Monte Verità

This dissertation together with the artworks documented in it is the result of an investigation across multiple media over a seven-year period of the cultural, artistic and spiritual legacy of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Lebensreform (Life Reform) movement. In the course of this research I situate this movement with its origins in Europe and its promotion of a back-to-nature lifestyle (health foods, sexual emancipation, rational dress/nudism, pantheism/syncretic New Age religions) in a long line of radical reform projects, that lead back to the Reformation and the Anabaptist rebellions in sixteenth-century Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland. At the same time, I link the passage to America of Lebensreform beliefs and practices to the rise of the hippy counter-culture in California and the global spread in the decades since the nineteen-sixties of today’s ecological, organic food and naturopathy/Wellness movements.

In both the dissertation and the series of artworks discussed within it I set out to unravel and confront the complicated legacy of Theosophy and Anthroposophy, the holistic systems of belief that formed the spiritual backbone of the Lebensreform phenomenon. In the process I probe the question of how it came to be, that an occult world view based on a synthesis of world religions could appeal equally to purist avant-garde proponents of abstraction such as Kandinsky and Mondriaan and to figurative painters and illustrators such as Fidus (Hugo Höppener) and Fritz Mackensen, whose work promoted an idealized ‘Aryan’ aesthetic in line with German National Socialist ideology. As such the present work forms part of the larger reappraisal currently under way among artists and scholars of the history of utopian counter-cultural thinking and alternative life-style experimentation in the West. Following in the footsteps of historians such as Peter Staudenmaier, Janet Biehl, and Susan A. Manning, I argue that this reappraisal forces us to acknowledge the anti-rational esoteric roots of Modernism along with the progressive strands in Modernist thinking and practice, that tend to be foregrounded in most historical accounts.

However my interest in this project as an artist is not conventionally historical or academic but rather personal and performative. And the way the arguments are made, for the most part through installations, drawings, sculptural objects, video works, artist statements and performances, bears little relation to the orderly modes of presentation and detached forms of analysis that mark traditional academic discourse. Instead, the project unfolded over time as a prolonged archaeological dig into two intersecting strata, the muddy history of the Lebensreform movement and my own formation as someone born into an anthroposophical/Reform Church household in Leiden. The tension between Progress (social engineering/the collaborative ideal) and ℞egression (back to nature/childhood/basics) dictates the rhythm of the dig. The excavation metaphor gets literalized as I move closer to home, and in many of the artworks (Dutch) mud and compacted soil become the primary material: both the medium in which the inquiries are conducted and the consumable message/medicine dispensed at the door in pill-form to the departing exhibition visitor.

In diesem Vortrag, der während der ERANOS-Tagung 2001 in Ascona (auf dem Monte Verità) gehalten wurde, wird versucht, die Gestalt des fast vergessenen Mystikers und Propheten Ludwig Derleth der Vergessenheit zu entreißen. Es geht zunächst darum, seine geistige Entwicklung nachzuzeichnen, vom kämpferischen Reformator der katholischen Kirche, die von ihren Ursprüngen her reformiert werden sollte. Nach dem Scheitern dieser Pläne wendet sich Derleth ab 1919 der Abfassung seines Hauptwerkes, des "Fränkischen Koran" zu, in dem seine Idee einer reformierten Kirche für die Zukunft wie in einer Arche Noah aufbewahrt werden soll. -- Als katholisches Mitglied der Münchener Kosmiker ist Derleth Teil einer geistig-religiösen Erneuerungsbewegung, die untergründig wesentliche intellektuelle und künstlerische Strömungen in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts beeinflusst hat.

Brașoveanul Gusto Gräser și influența lui asupra gândârile lui Hermann Hesse și opera sa

În anul 1879 la Brașov s-a născut Gustav Arthur Gräser, viitorul pacifist, cu orientare spre filosofia utopistă, și cel care va influența într-o măsură și opera celebrului scriitor german Hermann Hesse.  Nu e de mirare faptul că Hesse și Gräser au aflat limbaj comun, fiindca ambii aveau inclinație spre spiritualitate, care a ajuns la un apogeu în romanul ”Jocul cu mărgele de sticlă”, după care autorul german a primit și premiul Nobel în 1946. În opera lui Hesse dominează întoarcerea omului spre meditare, spre găsirea păcii interioare, spre spiritualitate, catarză, iar menirea omului este de a păstra toate aceste în sine, ceea ce se confruntă cu viața de zi, cu industrializarea, cu pierderea sinelui prin munca stresantă într-un birou de mai multe ore, prin neglijarea sufletului și prin îndepărtarea de meditare, de religie, de artă. prin lipsa de iubire, și socializare. Gustav Gräser sau cum își spunea adesea Arthur Siebenbürger  (tradus în româna Arthur Ardeleanul) a făcut parte dintr-o mișcare utopistă formată la Monte Verita, în Elveția -la trecerea în secolul al 20-lea, când lumea devenea tot mai modernă în acel sens că îl îndepărta pe om de natură, că îl făcea o parte din industrializare, și gândirea ce domina era pragmatică. Gräser, pictor, cu pictura ”Puterea iubirii” ce câștiga medalia de aur la Expoziția Mondială la Budapesta, a fost împotrivă societății moderne și s-a alăturat filosofilor, artiștilor care promovau vegetarianismul, meditarea, viața în natură pe malurile lui Lago Maggiore. Chiar și fără restrângeri individuale, pentru expresia deplină a naturii omului. Gustav Gräser, ulterior prietenul lui Hesse, a apărut în romanele lui, ca un model de om, care luptă cu viața modernă și limitează natura omului. Să ne reamintim de citatul din romanul lui Hesse ”Demian” : ”Deci eu nu vroiam nimic altceva decât să încerc să trăiesc aceea ce vroia să iese din mine. De ce era aceasta atât de greu?” La fel și în cunoscutul roman Lupul de stepă dominează confruntarea omului cu societatea, sufletului cu trupul, ascetismului și hedonismului, și se pune întrebarea dacă mai multă atenție omul trebuie să dea sufletului sau trupului.

Luigi Pericle belongs to that group of 20th century artists and writers who entrusted their work to what could be defined as “posthumousness”. Posthumousness manifests itself when an author does not wish or is unable to have their work acknowledged and appreciated while still alive, thus projecting it into a temporal limbo of obscurity, where it can linger for decades or, potentially, forever. Posthumousness takes on its real meaning when a work is endowed with such an aesthetic energy as to challenge and ultimately break away
from its state of oblivion. This might occur gradually and slowly, or with an unexpected sudden rediscovery, depending on the material conditions and the cultural context in which posthumousness is set in motion and is finally brought to an end.

D. H. Lawrence's literary quest remains fraught, and largely misunderstood, because so little attention has been paid
to what he learned about how to better understand his own body from people he met who had connections to Ascona and Monte Verità, in Switzerland. I will argue that what
he learned in those places, both literally and through his relation to Emma Maria Frieda Johanna Freiin (Baroness) von Richthofen, haven’t been clearly identified and explored
as catalysts for the ever-increasing dialogic corporality that many critics wrongly identify as the crass, propagandistic and pornographic writing associated, for example, with Sun
and Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Operating in the registers of cultural migration, this article thus recalls the anarchist, bohemian, nudist, sun-worshipping, vegetarian colony at Monte Verità as a crucial source for D.H. Lawrence’s work, and concludes with an invocation of M.M. Bakhtin, whose work reads like a ‘how-to’ manual for readers willing to truly engage
Lawrence’s later earthy, fleshy, pagan, dialogic writing.

Preview of a multi-author volume I deputy edited with Julien Fronsacq, on sensory experiences and artistic experiments linked to the discovery and mapping of the Alps. This volume brings together a selection of documents and sketches from the archives of the Swiss musicalist painter Charles Blanc-Gatti, and specially commissioned theoretical texts by Sarah Burkhalter, Teresa Castro, Gallien Déjean, Maxime Guitton, and Jelena Martinovic. 186 p., bilingual English-French edition. Publisher: ECAL.

The book can be purchased at https://ecal-shop.ch/produit/vertige-des-correspondances/

This paper is part of the volume "Luigi Pericle. Beyond the Visible", promoted by Archivio Luigi Pericle (Ascona, Switzerland) curated by Chiara Gatti, in collaboration with Luca Bochicchio, Marco Pasi and Michele Tavola. The book celebrates Luigi Pericle, painter, thinker, writer, scholar of theosophy and esoteric doctrines. It reveals his extraordinary history, made of profound explorations and outstanding encounters. From the acclaimed collector Peter G. Staechelin
to Sir Herbert Read, trustee of the Tate Gallery; from museologist Hans Hess, curator of the York Art Gallery, to famous German artist and filmmaker Hans Richter. They were all attracted by his charisma, his multifaceted personality, his ‘clairvoyant’ art. With Luigi Pericle, the history of Art Informel in the years following World War II opens up unexpectedly to philosophy, alternative spirituality, the mysteries of the cosmos against the background of the space age.

In diesem Beitrag wird die Vorgeschichte des Eranos-Kreises in Ascona untersucht. Einer der wesentlichen Anreger dieses für die europäische Geistesgeschichte bedeutsamen Kreises war der Münchener Kosmiker Ludwig Derleth, dessen Beziehung zu Olga Froebe-Kapteyn in diesem Beitrag auch durch bisher unbekannte Briefe dokumentiert wird.

Luigi Pericle appartiene alla composita famiglia di artisti e letterati del Novecento che hanno affidato la loro opera a quella che potremmo definire la “spinta postuma”. La spinta postuma si presenta quando un autore non desidera o non è in grado di far sì che la sua opera venga conosciuta e apprezzata durante la sua vita. Ciò proietta l’opera in un limbo temporale di oscurità, nel quale essa può rimanere nascosta per decenni o potenzialmente anche per sempre. Tuttavia, la spinta postuma assume per noi il suo vero significato solo quando quest’opera possiede un’energia estetica tale da sfidare, e infine spezzare, la sua condizione di oblio. Questo può avvenire gradualmente e lentamente, oppure con una riscoperta improvvisa, a seconda delle condizioni materiali e del clima culturale in cui la spinta postuma si mette in moto e, infine, si arresta.

Recensione della mostra "Sulle vie dell’illuminazione. L’India nella cultura occidentale 1808-2017", Lugano, LAC (24 Set. 2017- 21 Gen. 2018) in «Alias» (supplemento culturale de «Il Manifesto»), domenica 24 dicembre 2017. (https://ilmanifesto.it/crudeli-eroici-e-spogli-i-miti-dellilluminazione/)

"""Elisabetta Barone/Matthias Riedl/Alexandra Tischel, Hrsg.
Pioniere, Poeten, Professoren
Eranos und der Monte Verità in der Zivilisationsgeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts
260 Seiten. Broschur mit Fadenheftung
Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann 2004
ISBN 3-8260-2252-1
Reihe: ERANOS – Neue Folge, Band 11



Aus dem Inhalt:

Tilo Schabert: Introduction: The Eranos Experience

Elisabeth Ries: Monte Verità, Ascona: Oberfläche und Unterströmungen am Berg der Wahrheit

Alexandra Tischel: Unter Propheten – Franziska zu Reventlows Romane im Spannungsfeld der Jahrhundertwende

Claudio Belloni: Thomas Mann e le origini di Eranos

Adriano Fabris: La filosofia di Eranos

Elisabetta Barone: L’avventura di Eranos: tra memoria e profezia

Thomas S. Bremer: The Genius loci ignotus of Eranos and the Making of Sacred Place

John von Heyking: From a Wooded Summit: Learning to Love Through Augustinian Meditation at Ascona

Ron Margolin: Three Approaches to the Study of Religion at Eranos. Martin Buber, C.G. Jung and Mircea Eliade

Serena Di Matteo/Aaron Powell: Far Eastern Thought at Eranos: It’s History and Impact

Matthias Riedl: Adolf Portmann – Ein Skeptiker auf der Suche

Adele Bottiglieri: Eranos tra i tempi e i luoghi della storia. La metafora dell’ esilio

Francesco Saverio Festa: Teosofia ed esotersimo nelle riviste italiane della prima metà del ‘900

Georg Dörr: Archetyp und Geschichte oder München – Ascona: Typologische und menschliche Nähe (Mit einigen Briefen Olga Fröbes an L. Derleth).

Gian Paolo Cammarota: Quale messianismo? Riflessioni a partire da Gershom Scholem

Francesco Gaiffi: Mito e fede cristiana. La dimensione mitico-archetipica nei contributi dei teologi cristiani ad Eranos

Silvia Siniscalchi: Il concetto di ,opposizione‘ tra Musica e alchimia
"