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IMAGE NECESSITIES: Walter Benjamin Symposium (Part I)
On Friday, I had the honor and pleasure of attending IMAGE NECESSITIES: A Symposium on the Media-Theoretical Writings of Walter Benjamin. The two-day Event O’ Academia was held at Princeton University’s McCormick Hall, one of the rare examples of integrated contemporary architecture on the idyllic, tradition-steeped campus. The structure is part of the Princeton University Art Museum.
The afternoon began with an address from German Department Chair Michael Jennings, co-editor of the recently released The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media.
He explained that the conference would encompass three different scholarly generations:
-Grad students
-Young colleagues in field
-Senior eminent scholars
Jennings also pointed out that the photo used for the conference poster was a joke. Benjamin detested this specific photograph, finding it completely and simply vacuous. It was taken by German photographer Renger-Patzsch (His book, “The World is Beautiful,” was published in 1936).
The first speaker was graduate student Annie Bourneuf, a Walter Benjamin scholar/researcher and German translator. She presented a paper/lecture entitled…
“Radically Uncolorful Painting: Walter Benjamin and the Problem of Cubism”
Bourneuf compared letters between Gershom Scholem and Walter Benjamin in which they debated early Cubist works as being “colorless” (Scholem) or “uncolorful” (Benjamin) painting.
Both share the opinion that Cubism is characterized by impotence and inadequacy, as well as potential. Benjamin argues that at a certain point of distinct line work, cubism ceases to be a painting and becomes graphic art.
One cubist painter that did “touch” Benjamin with his “radically uncolorful painting” was Paul Klee. Benjamin’s “Theory of The Uncolorful” deemed a painting “uncolorful” if it resisted description or completely failed to conjure one. Benjamin analyzed Klee’s “radically uncolorful painting” previous to his intimate latching-on to Klee’s “Angelus Novus.”
(L-R) Paul Klee – Comedian’s Handbill, 1938 and Angelus Novus, 1920
Benjamin was also fascinated by typical children’s picture books of German woodcuts. He saw them as neither paintings nor art, but as simple, depicted, yet “uncolorful” pictures that demand names. He was interested in the letters and lessons of pedagogical children’s books.
His professed favorite was Orbis Pictus by John Amos Comenius, a surrealist jumble of unlinked images. He felt that through these “uncolorful” images, a secret dialogue between illustrator and child took place over the head of the rationalist educator.
A limited, digital versionof the book is available at Amazon.
Title Page and Interior Page of Orbis Pictus
Benjamin and Scholem were also both concerned with vertical/horizontal orientations. Benjamin imposed a signified value on the titles, while Scholem used them as visual icons in his notebooks. To Benjamin, The Vertical represented art/painting and The Horizontal represented graphic arts and childrens books (due to the habitual direction of reading).
Although Benjamin and Scholem’s titles of “Colorlessness”/”Uncolorful” relate to language, Benjamin’s “uncolorful” title seems to fall apart when Scholem asks him to frame the difference in legibility between a black/white picture and one colored in.
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The lecture was followed by Q & A, which centered around further discussion of the Orbis Pictus.
Please stay tuned for Part II of IMAGE NECESSITIES…
Written by robin on 10/05/2008 in Blog | Philosophy | Walter Benjamin
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