Opening speech from Professor Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht (Stanford University)
Los Angeles Goethe Institute - January 26th, 2006 - 'Age of Anxiety' from Alexander Polzin
I only wanted to start with what the Goethe Institute director said to me: 'We are all very tempted
to talk about the soccer world cup now'. I would say only the works of Alexander Polzin can derail
me not to talk about the soccer world cup now and that's already homage Alexander. I also wanted to
say, I was a little bit jealous about the world premiere (referring to Konstantia Gourzi's newly
composed music pieces played live at the exhibiton) - that it's a world premiere for me too - I mean
what I'm going to say now, I've never said before, so... it's clearly world premiere.
Now let me tell you something about Germany. Ten days ago I spent a weekend in Berlin and for some
random reasons I got invited to an exhibit organized by the Brazilian Embassy-which is still an event
in Berlin till March - it was Brazilian folk art and it was very-very beautiful, but it was a horrible
night for me. An absolutely horrible night because there were six introductory speeches all unprepared,
which took a total of 80 minutes. 80 minutes just talking, talking, talking and during this time there
was neither wine nor food. So really tough.
By contrast however the public took a really aggressive revenge because they just didn't care about the
speeches, so as they didn't get food they were all talking. It was quite a horrible event and I thought
I will not do that to you or to me tonight. So in the first place, I promise you not to speak for 80
minutes. It will be relatively brief - for those who know me for, my standards, it will be brief, only
a couple of minutes around ten-fifteen minutes-that's actually what we agreed upon.
I will try to do two things: I will not try to give you an introduction to Alexander Polzin's work.
I mean introduction to persons one cannot give. I will really try and refer to the ninety-nine pictures
and art works that surround you physically and which I think are very beautiful. At this point I will do
two things in this sense: I will say something about Auden's 'Age of Anxiety' - the book that seemingly
inspired these art works for Alexander. 'Why am I doing that?' Well, I'm doing that because I'm a professor
of literature and I didn't know a thing about this text before I was invited to say something tonight
and then I read it and found it quite amazing - a tribute to Alexander who has good literary taste, not
only good taste as an artist. I'm saying that because normally as a cultivated audience as you all are
one has to pretend one has read all the books on the planet, but I assume few of you have read this book.
I'm a professor of literature and hadn't read it, so I'll say a little bit about this book and then, above
all, I will try to give you my reaction to these art works, to these 99 art works. 'Why am I giving you
my reaction - because I think that it is the only thing you can honestly do about aesthetic experience.
I think there is no objectivity about aesthetic experience, so if you are invited to talk about a piece
of literature, a piece of music or about art works, the one and only thing you can do is to try and be
self-reflective, to try to find out how you react to it. A fine word for that, which is not completely
easy, this by the way is in the sense of a very good German tradition, this is exactly what Immanuel Kant
said in the third critique, 'The Critique of Judgment', which is his philosophical aesthetic - that what
is specific about aesthetic judgment as opposed to mathematical judgment, juridical judgment and so forth
is that when you make a judgment you expect everybody to agree with you. And this is the beautiful:
'Mann erheischt Beistimmung'? - says Kant. I think this is a blue print when you talk about art works to
say what you feel about them and you say it in the sense of 'erheischen Beistimmung', to quest for your
consensus. This is exactly what I am trying to do tonight. I will speak very subjectively about my reaction
to Alexander's art hoping that you can resonate with that, you can give me your Beistimmung.
But now first of all I'll speak a little bit about Auden, Auden's 'Age of Anxiety', the literary text that
inspired these 99 pictures was first published in1948, two years after World War II, two years after Hiroshima,
also importantly one year before I was born. It was immediately a huge critical success in the US, whether it
was success with many readers - I don't know, I even doubt - but it was a critical success because it won the
Pulitzer Award and it was reviewed in all the important media, I mean New York Times, New York Review of Book
and so forth in US. What I think it's interesting about this book is, that it was very much in sync with the
mood - and it is this beautiful German word for mood - Stimmung - with the intellectual and the artistic
'Stimmung' of those postwar years of the 1940's. I think it is precisely this 'Stimmung', this mood of the
late 1940's that inspired Alexander Polzin. If you want a reference for this 'Stimmung': it was of course
the great age of existentialism, existentialism not only in philosophy, but of existentialism as a life
form. I'll come back to that in a minute.
Now, what is the scene of this text 'The Age of Anxiety'? In a very-very existentialist way, there are four
persons; there is an old bureaucrat who is also widower, there is a Canadian military physician, I am even
tempted to say he is the stupid guy - I mean Canadians in American literature are always made a little bit
stupid- than there is also typical for American literature a very attractive, appealing, desirous widow,
she's Jewish - that's also very typical and then there is a young navy soldier (my 15 year old daughter
would say' very sexy'). They all meet in a bar in New York at All Souls Night and they talk and talk and
talk without listening to each other - that's the point. I mean this is a talking performance and nobody
listens to each other. The text culminates in what the Spaniards have a beautiful word for and as since
this is a bilingual city I'll say it 'desencuentro' - disencounters. I mean you sit together and talk and
talk and talk, but you don't have anything in common, and that is symbolized, condensed in that literary
text by two beautiful scenes.
The two old guys, the Canadian physician and the old bureaucrat - today we would say they exchange calling
cards- they write up their addresses, they promise each other that they will stay in contact and as we all
know sometimes when you promise that we stay in contact that's the best promise that will never happen.
The other scene is, when the two remaining characters: the young sexy navy soldier and the appealing and desirous,
but not so young Jewish widow, they both want to have sex and there is this sad scene that she says farewell to
somebody and she comes back to her bedroom and the 'desencuentro' is that he falls asleep. So there is no
erotic scene.
A little bit you could say- for those among you, who know existentialist literature - who know Sartre - the
piece is a mild version of 'Hinter verschlossen Türen' but is much more aggressive, more claustrophobic.
'Hinter verschlossenen Türen' is also a scene of disencounters - of encounters that do not take place. What
is interesting and this is said with a special dedication for somebody in the room here, is that the form of
the text is very -very archaic. The text is called an eclogue - eine Ekloge- it has long verses with alliteration.
I fear or I feel that what the author thought that this very-very deliberate archaic literary form would be a
counterbalance towards the existential chaos that is displayed in this piece. Now I doubt that this can ever
happen, I think these two things are playing on a different levels, but I had the impression because this is
very-very typical for existentialist literature, that you try to emphasize form because you think that the
world is so chaotic that you need something to hold on. I think Alexander Polzin has a much better solution
for that, and I'll come back to that.
Finally and above all, this text - and you see this was a recommendation for you to read it - exudes the mood,
the 'Stimmung' of existentialism. In what sense? In the sense that existentialism is a world and a feeling and
a 'Stimmung' of a world that has been abandoned by God. A world that is abandoned by God is a world in which
you have no starting point for your behavior - a world as Albert Camus, the great French existentialist, 1957
Nobel in literature, once said: 'God has abandoned us and it is an injustice'. There is for many of us, more
in Europe than in America today, the feeling that this is a world without God, but we don't feel it an injustice,
we feel it a liberation. The mood of existentialism is that there is no God from whom to start and there is an
injustice and therefore what this generates - this feeling of a world where you cannot make reference to
God - it is a feeling of anxiety. Therefore the age of anxiety. Anxiety is the feeling that you have no destiny,
it's a feeling that you do not really know what you are supposed to become. So you do not really know what you
are supposed to become and this- I think - is a reference to the title of anxiety.
Now by way of transition - the 99 paintings that surround you, at least the way I react to them, are not an
illustration to this book one by one, they are not made as a series of illustration for the German edition of
the book - you watch them and you can engage with them independently. I mean even without me giving you this
professor of literature talk about 'The Age of Anxiety' you could perfectly engage with these pictures. If you
have read the text, you will find certain some motifs, but that was not my point. My point was to get you in the
mood, to get you based on the text, in the Stimmung to understand these pictures because I think that what the
pictures can conversely do is to get you in a certain mood, they get you in a certain Stimmung.
But now what I find more important, what is the premiere for me: I want to say a couple of things about Alexander
Polzin, whose work I've been confronted with, familiar with, fond of for some five-six- seven years now - I first
met him in the lobby of the Adlon (in Berlin).
There are two things in Alexander's art that I am specifically impressed with - and I am referring exclusively
now to his art on canvas - I mean he is also an amazing sculptor and there are some sculptures displayed in the
Media Lounge of the Goethe Institute, I will not comment on that because I do think that is one of the amazing
things about his work - not that the painting and the sculpture are related - but they are two different registers
and if I manage in the five-six-seven remaining minutes to say something precise about the painting, about the
two dimensional art, I will be quite happy.
The one thing I admire and I've come to love about Alexander's art - feel free to just look a little bit to the
walls- is the tenderness and softness of the lines with which he gives contours to the things, to bodies and to
faces. His lines produce soft contours, contours that seem to emerge out of nothingness, out of chaos. That is,
I think, and I come back for the first time to the motifs, this is about contours which emerge out of nothingness,
out of chaos and I am calling these lines of Alexander Polzin soft, in the sense that they give you the sensuality,
tangibility of the thing (I know I am not supposed to touch these things and I won't do that), but they enhance in
me the desire to touch this art. You want to touch them, they have the softness that is very specific, so they give
you the sensuality of a thing and not so much the neatness of a distinction, of a separation and of a concept.
There are lines - that is also true for your sculptures I think, but they are smooth - they enhance the desire
to touch, they are never separation and I don't think- that's my obsession as you know - that they don't produce
meaning, they produce the desire to be touched.
So one thing I'd like to celebrate my friend Alexander Polzin is, he is the master of soft line and I don't know
any other artist who does comparable things with soft lines. Maybe I'm not saying that ironically Walt Disney.
I think Walt Disney, the original Walt Disney was a man of the soft line. But he was not the other thing that
I think Alexander Polzin is: he is equally the master of the soft and the tender chaos. Now this is an oxymoron.
The soft and tender chaos. What is that? Is that not a paradox? The soft and tender chaos, the soft and tender
nothingness ... soft and tender Nirvana. How can nothingness, Nirvana be soft?
It can be soft - looking at the pictures - if nothingness, Nirvana, chaos is not emptiness, but unformed
substance. That is actually the original Indian, Hindu idea about nothingness, about Nirvana it is not emptiness,
it is a substance, a fullness, a plenitude that is unformed, not uninformed, but is not yet formed.
So, on the one side he is the master of the soft line that gives this essential desire to touch something and
on the other side he is the master of the soft chaos, the master of something that threatens form; because
Nirvana, plentitude, chaos are all the mass of something from which form in the first place has to emerge.
You get my point? So on the one side you have this soft form and on the other side this soft chaos, that threatens
form or conversely out of which forms first have to emerge.
My main impression, more about these 99 paintings than about any other segment or part of Alexander's work is
that between the softness of his lines, between the softness of this chaos - I look at the pictures - and I mean
it as a compliment - between the undecided ness of color, I think this color is always somewhere in between. You
have paintings with strong colors, but not in this collection. Between the softness of the lines and the softness
of the chaos I see a constant movement. I see a tension so much so that sometimes... I have been trying that again
with my 15 years old daughter: look at these pictures for a long time - do they start moving?
I think if you concentrate and take your time, look at the pictures and some of you - and that is my quest for
consensus - you will see, that it will start moving as if it were, as if it could make present the spectrum of
the oscillation between becoming and unbecoming, between becoming a form and undoing a form. I think this is the
movement that you will see, the movement between the oscillation between becoming and unbecoming.
Now this motive - and of course professor's always have a point at the end - I think has indeed a correspondent or
perhaps even a plurality of correspondences with the mood, with the Stimmung of existentialism.
One correspondence between this oscillation between soft lines and soft chaos, this oscillation between becoming
and unbecoming is the motive of anxiety and this is precisely the inspiration you had - I think it is an anxiety
about having an existential form, giving form to your life and once you give form to your life in a world without
God it is always threatened by this soft chaos. It is threatened to be absorbed by something that is fullness,
that can be tenderness (the baby is crying).
The other motive - and an ex-German philosopher cannot do without speaking about Heidegger, don't fear I know when
people hear about Heidegger they switch off and think they cannot understand, actually it is easy to understand.
The other correspondence between this oscillation between becoming and unbecoming, making a form and undoing a form
is actually Heidegger's concept of Being, with capital B. His idea of sign is the world without a human view projected
onto the world. It is the world as such, the world without human distinctions, without the grid of the categories that
we project onto the world - I think this is what Heidegger means by sign.
Once you understand this idea, you will understand that we all have a desire - you know romantics called that
'the world untouched' - to see what the world would be without our view. What the world would be not philosophically
objectively, but what it would be like to touch the world without this being our touch, what it would be to be
touched by the world in an objective way. This is the Heideggerian dilemma because yes we do think that there is
this Being, there is this sign, the world without the grid of human distinctions. But as soon as we, the humans,
want to get it, we only have the world with our distinctions. Get my point?
We have this desire to get the world as a Nirvana, but without distinctions - even without soft lines-, but at
the same time it is impossible for us because we cannot live without orientations, without our conceptions to have
the world this way.
And this is another correspondence. Heidegger calls his own philosophy an existentialist ontology, so he is an
existentialist; and I don't think that this was Alexander's program, but this is a way of seeing Alexander's work.
I'm not saying 'reading' Alexander's work and why I'm not saying 'reading' is what I want to finish this brief
introduction on.
I think I should be self critical at the end. A baby-boomer generation intellectual always has to be self-critical
at the end. So my self-critical question is: what can you do with a painting, what can you do with 99 paintings
after so many professorial words? I mean haven't I spoilt the pleasure for you ? This is a serious question.
Now I have two answers. One answer is a little bit erudite, but let me tell you because it's interesting.
Five years ago, when Alexander produced these paintings there was nothing more out among Western intellectuals in
this country and in Europe than existentialism, than existentialist mood, than existentialist philosophy. Now the
amazing thing is, that in the five years that have had passed the situation has completely turned around and the
hardest bet you can have today in intellectual life is precisely existentialism ...so existentialism has an amazing
comeback. But the interesting thing is that without being a philosopher, Alexander by intuition, let himself be
inspired by the 'Age of Anxiety' - and this is tribute to you, Alexander - anticipated what has been going on in
the more official philosophical scene.
The more important thing is above all that paintings are not allegories, paintings are not illustrations of things
that can be captured by words. So I'm not saying that I gave you an interpretation, I'm not saying that I gave you
the master clue or master key to see these paintings. Paintings are something different. Paintings have a capacity
to make you, the spectators, a living part of the mood and of the Stimmung they produce.
I'm completely with the great old German philosopher, who died two years ago at the age of 103, Hans Georg Gardamer in
the sense of saying that these paintings don't exist if you do not enjoy them. I mean not you, but if nobody would get
in the mood to enjoy them and this is that in a certain way - you are part of the paintings. The paintings get you into
a mood and if you let yourself be tempted into the mood, you make these paintings better. So my invitation for tonight
and for you is to join me and let yourselves be dragged into the waves of becoming and unbecoming that Alexander
Polzin's tender lines and Alexander Polzin's tender chaos make present.
So - this is -I kept my wine, a drop of red wine - to you Alexander, this to the Goethe Institute whom I want to
congratulate on this initiative of this beautiful exhibit and this is to you, dear audience, to let you know that
you can admire these pictures, you can let yourself be dragged into the mood, but you could also buy them! Which
would be a good idea. Thank you so much.