Charlotte Salomon. Life? or Theatre? - Evelyn Benesch

Descriere Charlotte Salomon. Life? or Theatre? - Evelyn Benesch

\nWhen German artist Charlotte Salomon (1917-1943) handed her gouache series Life? or Theater? over to a friend, she beseeched him to take good care of it, it is my entire life. A few months later, the five-months pregnant Charlotte was picked up by a Gestapo truck, deported to Drancy, and then on to Auschwitz, where she died upon arrival at the age 26. \n \nThe work Salomon left behind is, in a very real sense, her pièce de résistance - in her own words, something wildly eccentric. A cycle of nearly 1,300 autobiographical gouaches, it combines creative force with pioneering personal narrative into one shattering document of self-expression. \n \nDivided into three sections, the gouaches unveil a vivid self-portrait spanning across all facets of Charlotte's existence: from a complicated family life, marked by the suicides of nearly all female relatives; growing up in Berlin; her close relation to singing teacher Alfred Wolfsohn; the rise of the Nazis; to her exile to France in 1939. Throughout, the artist challenges these destructive forces by deploying playful pseudonyms and fantastical elements alongside emotional candor, remarkable observation, and a meticulous visual memory. Her film strip-like sequences are interspersed not only with words but also musical suggestions, making Life? or Theater? the storybook for a whole musical, years before the heyday of that genre. \n \nWithout comparison, the gouaches are a triumph of personal truth and individual expression. Published here with a selection of the 400 most important pieces, Life? Or Theatre? is an unrivaled opus magnum from a great and ambitious artist, dark with her early death, but luminous with her precision, her lyricism, and her courage. \n\n

Detalii

Brand

TASCHEN

Categorie

ENSTK

EAN / GTIN

9783836598651

Magazine

1

Disponibilitate

in stock