“세계언어로서의 추상”: 카셀 <도큐멘타>와 1950년대 독일의 예술정책 (“Abstraction as a World Language”: Kassel documenta and German Art Policy in 1950s)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 미술사학연구회
· 수록지 정보 : 미술사학보 / 34호 / 165 ~ 200페이지
· 저자명 : 이현애

초록

Beginning in 1955 in the town of Kassel, documenta, an international exhibition was planned to present the contemporary German art to an international audience and document its history after the end of the second world war. This study is based on the fact that American painting, especially Abstract Expressionism, made its massive appearance in the early Kassel documenta, in particular, at documenta II(1959) and III(1964).
In the 1950s, the two Germanies had been established in their respective arenas of hegemonic ideological struggle: the Stalinization of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and Americanization of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). Here, art played a cultural warrior in the name of documenta. It was promoted to show the political position of West Germany after the end of fascism and the beginning of Cold War.
Kassel, located in the middle of Germany, is so close to the border between East and West, the "Iron Curtain", that the citizens of East Germany could visit the exhibition before the construction of Berlin Wall. So, the institution documenta mounted a propaganda campaign against the Eastern governments by means of a financial promotion of the "Federal Government Department of All-German Issues (Bundesministerium für die gesamtdeutsche Fragen)" and "MoMA international Program" as a part of "Marshall Plan".
However, in doing this, there was a double delimitation: The West Germany tried to differentiate itself both from its National Socialist past in the 'third Reich' and from the cultural doctrine of the East Germany and other totalitarian states. While the Soviet-style socialist realism was regarded to represent the political ideology of East Germany, abstraction was equated with freedom and thereby encouraged as an autonomous art and a "world language" (in German: "Abstraktion als Weltsprache").
The German artist and the art historian who realized the international exhibition in the ruined town of Germany, Arnold Bode and Werner Grohmann, stood out in their roles of promoting abstraction and rehabilitating German modernism as a link between international modern art and contemporary German art. They believed that its history was interrupted by the Hitler regime and should be continued and rewritten. For them, abstraction became the language of historiography. In this way, the early documenta constructed a propaganda art and culture, creating the image of the state as ‘a new Germany.’The preceding studies about documenta in general have focused on the three points: first, the historical meaning of documenta as a political product of the Cold War and the divided country; second, the economic mechanism of the exhibition with a success of Abstract Expressionism in art market; and third, the value of art policy and history as an international exhibition which emerged in a particular time(the decade of the 1950s) and space(Kassel, a frontier city of the divided Germany). This study takes to task the third point in the purpose of extending the discourse of abstraction in the light of the ontology of art.
This study follows up this question: What were the meanings and purposes of abstract art in documenta in the era of Cold War and hegemonism? In order to answer this, it first considers the links among ‘state, world, and freedom’ on the one hand, and among ‘cultural capital, art history, and the concept of art’ on the other. These connections will contribute to clarification of the historical significance and the limit of abstract art in the 1950s in the case of the early documenta.

영어초록

Beginning in 1955 in the town of Kassel, documenta, an international exhibition was planned to present the contemporary German art to an international audience and document its history after the end of the second world war. This study is based on the fact that American painting, especially Abstract Expressionism, made its massive appearance in the early Kassel documenta, in particular, at documenta II(1959) and III(1964).
In the 1950s, the two Germanies had been established in their respective arenas of hegemonic ideological struggle: the Stalinization of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and Americanization of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). Here, art played a cultural warrior in the name of documenta. It was promoted to show the political position of West Germany after the end of fascism and the beginning of Cold War.
Kassel, located in the middle of Germany, is so close to the border between East and West, the "Iron Curtain", that the citizens of East Germany could visit the exhibition before the construction of Berlin Wall. So, the institution documenta mounted a propaganda campaign against the Eastern governments by means of a financial promotion of the "Federal Government Department of All-German Issues (Bundesministerium für die gesamtdeutsche Fragen)" and "MoMA international Program" as a part of "Marshall Plan".
However, in doing this, there was a double delimitation: The West Germany tried to differentiate itself both from its National Socialist past in the 'third Reich' and from the cultural doctrine of the East Germany and other totalitarian states. While the Soviet-style socialist realism was regarded to represent the political ideology of East Germany, abstraction was equated with freedom and thereby encouraged as an autonomous art and a "world language" (in German: "Abstraktion als Weltsprache").
The German artist and the art historian who realized the international exhibition in the ruined town of Germany, Arnold Bode and Werner Grohmann, stood out in their roles of promoting abstraction and rehabilitating German modernism as a link between international modern art and contemporary German art. They believed that its history was interrupted by the Hitler regime and should be continued and rewritten. For them, abstraction became the language of historiography. In this way, the early documenta constructed a propaganda art and culture, creating the image of the state as ‘a new Germany.’The preceding studies about documenta in general have focused on the three points: first, the historical meaning of documenta as a political product of the Cold War and the divided country; second, the economic mechanism of the exhibition with a success of Abstract Expressionism in art market; and third, the value of art policy and history as an international exhibition which emerged in a particular time(the decade of the 1950s) and space(Kassel, a frontier city of the divided Germany). This study takes to task the third point in the purpose of extending the discourse of abstraction in the light of the ontology of art.
This study follows up this question: What were the meanings and purposes of abstract art in documenta in the era of Cold War and hegemonism? In order to answer this, it first considers the links among ‘state, world, and freedom’ on the one hand, and among ‘cultural capital, art history, and the concept of art’ on the other. These connections will contribute to clarification of the historical significance and the limit of abstract art in the 1950s in the case of the early documenta.

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