Neue Nationalgalerie, Tschichold, and Plans

Today I went to the Neue Nationalgalerie to see its exhibit, Moderne Zeiten. The exhibit had a range of works from early expressionist up through the Neue Sachlichkeit, Socialist Realism, etc. It wasn't a huge collection, but I got to see some SUPER famous works of the period. Most exciting/awesome were:

Hanna Höch's "Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany," 1919

Otto Dix's "Mondweib" and "Die Skatspieler," 1919 and 1920

Works by Bauhaus artists/designers Feininger, Klee, and Moholy-Nagy

And, some cool stuff by Oskar Nerlinger, including "Berlin City Train"

There was also a painting by Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart that was essentially several straight squares with an actual straight-edge/right angle tool (whatever you call those things) nailed onto the piece.

Anyway, I went back to the library this afternoon to investigate typography some more, looking especially for the Modernists' take on the old Fraktur style/its use in popular media. Zing! Jan Tschichold had something to say. Note that Fraktur looks like this:

Grotesk is the German word for sans serif, z.B. Verdana or Helvetica (though both were developed later). Tschichold ususally refers to serif fonts as Antiqua because they come from ancient Greek and Roman alphabets. Anyway, this quote on die illustrierte Zeitungen of the 20s is from Tschichold, Die neue Typographie, 1927:

"Für die Notwendigkeit der Grotesk als Auszeichnungsschrift kann man noch den weiteren Grund anführen, daß sie die einzige Schrift ist, die der Photographie wirklich entspricht, und zwar durch die beiden gemeinsame innere Objektivität. Die Schnörkel und Ranken der Fraktur, dieser Beamtenschrift des 16. Jahrhunderts, gehören nich mehr in unsere Zeit und werden nie zu einer solchen ausgeprochen gegenwärtigen Druckform wie der illustrierten Zeitschrift passen."

Ho Ho! I think it's time to go back to the Zeitschriften (Die Dame, but also non-gender-specific illustrated newspapers of the time) to check out who is and is not in line with Jan. Also: Fraktur brings to mind propaganda posters from the 3rd Reich. It might be interesting to investigate typeface as associated with political propaganda. Were parties that called for traditional "German" values more likely to employ Fraktur? Probably.

P.S. I tried to put the Tschichold quote in Verdana so as not to offend him with my serifs, but the internet-device isn't cooperating. Also, Schnörkel is my new Lieblingswort auf Deutsch.

Notes on Typography und das Buchstabenmuseum

This morning when I set back into the issues of Die Dame of 1920-21, I had trouble going through them quickly. Though the top reasons included the interesting pictures, the funny ads, etc. one of the most striking differences between this Zeitschrift and its modern (and I mean modern as in present-day) counterparts is its typeface. Die Dame, as of 1920, still used old German typography, i.e. Fraktur, Gothic-style blackletter.

This typeface stands out because my main fascination with Weimar visual culture is the phenomenon of Modernism. Before I came to Germany I went through a series of discoveries on typeface, including the film Helvetica about the modernist sans-serif developed in the 1950s and Jan Tschichold's 1928 declaration of modernist typographic standards, Die neue Typographie. Finding it in the original German is #1 on my to-do list for tomorrow. So, I came into this adventure with the partial purpose of observing typefaces and how they correspond to the content, message, and general aesthetic purpose of the text in question. In the case of Die Dame in the early Weimar period, I would tentatively state that the Fraktur typeface (which I will discuss more in a moment) corresponds with still relatively old-fashioned styles and content geared toward women. By this I mean that androgynous fashions, bobbed haircuts, and cigarette ads were not yet prevalent in the magazine. Whether or not typeface changes correspond with fashion changes I still don't know. But, it is safe to say that as of 1920-21 the modernist movement in graphic design was not yet in full swing and had not reached one of the major women's fashion magazines.

Anyway, after lunch I decided to stretch my legs, ditch the library, and go check out the Buchstabenmuseum. Best idea ever. This place is awesome. A postcard is in the mail on the way to you lucky ones in the Colbs German department, and I'll go back to take pictures to post very soon. The Buchstabenmuseum is a tiny exhibit in a space in a weird mall across from Alexanderplatz. The American intern working there called the building "DDR-tastic." I think it's being torn down pretty soon. The museum itself is basically a bunch of torn-down letters from various institutions and businesses that sit jumbled around in the little space. Huge letters with neon lightbulbs are just lying around, leaning against walls and stacked on each other. It sort of looks like a letter junkyard.

The best ones are the DDR relics. Most notably are the letters RUNDFUNK from the old DDR radio station and the H-A-U-P from the old DDR Hauptbahnhof. When the wall fell, they changed the name to Ostbahnhof, replacing only the HAUP. You can go to the Buchstabenmuseum to see the old letters. So cool. And, the intern also told me that the head of the museum was the main adviser to the makers of Helvetica for the part of the film in Germany. Even cooler.

We're not done yet. Alex, the intern, pointed me to the Kulturforum, where there is currently an exhibit called "Schrift als Bild" about medieval and early modern typography. There were some cool old choir books and bibles with ornamental scripts. But, the best part was the woodcuts from the 16th century. Albrecht Dürer and his helpers created during the reign of Kaiser Maximilian I some humongous woodcuts that were on display. Most notably, a woodcut titled Triumphwagen für Kaiser Maximilian I, 1522. The woodcut features a large caption created by typesetters Hieronymus Andreae and Johann Neudörffer. The description of the piece mentions the typeface and concludes: "Bald etablierte sie sich als typisch "deutsche Schrift" in der Typographiegeschichte." !!!! That was the original typeset that would become the standart Fraktur used in almost all German publications up until the 20th century.

So, my original pondering on the typeface in Die Dame led me from one place to another, to the Buchstabenmuseum, and eventually to the original piece that ever used that very typeface. I love Berlin.

Progress!

I gained access to Die Dame today! After a bit of discussion with several employees of the Humboldt Uni Bibliothek, I attained a visitor card and entry into the Forschungslesesaal. Success. There were all the issues of Die Dame I could ever ask for. Hopefully they prove as useful and interesting as I imagined.

I also met up with good old Dave Oxnard today and acquired a Handy, which is good. A picture for Herr Dr. Shahan is mandatory at this point:

Needless to say, I will be paying a visit very soon. Another discovery: Buchstabenmuseum!!!! Stay tuned for a detailed description of that as well as the Käthe Kollwitz museum, which I am looking forward to greatly. Until then, on to the HU Bibliothek!

First Day

I've arrived! I'm still in a jet-lagged haze bordering on losing all brain function, but Berlin is awesome. I haven't done much but wander around Mitte, so I'll show what I've got: the view from a bridge a few blocks down from where I'll be living. Stay tuned!

(Museumsinsel mit dem Fernsehturm im Hintergrund)

Departure Day!

Today's the day!

I'm flying out of Newark this evening, and I'm ready to go. Even though this blog is mostly for my academic work, there will be pictures!

Besides reading up on various secondary work relating to women in the Weimar Republic, I've been investigating various must-do things in Berlin to check out. For anyone that has been, please give addition/subtraction suggestions!

1. All major museums, including modern art, national museum, etc.
2. Bauhaus-archiv museum
3. Woyzeck!! (This one's for you GM297) Plus, it has music by Tom Waits!
4. East side gallery (again)
5. Berghain? I'll at least look at the outside...
6. Kunsthaus Tacheles. I don't know too much about this gallery, but it's on my block and looks cool.
7. Deutsche Kinemathek- Museum for Film and Television- self explanatory.
8. etc...give me your ideas!

Wish me luck on my journey!

Questions, Secondary Reading, and Early Thoughts

Now that Christmas and the "Blizzard of 2010" are over, onward to the library! I've started the formidable task of reading as much secondary literature as possible before going to Berlin to explore the subject of representations of women in Weimar visual culture. My plan is currently to begin at the Humboldt University library reading the women's fashion magazine Die Dame, but secondary reading I do might point me in a different direction.

A set of fundamental and very broad questions is guiding my research: What representations of women appeared in Weimar visual culture and to whom were these images marketed? What relationships developed between notions of femininity and modernity, the status of women, and representations of women in popular media? More generally, what trends in Weimar culture indicated changing ideas about women and how did those trends conflict with or coincide with political trends leading into the early 1930s?

Starting with Die Dame, I hope to pinpoint specific instances of visual culture in the Weimar Republic that can provide more nuanced answers to the general questions above.

So far I have read from a small selection of books and articles related to my research interests:

Frevert, Ute. Women in German History: From Bourgeois Emancipation to Sexual Liberation. Translated by Stuart McKinnon-Evans. Oxford: Berg, 1989.

Frevert's book on German women's history is frequently cited in other works on women in the Weimar Republic, and provides an important background and analysis of women throughout German history. Part of what I am most interested in studying is the relationship between different representations of women as they corresponded to differing opinions among women of their own role in society in the inter-war period. Frevert's examination of women in Germany and their organizations provides background for a closer look at relationships between women's movements and various representations of women in visual culture aimed at men and women.

Kosta, Barbara. "Cigarettes, Advertising, and the Weimar Republic's Modern Woman." In Visual Culture in Twentieth-Century Germany: Text as Spectacle, edited by Gail Finney, 134-153. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006.

Kosta's article discusses a specific set of advertisements from Die Dame during the 1920s. She argues that cigarettes were a symbol of power and independence for women, but that advertisements also "function[ed] as a mirror of identity, fragmenting images into diverse fantasies of the self" (141). Kosta offers an important distinction between images of cigarette-smoking women in media marketed to men (the "Vamp" figure in many movies smoked a cigarette and had the power to seduce and mislead men) and those marketed to women (advertisements in Die Dame showed strong, independent women with a touch of orientalism; these women knew how to enjoy the luxury of a good cigarette). The female smoker, Kosta explains, represents both the "symbolic power" of the cigarette and a level of exotic luxury that is both "threatening" and "voyeuristically exciting" to men. Advertisements capture all of these elements while maintaining their function of creating "diverse fantasies of the self."

As I move forward with my research, I plan to look for more images of the "New Woman" in German media and examine reactions to those images as they coincide with reactions to modernity in general.

Next up: "Gretchen, Girl, Garçonne? Weimar Science and Popular Culture in Search of the Ideal New Woman" by Lynne Frame and Joyless Streets by Patrice Petro

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! I will be traveling to Berlin on January 16 to do independent research. In February, I will travel to Freiburg for the semester. I will post all of my findings and pictures from Berlin on this blog.

This is an academic project, but check it out to hear about my experiences and look at my photos!