Literature for the Eye
24.08.2018 – 28.04.2019
Hans Magnus Enzensberger
Günter Grass
and Hermann Hesse at the würth collection
The exhibition Literature for the Eye presents three well-known writers in an unusual guise. It focuses not on the internationally acknowledged literary work of Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Günter Grass and Hermann Hesse, but on their less familiar activity as visual artists. The authors’ approaches to their artistic work differ strongly. Hans Magnus Enzensberger’s machines involving written and spoken words form a kind of playful digression generating what he calls “linguistic dances”. Günter Grass, who started by studying art, attached equal importance to his literary and artistic activities, combining both in many works throughout his career. Hermann Hesse came to painting by way of a personal crisis and, although he regarded himself as nothing more than a “dilettante” in the field, noted in retrospect in 1924 that “I would not have got as far as I did as a writer without painting”. That statement might stand as a general motto for all three authors’ engagement with the visual arts, which revolved principally around a fruitful interaction between the two artistic disciplines.
More information
vendredi, 15. janvier 2021