Mon, 24 May 1999

"Guiding forces for the 21st century" - Steiner, Bely, Beuys and Emma Kunz at Zurich Art Gallery

By Ursa Krattiger

Zurich, 24 May (NNA) - The great hall of Zurich Art Gallery (Kunsthaus) was full to overflowing when the exhibition “Guiding forces for the 21st century” (“Richtkräfte für das 21. Jahrhundert”) opened on 20 May. The assistant director of the Gallery, Guido Magnaguagno, gave an introductory talk on these four artists' work, which attempts to make the invisible visible. On the Gallery's first floor a new, church-shaped “Think and Feel Space”, as one visitor called it, has been set up. In the “portico” one is welcomed by three pictures by Mondrian, Kandinsky and Malewitsch, artists who paved the way for abstract art and who were all involved with theosophy.

The “nave” is filled with 120 board drawings, part of a collection of more than a thousand drawn by Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) on blackboards covered with black paper during lectures he gave between 1919 and 1924. Since 1992 they have caused quite a stir in the art world, and this is now the twenty-sixth time that a different selection from them has been exhibited. The Zurich Art Gallery is now showing the largest number that has ever been seen in Switzerland: pictures on a black background, surprising in their uninhibited energy, directness, freshness, powerful colours and spontaneity. Our visual pleasure is deepened by reading the quotes which Walter Kugler has sought out from the relevant lectures and placed next to the drawings. Quite the opposite of clichés, pictures such as “The stars: expression of love”, “Dreams remoulded into imagination”, “Capital, goods, work', or ”Why human beings love roses“ give an unexpected new insight into the founder of anthroposophy.

Just as sensational are the meditation sheets of the avant-garde Russian anthroposophist Andrei Bely (1880-1934), which were found a few years ago in a drawer at the offices of the executors of Rudolf Steiner's estate. They are now exhibited in a kind of enclosed ”baptistry“ and enable us to follow Bely's path from representational symbolism to non-representational painting - a concept which derives from him. At the end of this development one sees fluid lines or a mandala-like form with five five-pointed stars in the middle of a circle which is called ”Wisdom“.

Between the colourful pictures on the walls, on the ground in the middle, stands the installation ”Guiding forces for a new society“ which Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) created in dialogue with the Berlin public in the form of blackboard drawings. Two further rooms - something like a choir art gallery - exhibit his ”Olive Stones“ from 1984 as well as smaller objects and pictures by this ”green“ artist who continually referred back to both Steiner and nature, and drew his inspiration from them. His call to ”make the secrets productive“ is like a motto for the whole exhibition.

The choir and high altar of the exhibition contain pendulum drawings by the healer Emma Kunz (1892-1963). A series of horizontal pictures leads at the front in the middle to a small mandala composition and a drawing in upright format, which, as we know by word of mouth, is intended to represent the nine months of pregnancy. Emma Kunz always steadfastly refused to put names to her pictures. She simply numbered them in sequence and forecast that her works would in any case only be understood in the 21st century. On large sheets of graph paper, Emma Kunz ”notated“ with lead pencil the points, lines and forms of pendulum movements, colouring them with coloured pencils and oil crayons. The overpowering effect of these restrained compositions is due to the fact, according to Magnaguagno, that they seem constructed yet at the same time give the intense impression of organic life. Her pendulum drawing no.168 - green, blue, yellow, red - decorates the packaging of her medicinal rock powder ”AION A“ which she discovered in the Würenlos Roman quarries, and which can now be obtained from chemists.

Earlier in the year, on 30 March, the death-day of Rudolf Steiner, the first permanent exhibition about his life and work opened at Domach near Basel. In the Duldeck House (west of the Goetheanum's main entrance), are exhibited letters, photographs, board drawings, sculptures, architectural models and note-books from the Rudolf Steiner archive. The house containing the exhibition is also part of it. Steiner made architectural history with it in 1915 by using concrete - then a new building material - in a sculptural way. It is very enjoyable to walk through the bright, renovated rooms with the two rotundas and enter the bookshop in the former, centrally-situated dining room.

”Guiding forces for the 21st century" will run until 1 August at the Zurich Art Gallery. It is accompanied by an extensive programme of guided tours, lectures and panel discussions. Opening times: Tues-Thurs 10am-9pm, Fri-Sun 10am-5pm

Opening times for the House Duldeck permanent exhibition are Mon 2-6.30pm; Tues-Fri 9am-l2.30pm and 2-6.30pm; Sat 9am-5pm. Entrance is free. Guided tours on request

ENDS

N990524-02EN Date: 24 May 1999

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Sexual abuse awareness

By Ursa Krattiger

Zurich, 24 May (NNA) - The German child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr Michæl Meusers from Herdecke community hospital spoke about the sexual abuse of children and young people at the recent (15 May) Zurich conference of Swiss Rudolf Steiner schools,. This followed the discovery, in the summer of 1988, of sexual misconduct by a teacher at Wetzikon Rudolf Steiner school.

Close to fifty teachers from all over Switzerland were made aware of the kinds of signals which children and adolescents use to draw attention to abuse. Michæl Meusers emphasised that the sexual feelings of offenders (fives times more men than women) are aroused in the presence of children. He said this was a “curse” which usually became apparent as early as between the ages of 12 and 16, when such youngsters “made advances” to small children. Alongside a clear refusal to countenance pædophile sexuality, he spoke of the need for recognising the ambivalence between an abused child's personal regard for the offender and an unmistakeable rejection of his sexual behaviour. Offenders, he said, were often the sympathetic and close friends of their abused victims, and getting the child to distance him/herself from the abuser must, in the victim's own interests, be done very carefully.

Michæl Meusers made the teachers aware of the kind of conversation which can help a child or adolescent talk about abuse. As adults to whom they are close and in whom they have confidence, teachers are well-placed to help children in distress. Yet they must be able to pay close and careful attention to small signs, and learn to repeat what a child says in their own words. “Then the child will carry on talking”, and at his own speed. Teachers must themselves first practise finding words for such a conversation - little exercises showed how unused we are to doing this - and work at reflecting back their perceptions without making value-judgements. It should be no surprise, however, that this proves so difficult. It is after all only quite recently that our civilisation has at last decided to start talking about this age-old subject of abuse,

ENDS

N990524-01EN Date: 24 May 1999

Copyright 1999 News Network Anthroposophy Limited. All rights reserved. See http://www.nna-news.org/copyright/

More NNA reports at: http://www.nna-news.org/