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UK-born, Chicago-based artist Philip Hartigan has posted a brief video piece about Franz
Kafka’s
drawings. Kafka, of course, wrote a body of work, mostly never published
during his lifetime, that captured the absurdity and the loneliness of the
newly emerging modern world: In The Metamorphosis, Gregor transforms overnight into a giant cockroach;
inThe Trial,
Josef K. is charged with an undefined crime by a maddeningly inaccessible
court. In story after story, Kafka showed his protagonists getting crushed
between the pincers of a faceless bureaucratic authority on the one hand and a
deep sense of shame and guilt on the other.
On his deathbed, the famously tortured writer implored
his friend Max Brod to burn his unpublished work. Brod ignored his friend’s
plea and instead published them – novels, short stories and even his diaries.
In those diaries, Kafka doodled incessantly – stark, graphic drawings infused
with the same angst as his writing. In fact, many of these drawings have ended
up gracing the covers of Kafka’s books.
“Quick, minimal movements that convey the typical
despairing mood of his fiction” says Hartigan of Kafka’s art. “I am struck by
how these simple gestures, these zigzags of the wrist, contain an economy of
mark making that even the most experienced artist can learn something from.”
In his book Conversations with Kafka, Gustav
Janouch describes what happened when he came upon Kafka in mid-doodle: the
writer immediately ripped the drawing into little pieces rather than have it be
seen by anyone. After this happened a couple times, Kafka relented and let him
see his work. Janouch was astonished. “You really didn’t need to hide them from
me,” he complained. “They’re perfectly harmless sketches.”
“Kafka slowly wagged his head to and fro – ‘Oh no! They
are not as harmless as they look. These drawing are the remains of an old,
deep-rooted passion. That’s why I tried to hide them from you…. It’s not on the
paper. The passion is in me. I always wanted to be able to draw. I wanted to
see, and to hold fast to what was seen. That was my passion.”
Runner 1907-1908
Horse and rider (1910)
Three Runners 1912-1913
The Thinker 1913
Fencing 1917
Ver video Meditacion on Frank Kafka"s drawings, Philip Hartigan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peEX0vhMxOY
via ArtsCentre
Related Content:
Find Works by Kafka in our Free eBooks collection
Jonathan Crow is a Los Angeles-based writer and filmmaker
whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hollywood Reporter, and other
publications. You can follow him at @jonccrow.
Fuente: open culture. com TE
Fuente: open culture. com TE
