[-empyre-] Benjamin, Peter Weiss, the city as performative?

Lucio Agra lucioagra at gmail.com
Sun Mar 18 12:13:13 EST 2012 

Great subject... Monuments of victory and defeat...
best
Lucio

2012/3/13 Ana Valdés <agora158 at gmail.com>

> Thank you Lucio to make the movement from the axis Paris-Modernity to
> Berlin-Modernity as well. And thank you Alicia for putting Benjamin and the
> flaneur on the board.
> Interesting how we forget that Germany was not Germany before the late
> 1800-century and Preussia succeeded unificating Germany after they defeated
> France. The French and German social movements are very connected and the
> Art as well. The imperial transformations to Paris made by Haussman are
> very similar to what Berlin had. And I wonder if l'Arc du Triomphe and
> L'Etoile are not inspired by the Brandenburger Tor in Berlin.
> Ana
>
> On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 8:07 PM, Lucio Agra <lucioagra at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> During several years there was this judgement about the 20th century and
>> its culture, that sustained Paris as the centre of European Modernism
>> whereas the center, if it really existed, should be considered either
>> Berlin or Moscow. While people got scandalized by Strawinsky's/Nijinsky's
>> Sacre du Printemps, Malevitch, Khlebnikov, Krutchonikh and Matiushin were
>> enjoyed by the russians. And in Germany Wedekind, Heym and Kokoschka
>> produced the scatological world of strange, noisy paranoia of its early
>> modernism. Berlin kept this spirit of unconquerable anti-harmony which is
>> still part of its charm. I also lived there for three months that could
>> value as a year. The people who visit always feel this amazing sensation of
>> property but the city is contradictoire also. At the same space we find the
>> relics of Bauhaus and, some meters ahead, the Wittembergplatz station from
>> where, under the subterraneans of KDW, left trains to concentration camps.
>> The construction of the so called Museum Insel is a tremendous work of
>> robbery produced by the Hohenzollerns, who piled lots of Eastern treasures
>> and put it inside the big museum. Nothing different, in fact, to what was
>> made in France or England.
>> I remember the inscription that probably still exists in Savigny Platz S
>> Bahn Station, saying "we are the scum of the world". Found something about
>> this sensation of being a foreigner and part of that all simultaneously at
>> http://books.google.com.br/books?id=4fp-OaPpriAC&pg=PA200&lpg=PA200&dq=savignyplatz+wall+inscriptions&source=bl&ots=F34qCRiiHr&sig=V_HE5DZknyIIUlZ2WZtZmoqUPfY&hl=pt-BR&sa=X&ei=PJlfT_mOAsf8ggepvbmmCA&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
>>
>> Mixed feelings is what Berlin provokes to anyone, even the most
>> indifferent. Thank you Ana for your comments on Weiss, it is going to be
>> interesting to look for these references. You should write something about
>> this case of Barber and Gert, Alan! It is a great oportunity of thinking
>> about the neglected origins of performance art..
>> best
>> Lucio BR
>>
>> 2012/3/13 Ana Valdés <agora158 at gmail.com>
>>
>>> Interesting references, Alan! The Living Theatre is an important part of
>>> my own past, they defined themselves as anarchists and I met them in
>>> several opportunities.
>>> But going back to Weimar and to Weiss and to Anita Berber and Valeska
>>> Gert, I am not aware of Weiss refering to them, not in his writings not in
>>> his interviews. We lived in the same city, Stockholm, and I met him twice
>>> before he died. He strucked me as a very humble man, not making great fuss
>>> about his public persona.
>>> But I was in Berlin last year and visited again the Bauhaus archive and
>>> it was indeed Weiss time and the city as presence.
>>> Berlin doesn't have the same literature or/and atmosphere as London, Rom
>>> or Paris, but I love the city, I visited it many times, when the wall still
>>> existed and afterwards. And I saw the altar of Pergamus which Weiss writes
>>> about in "The Aesthetics of Resistance", probably the most magnificient
>>> piece of religious and political architecture from the Ancient times.
>>> Berlin is as a city, for me, a great example of what we discussed last
>>> week, resilience and resistance.
>>> Ana
>>>
>>> On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 5:04 PM, Alan Sondheim <sondheim at gmail.com>wrote:
>>>
>>>> There's a lot of material on Weimar performance which tallies with
>>>> this; I'm thinking particularly of performers like Anita Berber and Valeska
>>>> Gert, both of whom have had a large influence on my work. Interestingly,
>>>> much of the best performance work, much of the legacy, is the work of
>>>> women. Gert later came to the US, and opened a cabaret/cafe here in NY for
>>>> a time; she had an effect on Living Theater. Both Gert and Berber were
>>>> within the imaginary of resistance; their own identity was on the line.
>>>> There was also Mary Wigman, many others. This was all swept away of course.
>>>> I'm just curious - did Weiss reference any of this?
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 11:52 AM, Ana Valdés <agora158 at gmail.com>wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I am reading again Peter Weiss "The Aesthetics of Resistance", the
>>>>> best description of Berlin together with Döblins Berlin Alexanderplatz. The
>>>>> city is described as a hub of energy, as the place where all converge,
>>>>> where utopian thoughts and political work blends and interact.
>>>>> Curiously I don't find in Weiss work (not only this one but all of his
>>>>> writing, his Marat-Sade, his Process, etc) any reference to Benjamin. They
>>>>> were not in the same age, Benjamin was born 1892, Weiss in 1916. They
>>>>> belonged to different generations and they were intellectually quite
>>>>> different.
>>>>> Weiss saw himself as a people's intelectual, as someone anonymous, as
>>>>> anonymous as the builders of the altar of Pergamus, which play such a
>>>>> principal role in his book "The Aesthetics of Resistance". He was a
>>>>> communist and believed in the workers as the base of the society, the ones
>>>>> being destroyed by the gods in the altar of Pergamus.
>>>>> Benjamin chose another path but for both writers the city was this
>>>>> canvas where all activity could be performed and be herself a performer.
>>>>> Ana
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> http://www.twitter.com/caravia158595959
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.scoop.it/t/art-and-activism/
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>>>>> http://www.scoop.it/t/museums-and-ethics/
>>>>> http://www.scoop.it/t/urbanism-3-0
>>>>> http://www.scoop.it/t/postcolonial-mind/
>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> "When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth
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>>>>> always long to return.
>>>>> — Leonardo da Vinci
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> =====================================================
>>>> directory http://www.alansondheim.org tel 347-383-8552
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>>> --
>>> http://www.twitter.com/caravia1585959
>>> http://www.scoop.it/t/art-and-activism/
>>> http://www.scoop.it/t/food-history-and-trivia
>>> http://www.scoop.it/t/gender-issues/
>>> http://www.scoop.it/t/literary-exiles/
>>> http://www.scoop.it/t/museums-and-ethics/
>>> http://www.scoop.it/t/urbanism-3-0
>>> http://www.scoop.it/t/postcolonial-mind/
>>>
>>> mobil/cell +4670-3213370
>>>
>>>
>>> "When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with
>>> your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you will always
>>> long to return.
>>> — Leonardo da Vinci
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> empyre forum
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> www.myspace.com/lucioagra
>> http://contemporaryperformance.org/profile/LucioAgra
>> Se vc tem urgência de falar comigo, me ligue no celular! É mais rápido!
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
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>
>
>
> --
> http://www.twitter.com/caravia15859
> http://www.scoop.it/t/art-and-activism/
> http://www.scoop.it/t/food-history-and-trivia
> http://www.scoop.it/t/gender-issues/
> http://www.scoop.it/t/literary-exiles/
> http://www.scoop.it/t/museums-and-ethics/
> http://www.scoop.it/t/urbanism-3-0
> http://www.scoop.it/t/postcolonial-mind/
>
> mobil/cell +4670-3213370
>
>
> "When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with
> your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you will always
> long to return.
> — Leonardo da Vinci
>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>



-- 
www.myspace.com/lucioagra
http://contemporaryperformance.org/profile/LucioAgra
Se vc tem urgência de falar comigo, me ligue no celular! É mais rápido!
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