The Big Beginner's Feeling
ROBERT MISIK IN CONVERSATION WITH THOMAS EDLINGER
The Big Beginner's Feeling
„The artists, who are writers, are seismographs of societal changes and upheavals,“ once wrote the great Austrian communist Ernst Fischer. Many works „provide information about significant problems of an era and contribute to undermining the capitalist world.“ Smashing conventions, revolutionising perception, imagining the new – that was the spirit of the radical Modernist era. Bert Brecht spoke of a great „feeling of being a beginner“.
In his major essay, Robert Misik describes the interplay of revolutionary ideas, new forms of perception, radical writing styles and languages of form, of avant-garde movements and social progress. He traces the „red line“ of modernity, in a double sense. It is a left-wing history of two hundred years of modern art. And Misik describes how, at their best moments, radical art, revolutionary ideas and utopian politics coalesce into a „zeitgeist“, into those peculiar atmospheres that shape a sense of an era.
A whirlwind tour: from Balzac and Heinrich Heine to Elfriede Jelinek, from Patti Smith to Soap & Skin, from the Bauhaus to the council estate, from Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky to Milo Rau. The revolt against the outdated and the revolutionising of styles remain the great task of art today, as do excess and intensity. „Change the world, it needs it,“ says Misik, quoting the old BB. He outlines an aesthetic programme beyond commerce, entertainment, and the ever-present.
The author, journalist, and curator of the Kreisky Forum talks about his brand-new book with cultural journalist and artistic director of the Donau Festival, Thomas Edlinger.
Robert Misik, Author and journalist
Thomas Edlinger, Radio producer (FM4-Im Sumpf, Ö1), freelance cultural journalist, author, and from 2017 onwards artistic director of the Donaufestival in Krems