Breathe In, Breathe Out: Johannes Itten and East Asia
On the background of Europe`s killing fields that brought devastation in place of modern progress, the East`s programmatic counter-position did play an important role in Avant-Garde movements of the early 20th century.
Even if respective works resemble a broad complex of imageries, they neither just randomly connect to East Asia nor do they just re-establish a notorious exotism. Rather, they have been at work to “transform sensibilities”, i.e., aesthetic categories (Elizabeth Chang).
My anthology contribution deals with the influential and contradictory position of Johannes Itten during the 1940s, providing a detailed study of the exhibition “Chinese Contemporary Painting“ (curated by Itten at the Kunstgewerbemuseum Zürich, 1942) and of some of his own art works. Despite of obvious semi-colonial power structures between East Asia and Europe, this case also reveals transcultural ambivalences that might have helped to develop a self-critical and relational understanding of art today. Read more…