Art, Culture & Architecture

Sam Ben-Meir* New York (The Hawk): The Käthe Kollwitz exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art is a reminder of why art exists, and, at its best, what makes it of timeless, universal value. Kollwitz’s work fulfills the condition of truth, which as Theodor Adorno observed, is to let suffering speak. Or in her own words: “I felt that I have no right to withdraw from the responsibility of being an advocate. It is my duty to voice the sufferings of men, the never-ending sufferings heaped mountain-high.” Her work also compels us to reflect on the nature of feminism, especially as it relates to art. Compare for example any piece of Kollwitz to the pretentious, corporate feminism of Judy Chicago who recently enjoyed a full-scale exhibition (sponsored by Dior) at New York’s New Museum, with the unfortunate and adolescent title of “Herstory.” Kollwitz’s Love Scene I (1909-10), sketched with black crayon on white paper, is far more sensuous and erotically charged than the sleek, shiny rings of Chicago’s Pasadena Lifesavers (1970), in which she supposedly sought to capture the “dissolving sensation” of orgasm. There are various approaches to feminism, to be sure. Kollwitz’s feminism is, in a word, the feminism of revolt and is truly universal: it is the feminism that says women have lead uprisings in the past. See for, example, the extraordinarily dramatic and unprecedented Charge, plate 5 from Peasant’s War (1902-03) depicting “Black Anna,” the sixteenth-century revolutionary as she, with arms raised high, leads her followers into the fray of violent struggle. Kollwitz insists that women can continue to lead the revolution against the degradation of humanity that we now call neoliberalism: unregulated capitalism, with its shameless exploitation o ...