contemporary, in order to open it towards an unknown future. And even though this project might fail, their attempt is what ultimately counts in the first place – becoming “ideal” again, stretching towards the past image. The voice-over states: “What might have preceded this moment, in which they took on a pose that turned them into a symbol of certainty, strength and belief. What was it?”5

|| 4 See Miziano, Viktor/Vilensky, Dmitry, “Viktor Miziano and Dmitry Vilensky: Singular Together!”, in: Johan Holten (ed.), Chto Delat?, exhibition catalogue Baden-Baden, Köln 2011, 32– 43, 43. 5 Chto Delat?, Builders, 2005.

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Chto Delat?’s re-enactment is as much about an unredeemed history of the past as it is about our lost belief in the possibilities of an avant-garde subject. However, Builders is an attempt to actualise a realist working method in contemporary art as well. If one looks back at the historical debates on realism, it is nevertheless striking that throughout the twentieth century most realist projects were considered not only to draw a true image of the world, but also to transform reality. Realism was meant to make the historical present visible, and it would do so by revealing its inner truth, the truth of actuality. The aesthetic work of realist art would thus be situated in a dialectical operation: anticipating the true image of history, picturing reality as the truth of actuality, as a future already present in the here and now. It is common sense that the philosophies of history which supported these models are no longer valid today. But in fact, the question of which truth of actuality should thus be revealed by contemporary art is no less controversial. Even though the developments in contemporary aesthetic theory have long since left behind the dialectical discourses of modernism and the avant-garde, it remains all too facile to accord an epistemological function to a post-avantgarde practice in contemporary art. In a discussion of Jacques Rancière’s aesthetic theory, Maria Muhle has noted that realism should nevertheless stand in opposition to such a renewed epistemology drawing on art as a model for a privileged access to reality. Following Rancière, aesthetic realism would indeed be “post-representative” today, and that is, it would step out of the framework of a normative mimesis.6 It is thus not about an actual truth of actuality but about its forms of representation, and, that is, it points towards the referential inferences between representation and what is represented – in order to make them present to us. Muhle states: “The forms of aesthetic realism not only disrupt the common norms of representation, but also, as a consequence, call into question the relation of representation as such. This occurs in that it suspends the division between represented reality and real reality, that is, in keeping this relation undetermined or undecided. This keeping undecided enables a reflection on the general conditions under which reality can appear or be accessible

|| 6 Rancière contrasts the so-called representative regime of the arts with an aesthetic regime that breaks free from the rules of mimesis. He states: “The leap outside of mimesis is by no means the refusal of figurative representation. Furthermore, its inaugural moment has often been called realism, which does not in any way mean the valorization of resemblance but rather the destruction of the structures within which it functioned.” Rancière, Jacques, The Politics of Aesthetics, London, New York 2004, 24.

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in the first place, that is, a level on which divisions and classifications of realities are performed”.7 Looking back at Chto Delat?, it becomes more ambiguous to accord their work an epistemological function of revealing a truth of actuality in the first place. However, situating their practice in relation to an avant-garde history of art, Dmitry Vilensky, one of the key members of the collective, stresses that their work claims fidelity – a fidelity towards the living impulses of communism. “For me being a realist means that we should prove that historical reality is something transformable and that the search for a genuine subject of history is continuing”.8 Even if Vilensky remains faithful to this notion of a genuine subject of history, it does not make Chto Delat?’s work less ambiguous. It is mainly Alain Badiou’s aesthetic universalism that Vilensky is evoking here. In fact, Badiou prompts a model that calls for “truth procedures” in art, something by which art “reaffirms” reality instead of dissociating it. Thus “being transfixed by a truth”, as Badiou notes, would remain the ultimate vocation of art.9 As Vilensky sympathises with this position, it would be at once convincing and a misleading idea to associate Chto Delat?’s practice with such an epistemology, which is in fact a retreat into classic modernist patterns of thought. Chto Delat? rather question the idea of a normative mimesis, and they do so by questioning the representational patterns under which mimesis would ever occur in the first place. Builders is hence about the re-examination of historical forms of representation under which truths become constructed and visible, rather than finding the actual image. It is, roughly speaking, about the continuous search for images. And that search appears as reality – as the reality within representation. However, Builders obviously vacillates between various elements of affirmation and critique. In order to further elaborate on the complexity of their approach, it is worth bringing another work into the discussion. The collective’s so-called songspiels are particularly interesting in this respect as they offer both a reflection on multiple forms of mediatisation of reality through images, and a situating of history as an essentially open concept. As the artists state: “realism as a method can be understood as both a continuation and a re-questioning of || 7 Muhle, Maria, „Political Art as Aesthetic Realism or Passion of the Real?“, in: Texte zur Kunst, Volume 80, 2010, 117–122,119. 8 Realism Working Group, “The Truth of Actuality: Interview with Dmitry Vilensky (Chto Delat?/What is to be done?)”, 2008, https://realismworkinggroup.org/interview-with-chtodelat/(last checked: 31.05.2019). 9 Badiou, Alain, “Manifesto of Affirmation”, in: lacanian ink, No. 24/25, Winter/Spring 2005, 92–109. Online at www.lacan.com/frameXXIV5.htm, last accessed on May 30, 2019.

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existing attempts at breaching the gap between the subject and the object. […] representing life in the forms of life […] brought up the issue of media reality and its claims to truthfulness”.10 The songspiels are staged performances inspired by Brechtian theatre, which are further documented as film installations in exhibition spaces. Among this series of works are the Perestroika Songspiel from 2008, the Partisan Songspiel: A Belgrade Story from 2009, The Tower: A Songspiel from 2009 and the Museum Songspiel: The Netherlands 20XX from 2011. All share a common interest in the staging of multi-faceted perspectives on past historical events, revealing the controversial nature of history and the multiple representational functions under which history contentiously appears. The Perestroika Songspiel is about Perestroika during the late 1980s, the Partisan Songspiel deals with the political oppression of the Roma people in Serbia during the 2000s, and the Museum Songspiel stages the immigration policies in the Netherlands during the last decade. Even though all these works rather break free from the construction of evidence about the actual facts, they also suggest counter-narratives against official historiographies. In the Perestroika Songspiel, the group focused on the political events in Moscow during the summer of 1991, when the coup d’état against the Gorbachev government ultimately led to a subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union. In their adaptation of the historical events, the artists expose different narratives in order to contest the historiography about Perestroika that is supported by the present-day Russian government. Roughly speaking, Chto Delat? reframes the coup d’état as a missed opportunity for a democratic transformation of the Soviet Union into a political system that would reconcile communism and liberal democracy. The songspiel highlights the events and rearticulates the political hopes of different groups of people who stood for a democratic political change. It therefore combines different voices and perspectives and, following a Brechtian model, stages a chorus and five heroes representing different social types. Here is how the artists describe their work: The film is structured like an ancient tragedy: its dramatis personae are divided into a chorus and a group of five heroes. The heroes represent certain social types from the Perestroika era, each of them with a particular vision of his or her role in history: a democrat, a businessman, a revolutionary, a nationalist, and a feminist. Throughout the film, these characters analyse their actions, their place in society, and their vision of the country’s po-

|| 10 Begg, Zanny/Vilensky, Dmitry, “On the possibility of avant-garde composition in contemporary art”, in: Chto Delat? newspaper No. 17, Debates on the Avant-Garde, August 2007, np.

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litical path. The chorus, on the other hand, is the incarnation of the Russian society of 2008. It passes moral judgment on the actions of the heroes and prophecies their futures.11

Even though the chorus claims the position of an objective judgement based on the knowledge of the course of history, the overall representations of the chorus and the different heroes remain much more indeterminate than it might seem. The songspiel vacillates back and forth between different counter narratives and the attempt at an open narrative as such, prompting not only different forms and methods of representation, but also a subversion of any forms of prealignment to history. This impression is further reinforced by another work which accompanies the songspiel, namely the Perestroika Timeline. This work consists of a mural first realised for the Istanbul Biennial in 2009 and since then re-installed in various exhibition contexts. In acrylic paint on the gallery walls, it reads an alternative history of “what might have happened” if the Soviet Union had not collapsed: The Soviet Union is transformed into a federative state based on broad autonomy for republics, districts, and cities. * Workers take full control of all factories and enterprises. * All political authority is transferred to factory and local councils (Soviets). * The West undergoes its own version of Perestroika. Inspired by the processes underway in a renewed Soviet Union, western societies carry out a series of radical social-democratic reforms. * Governments fully disarm and unite to create a fund to ensure the future of the planet. * Socialist culture enjoys a rebirth worldwide.12

However, this unrealised history is juxtaposed with “what has happened instead”: The Soviet Union collapsed. * The national economy has been stolen from the people through ‘privatization’ that leads to the rise of a class of oligarchs. * The population has suffered massive impoverishment. * Extreme forms of nationalism and religious obscurantism have become widely popular. Civil wars and terrorism have afflicted large parts of the former Soviet Union. * Economic collapse has led to a severe decline in health care, education, scientific research, and culture. * Neoliberalism has triumphed throughout the

|| 11 Chto Delat?, “Perestroika Songspiel. The Victory over the Coup”, in: Johan Holten (ed.), Chto Delat?, Exhibition Catalogue Baden-Baden, Köln 2011, 72–75, 72. 12 Chto Delat?, “Perestroika Timeline”, 2009, Acrylic color, 11th Istanbul Biennale, 12.09.– 08.11.2009, reprinted in: Chto Delat?, “Perestroika Timeline”, in: Maria Hlavajova, Simon Sheikh (eds.), Former West: Art and the Contemporary after 1989, Utrecht, Cambridge, Mass., London 2016, 81–84, here: 84.

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world. The interests of the majority have been sacrificed to the needs of speculative transnational capital.13

Once again, the timeline displays both a political vision of emancipation and social collectivity and a harsh critique of present-day Russian politics. But as far as the work vacillates between an actual and potential history, it remains far more ambiguous. The timeline is further complemented by a series of photographs and documents, archival and fictional material, as well as drawings by the artists. In some parts, it evokes Russian fairy tales in order to superimpose actual history with fiction. Hence, the Perestroika Timeline plays with semantic levels, visual and textual meanings and a perforation of the boundary between fictional and authenticated narration. Modulating back and forth, it never comes to an end. In her essay on the politics of representation, Juliane Rebentisch noted that contemporary art’s relation to reality should be an attempt to make the historical present present to us – as our present today. “Realism – as a stance, a project, a production – requires fidelity; fidelity, that is, to a reality that needs to be done justice in ethical, political, and epistemic terms”.14 But how does Chto Delat? ultimately assert this fidelity? By critically connecting past and present, fiction and authentic, their work restores a potential in history itself, as the persistence of an open narrative in the very tissue of our contemporary condition. None of their works thus stages nostalgia. But as Simon Sheikh has pointed out, Chto Delat? also claim “fidelity to a primary political moment, which constitutes not only political relations, but also subject positions”.15 Even though Perestroika failed and has become something past, it is not irrevocable. In itself, it was already the “return to some basic ideas and ideals of communism”, and that is to which the collective ultimately holds true.16 In this sense, Chto Delat? enfolds history and redirects it: [The] archival footage of people’s protests and gatherings from the Perestroika, all silent black-and-white amateur films, is subtitled stating the year of production and accompanied by a piano soundtrack that makes it appear even more historic, almost ancient, as though 1987 were really 1917. This is no plain artistic conjuring trick, but rather a way of

|| 13 Chto Delat?, “Perestroika Timeline”, 81. 14 Rebentisch, Juliane, “Realism Today. Art, Politics, and the Critique of Representation”, in: Anneka Esch-van Kan, Stephan Packard, Philipp Schulte (eds.), Thinking – Resisting – Reading the Political, Zürich, Berlin 2013, 245–261, 246. 15 Sheikh, Simon, “What remains? – Chto Delat?, Post-Communism and Art”, in: Johan Holten (ed.), Chto Delat?, exhibition catalogue Baden-Baden, Köln 2011, 56–65, 64. 16 Sheikh, Simon, “What remains? – Chto Delat?, Post-Communism and Art”, 64.

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enfolding history, contingency and potentiality, stating how time is always out of joint, as it were, when dealing with political events.17

Yet, this adds another perspective to Chto Delat?’s work. The group not only asserts fidelity to an open history – of communism – but to a time out of joint, a history of political events that remain essentially undetermined and thus productive. At the same time, their picturing of past events remains postrepresentative, which implies that it inscribes an aesthetic distance into the very narration of history. Chto Delat?’s realism thus remains ambivalent, it marks representation as ultimately contingent, suspending the division between representation and what is represented, bringing representation to present itself. This ultimately allows for a more indirect political reading of their work. Chto Delat? would indeed “refrain from seeking the true image”18 but offer nonobjectifying images of history. There is no relativist stance in this but an actual politics of art today. Hence realism in Chto Delat? makes us conscious of what images do. They are not disclosing historical reality as such but make us conscious of the constructed character of all historical representations – and thus their changeability: not through the interventions of art, but through political action beyond the realm of aesthetic representation.

|| 17 Sheikh, Simon, “What remains? – Chto Delat?, Post-Communism and Art”, 64. 18 Rebentisch, “Realism Today”, 256.

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Fig. 97: Viktor Popkov, The Builders of Bratsk, 1960, oil on canvas, 183 x 302 cm, State Tretyakov Gallery. © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019.

Fig. 98: Chto Delat?, Builders, 2005, colour video with sound, 8:14 min., video still. Courtesy the artists and KOW Berlin.

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Fig. 99: Chto Delat?, Perestroika Timeline, 2009, acrylic paint on wall, variable dimensions. Courtesy the artists and KOW Berlin.

Philipp Ohnesorge, Philipp Pabst, Hannah Zipfel

Whither Realism? New Sincerity – Realismus der Gegenwart Der Beitrag untersucht ein gegenwärtiges literarisches Phänomen, die New Sincerity und ihre Tendenz zu realistischen Textverfahren. Mit der neuen Aufrichtigkeit oder Ernsthaftigkeit werden in den Feuilletons1 und in der scientific community2 vor allem US-amerikanische Autor*innen in Verbindung gebracht; allen voran David Foster Wallace sowie die Alternative Literature oder kurz altlit mit Vertreter*innen wie Tao Lin, Marie Calloway, Megan Boyle, Mira Gonzalez, Steve Roggenbuck oder Spencer Madsen. Diese Autor*innen sind in der digitalen Kultur sozialisiert und machen dies zur Grundlage ihrer Texte, sowohl in thematischer und formaler als auch in technisch-produktionsästhetischer Hinsicht. Der Großteil der alt-lit-Publikationen entsteht im Internet, auf Blogs, in Kolumnen und Foren, wird dort zirkuliert und in der Regel erst danach in Buchform veröffentlicht.3 Ein Beispiel aus diesem Bereich, der Prosatext Taipei (2013) des US-Amerikaners Tao Lin,4 steht im Fokus der folgenden Überlegungen. Innerhalb der literatur- und kulturwissenschaftlichen Diskussion befindet sich die New Sincerity im Umfeld einer Reihe von Begriffen, die ein Ende der oder zumindest eine signifikante Gegenkategorie zur Postmoderne anzeigen

|| 1 Vgl. etwa Hugendick, David, „Das literarische Selfie“, in: Die Zeit 3, (14.01.2016), https://www.zeit.de/2016/03/new-sincerity-literatur-trend-usa-traurigkeit (Stand: 21.05.2019); Thumfart, Johannes, „Und jetzt mal ehrlich. Das Kulturphänomen ,New Sincerity‘“, in: Taz. Die Tageszeitung (27.04.2013), http://www.taz.de/!5068657/ (Stand: 21.05.2019). 2 Vgl. etwa Kelly, Adam, „David Foster Wallace and the New Sincerity in American Fiction“, in: David Hering (Hrsg.), Consider David Foster Wallace. Critical Essays, Los Angeles, Austin 2010, 131–146; Williams, Iain, „(New) Sincerity in David Foster Wallaces ,Octet‘“, in: Critique. Studies in Contemporary Fiction, 56, 2015, Nr. 3, 299–314. Zudem fand vom 24.-26.01.2019 an der Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena eine Tagung mit dem Titel New Sincerity. Self-Expression in North American Culture statt. 3 Ein prägnantes Beispiel für diese Publikationspraxis ist Marie Calloways Prosatext „adrien brody (age 21)“, der zunächst auf der von Tao Lin betriebenen Website muumuuhouse.com veröffentlicht wurde und dann Eingang Calloways in ersten Erzählungsband gefunden hat. Vgl. Calloway, Marie, ADRIEN BRODY, o.J., http://muumuuhouse.com/mc.fiction1.html (Stand: 21.05.2019); Calloway, Marie, „adrien brody (age 21)“, in: Dies., what purpose did i serve in your life?, New York 2013, 85–139. 4 Lin, Tao, Taipei. A novel, New York 2013. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-039

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sollen. Post-Postmoderne, Metamoderne, Postironie, Digimoderne oder Altermodernismus lauten einige der mitunter sperrigen Termini der letzten Jahre.5 Das Infragestellen von Postmodernekonzepten beziehungsweise die Proklamation der Überwindung dieser Konzepte gehören zu den Topoi des geisteswissenschaftlichen Diskurses. Der Postmoderne den Totenschein auszustellen oder die Operabilität des Begriffs anzuzweifeln, ist nicht das Vorhaben dieses Beitrags. Bei allem terminologischen Dissens in der Sache ist Folgendes unstrittig: Der Begriff Postmoderne wird in aller Regel genutzt, nicht um eine Überwindung der Moderne anzuzeigen, sondern, wie Wolfgang Welsch pointiert erläutert, um eine Transformation der Moderne zu bezeichnen6 –, die wiederum in den vergangenen circa 20 Jahren weitere Transformationen erfahren hat, wie man ergänzen kann. Während man mit der literarischen Postmoderne Schlagbegriffe und Phänomene wie Spiel, Ironie, Pluralität, anti-realistische Unverständlichkeit und Ent-Automatisierung, eine Schwächung des Subjekts sowie einen Primat der Signifikanten verbindet – kurz: eine Absage an Verbindlichkeiten, Metanarrationen, Ganzheit, abendländische Subjektvorstellungen und schwere Zeichenbedeutungen –, beobachten Kommentator*innen des frühen 21. Jahrhunderts eine Rückkehr ebenjener Aspekte, die als Kontrastphänomene des Postmodernen gehandelt werden. So untersucht ein komparatistischer Sammelband von 2015 das Einheitsdenken. Figuren von Ganzheit, Präsenz und Transzendenz nach der

|| 5 Vgl. Bohrer, Karlheinz/Scheel, Kurt (Hrsg.), Merkur. Deutsche Zeitschrift für europäisches Denken. Sonderheft: Postmoderne. Eine Bilanz, 594/595, 1998, Nr. 9/10; Kirby, Alan, „Endgames: Some Versions of the Passing of Postmodernism“, in: Germanistik in Ireland 6, 2011. Special Issue: After Postmodernism/Nach der Postmoderne, [MagShamráin, Rachel/Strümper Krobb, Sabine (Hrsg.)], 11–23; Timmer, Nicole, Do you feel it too? The post-postmodern syndrome in American fiction at the turn of the millennium, Amsterdam 2010; Vermeulen, Timotheus/Aker, Robin van den, „Notes on metamodernism“, in: Journal of Aesthetics and Culture, 2, 2010, Nr. 1, nicht paginiert; Hoffman, Lukas, Postirony. The Nonfictional Literature of David Foster Wallace and Dave Eggers, Bielefeld 2016. 6 Der Begriff Postmoderne „scheint einen Epochenanspruch auszudrücken, aber damit übernimmt er sich“. Er suggeriert, „daß die Moderne vorbei sei und Antimodernes künftig, die Tagesordnung bestimmen werde. Genau das aber ist grundfalsch, denn die Postmoderne transformiert zwar die Moderne, aber sie beendet sie nicht und verkehrt sie nicht in eine Antimoderne.“ Welsch, Wolfgang, Unsere postmoderne Moderne, Berlin 72008, 1 und 10. Vgl. im Anschluss an Welsch: Petersdorff, Dirk von, „Postmoderne. Bezeichnung eines Transformationsprozesses innerhalb der ästhetischen Moderne“, in: Norber Bachleitner et al. (Hrsg.), Internationales Archiv für Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur, Berlin, Boston 2012, 129–134. Vgl. ferner: Wittstock, Uwe, „Einleitung“, in: Ders. (Hrsg.), Postmoderne in der deutschen Literatur. Lockerungsübungen aus fünfzig Jahren, Göttingen 2015, 10–18, 10.

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Postmoderne.7 Eine Monografie aus dem gleichen Jahr thematisiert den Autor in seinem Text und liest die Rückkehr zum Autorsubjekt, zur Ich-Erzählung bei gleichzeitiger Problematisierung des Ich-Modus in autofiktionalen Texten von David Wagner, Thomas Glavinic oder Rafael Horzon als „(post-)postmodernes Phänomen“.8 Auch die Texte der New Sincerity zeichnen sich durch eine markierte Hinwendung zur literarischen Subjektivität aus. Wieder und wieder stehen Autor*innenfiguren im Zentrum, die meist im apathischen Tonfall über ihre eigenen Gemütslagen informieren (auch wenn die Namensgleichheit von Autor*in und Erzähler*in nicht obligatorisch ist). DIE ZEIT schreibt treffend vom „roboterhaften Bekenntniston“ und vom „Exhibitionismus der eigenen Traurigkeit“, der die Prosa Tao Lins und Marie Calloways präge.9 Dabei fällt vor allem auf, dass die Texte der New Sincerity in einer spezifischen Weise realistisch verfasst sind. Es gilt also, nach dem Status literarischer Realismen unter postmodernen respektive nach-postmodernen Bedingungen zu fragen. Oder anders formuliert: Whither Realism?10 Gewiss teilt die hier gemeinte Ausprägung des Begriffs wenig mit dem europäischen, literarischen Realismus des 19. Jahrhunderts, wie ihn der Strukturalismus nach Roman Jakobson begreift.11 Allerdings verfahren die Texte der New Sincerity weitgehend metonymisch, nur vereinzelt metaphorisch. Die automatisierte Lektüre wird nicht etwa durch kühnen Metaphernreichtum wie in der emphatischen Moderne verunmöglicht,12 sondern in Tao Lins Taipei durch bis zur Monotonie geratene Wiederholungen der Narration erschwert. Kurz: es wird

|| 7 Vgl. Hron, Irina, „,Glaube, Einheit, Liebe‘. Zur Einführung ins Einheitsdenken nach der Postmoderne“, in: Dies. (Hrsg.), Einheitsdenken. Figuren von Ganzheit, Präsenz und Transzendenz nach der Postmoderne, Nordhausen 2015, 9–26. Vgl. in diesem Zusammenhang auch Holland, Mary K., Succeeding Postmodernism. Language and Humanism in Contemporary American Literature, London, New York 2013. 8 Vgl. Krumrey, Birgitta, Der Autor in seinem Text. Autofiktion in der deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur als (post-)postmodernes Phänomen, Göttingen 2015. 9 Hugendick, „Das literarische Selfie“, 2016. 10 Die Frage, die damit formuliert wird, spielt in ihrer Wendung auf den Titel der im April 1993 stattfindenden Tagung „Whither Marxism?“ an, auf der Jacques Derrida einen Vortrag hält, der die Homophonie von ‚whither‘ (wohin) und ‚to wither‘ (verdorren) zum Zeitpunkt des Zusammenbruchs eines historischen Sozialismus behauptet. Vgl. Derrida, Jacques, Marx’ Gespenster. Der Staat der Schuld, die Trauerarbeit und die neue Internationale [1993], Frankfurt 2014. 11 Vgl. Jakobson, Roman, „Zwei Seiten der Sprache und zwei Typen aphatischer Störungen“, in: Ders., Aufsätze zur Linguistik und Poetik, Frankfurt u.a. 1979, 117–141. 12 Vgl. dazu etwa Baßler, Moritz, Deutsche Erzählprosa 1850 – 1950. Eine Geschichte literarischer Verfahren, Berlin 2015, 9–30, bes. 22–25.

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nicht mehr im traditionellen, realistischen Sinne erzählt – und von poetisierenden Konzepten wie der Verklärung, die bei Autoren des deutschen Poetischen Realismus wie Storm oder Keller zu finden sind, fehlt in Texten der neuen Aufrichtigkeit ebenfalls jede Spur. Die Texte der New Sincerity verfolgen einen Realismus, der durch zwei Komponenten gekennzeichnet ist. Erstens richtet er sich – ganz im Sinne des mimesis-Gedankens13 – auf eine adäquate Abbildung der außertextuellen Wirklichkeit im Medium der Literatur. Zweitens zielt er darauf, das Gewohnte ungewohnt zu machen. Das ist ein verblüffender Aspekt, der Roland Barthes’ ideologiekritisches Verdikt aus Die Lust am Text (1973) gewissermaßen umkehrt: „Ekel stellt sich ein, wenn die Verbindung zweier wichtiger Wörter sich von selbst versteht.“14 Gerade die Wiederkehr des immer Gleichen und die Gemeinplätze des Realismus, die, so Barthes, ein „Erbrechen des Stereotypen“ zur Folge haben,15 werden in den Texten der New Sincerity zur Grundlage von Verfremdungseffekten, also zu ästhetischen Kennzeichen, die man traditionellerweise mit der Literatur der Moderne verbindet.16

David Foster Wallaces Forderung nach einem neuen Realismus „And make no mistake: irony tyrannizes us“.17 So dramatisch ist der Befund, den David Foster Wallace formuliert, als er in seinem 1993 veröffentlichten Aufsatz „E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction“ versucht, das Bild gegenwärtiger Kulturproduktion und -rezeption der 1990er Jahre zu zeichnen. Dabei bemüht er vor allem dunkle Schattierungen: Leitmedium sei längst das Fernsehen, das sich das stilistische Instrumentarium der Postmoderne angeeignet hat

|| 13 Vgl. Auerbach, Erich, Dargestellte Wirklichkeit in der abendländischen Literatur, Tübingen 9 1994. 14 Barthes, Roland, Die Lust am Text, Frankfurt 1974, 64. 15 Barthes, Roland, S/Z, Frankfurt 1987, 101. 16 Vgl. den formalistischen locus classicus dieser Diskussion: Šklovskij, Viktor, „Die Kunst als Verfahren“, in: Jurij Striedter (Hrsg.), Russischer Formalismus. Texte zur allgemeinen Literaturtheorie und zur Theorie der Prosa, München 51994, 4–33. Vgl. zudem überblicksartig: Günther, Hans, „Verfremdung“, in: Jan-Dirk Müller (Hrsg.), Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft, Berlin, New York 2007, 753–755. 17 Wallace, David Foster, „E Unibus Pluram. Television and U.S. Fiction“, in: Review of Contemporary Fiction, 13, 1993, Nr. 2, 151–194, 183.

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– immerhin sechs Stunden am Tag verbringen durchschnittliche USAmerikaner*innen mit dem Konsum eines TV-Programms, in dem sich selbstironische Sitcoms, metareflexive Werbespots und zynische Late-NightTalkmaster abwechseln. Von hier ist dann auch die eingangs zitierte Dämonisierung der Ironie nicht mehr weit, die Wallace – ob in solchem Ausmaß von ihm intendiert oder nicht – zum Bannerträger befördern sollte; im Kampf gegen die allzu zynisch-beliebigen Kontingenzen einer Postmoderne nach einem vermeintlichen Tod der Lyotard’schen Metanarrative und für eine wie auch immer aussehende neue Aufrichtigkeit.18 Letztere ist es dann schließlich, die als New Sincerity 2010 vom britischen Literaturwissenschaftler Adam Kelly diskursiv gemacht wird als eine über die Aporien der Postmoderne informierte Neuaushandlung realer Bedingungen und Probleme sozialer Subjektivität und Intersubjektivität. An dieser Stelle soll jedoch dafür argumentiert werden, dass das, was als New Sincerity firmiert und bislang primär als Abwehrreaktion gegen die Postmoderne in Anschlag gebracht wird, anders betrachtet durchaus produktiv gemacht werden kann: als Aushandlung der Bedingungen realistischen Erzählens in der Gegenwart. Also einen Schritt zurück: Wenn Wallace in seinem Aufsatz das Fernsehen in den Fokus nimmt, so ist sein Interesse eines an der Produktion von literarischen Texten und diese sind, so legen seine Äußerungen nahe, vornehmlich realistisch-abbildender Machart. Autor*innen fiktionaler Texte seien mittlerweile „born oglers” [=geborene Gaffer]. They tend to lurk and to stare. They are born watchers. They are viewers. They are the ones on the subway about whose nonchalant stare there is something creepy, somehow. Almost predatory. This is because human situations are writers’ food. Fiction writers watch other humans sort of the way gapers slow down for car wrecks: they covet a vision of themselves as witnesses.19

Die Produktion fiktionaler Texte wird so zu einem Akt des Bezeugens der Wirklichkeit dieser human situations, die in Repräsentation transferiert wird. Konzentriert sich Wallace in „E Unibus Pluram“ nun auf das Fernsehen, ist die durchaus provokante These, dass Wirklichkeit vornehmlich (nämlich sechs

|| 18 So wird auch Simon Strauß Roman Sieben Nächte (2017) in einem Beitrag des Deutschlandfunks mit Wallaces Essay in Verbindung gebracht. Vgl. Drees, Jan, „Die Herzergießungen eines Kunstliebenden. Debüt von Simon Strauß“, 2017, https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/debuetvon-simon-strauss-die-herzergiessungen-eines.700.de.html?dram:article_id=392558 (Stand 21.05.2019). 19 Wallace, „E Unibus Pluram“, 151.

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Stunden am Tag) vermittelt ist und erst hier bezeugbar wird. Der eingangs erwähnte Abbildungsrealismus steht vor dem Problem, dass das, was er abzubilden versucht, in der Postmoderne längst problematisch geworden ist, als Baudrillard’sches Simulacrum ein reines Konstrukt.20 Die (konstruierte) Wirklichkeit, die hier (re-)präsentiert wird, weiß natürlich bereits um ihre Sichtbarkeit: For 360 minutes per diem, we receive unconscious reinforcement of the deep thesis that the most significant feature of truly alive persons is watchableness, and that genuine human worth is not just identical with but rooted in the phenomenon of watching.21

Die Verschränkung von Wirklichkeit (to be „truly alive“) und Sichtbarkeit bzw. Attraktivität als watchableness fungiert so einerseits als Beglaubigung einer als Wirklichkeit präsentierten Konstruktion, andererseits als Immunisierungsstrategie gegen Kritikversuche ähnlich der in „E Unibus Pluram“ detailliert beschriebenen Selbstironisierungstaktiken, die eigene Aporien (wie zum Beispiel in der Werbung) selbstreferenziell offenlegen, bevor sie zum Kritikgegenstand werden.22 Wallace beschreibt so in erster Linie ein kulturell-existentielles Setting, das die Vermittlung zwischen Wirklichkeit als watchableness und Repräsentation und somit die Möglichkeit eines Abbildungsrealismus problematisiert. Bewegt er sich noch in einer Prä-Internet-Ära, ist zu vermuten, dass sich, z. B. in den Texten von Lin, die Lage noch einmal verkompliziert: In einer Welt des Internets, digitaler Kommunikationsmedien und sozialer Netzwerke wird der Bereich der Wirklichkeit (noch) verschwommener und komplizierter, breiter und durch|| 20 Der Begriff des Simulacrums in Jean Baudrillards Verwendung von Simulacres et Simulation (1981) problematisiert gerade die Abhängigkeit des Zeichens von einer außerweltlichen Realität, die abgebildet werden soll. Dies zeichnet etwa Falko Blask konzise nach: „Die Repräsentation wird jetzt vollständig verschlungen von Modellen und Codes, die selbst wiederum nur Gegenstände zufälliger Kombinationen und Permutationen sind. Alles ist Teil der Simulationen. Differenzen verschwinden, Negationen werden integriert. Das Ergebnis dieser Diagnose ist letztlich ein sich selbst produzierendes und selbstbezügliches System, in dem soziale Kontrolle derart funktioniert, dass a priori kein Außen mehr möglich ist, dass alle Wahl- und Antwortmöglichkeiten der sozialen Subjekte immer schon vorgegeben sind.“ Blask, Falko, Jean Baudrillard zur Einführung, Hamburg 2013, 34. 21 Wallace, „E Unibus Pluram“, 155. 22 Vgl. Wallace, „E Unibus Pluram“, 165: „The commercials for Alf’s Boston debut in syndicated package feature the fat, cynical, gloriously decadent puppet (so much like Snoopy, like Garfield, like Bart) advising me to ‚Eat a whole lot of food and stare at the TV!‘ His pitch is an ironic permission slip to what I do best whenever I feel confused and guilty: assume, inside, a sort of fetal position; a pose of passive reception to escape, comfort, reassurance. The cycle is self-nourishing.“

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lässiger, irrealer und uns fremder. Wenn mimesis oder Repräsentation einer Wirklichkeit herkömmlicherweise Anliegen realistischer Erzählverfahren sind, so muss neu ausgehandelt werden, was überhaupt zu diesem Bereich gehört.23 Die New Sincerity, ließe sich argumentieren, öffnet sich dieser Problematik, anstatt im Modus anderer (populärer) realistischer Verfahren wie etwa der Fantasy-Literatur24 Welten mit klar abgesteckten Grenzen zu präsentieren: Im emphatisch realistischen Modus soll stattdessen eine Realität abgebildet werden, die mitsamt ihren Aporien, Undurchschaubarkeiten, Simulationsschichten und Bedingungen subjektiv erfahren wird. Die Aufgabe realistischer Erzählverfahren hat sich Wallace zufolge in der Postmoderne also radikal verschoben: Realism made the strange familiar. Today, when we can eat Tex-Mex with chopsticks while listening to reggae and watching a Soviet-satellite newscast of the Berlin Wall’s fall – i.e., when darn near everything presents itself as familiar – it’s not a surprise that some of today’s most ambitious „realistic“ fiction is going about trying to make the familiar strange.25

In einer chiastischen Bewegung das Bekannte befremdlich machen – eine Möglichkeit, dies zu tun, ist nun eben die New Sincerity, wie sie Adam Kelly entwirft. Eben nicht als eine Literatur, die als ein neuerlicher Eintritt für echte Werte oder das Wiederbeleben für tot gehaltener Metanarrative zu verstehen ist, || 23 Susanne Knaller konstatiert bereits für französische Realismen des 19. Jahrhunderts, dass diese „sich mehr oder weniger von klassizistischen, romantischen und Mimesis-Poetiken ab[setzen], die, basierend auf einem metaphysisch gespeisten Naturkonzept, Kunst als Transzendenz- oder als transzendentales Erkenntnismedium begreifen. Realismus, wie er in Frankreich entworfen wird, ist also anti-mimetisch, anti-akademisch, anti-ständisch, antiaristokratisch.“ Spätestens mit den programmatischen Überlegungen zum nouveau roman durch Alain Robbe-Grillet lassen sich, so Knaller, mimetische Konzeptionen eines Abbildungsrealismus nicht mehr vereinbaren: „Die neuen Realismen [des 20. Jahrhunderts] […] bedeuten […] das Ende eines ‚naiven‘ Realismusbegriffs.“ Knaller, Susanne, Die Realität der Kunst. Programme und Theorien zu Literatur, Kunst und Fotografie seit 1700, Paderborn 2015, 80 und 140. 24 Moritz Baßler weist auf eine gegenwärtige Konjunktur realistischer Textverfahren in der Fantasy-Literatur hin. Demnach muss somit gerade die binnenfiktionale Wirklichkeit der Fantasy-Diegese realistisch und kohärent erzählt sein, da „nur über die allerstabilsten Frames und Codes [...] die fantastischen Dinge als solche lesbar und damit zu den Regeln einer roman- oder genrespezifischen neuen Wirklichkeit [würden].“ Dementsprechend hat fantastische Literatur, so die These, „die Moderne, wenngleich im Trivialen, sozusagen als ganz besonders lesbare, als übervolle Literatur unbeschadet überdauert und bilde[t] geradezu [das] Muster für einen populären Realismus.“ Baßler, Moritz, „Realismus – Serialität – Fantastik“, in: Silke Horstkotte/Leonard Herrmann (Hrsg.), Poetiken der Gegenwart. Deutschsprachige Romane nach 2000, Berlin, Boston 2013, 31–46, 35. 25 Wallace, „E Unibus Pluram“, 172.

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sondern die das Bekannte einer Gegenwart befremdlich macht, deren Oberflächen und Simulacren derart bekannt anmuten, dass sich die oben thematisierte ironische Haltung dieser Welt gegenüber von selbst versteht. Wallaces Argumentation kulminiert in der Forderung nach einem „fictional access behind lenses and screens and headlines and reimagining what human life might truly be like over there across the chasms of illusion, mediation, demographics, marketing, imago, and appearance“.26 Erst hierin erschöpft sich die realistische Darstellung, die das Bekannte befremdlich macht. So soll eben keine authentische Wirklichkeit wiederhergestellt werden, die unter der Oberfläche schlummert, sondern ein aufrichtiger darstellerischer Umgang mit den Aporien der Vermittlung gefunden werden. Adam Kelly macht dazu eben diesen Unterschied von sincerity und authenticity fruchtbar. Während authenticity „truth to the self“ als Zweck an sich begreife, sei für sincerity „truth to the self“ ein Mittel zum Zweck, andere davon zu überzeugen, dass man wahrhaftig spricht27 oder: um die Schwierigkeit, sich über Wirklichkeit zu verständigen, weiß, und diese Schwierigkeit zum Gegenstand macht. Vor diesem Hintergrund lässt sich auch die oft einseitig in den Mittelpunkt der Überlegungen von „E Unibus Pluram“ gestellte Kritik an der Postmoderne näher einordnen: Wahrhaftig sprechen besteht, so die These, nämlich auch darin, nicht nur Modi der Vermittlung zu thematisieren, sondern im selben Moment ebenso nicht hinter die Errungenschaften postmoderner Kritik zurückzufallen: „For Wallace, any return to sincerity must be informed by a study of postmodernist fiction, in order to properly take into account the effects wrought by contemporary media, particularly TV and advertising.“28 Eine Rückkehr zur Aufrichtigkeit findet nun insofern statt, als dass sie über die Aporien realistischer Darstellung in der Postmoderne informiert. Eine Aktualisierung dieser Perspektiven lässt sich im Folgenden am Beispiel des Romans Taipei von Tao Lin entwickeln.

Pathologischer Realismus Anders als wir es etwa von postmoderner Literatur erwarten würden, finden sich in Taipei keine Metaisierungen, Polyphonien oder rhizomartigen Strukturen, die Denaturalisierungseffekte bei der Lektüre und damit einen Verweis auf

|| 26 Wallace, „E Unibus Pluram“, 173. 27 Kelly, „New Sincerity“, 132. 28 Kelly, „New Sincerity“, 134.

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die Zeichenebene des Textes erzielen würden. Vielmehr entfaltet sich die Diegese mittels realistischer Verfahrensweise, wie bereits der Beginn des Romans deutlich macht: „It began raining a little from a hazy, cloudless-seeming sky as Paul, 26, and Michelle, 21, walked toward Chelsea to attend a magazine-release party in an art gallery“.29 Die Handlung des autofiktionalen Textes, die hauptsächlich in New York stattfindet und nicht in der titelgebenden asiatischen Megacity, in der die Eltern des Protagonisten leben, folgt hierbei dem jungen Schriftsteller Paul durch die Ödnis eines monotonen Hipster-Milieu-Alltags. Eine kritische Distanz zu der abgebildeten „Texture of the world we live in“30, der außertextuellen Wirklichkeit, die auch mit der Romanhandlung in Kontiguitätsbeziehung steht, stellt sich in Taipei dabei durch eine Wiederkehr des Immergleichen ein, die ein bestimmendes formales Prinzip darzustellen scheint. So setzt sich das Syntagma des Textes aus der minimalistischen Variation einiger weniger Paradigmen wie Lesereisen, Drogen- und Superfoodkonsum zusammen, die zum Standard-Repertoire des eingangs erwähnten und relativ jungen literarischen Phänomens der alt-lit gezählt werden können. Für Entfremdungserscheinungen sorgt jedoch vor allem die minimale Referenz eines realistischen Verfahrens, das den unterdeterminierten Text am Rande der Abstraktion operieren lässt. Trotz realistischer Verfahrensweise werden in Taipei etwa kaum detaillierte Handlungssettings vermittelt. Von den nummerierten Straßenzügen New Yorks bis hin zu einer McDonalds-Filiale, in der sich die Protagonist*innen in der Stadt Taipei aufhalten, wirken Orte und Personen austauschbar, und generell scheint weniger das Spezifische als das Allgemeine, Quantifizierbare im Fokus der literarischen Darstellung zu stehen: Auffällige Häufungen von Zahlenangaben in der Diegese und die merkwürdig schablonenhafte Darstellung der Charaktere kulminieren in Taipei dabei in einer Art literarischem Normcore, dessen protokollarische Erzählweise an die Ästhetik von Blogs erinnert. Neben diversen Realitätseffekten der autofiktionalen Erzählung lässt sich zudem durch Referenzen auf Videomaterial aus einem weiteren Projekt Lins, der Produktionsfirma MDMAfilms, eine Hinwendung zum Dokumentarisch-Realistischen erkennen: Im Rahmen von Selbstexperimenten filmen sich der Autor und seine Kollegin Megan Boyle mit dem Mac Book als standardisierte Verlängerung des globalen Kapitalismus bei diversen Aktivitäten nach dem Konsum der gleichnamigen Partydroge. Im Text Taipei spiegeln sich abgesehen von MDMA auch Amphetamine und Benzodiapemine wie Adderall oder

|| 29 Lin, Taipei, 3. 30 Miller, Laura, David Foster Wallace, The last Interview and other Conversations, New York, London 1996, 9.

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Xanax in einem weitestgehend unemphatischen, gefrorenen Sprechblasenstil wider, in dem ein egalitärer Erzählmodus Höhen und Tiefen aus dem Gefühlshaushalt seiner Protagonist*innen entfernt zu haben scheint. Der permanente Drogenkonsum erfolgt dabei weniger affirmativ als in einem latent depressiven Modus und kann als Symptom der vielfach diagnostizierten Müdigkeitsgesellschaft gelesen werden, in der soziale Ängste durch künstlich induzierte Gefühlswelten getilgt werden sollen.31 Eine so erzeugte hazy, also leicht vernebelte Grundstimmung, die zwischen angenehmer Unaufgeregtheit – bei MDMA sogar kurzzeitigen Euphorieschüben – und depressiver Verstimmung oszilliert, stellt sich ebenfalls auf Rezeptionsseite ein. Die Diegese, die Taipei mittels literarischrealistischer Verfahren in die Köpfe der Leser*innen projiziert, erscheint paradoxerweise so alltäglich wie irreal und damit ebenso diesig wie die im Romananfang beschriebene Wetterlage. Vagheit durchzieht dabei nicht nur die Gefühlslage der indifferenten Charaktere, sondern ist auch paradigmatisch für das Sinnangebot des Textes zu lesen. Meist drogeninduzierte Transzendenzmomente des Protagonisten rufen mit dem Universum etwa bereits im zweiten Satz des Romans ein vorbelastetes, romantisch-indefinites Zeichen auf: „Paul had resigned to not speaking and was beginning to feel more like he was ,moving through the universe‘ than walking on a sidewalk“.32 Ob der Text hier lediglich eine Stonerfantasie abbilden oder eine Sinnsuche in engagierterer Form artikulieren will, welche die in der Postmoderne verabschiedeten Metanarrative neu verhandeln soll, bleibt offen. In loser Assoziation zu gesellschaftlichen Atomisierungserscheinungen fügt sich das Universum jedenfalls nahtlos ein in das Moodboard des Romans, das neue Affekte33 im Zeitalter digitaler Entfremdung versammelt. So muss auch ein Abbildungsrealismus in Taipei vor dem Hintergrund eines anderen Mediendispositivs als in Wallaces kritischen Ausführungen über die

|| 31 Han, Byung-Chul, Müdigkeitsgesellschaft, Berlin 2012. 32 Lin, Taipei, 3. 33 Laut Fredric Jameson repräsentiert der Affekt als „technical if not clinical term“ einen postmodernen Zeitenwandel, der sich zudem mit der Vorstellung eines geschichtslosen, phänomenologisch erfahrenden Körpers verbindet und damit die biografisch entwickelte Subjektivität eines Individuums ablöst: „I believe that the contemporary or postmodern ,perpetual present‘ is better characterized as a ,reduction to the body‘ inasmuch as the body is all that remains in any tendential reduction of experience to the present as such. [...] Rather, the isolated body begins to know more global waves of generalized sensations, and it is these which, for want of a better word, I will here call affect.“ Jameson, Fredric, The Antinomies of Realism, London, New York 2013, 28. Vgl. zur weiteren Lektüre: Flatley, Jonathan, Affective Mapping, Cambridge 2008 und Ngai, Sianne, Ugly Feelings, Cambridge 2005.

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TV-Culture gelesen werden, da der Blick der Protagonist*innen auf Welt und Wirklichkeit hier durch den Mac-Book-Bildschirm gerahmt erfolgt. Paradigmatisch für daraus resultierende digitale Entfremdungszustände erscheint der Wandel der Personaldeixis You in Youtube– ein You, das weniger ein Gegenüber zu adressieren als vielmehr – und allen postmodernen Versprechungen der potenziell unendlichen Vernetzungsmöglichkeiten und Kommunikationskanälen des World Wide Web zum Trotz – auf ein I zurück zu spiegeln scheint: Most mornings, with decreasing frequency, probably only because the process was becoming unconscious, he wouldn’t exactly know anything until three to twenty seconds of passive remembering, as if by unzipping a file – newroom.zip – into a PDF, showing his recent history and narrative context, which he’d delete after viewing, thinking that before he slept again he would have memorized this period of his life, but would keep newroom.zip, apparently not trusting himself.34

Ein verwaschener Erinnerungsprozess, der Assoziationen zu der digitalen Dekadenz des Bit Rot weckt, bildet hier nicht nur eine Wahrnehmungs- sondern auch eine dissoziative Gefühlstransformation ab, in der die eigenen Emotionen als Simulationen ihrer selbst empfunden werden. Der britische Kulturwissenschaftler Mark Fisher prägte mit Capitalist Realism bereits den Begriff eines Realismus, der Wirklichkeit nicht nur mimetisch abbildet, sondern die Effekte der ökonomisch-gesellschaftlichen Verhältnisse auf den Gemütszustand des Individuums in den Fokus stellt.35 Historisch im England der 1980er Jahre verortet, wird der Slogan der britischen Premierministerin Margaret Thatcher, „There is no Alternative“, der Gentrifizierungsprozesse und die Zerschlagung der Gewerkschaften rechtfertigte, symptomatisch für einen perspektivlosen Gesellschaftszustand mit fatalen Auswirkungen auf die Psyche gelesen: Unfähig, alternative Gesellschaftsformen zu imaginieren, verabschiedet ein isolierter und depressiver Charakter zentrale Errungenschaften der Moderne wie den Glauben an ein Fortschrittsparadigma oder Utopien. Die parenthesenlastigen, mindfuckartigen Reflexionsschleifen des Protagonisten in Taipei, die im katatonischen Zustand einer psychischen Myse-en-abymeStruktur zu münden scheinen, sind jedoch nicht nur Symptom einer fatalistischen Akzeptanz utopieloser Verhältnisse, die es verunmöglichen, aus der Ge-

|| 34 Lin, Taipei, 35. 35 Fisher, Mark, Capitalist Realism. Is there no Alternative?, Winchester, Washington 2009.

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genwart heraus Zukunft zu denken, sondern können ebenfalls mit der zeitlichen Aporie einer breiten Gegenwart36 der Postmoderne parallel geschaltet werden. Ähnlich wie in Fishers Ansatz verstellt sich hier ein positiv besetztes Konzept von Zukunft, während die Gegenwart selbst als Echokammer gedacht wird, in der nach einer Neujustierung der zeitlichen Achse von Linearität auf Simultaneität sämtliche kulturelle Erzeugnisse lediglich als Images und damit von ihrem ursprünglichen Bedeutungskontext entleerte Zeichen flottieren.37 Neben der Entmaterialisierung des Alltagslebens durch das Ephemere, Digitale bildet auch diese Virtualität der Zeichen ohne historische Tiefendimension das Signum der Wirklichkeitsrepräsentation in Taipei. Hier gelangen wir zum Kern des pathologischen Realismus, der nicht nur das Innenleben der Individuen abbildet, sondern metareflexiv das Erkranken realistischer Verfahren in der Postmoderne verhandelt: Wenn man nicht mehr zur Wirklichkeit selbst, sondern nur noch zu ihrer Simulation durchdringt, bekommt der Realismus folglich ein Darstellungsproblem. Sehnsucht nach Substantialität, Körperlichkeit und Präsenz stellen in Taipei allerdings über weite Strecken keine Reaktion auf diese Aporie dar, vielmehr wird die disconnectedness, eine Verbindungsstörung zum eigenen Umfeld geradezu ausgestellt (und zwar auch jenseits der social networks im innerdiegetischen real life). Die Protagonist*innen haben sich trotz ausufernder Gespräche eigentlich wenig zu sagen, reden dabei meist aneinander vorbei oder vergessen (wohl aufgrund ihres Drogenkonsums oder als Allegorie auf schwindende zeitliche Marker der Postmoderne), was sie noch vor wenigen Sekunden gefragt

|| 36 Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich, „Die Postmoderne ist (eher) keine Epoche“, in: Ders./Robert Weimann (Hrsg.), Postmoderne – globale Differenz, Frankfurt 1992, 366–369. 37 Die synchrone Repräsentation dieser Zeichen aus unterschiedlichen zeitlichen Kontexten mündet laut Jameson in einer „new depthlessness“ der Kultur- und Theorielandschaft, deren Tendenz zur Oberfläche durchaus metaphorisch zu lesen ist. So kritisiert Jameson die Verabschiedung eines linearen Geschichtsmodells, da die einst mit Bedeutung versehenen Zeichen aufgrund ihrer Referenzlosigkeit nicht mehr historisch-kritisch eingeordnet würden. Obgleich visuelle Medien in der Postmoderne laut Jameson stark in den Vordergrund treten, muss sich dieses Prinzip dabei nicht zwangsläufig in Bildmedien widerspiegeln. Simon Reynolds und Mark Fisher verschalten in ihren Ausführungen über Retrotrends und Hauntology in der PopMusik etwa das Anschwellen digitaler Online-Musik-Archive wie Youtube in ähnlicher Weise mit einer zeitlichen Aporie: Der potentiell synchrone Zugriff auf sämtliche diachrone Ären der Musikgeschichte bringe einen Wahrnehmungsmodus hervor, dem die Fähigkeit zur Historizität abhanden gekommen sei. Vgl. Jameson, Fredric, Postmodernism, Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Durham 1991, 6; Fisher, Mark, Ghosts of my Life. Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures, Winchester, Washington 2014; Reynolds, Simon, Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to its Own Past, London 2012.

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haben. Und kommt trotz alledem doch Intimität zustande, wird diese in der Reflexionsspirale recht bald wieder aus der Distanz umkreist. So etwa, wenn während eines Abendessens die eigenen Emotionen wahrgenommen und als romantische Gefühle in einer Markt- und Mediengesellschaft immer schon als vermittelt und zudem vorformatiert charakterisierbar werden: Paul instantly felt a sheen of wetness to his now ,horizontally seeking‘, it seemed, eyeballs. In the movie of his life, he knew, now would be the moment – like when a character quotes Coleridge in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as the screen shows blurry, colorful, festive images of people outside at night – to feel that the world was ,beautiful and sad‘, which he felt self-consciously and briefly, exerting effort to focus instead on the conversation, which was producing its own, unmediated emotions.38

Wenn Paul seine Emotionen im Gespräch mit Erin mit der Wirkung eines Films abgleicht, bei dem man fühle, dass die Situation „beautiful and sad“ war, wird über das Vehikel der Künstlichkeit und unter Reflexion von kodierten Emotionen im Spätkapitalismus ein aufrichtiger Gefühlsmoment im innerdiegetischen Hier und Jetzt geschaffen. Längst entleerte Zeichen, wie die zur warenförmigen und kitschbesetzten Konvention geronnene Ästhetikkategorie schön, werden dabei im Modus einer Naivität zweiter Ordnung mit emotionaler Tiefe beladen. Empathie zu ermöglichen, wo nicht zuletzt durch eine digitale Nebelwolke eigentlich nur Apathie herrschen kann, erfolgt hier ganz im Sinne eines Realismus, der die Wiedersprüche der spätkapitalistischen Gesellschaft in sein Projekt mitaufnimmt.

Eine Poetik des Trotzdem Aufgegeben wird das konstitutive Anliegen der New Sincerity keineswegs. Vielmehr befinden sich Texte wie Taipei im Stadium einer tiefgreifenden Problematisierung des eigenen Projekts. An diesem Projekt, zwischenmenschliche Kommunikation zu ermöglichen, halten die Texte der New Sincerity im Modus eines Trotzdem fest. Anders formuliert: Der Kanal ist (noch) nicht frei, doch das Anliegen der Kommunikation mit der Umwelt besteht. Gerade in solch einer Problembeschreibung liegt das neue, aufrichtige Moment der Texte. Die letzten Seiten von Taipei beschreiben einen weiteren Drogentrip Pauls. Doch etwas ist anders. Nach einer Dosis halluzinogener mushrooms fühlt sich

|| 38 Lin, Taipei, 35.

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der Protagonist dem Tod nahe. Dabei reflektiert Pauls Gedankenrede, worin die Motivation seines Schreibens liegt, warum er publiziert. Das alles ist durch verschiedene Markierungen unzuverlässigen Erzählens ins Ungewisse gesetzt: Paul believed again, at some point, that he was in the prolonged seconds before death, in which he had the opportunity to return to life – by discerning some code or pattern of connections in his memory, or remembering some of what had happened with a degree of chronology sufficient to re-enter the shape of his life, or sustaining a certain variety of memories in his consciousness long enough to be noticed as living and relocated accordingly. Lying on his back, on his mattress he uncertainly thought he’d written books to tell people how to reach him, to describe the particular geography of the area of otherworld in which he’d been secluded.39

Anderen erzählen, wie man ihn erreichen kann und damit etwas von sich preisgeben, beschreiben, wie diese Anderswelt gebaut ist, in der er abgesondert war. Das sind die Gedanken zur Beantwortung der Frage, warum Paul schreibt – und welche Funktion schlussendlich der Text übernimmt, dem man auf 250 Seiten in hazy Monotonie folgt. Man könnte annehmen, dass das zynisch gemeint ist oder schlicht eine drogenbasierte Sentimentalität der Figur darstellt. Das Buch wäre dann eingehegt und könnte beiseitegelegt werden. Doch die New Sincerity ist ein vertracktes Projekt. Sie macht gerade an den Stellen aufrichtige Angebote, die zugleich ,Vorsicht, Uneigentlichkeit!‘ rufen. Solche Kontingenzen sind ein gewöhnungsbedürftiges Spezifikum dieser Spielart von Literatur. Bezeichnenderweise folgt auch der letzte Satz des Buches dem skizzierten Aufbau. Paul erfährt abschließend eine überraschende Entlastung: They hugged a little, near the center of the room, then he turned around and moved toward the kitchen – dimly aware of the existence of other places, on earth, where he could go – and was surprised when he heard himself, looking at his feet stepping into black sandals, say that he felt „grateful to be alive.“40

Die Lebensbejahung, geäußert nach einem Moment der Nähe mit der Freundin Erin („They hugged a little“), steht dem apathischen Grundtenor des Buches entgegen. Diese affirmative Wende trägt auffallend floskelhafte Züge: „grateful to be alive“ – das klingt nach vorgeprägten sprachlichen Formen, nach den Auswüchsen der Sprache, die Roland Barthes so leidenschaftlich kritisierte. „Grateful to be alive“. Das kann man als New Yorker Hipster, der über das digi-

|| 39 Lin, Taipei, 246f. 40 Lin, Taipei, 248.

Whither Realism? | 617

tale Leben in der ausgedehnten Postmoderne Bescheid weiß, eigentlich nicht äußern. Und doch tut man es, in Anführungszeichen zwar, aber trotzdem. Wie in Trance, die Bewegung der eigenen Füße beobachtend, schlüpft Paul in die schwarzen Sandalen. Making the familiar strange: Sandalen anziehen, Floskeln von sich geben. Taipei macht aus dem Geläufigen etwas Seltsames. Dazu werden Motive und Verfahren der Moderne und Postmoderne unter den Bedingungen des 21. Jahrhunderts aktualisiert. Drogenerfahrungen, einst einer der topischen Wege zur Erweiterung des Bewusstseins, zur Durchstoßung der Zusammenhänge, sind in Taipei eine Alltäglichkeit und haben über weite Teile des Buches ihre transzendierende Funktion eingebüßt. In den realistischen Modus umzuschalten, ist daher eine naheliegende Konsequenz. Wenn man den Realismus allerdings so traktiert, wie es Tao Lin macht, den Realismus alter Prägung destruiert und aktualisiert, kann ein in die Jahre gekommenes, pathologisch gewordenes Konzept wieder ästhetisches Potential entfalten. Und sei es nur in Anführungszeichen. „‚[G]rateful to be alive‘“. Das ist vielleicht ein Anfang.

List of Contributors Sara Bangert – Universität Tübingen Roann Barris – Radford University Moritz Baßler – Universität Münster Rachel Boate – New York University Émile Bordeleau-Pitre – Université du Québec à Montréal Fae Brauer – University of East London Stephan Brössel – Universität Münster Charis Charalampous – St. Edmund’s College/University of Cambridge Noemi de Haro Garcia – Universidad Autónoma de Madrid Marijan Dović – Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts Victoria Ferentinou – University of Ioannina Meghan Forbes – Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Éva Forgács – Art Center College of Design Pasadena Jasmin Grande – Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf Till Huber – Universität Oldenburg Berit Hummel – Technische Universität Berlin Steen Bille Jørgensen – Aarhus University Klaus H. Kiefer – Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München Chara Kolokytha – Northumbria University Irena Kossowska – Nicolaus Copernicus University Toruń/Polish Institute for World Art Warszawa Sabine Kyora – Universität Oldenburg Helmut Lethen – Kunstuniversität Linz Andrew McNamara – Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Danièle Méaux – Université de Saint-Étienne Burkhard Meltzer – Independent Researcher/Zürcher Hochschule der Künste Justyna Michalik-Tomala – Independent Theatre Scholar Sebastian Mühl – Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt Cristian Nae – George Enescu National University of Arts, Iași Philipp Ohnesorge – Universität Greifswald Philipp Pabst – Universität Münster Mariana Pinto dos Santos – Universidade Nova de Lisboa Paula Ribeiro Lobo – Universidade Nova de Lisboa Christoph Schaub – Universität Vechta Daniel Schneider – Ludwig-Maximilian-Universität München Anna Shvets – Moscow State University Sophia Stang – Universität Jena Thalia Trigoni – University of Cyprus Jindřich Toman – University of Michigan Janka Wagner – Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg Jobst Welge – Universität Leipzig Eva Wiegmann – Universität Duisburg-Essen Hannah Zipfel – Universität Münster

Index Adler, M. A. 58 Adorno, T. W. 520 Affonso, S. 449 Afonso, N. 433–434 Aguilera Cerni, V. 416–417 Aichinger, I. 8 Aillaud, G. 420 Alberti 128 Alcântara Machado, A. de 33, 35 Alexander, G. 473 Almada Negreiros, J. 426, 428–429, 439– 456 Alpers, B. 87–88 Altman, N. 284 Alves, V. 442 Amar, J. 63–64, 67, 69 Amaya, M. 8 Anders, G. 307 Andrade, M. de 29–41 Antal, F. 432 Antliff, M. 448 Apollinaire, G. 386 Aragon, L. 370–372, 376, 378, 380, 382, 384–386, 566, 574 Archipenko, A. 284 Arendt, H. 223, 227, 236–237 Arensberg, L. 56, 64 Arensberg, W. 56–57, 64 Argan, G. 445 Arghir, A. 396 Aristoteles 128, 171 Arnheim, R. 354 Arp, H. 161, 379, 552–553, 555 Arroyo, E. 420 Arvatov, B. 78, 89 Auerbach, E. 519 Azevedo, F. 436 Bachelard, G. 142, 156 Badenberg, N. 113 Badiou, A. 595 Bal, M. 272 Balakian, A. 160 Balázs, B. 504–505

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637533-041

Ball, E. 471 Balzac, H. de 6 Baraduc, H. 44–45, 54 Barndt, K. 495 Barr, A. 160, 379, 382, 389 Barthes, R. 4, 6–9, 117–118, 263, 402, 511–513, 515, 522, 587, 606, 616 Baßler, M. 13–14, 16–19, 22, 27, 116, 498, 609 Bataille, G. 125, 167–168, 171, 173, 176, 464 Baudelaire, C. 432, 568 Baudrillard, J. 608 Bauer, M. 131 Baumeister, W. 388 Beauvoir, S. de 495 Becker, H. 346 Becker, S. 506 Beckmann, M. 561 Becquerel, H. 43 Behrens, P. 585 Belojannis, N. 390 Benjamin, W. 13, 81–82, 88, 102, 124, 128, 155, 226–227, 232, 259, 271, 504–505 Benn, G. 103, 464–465, 468 Bergson, H. 44, 66, 69–70 Berner, R. 93 Besant, A. 45, 47, 57, 67 Besson, G. 371, 380 Bissière, R. 195 Bitzan, I. 395–397, 402, 404 Bizet, G. 51 Blair, E. 365 Blavatsky, H. 46 Bloch, E. 96, 155, 460 Blondlot, R. 50, 67 Blumenfeld, E. 248, 252 Boccioni, U. 426 Böcklin, A. 180, 190, 206, 466 Boden, P. 436 Bogdanov, A. 476 Bogler, F.W. 230 Bohr, N. H. 140

622 | Index

Bohrer, K.-H. 124 Bois, Y.-A. 174 Boltanski, C. 262–264 Boltanski, L.174 Bon, F. 563, 573–574 Borchardt, S. 187 Borchert, W. 554 Borel, H. 501 Borja-Villel, M. 421 Bouček, J. 390 Bouillon, J.-P. 368 Boulogne, V. de 561 Bowness, S. 363 Boyle, M. 603, 611 Boym, S. 313 Bozal, V. 416–417, 423 Braak, M. ter 501, 504–505, 510 Brancusi, C. 426 Braque, G. 3, 5, 92, 96, 102, 109, 381 Brassaï, 462–463 Brauner, V. 388 Brecht, B. 82, 155, 307, 420, 469, 471, 473–474 Bredel, W. 473 Brejc, T. 525, 532 Breton, A. 3, 58, 98, 123–125, 132, 153– 154, 156, 160–163, 198, 378–379, 436 Brigante, L. 343 Brik, L. 325 Broglio, M. 184 Bronner, S. 474 Brooker, P. 167 Brown, B. 512–513 Bru, S. 10 Brudascu, C. 398–404 Brümmer, F. 24 Buchloh, B. 78–79, 265, 582 Buchon, M. 190 Bukharin, N. 286 Burckhardt, C. 465 Cabanne, P. 56 Caen, H. 345 Cage, J. 335 Caillois, R. 125 Calas, N. 153–165

Callenbach, E. 351 Callery, M. 381, 388 Calloway, M. 603, 605 Calvet, C. 438 Calvino, I. 567 Camille, M. 131 Candelaria, M. 147 Cardells, J. 422 Carleton, G. 81 Carmona, O. 436 Carrà, C. 197 Cartier-Bresson, H. 363 Casanova, L. 383–386, 388–389 Cassady, N. und C. 344 Cassavetes, J. 343, 346–347, 355–356, 358 Cassirer, E. 99, 159 Castelfranco, G. 192 Castelli, L. 346 Castello-Lopes, G. 438 Castoriadis, C. 159 Ceausescu, N. 394, 400 Cendrar, B. 317–318 Cesariny, M. 436 Cézanne, P. 377, 385, 389, 430 Chaplin, C. 281, 288, 291, 294–297 Charcot, J.-M. 44, 53, 60 Chiarelli, T. 32 Chillida, E. 408 Chirico, G. de 168–171, 177, 179–193, 195– 208 Clair, J. 52–53, 95 Clark, T. J. 8–9 Clarke, S. 353 Claudín, F. 416 Cocteau, J. 195 Cook, C. 79 Corso, G. 344 Costa Martins, M. 437 Costa Pinto, C. 436 Courbet, G. 3, 56, 179–193, 370, 375, 377, 385, 425, 561–574 Couto, J. 449–450 Crommelynck, F. 83 Crookes, W. 52 Cruzeiro Seixas, A. 436 Csernus, T. 268, 270

Index | 623

Cunhal, A. 429 Curie, M. 43 Curie, P. 43 Dacosta, A. 436 Dalí, S. 139–151, 378–379 Darget, C. 44, 54 Daumier, H. 375, 377 David, J.-L. 375 Davringhausen, H. M. 196 Deburau, J. D. 249 Degas, E. 389 Dehmel, R. 21, 24 Delacroix, E. 182 Delaunay, R. 426, 440 Delaunay, S. 317–318, 426, 440 Delboeuf, J. 60 Deleuze, G. 116 Deligiorgi, A. 159 Denis, L. 56–57, 59 Deren, M. 354, 356–358 Derrida, J. 66, 605 Desnos, R. 170–171, 174 Didi-Huberman, G. 175, 177 Dionísio, M. 432–433, 447, 451–452 Dirac, P. 140 Disney, W., 445 Dix, O. 499 Döblin, A. 7, 173, 466, 488–489, 547–558 Doderer, H. von 466, 471 Doisneau, R. 363 Domingues, A. 436 Draganoiu, I. 403 Drügh, H. 492 Duchamp, Magdeleine 61 Duchamp, Marcel 43–75, 426, 563 Duchamp, S. 61 Duchamp, Y. 61 Duchamp-Villon, R. 52, 63 Dumouchel, M.J. 55 Dumouchel, R. 55–57, 67 Dumouchel, R. J.-E. 55 Duret, T. 191 Durruti, B. 101 Durville, G. 45 Durville, Hector 43–75 Durville, Henri 45–46, 53

Duve, T. de 62 Eames, C. 578 Eames, R. 578 Eddington, A. 143 Edschmid, K. 506 Efimov, B. 300, 303 Ehrenburg, I. 282–287, 312, 314 Eich, G. 8, 554 Einstein, A. 139–142 Einstein, C. 3–6, 91–104, 107–119, 125, 126, 172, 366–367, 460–461, 465, 467 Eisenstein, S. 288 Eliot, G. 511–523 Eliot, T. S. 466 Eluard, P. 382 Embiricos, A. 154 Enzensberger, H.-M. 584 Ernst, M. 124, 133, 134, 136, 161, 170–171, 388 Evans, W. 343 Ewers, H.H. 14, 27 Ewers-Wunderwald, I. 25 Fabian, E. 234–239 Fabian, M. 234 Fairbanks, D. 288 Fallada, H. 496–497 Fechheimer, H. 109–110 Fehér, L. 261–274 Fenin, G. N. 343 Fernandez, L. 381 Ferrieri, E. 184 Ferro, A. 427–428, 431, 442–443 Fevralskii, A. V. 80 Fichte, H. 557 Fiedler, K. 108, 111, 114 Filiou, R. 564 Fisher, M. 613 Fitzpatrick, S. 88 Flake, O. 506 Flammarion, C. 52 Flaubert, G. 566–567, 587 Fleißer, M. 497 Fontane, T. 107, 547 Foster, H. 398, 588

624 | Index

Foster, R. S. 519–520 Foucault, M. 130 Fougeron, A. 375–390 Franca, J.-A. 436, 440 Francastel, P. 432 Franco, F. 407, 429 Frank, R. 343, 345–346, 348, 353, 360 Freedgood, E. 512–513, 515 Freud, S. 92, 132, 155, 174, 464, 469 Fréville, J. 376 Fried, M. 160 Friedeberger, K. 231, 237 Friesz, O. 380 Frigeri, F. 391 Froissart, B. 144 Frühtrunk, G. 582 Gabo, N. 285 Galvao, H. 428 Gambetta, L. 67 Gan, A. 313 Garrido, L. 415 Gasch, S. 92 Gascoyne, D. 53 Gauguin, P. 180, 389 Gauss, C. E. 148 Gee, M. 375 Geister, I. 525, 527, 529, 531–536, 538, 544 Gerasimov, A. 384, 386 Géricault, T. 375, 425 Gernsheim, H. 231 Gidé, A. 466 Giedion, S. 381 Gimenez Pericas, A. 413 Ginsberg, A. 344 Glavinic, T. 605 Gleizes, A. 55, 376 Goerg, E. 371 Goethe, J. W. 100 Gogh, V. van 389, 432 Golan, R. 369 Gonzalez, M. 603 Goodman, N. 127 Gough, M. 79 Goya, F. 377, 430 Gräff, W. 256

Greenberg, C. 8, 160, 162–163, 265, 356 Griaule, M. 176 Grigorescu, I. 400–404 Grigorescu, O. 403 Gris, J. 426 Gromaire, M. 372, 380 Gropius, W. 238, 381 Grosz, G. 7, 197, 430, 499 Guattari, F. 116 Guiette, R. 363 Gursky, A. 265 Hamann, J. G. 158 Hanžek, M. 525, 537–538 Haraway, D. 253 Hartlaub, G. F. 499, 507 Hartman, J. 507 Hartung, H. 388 Hartwig, J. 229 Heartfield, J. 299–310 Heckroth, H. 231, 237 Hegel, G. W. F. 100, 156, 163, 171 Heidegger, M. 101, 103, 118, 512–513, 530 Heisenberg, W. 140–142, 149, 150 Heißenbüttel, H. 556–557 Hélion, J. 388 Henderson, L. D. 62 Hendricks, G. 343 Henghes, H. 231 Hermann-Neiße, M. 113 Hertz, H. 44 Herzger-Seligmann, G. 230 Hilbert, D. 140 Hirschfeld-Mack, L. 223–239 Hitler, A. 8 Hobbes, T. 468–470 Hoberman, J. 358 Höch, H. 471 Hoerle, H. 196 Hofmann, M. 113 Hofmannsthal, H. von 113 Holert, T. 461, 466 Holland, S. 77 Hölzl, A. 228 Honneth, A. 492 Honzl, J. 284 Hooch, P. de 262

Index | 625

Hopkins, D. 64 Hopper, E. 8 Horkheimer, M. 227 Horzon, R. 605 Hubbuch, K. 499 Huebner, H. W. 501–503 Hugo, V. 175 Huizinga, J. 196 Illfeld, E. 94 Infeld, L. 140 Inglis, K. 225 Innerhofer, R. 21–22 Iofan, B. 381 Ioganson, K. 82 Itten, J. 229 Ivanov, V. 86 Jackson, M. D. 228 Jacob, M. 426 Jahraus, O. 487 Jakobson, R. 512, 605 James, D. E. 353 Jameson, F. 9, 29, 37, 612 Jandl, E. 555–557 Janet, P. 60 Jeanneret, P. 380 Jesus 340 Joganson, K. 312 Johns, J. 346 Johnson, L. B. 346 Joselit, D. 577 Jouet, J. 561–574 Joyce, J. 10, 31, 466 Jung, F. 473–485 Jünger, E. 210, 467, 470 Kaes, A. 489 Kafka, F. 4, 10, 273, 338, 547, 557 Kahnweiler, D. 92–94, 98, 115 Kállai, E. 270 Kandinsky, W. 5, 379 Kant, I. 163 Kantor, T. 331–341 Kaprow, A. 332–334, 359 Kästner, E. 505 Keck, A. 491

Keller, G. 547, 606 Kelly, A. 607–608 Kemeny, A. 307 Kermauner, T. 526–530, 536, 539, 542– 543 Kermavner, A. 525 Kerouac, J. 344–345 Kerr, A. 501 Kessler, E. 397, 399 Kesten, H. 506 Keun, I. 487–498 Keynes, J. 452 Khlebnikov, V. 318 Kiaer, C. 77 Kimmich, D. 488, 547, 551–552 King, E. H. 143 Kisch, E.E. 256, 474, 484 Klee, P. 92, 123, 379 Klein, Y. 582 Klimt, G. 466 Klinč, B. 299–310 Klinger, M. 180, 190 Klucis, G. 80, 306 Knaller, S. 354, 474–475, 609 Koestler, A. 223 Kölliker, A. von 57 Kolmar, E. 356 Kooning, W. de 357 Koretskij, V. 299 Kos, J. 524–525, 541 Koschorke, A. 126, 211 Kovač, V. 525, 537 Kracauer, S. 351, 357 Kralji, L. 525 Kramár, V. 95 Krauss, R. 271 Križna, N. 525, 537 Kruchenykh, A. 318 Krull, G. 248–254 Kubin, A. 14, 24–25 Kuhlmann, A. 576–579 Kühn, R. 555 Kulendran Thomas, C. 575–589 Kuleshov, L. 288 Kusenberg, K. 213 Kyora, S. 490, 494

626 | Index

Labasque, J. 371 Lacan, J. 247, 260, 378 Lahoda, V. 390 Lakner, L. 267–268, 270 Lamarck, J.B. 44 Lambert, Mme 49–50, 55, 61–62, 67, 71 Lampe, F. 209–222 Lancret, N. 185 Lane, F. 346 Lange, C. 213–214 Lange, D. 343 Langer, S. 159 Lanhas, F. 433–434 Lasker-Schüler, E. 550 Last, J. 500 Latour, B. 488, 547–558 Laurot, E. de 343, 352 Lautréamont 134 Lawrence, D. H. 466 Lazarescu, F. 399 Le Bon, G. 44, 65 Le Corbusier, 371, 381, 434 Le Nain, 385 Leach, Robert 77 Leadbeater, C.W. 57 Léger, F. 31, 363–374, 388, 430, 432, 434 Leighten, P. 448 Leine, T. 211 Leiria, M. 436 Leiris, M. 96, 124, 169–171, 384 Lemos, F. 437 Lenin, V. I. 286, 294–297, 375, 383, 386– 388 Lermontov, M. 318 LeRoi, J. 354 Leroi-Gourhan, A. 254 Leslie, A. 343, 345, 348, 356 Lethen, H. 495 Levinger, E. 288 Levy-Bruhl, L. 464 Lewis, P. 515 Lewis, W. 318 Lhote, A. 195, 371 Lichtenberg, G. C. 21 Liebermann, M. 191 Lin, T. 603–617 Lisieux, T. de 168

Lissitzky, E. 80, 86, 284–286, 294, 311– 330 Llorens, T. 416–418, 420–421, 423 Lodder, C. 79 Loerke, O. 489 Loewald, K. 233 Londe, A. 52, 62 Lotman, J. 119 Lukács, G. 31, 95, 96, 102, 267, 473, 504 Lumiére, A. u. L. 355 Lunacharsky, A. 310, 313 Lurçat, J. 379 Luys, G. B. 44 Lyotard, J. 9, 607 Mach, E. 114 Madame d’Ora 471 Madsen, S. 603 Maeterlinck, M. 338 Magritte, R. 124, 132, 379 Mahlow, D. 339 Malevich, K. 285, 315 Malraux, A. 370, 432 Mandelstam, N. 467 Mandelstram, O. 470 Manet, É. 183, 191, 201, 377 Mann, T. 8, 466 Marcuse, H. 158 Marey, J.-E. 62 Marinetti, F. 444 Marquet, A. 380 Marsman, H. 499, 501, 507, 510 Märten, L. 471 Marwick, A. 407 Marx, K. 382, 385–386 Masson, A. 126, 379 Matanovič, M. 525, 537 Mathews, H. 567 Matisse, G. 66 Matisse, H. 380, 384 Matos, N. 436 Mauss, M. 462 Maxy, M. H. 396 Mayakovsky, V. 311–330, 384 Mayo, L. M. 51, 67 Mayröcker, F. 555–556 McLuhan, M. 266

Index | 627

Medunestky, K. 312 Méhes, L. 268, 270 Mehring, F. 473 Meier-Graefe, J. 188–189 Meierhold, V. 77–89, 286, 293 Mekas, A. 343 Mekas, J. 343, 353–360 Melnikov, K. 284 Mereuta, I. 401 Merleau-Ponty, M. 249 Mesmer, F. A. 52, 54 Mészöly, M. 272 Metzinger, J. 376 Meyrink, G. 14 Michaelis, R. 93 Michalová, R. 284 Millares, M. 415 Miller, J. H. 515 Millet, S. 32 Mills, K. 343 Miró, J. 171, 379 Močnik, R. 525 Modigliani, A. 426 Moffitt, J. F. 58 Moholy-Nagy, L. 247, 255 Mondrian, P. 3 Monod-Herzen, É. 158 Moreno Galván, J. 414 Morgan, C. 384 Morgan, J. 391, 395 Morozov, I. 389 Morris, W. 585 Mounin, G. 388 Moussinac, L. 377, 385 Muhle, M. 594 Müller, H. 459–460, 467 Müller, K. 575–589 Müller, R. 490 Murillo, B. E. 377 Murnau, F. W. 489 Murphy, R. 515 Musil, R. 113 Nadar, F. 48, 249 Nadar, P. 46–51 Nadeau, M. 160, 379 Namorado, J. 446

Nash, S. 382 Nayral, J. 55 Neander, J. 471 Neukrantz, K. 474, 485 Nez, D. 525 Niehaus, K. 506–507 Niemeyer, O. 434 Nietzsche, F. 23, 103, 201, 517 Nizan, P. 376 Norris, T. 380 O’Keeffe, G. 8 O’Neill, A. 436 Oehm, H. 94 Oliveira, S. 26 Oliver, I. 416 Olson, L. 518, 522 Ontanon, F. 414 Oom, P. 436 Oppenheim, M. 471 Orlosky, P. 344 Orozco, J. 447–448, 452 Ortega y Gasset, J. 196, 411 Ortega, J. G. 410–411, 413, 416 Oteiza, J. 408 Ottwalt, E. 473 Owen, A. 68 Palla, V. 438 Palladino, E. 49 Panofsky, E. 99 Papus, G. E. 46 Parkinson, G. 141, 149 Parret, H. 62–63 Paudrat, J.-L. 115 Pauli, W. 140 Pauvert, J. J. 378 Pawłowski, T. 332 Paz, O. 64 Pedro, A. 435–436 Péladan, S. J. 46 Pelshe, R. 77, 88 Penkert, S. 92, 109, 113 Perec, G. 566–568 Pereira, M. 436 Perestiani, I. 289 Perloff, M. 563, 567

628 | Index

Pessoa, F. 440 Pfeiffer, J. 214 Philipp, F. 231 Picasso, P. 3, 5, 93, 96, 102, 109, 169–171, 375–390, 430, 432, 451 Pilatus 340 Pinthus, K. 6, 487 Piotrowski, P. 393, 395, 398, 422 Pirandello, L. 39 Pirjevec, D. 530, 534, 538 Platon 128, 202 Plessner, H. 468 Pleynet, M. 565 Poe, E. A. 338 Pogačnik, M. 525, 531–536 Pollock, J. 8 Pomar, J. 430–431, 434, 447–450, 452 Ponge, F. 258 Poniž, D. 541 Popkov, V. 591–601 Popova, L. 80 Portinari, C. 32, 430, 432, 447, 449, 452 Pound, E. 318 Poussin, N. 385 Preisendanz, W. 29 Protazanov, Y. 288 Proust, M. 8, 432, 513 Pufendorf, F. 468 Puységur, A. M. J. de C. de 52 Queneau, R. 567 Rabinbach, A. 63 Räderscheidt, A. 196 Radlov, V. 293 Rancière, J. 131, 134, 587–588, 594 Ranke, L. von 100 Rauschenberg, R. 395–396 Ravel, M. 51 Reave, G. 381 Rebentisch, J. 598 Recalcati, A. 420 Recki, B. 129 Reich, W. 158 Reichenbach, K. von 52 Rembrandt 337–340 Renger-Pazsch, A. 247, 249, 258

Renoir, A. 179–180, 184, 389 Resnais, A. 542 Revel, P. C. 53–54, 56 Reverdy, P. 132 Revis, M. 500 Reynolds, S. 9, 614 Ribemont-Dessaignes, G. 168–171, 176 Richard, A.-I. 443 Richet, C. 52, 60, 70 Richter, G. 270, 399 Richter, H. W. 210 Rignall, J. 517 Rilke, R. M. 113, 466 Rivera, D. 379, 426, 432, 452 Rivers, L. 345 Robbe-Grillet, A. 8, 542, 609 Rochas, A. de 45–52, 54–55, 57, 60, 67 Rodtschenko, A. 286, 312–313, 586 Roggenbuck, S. 603 Rogosin, L. 353 Röntgen, W.C. 43, 57 Rosenberg, A. 103 Rosenberg, H. 356 Rossellini, R. 8 Rössler, J. 292 Rotar, B. 525, 540 Roth, J. 504 Roubaud, J. 567–568 Rousseau, H. 466 Rubin, W. 160 Rüdiger, H. 93, 94 Rudner, V. 238–239 Ruff, T. 265 Rupel, D. 540 Ryle, G. 63 Saiko, G. 211 Sakai, N. 16 Šalamun, A. 525 Šalamun, T. 525–530, 535–539, 544 Salazar, A. 425, 427, 429, 442 Salmon, A. 198 Sartre, J. P. 228, 530 Saura, A. 415 Sawicki, N. 286 Saxl, F. 92, 98–99 Scheerbart, P. 13–28

Index | 629

Scheffel, M. 210 Schlemmer, O. 196, 230 Schlesinger, E. 566 Schlichter, R. 196 Schmid, W. 196 Schmidt, A. 554 Schmidt, K. 230 Schmidt-Möbus, F. 117 Schmitt, C. 465, 469 Schönberg, A. 31 Schopenhauer, A. 201–202 Schrimpf, G. 196 Schrödinger, E. 141, 150 Schuhmacher, E. 558 Schulz, B. 195–208 Schuré, É. 58–59 Schüttpelz, E. 463 Schwarz, A. 65 Schweiwiller, G. 185 Schwenger, P. 521 Schwertfeger, K. 229 Schwitters, K. 553, 556 Segal, V. 113 Segall, L. 32 Seghers, A. 473–474, 485 Seifert, J. 284 Šeligo, R. 527, 539–544 Semprún, J. 416 Sena da Silva, A. 438 Shanes, E. 147 Shcherbakov, V. 86 Shchukin, S. 389 Sheikh, S. 598 Sherman, C. 273 Shklovskii, V. 535–536 Shostakovich, D. D. 31 Shterenberg, A. 312 Shterenberg, D. 312 Sloterdijk, P. 107, 113 Sontag, S. 10, 262–263 Souza-Cardoso, A. de 426, 437, 451 Spengler, O. 196 Spinoza 468 Spoerri, D. 561–574 Srp, K. 295 Stalin, J. 8, 286, 370, 375, 383, 388–389, 443

Steefel, L. 55, 63–64, 69 Stein, G. 382 Steiner, R. 58 Stendhal 29 Stepanova, V. 313 Storm, T. 547, 606 Stramm, A. 550–551, 553 Strasberg, L. 346 Strauß, A. 13 Stroman, B. 500 Struth, T. 265 Suchan, J. 335 Švabič, M. 525, 540 Sydow, E. von 92 Szenes, A. 433 Tabard, M. 248–251, 254 Tairov, A. 293 Tanguy, Y 161 Tapies, A. 408, 415 Taslitzky, B. 388 Tatlin, V. 285–286 Taut, B. 27 Taylor, F.W. 62 Teige, K. 279–297 Teltscher, G. 230–239 Terré, L. 414 Teufel, F. 268 Thanner, V. 475 Thorez, M. 383, 390 Timar, K. 391, 395 Titian 201 Todorov, T. 17 Tolkien, J. R. R. 9 Topor, R. 565 Tourette, G. de la 60 Tretyakov, S. 77, 80–84, 87, 306 Triolet, E. 384 Trotsky, L. 155–156, 286, 379 Truman, H. S. 383 Tucholsky, K. 505 Tyler, P. 351, 354, 357–358 Ullrich, W. 494 Umbo 248–254 Unamuno, M. de 196

630 | Index

Valdés, M. 422 Valéry, P. 442–443 Vargas, G. 30, 36 Velázquez, D. 201, 377 Velde, H. van de 585 Verlaine, P. 51 Vermeer, J. 262 Vertov, D. 252–253 Vesnin brothers, 285–286 Vespeira, M. 436 Vieira da Silva, M. 433 Vilensky, D. 595 Villeri, J. 388 Villon, D. 426 Villon, J. 53, 63 Vlaminck, M. de 381 Vogel, D. 195–208 Vogl, J. 475 Wagener, V. A. 500 Wagner, D. 605 Wagner, R. 51 Waldenfels, B. 111 Wallace, D. F. 603–617 Walzer, D. 475 Warburg, A. 99 Warhol, A. 267, 400 Wartmann, W. 366 Wasmuth, E. 101 Watteau, A. 185 Wegmann, T. 495 Weixler, A. 99 Werfel, F. 4 Weyand, B. 493, 496 Willer, S. 131 Williams, C. W. 513 Williams, E. 564 Williamson, H. 8 Wilson, B. 467 Winckelmann, J. 111 Wittenberg, E. 234 Wittgenstein, L. 163 Wölfflin, H. 109, 432 Wolfskehl, T. S. 97 Woolf, V. 511–523 Worringer, W. 92

Yesenin, S. 319 Young, C. 358 Yudenich, N. 319–320 Zadkine, O. 284 Zagoričnik, F. 525, 529, 538 Zalman, S 160 Zervigón, A. 607 Zervos, C. 376–378, 380–381, 383–390 Zhdanov, A. 383, 387–388, 432 Zhelyabizhsky, Y. 288 Žitomirskij, A. 299 Žižek, S. 525, 537, 544–545 Zola, É. 29, 587 Zupančič, M. 532 Zusi, P. 292