Publications 2020

Alexander Kluge
The Thin Ice of Civilization
Opera: The Temple of Seriousness

Exhibition Catalogue
Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart (Editor)
Texts by Alexander Kluge, Hans D. Christ et al.
72 pages, German/English, numerous images
Spector Books
12 EUR
Order
Online
E-mail / Christian Wick

In 2017, the Württembergischer Kunstverein dedicated a solo exhibition to the writer, filmmaker and theorist Alexander Kluge. Music played a central role, an aspect that was explored in greater depth with the new project, a series of exhibitions taking place in parallel at three different locations-in Stuttgart, Ulm and Halberstadt. The project interrogates the role of opera, which emerged (at the latest) in the seventeenth century, as a contemporary “temple of seriousness” (Kluge): as a place where the serious, grief, and joy can be expressed and losses mourned in a suitable way. The exhibition in the Kuppelsaal of the Stuttgart Kunstgebäude was an overall production that combines a nine-part video installation with fragments of a stage design by Anna Viebrock and other elements. The catalog, a collage of images and text rich in associations, is organized along these nine parts.