The student started to cry when I said—admittedly, in retrospect, with too much emphasis—
“This.This is a fascist aesthetic. This is what Fascism looks like.”
Trying to keep her composure with her feelings all over her face, she said slowly,
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to get upset. It’s just that, I’m German.”
I tried to walk back the criticism but still stand by it. I countered with a personal narrative, paid a compliment too late, left in a hurry. Naturally, and only after the fact, I’m able to reconsider what I even meant, and what I should’ve said instead:
1. I can see that the extreme attention you’ve paid to precision and craft is matched by a deep sense of rational order. 2. But rationalism is often myopic; it reaches for the severe, the logical or impossible semblance of balance to counter everything it hopes it isn’t. 3. In essence, rationalism is purely a facade, and failure is inevitable. 4. Further, any aesthetic concerned primarily with itself is faulty. While it tries to uphold and maintain its beauty and form in the short term, it refuses to own or acknowledge its potential power in the long term. 5. What is materially seductive should always be seen as politically suspect. 6. How do you account for that? 7. How do you expect me to account for that when you do not?
***
Frühling Erwachen: Eine Kindertragödie (Spring Awakening: A Children’s Tragedy) is a controversial fin de siècle play by German dramaturg Frank Wedekind. Infamous for dialogues of childhood innocence marred by naivety and oppression, both from the inherited behaviors of adults around them as well as society at large—it, predictably, does not end well. But why should it?
Like Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon (2009), Wedekind wrote about generational trauma wrapped within the psychological decay of an oppressive society. We’re left to wonder, what will happen when these children grow up? Scenes of preteens dwelling on unspeakable urges set against a despairing zeitgeist, amid the industrial overdrive of the turn of the century, only able to comprehend existence through exterior violence.
Theoretically, the surviving characters would enter into the era of World War One, the poverty thereafter, and eventually seek an uncanny escape. Like the name of the play implies, the seasonal cycle of death continues. That the teenagers at the turn of the century would wake up in middle age and want to make Germany great again is simply what happened.
Elsewhere, around the time of Frühling Erwachen’s public debut and banning thereafter, the German author Thomas Mann published his first novel, Buddenbrooks: Verfall einer Familie in 1901. The unanticipated commercial and critical success propelled Mann into a position of comfort and influence. Settled in Munich, he married into a well connected family and became, for all intents and purposes, a well-respected intellectual; all while his unspeakable urges sublimated deeply into his practice with the cultural cache of plausible deniability.
The thematic aspects of bourgeois alienation and impending upheaval reverberated throughout Mann’s oeuvre—with the modernist obsession of hygiene in a world full of moral sickness one of his primary metaphors. His novella, Death in Venice, was written in less than a year's time and published in 1912. Deemed semi-autobiographical, it is the story of famed German writer Gustav von Aschenbach on retreat in Italy’s famed, frozen-in-time landscape as an impending cholera outbreak consumes the city. As the aging Aschenbach slides into an existential breakdown, he is dually confronted with the embodied ideal of youthful aesthetic, its inspired obsession, and the self-sabotaging denial that can only be described as an interior violence. Predictably, it does not end well. But why should it?
In framing Wedekind’s modernist narrative and Mann’s modernist protagonist, I wanted to think of them both concurrently from their respective motifs of a season—spring—and action—tourism—two seemingly lighthearted subjects intersecting with one another, anticipating something sinister: tragedy.
***
I’ve heard that Germans romanticize Italy because it is who, as a parallel European society, they wish they could be if they had had a different upbringing. Is it vice-versa? Perhaps. There seems to be this fantastical wistful sentimentality of if only-ism…but what if-ness in all those repeated visits, even property purchases, of the northerner in the Mediterranean. Conversely, statistics suggest that leaving Rome for the salary of the Ruhrgebiet is the default expectation of the contemporary gastarbeiter. While it is certainly cliche to compare and say every German is uptight and every Italian is lax, the contrasting cultures create a mirror of equal admiration and horror to one another.
Think, for instance, of the early European Union policy efforts to push for integration and standardize the euro; the fiscal discipline mandated by the Germans that offset Italian economic growth that is still impacted today. In turn, with the power of his own media empire and convenient right-wing rhetoric, Silvio Berlusconi was elected—three different times—crucially in reaction or retaliation to the fear of the growing liberalization of wider Europe. Needless to say, a strong conservative party was built during the technological overdrive at the turn of the century. The current government, run by (the neo-Fascist) Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni since 2022, is often debated and celebrated as the most far-right Italy has been since World War II.
***
When Max said—in public!—in front of an audience!—while we were being recorded!—that I reminded him of a travel writer, or a tourist…well, I wasn’t exactly thrilled. I certainly knew what he meant and especially that it wasn’t ill-intended. The thing is: when you critique others' work—in public…in front of an audience…on record—you learn to live with the consequences.
I’ve wondered about this ‘tourist’ sentiment before. A harsher critique still comes to the surface sometimes: “You experience everything and commit to nothing.” Is that what it might mean to be a tourist and further, a writer? The coming and going is obvious, I know, but the political ramifications of indecision feel especially apt. Once, trying to keep my composure, with my feelings all over my face, I simply had to say: “I am an imperfect ally.”
In building out the issue, there was the fact of all of us preparing for Venice in the way we do via logistics and expectations, but I couldn’t shake that dawning sinister narrative. As new global conflicts arise next to public declarations for or against further nationalist dramas with the pavilions, my thoughts always fell back to Henrike Naumann—who envisioned this all along. While we might feel that we’re on the cusp of whatever is to come, acclimate to whatever is either convenient or commercially viable, the truth is we’ve seen it all play out before. How should we make sure it doesn’t happen again?
The forthcoming issue for June is Swiss Risks.
Thank you as always to the issue contributors and A&O Art Director Razi Hedstrom. On a personal note, I am deeply overwhelmed by the support and feedback we’ve received so far. Thank you for reading and thank you for discussing.
See you in Venice.
Brit Barton is an artist and writer based in Zurich. She is the editor of Art and Order Journal and founder of Relative Press.