Category: Artists

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Democracy in art

The depiction and imagery about democracy in the history of art is according to my own anecdotal evidence and visits across Europe much less frequent than depictions of royalty, mystery like religion or autocratic rulers. Therefore, visits of museums on art history, let us say prior to the impressionists, have to be approached with an obvious skepticism. The impressionist art movement rebelled against the official art academy and started their own salon and are still much acclaimed for this as well as the fight for their own vision of art. The worst authoritarian backlash came from the Nazi-terror, which annihilated large parts of democratic ideas in and about art. A second major issue is about who visits the museums in contemporary societies. Democratizing the crowd who visits art museums is a steep task. Ease of access also beyond  costs of entry, they still pose barriers of access to reach a representative sample of a population to participate in art. (Image Kunstforum new barn in construction).

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Art and fashion

There is fashionable art and arty-ish fashion. The links between art and fashion are manifold and new explorations of the link are always an interesting variation of the original theme. The Berlin “Gemäldegalerie“ has added a contemporary perspective in connection with Berlin fashion week 2026 to the already rich collection on the topic. The exhibition confronts the craft of the world of fashion represented by the dresses on actual display with photographs of those dressed worn by models against the backdrop of the historic inspiration. Add sound and video to this format and you will be close to total immersion into the world of art and fashion yourself. Art and fashion may be a part of all us, not only the privileged few in society. It is most of all a question of crafts related to art, design and fashion, which dominates the creative process. A strong message from all involved in the project to the visitors.

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Free Lunch

Who told you that there is no free lunch? On the premises of “The Berlin Philharmonic” a group of toddlers and babies had a free musical lunch. On the occasion of the lunch concert on 2026-1-28 in the spacious entry hall young musicians (piano, Ana Bakradze, and violoncello, Carlo Lay) gave a concert with Sonatas from Beethoven (op. 69) and Britten (op. 65) to an exceptionally broad range of ages in the audience. People fully enjoyed the concert, irrespective of uncomfortable seating also on stairs, if they managed to find a seat at all. The occasional breast feeding seemed to be the free lunch for some privileged babies. The adults were invited to contribute a donation to the UN refugee fund. Instead of the usual seasonal coughing, there were delighted outcries from the youngest, which enchanted the aging audiences additionally. The 2 musicians excelled in concentration on their performance in spite of the challenging setting.

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Paper and Scissors

In order to produce art it is not always necessary to have expensive materials at your disposal. Henri Matisse has demonstrated that paper and scissors can go a long way. With this in mind, the work by Johanna Beckmann, shown in the upper hall of the “Kulturforum” in Berlin, is quite astonishing. Beckmann relied on just paper and scissors, in addition to her paper and pencil work, to illustrate her own texts as well as collections of fairy tales. Her paper cuts of some hobbit stories might be remembered by a whole generation of children and even some of today’s world. Paper cuts and theatre based on such figures have been a cross-cultural treasure. The illustration of stories, but also the creation of own characters might be derived from such cuts using just paper and scissors. The “Kunstbibliothek” and the “Lette-Verein”-academy in Berlin joined forces for this exhibition and they both continue to transmit this creative craft to students actively involved in this “intergenerational exhibition”. Please bring your (grand 😉 children.
All those who travelled to Paris recently will be well aware that at “Montmartre” you can still have your profile cut these days. At this exhibition there is a “do-it-yourself” section, not only reserved to children.

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Timely timeless

It is very timely to discuss timelessness. Some inventions or artwork appear to have a timeless value. The creation of books has this feature as we have known also a lot about the conservation and restoration of books across centuries. Timelessness is about an open-ended vision of time. In mathematics it is a usual part of the differential equations‘ calculus to handle infinity as an operationalisation or a form of a projection of time into timelessness. Humans have made considerable efforts to create material and, most of all, immaterial goods which try to exist independently from time. Geek or Roman philosophy are with us for more than 2000 years and we still benefit from returning to this original concepts. Egyptian culture and the wall paintings in caves still speak to us, thousands of years afterwards. Each clock suggests that time is advancing, but some treasures achieve the level of a timeless beauty, art or conceptual masterpiece. The more we talk about time, the more we shall cherish timelessness. (Image: Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin 2026-1, The clock screening)

 

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Time and Emotions

In psychology, time and emotions are a matter of milli- or even nanoseconds. Showing emotions, intrinsic ones or controlled ones is passing rapidly through our brain and, for example, facial muscles. Hence, time plays a role in how we react emotionally to an image or any event. The author Rüdiger Safranski starts his history of the concept of time with the emotional experience that time appears lengthy or tedious. In his view the emotional understanding of the concept of time is key to a better grasp of the philosophical roots of the concept of time. Starting with Greek philosophers, the Stoic tradition, Augustinus, the history of ideas is full of reflections on time, what it does to us, and how we best deal with the effects time has on us. In famous literature from Marcel Proust or Samuel Becket, we were reminded of the creative power of lengthy periods of time and the importance or futility to ask fundamental questions about time and our destiny. Beyond the rational thinking about time, the emotional experience of time makes up much of the spice of life. 

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Social time

What does the „social“ have to do with time. Well, time is a perfect case of a social construction or a fundamentally social construct. The definition of time as „Greenwich mean time“ is nothing but a useful socio-political statement to synchronize time across the world, or previously an imperium. Points in time, as shown on a clock(s), can be helpful to synchronize human behavior. We might want to show up on the same point in time to start or end work. Of course there are thousands of ways in which such synchronization might go awfully wrong. This makes for splendid drama and movies have a long history to capture our attention on this matter. Social expectations, a social, psychological, and even a biological concept in extreme cases (Pavlov effect) make many of us to get a bit itchy, if time is getting short to meet other persons or an expected event is going to happen. A lot of social pressure is transmitted through the ticking away of time. The mechanism to internalize social patterns (for example prayer), via time and the clock, is quite powerful and has been used in movies throughout the history of the cinema. Even the individual endpoint in time is in almost all cases a shared social experience and turns into a kind of socially relevant time. (Take your time to watch The Clock by Christian Marclay).

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Art Utopia

Not all art is utopia, but a lot of it. A series of talks on the issue of utopia in art  (BNF) reminds us on the utopian projects many artists have pursued in the history of art. From a non-believer’s point of view, religious depictions belong to some form of utopian art. Much later art movements proposed to bring art closer to people’s lives by spreading decorative art to objects of the daily lives, like furniture, dresses, jewelry. Different forms of experimentation with materials or art styles reveal a taste for freedom of expression, sometimes of a utopian kind, at least at the time of experimenting. Abstract art opens up thought spaces which may appear like verylong shots into a very distant future. Science-fiction is of course a well known form of dealing with and representing utopian ideas to larger audiences. Maybe it is this curated space of utopia which many people seek when going to exhibitions and galleries. (Image: Giovanni Bellini, Resurrection of Christ, Gemäldegalerie Berlin). 

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Art Station

Mobility takes time. All people who travel frequently know the long waiting times at train stations. Be for commuting between places or long distance travel, we can hardly escape from the moments when time gets long and longer. The Paris train station Gare de l’Est has brought art in form of posters to the station as a kind of accessible micro-exhibition. The cooperation with the Petit Palais in Paris allows to give more people a taste or at least an appetizer to art work. Most people rush by, but some spend some minutes reading, inhaling exhaling, and continue to their destination or next date. In the battle for attention such initiatives like art in the station hold societies together. People with very different horizons cross each other for short moments in time.

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Futures for Amazonia

Diversity is the treasure of humanity. This was and remains a permanent challenge as thinking in multiple perspectives is taxing our minds. Simplicity can be a value in science or mathematical proofs, but cybernetics teach is also about the usefulness of a “requisite variety”. The exhibition Amazonia at the Quai Branly in Paris takes us on a journey through richness of the Amazonas, its people, biodiversity and landscapes. First of all the curators Varison and Baniwa manage to accompany us in opening up our minds to non-western concepts, which have for centuries been considered as less developed, but only from a western point of view or imagined sort of cultural superiority. Even nowadays the West seems to be convinced that for the liberation of, for example Venezuela, only a western power can achieve this. The 300 different indigenous peoples of Amazonia have lived through hundreds of years of threats to preserve their cultures. They have managed and they have inherited and still develop multiple ideas about “futures” of the Amazonas region. In just 100 days this exhibition has reached more than 100.000 visitors. Most of them will be convinced of a future and, yes, futures for Amazonia. 

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Time – The Clock

Time keeps puzzling us. The 24 hours of concatenated clips from well-known cinema films are a bit overwhelming or even lengthy. However, this spurs lots of time to reflect on time, on a kind of meta level. We see the clock or clocks ticking in all sorts of situations and environments. Nearly all emotional states can be interpreted relative to a time stamp provided by a clock. Christian Marclay’s oeuvre is screened at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin at a time when we feel multiple clocks ticking at the same time. For the sociologist, there is time on the macro-societal level, like overall socioeconomic development, but also individual time. A single person or a single moment in time may have very different macro-social implications. The possibility to live through the cineastic interpretations of ten to, as opposed to, ten past the hour, are interpreted by us with very different meanings. In a longer or historical sense, the timing of time does not matter that much. Point in time or time as duration, that is the question. Art in cinema can play with this like rock around The Clock. Don’t ask me how much time I spent watching, thinking and feeling through time in this movie exhibition, Should we always measure time with a clock.  Want it or not, we measured by our smartphones all the time and on multiple timelines.

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Konzerthaus Organ

In the Espresso Concert series we have had the chance to listen to young talented musicians. On 2026-1-7 Julian Emanuel Becker charmed the audience with 5+1 pieces in the “Großer Saal“ on the Jehmlich Organ (4 manuals, 74 registers, 5811 pipes). The program ranged from Bruhns, Bach, Mendelssohn Bartholdy to 2 pieces by Jehan Alain, which made for an interesting surprise. Mastering this huge Konzerthaus organ with impressive skills at just 20 years of age caught the attention of the Berlin audience including the tourists on visits. The enthusiasm of Julian Emanuel Becker for his instrument and the brief introductions he gave himself to each piece created a unique learning as well as musical experience for the entire audience irrespective of age and prior expertise. The „Espresso addicts“ of the Konzerthaus even took the chance to chat with the young organist to learn more about the marvelous instrument and the next steps in his promising career. The studies in Paris at the Conservatoire have been important steps in the careers of formidable pianists and composers for more than 200 years. Becker will surely return to Berlin to give concerts again. Try to catch a seat, if you can. (Image: Julian Emanuel Becker 2026-1-7 at the Konzerthaus Jehmlich Organ)

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Vaim and the sea

Vaim is not a person, it is an imaginary place, somewhere next to the sea, rather small in size, and in conventional terms nothing much is happening there, aging persons go about their daily routines in their more or less splendid isolation, speaking to someone is a rare act of achievement, most of the talk is speaking to yourself not even really thinking aloud, just ruminating on and on for days, sometimes weeks or maybe years in a person’s life 

Okay, my exercise in “slow writing”, a wee bit attempting to copy Jon Fosse, kept me going for 10 lines before the end of my paragraph. Jon Fosse keeps going without the end of a sentence  punctuation for 66 pages in the German translation by Hinrich Schmidt-Henkel. Reading the three phrases of Vaim, each as an extended poem and an “homage” to life from three intertwined perspectives, resembles a cubist painting and, maybe, at least for me, each one like the novella “The old man and the sea” by Ernest Hemingway. It is also a triptych in the religious tradition of paintings, just as much as “Vaim” follows in the footsteps of “Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett. For all those who don’t care about any previous literature just read Jon Fosse as an endless love story of platonic relationships, silence and romance,  next to the sea. Please, don’t pass on your copy of Vaim to school-aged children as they might become very creative about punctuation. The only allowed end of a sentence are occasional question marks, which is a nice philosophical twist in Jon Fosse‘s literal exploration of time and love. 

 

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Utopian Antifascists

Next to the exhibition on “Global Fascism” in Berlin in 2025-12 there was a banner on the wall, which stated “Antifascism as Utopia” (see image below). This statement invites the question, whether an antithesis can serve as a positive utopian idea guiding large numbers of people. It is certainly necessary that all people who subscribe to democratic principles and human values should be able to unite under the banner of antifascism, but the ways to pursue this goal are manifold. This makes the claim of an utopian objective a bit more obvious and, at the same time, more plausible as a potentially overarching objective. The statement might well turn out to be the defining statement or key visual of the year 2026 with rising nationalist and in some places also fascist ideas and rhetoric. Thoughts and words might be only precursors of more such actions in the coming months. 

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Positive negative Utopia

We have been used to distinguish between a positive or a negative utopia. The idea of a paradise is usually associated with a positive utopia, however, from the perspective of mankind being unable to live together without the idea of God being the ultimate arbitrator, this is more like a negative utopia. The industrial revolution and communism as the utopia to spread wealth equally across generations and all people, have been turned into negative utopia by dictatorships and authoritarian regimes. The fascist ideas of superiority of a race has also turned into negative horror and Nazi-terror. Hence, skepticism is in order, if either form of utopia is advocated. There are numerous examples of unintended or not explicitly stated consequences that have to be considered as well. (Image: Extract from Salvador Dali, Looming Danger Alarm, 1934, Neue Nationalgalerie, Stiftung Pietzsch)  

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Rilke’s Advice

One of the poems by Rainer Maria Rilke is entitled “You don’t have to understand life”.
And the first line of the first paragraph just repeats the programmatic sentence of the quite revolutionary romantic movement. Following a century of the enlightenment, which narrowly developed and focused on rationality and Kant’s “Critic of pure reasoning”, the authors of the romantic movement were eager to explore the world beyond reasoning again.
“Du mußt das Leben nicht verstehen,
dann wird es werden wie ein Fest.”
Rilke brings back the exuberant, Dionysian element into literature and captured the new spirit of his time. After a period of fast innovation in the sciences and applications of them in day-to-day life, Rilke revels in the innocent days and years during childhood, where youth is simply asking for more without hindsight. In doing so: “Life will be a like a feast”. So be it, we should like to add. (Rilke wrote a poem « Das Karussell » with subtitle Jardin du Luxembourg, Image below)

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Jewish book art in Berlin

One of the treasures of books in the collection of the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin is the Hebraica collection. It is currently presented in the museum space of the library. The curators Martini and Eichhorst have succeeded in the task to present the sanctuaries in a form that a larger public can better understand the skills needed to produce these fine pieces of art and worship. Similarly, great care has been taken to explain the formidable task to preserve and sometimes restore these precious pieces. The exhibition explains in an accessible manner what place each piece has in the Jewish tradition and regional varieties. Examples of annotations to assist interpretation of the texts or graphical annotations complement the original documents and sacred texts. These exhibits allow a  for a starting point for a better understanding of the importance of the Hebrew Bible and the scrolls of the Book of Esther in the practice of Jewish rituals. A more permanent exhibition could greatly enhance inter religious understanding and respect of traditions. 

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Projection Painting

Nature teaches us lots of tricks. Bionics are all around us in the 21st century, but the marvelous projection of a winter tree on a huge screen comes close to a naturalistic painting. The projection of the branches and leaves of a tree originates from the early sunset in December 2025 in Berlin. Nature teaches beauty and the techniques to imitate or reproduce the effects. Its up to us to keep our eyes, senses and minds open to enjoy the beauty in our surroundings. 

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Piano & Dance

Young talents sometimes offer innovative approaches. This was the case of Amiri Harewood in his performance of short piano pieces in the Espresso series at the Konzerthaus in Berlin. In an effort to take the Berlin audience on a lunchtime journey his program started with Schostakowitsch and Rachmaninow to move to less familiar repertoire from George Walker and Joshua Uzoigwe to “Valses Poéticos” from Granados. The live performance by Amiri Harewood in Berlin was at its best when he started to move head and shouldlers, breathe in tune and dance a bit while playing the piano. This rather unique feature of his performance is certainly different from a “stiff upper lip” or rigid posture we observe too often. This created an interesting “Kontrapunkt” for many in the audience who rather came for the espresso and to visit the building expecting some classic piano in the historic setting of the Konzerthaus Berlin. It took a while until people realized they were up to a unique piano experience. “Neuer Wein in alten Flaschen” = young, fresh music in old bottles or settings.

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Konzerthaus Espresso

Classical music in classicist architecture sounds like a perfect match. The audience is packed with people mostly 60+ years of age. One of the spectators happily admitted that without the espresso before the concert she would have a hard time to follow closely because after lunch at 2 p.m it is time for a rest rather than excitement.
The series of short concerts at lunchtime suits particular audiences. It is probably the only concert series where the queue in front of the toilet of men is equally long than the one for women. The short concert program allows for more experimental formats as well. Musicians who develop a solo program of shorter than standard concert hall duration can appear in high reputation locations and gain experience of performing in such prestigious settings.
With a “Zugabe” from the performer, but also in form of a small piece of chocolate for the audience at the exit, 21st century, classical Berlin knows how to charm its aging audience and population. Young performers learn that the mature audiences don’t bite any more. In case the sound and peaks become too modern they just adapt sound level of their hearing aids. It is perfect for all generations.

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Dancing School

Most of us know very little about what happens in a dancing school. This has intrigued artists for centuries. The Paris-based “Comédie francaise” has chosen the “L’école de danse” de Carlo Goldini as one of the pieces to enter its repertoire in 2025. Whereas modern dance celebrates the freedom of motion of humans, the early 18th century theatre piece by Goldini is a comedy in which the tyrannic ballet teacher attempts relentlessly to maximize profits based on the talents of the dancers either by placing them at a high reputation theaters or marrying them. Of course, each time a sizable commission has to be paid to the dealer of talents. Sounds familiar to what happens in other professions today, doesn’t it?
The borders between “dealing with love” and “dealing in love” become blurred in this comedy and Goldini shows his talent to play out intrigues on stage in an admirable way. It is a pleasure to experience the fun on stage with the manifold intrigues. (Image: actors of Comédie francaise in L’école de danse 2025-12).

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Bodies in motion

Since more than 2.000 years the art of movement and dance has fascinated people and artists. Early statues from Italy, which are exposed in the museum of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BNF, see image below) testify to this. This form of art has been practiced within Europe and much beyond Europe as well. The human body in motion needs specific preparations and training to reach the levels of artistic performance. Similar to other art forms the skills have to be experienced and learned before you start to play with movements as a form of freedom of expression. Dance is not only a form of expression and identification of groups or generations, but also a discipline of rigor and body care. The fascination of human bodies in motion rather than the ballet of robots or drones, catches our emotions. Even recent songs do not hesitate to make this the central topic of a chanson. (J’aime comment tu bouge, by Claude Bégin) 

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Minds alike

Great minds, think alike. In the „propositions on happiness“, the author Alain mentions as inspiration for his thought process: Aristotle (XLVII) via Marc Aurel (LXIII) to George Sand (LXVI). This is an interesting perspective and abbreviation of the history of ideas. The impact of stoicism in his thinking of happiness becomes evident. Although originally he was described by another person as a relentless optimist, he was happy to accept this summarizing label of his personality. In his writings, that also may work as recommendations he stresses the importance to “know yourself”. That’s not an easy to achieve objective, as self-deceit is all to common.
However, in desperate moments or just on a rainy day (both are entries from Alain), you will need to know how to console yourself. Friendships and knowing how to please others become virtues, which contribute to your own happiness.
Perhaps the best summary of the history of ideas with respect to happiness is his last sentence in the paragraph “victories” (LXXXVII): “Le bonheur est une récompense qui vient à ceux qui ne l’ont pas cherchée.” In my own translation: Happiness is a reward for those who did not search for it. (Image: Bode Museum Berlin, Allegorie wealth in front, facing allegorie honour in background; middle duke Montecuccoli.) 

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Freedom of art

Some depictions or statues of the 16th century quite expressive and average expressions of their time. An angel who is playing the lute in a rather extroverted way is amongst the remarkable artifacts we can discover in the Berlin Bode Museum. The Angel playing the lute is an oeuvre by Hans Brüggemann from 1520 in Husum. The angel certainly performed holy music with interesting postures, which resemble more rock stars of the 20th century or youth performing an act of “air guitar”. Artists always tested the limits of the freedom of art and expression. (Image from Brüggemann Angel playing the lute, Bode museum Berlin, 1520) 

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Surrealism Networks

The research project on the networks of artists in the group of surrealism ranges from the male proponents Breton, Ernst, Magritte, Miró to female painters like Lenora Carrington and Dorothea Tanning. The collection of Ulla und Heiner Pietzsch, donated to the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, excels not only in the depth and breadth of the collection of surrealism, but also in the way it contributes to our understanding of artistic movements and network dynamics. For those familiar with the theoretical and literary underpinnings of surrealism by André Breton, the collection allows to follow the traces of ideas into artworks. Interdependent inspiration in multiple ways becomes visible in this exceptional exhibition. The special concern and concept to honor provenance of the artworks makes the trajectories of each artwork explicit. Thereby, the geographic dimension, importance of collectors, galleries and personal relationships to gallerists become tangible. Additionally, the seizure of the 2WW heightened the need to have contacts to survive Nazi-terror. You find it all condensed into just one room at the Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin thanks also go to the Zentralarchiv to facilitate and participate in the research and documentation. (Image: Miró Collage, Berlin Neue Nationalgalerie 2025)

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Typewriter history

The history of the typewriter and typewriter is comparatively short compared to the history of literature or other technologies as partners in the creative process. With the advent of AI (here as part of infografix, see image below) the skills of using and mastering a typewriter have become almost obsolete. The original design by Remington (timeline below) has dominated for almost 100 years the technology of typewriters. Then came the electronic IBM technique with an automated correction type, which was not only faster, but also more forgiving of “typos”, short for typing errors.
The craft of handwriting had suffered a tough blow, despite its almost intimate touch to it. Knowing the typewriter outline by heart allowed typing with closed eyes or a focus on another text or image as well as a parallel thought process. Scientists and writers (Claude Levi-Strauss) reported on their creative process as intrinsically being linked to their typewriter.
QWERTY outlines for English language typewriters still dominate the keyboard typing today. With the AI interaction on the rise, we might move away from typing as a “Kulturtechnik” a technology of our cultural era and focus more on human-machine interactions via our voice and microphones. The underlying question, however, remains the same: What is the best technology to enhance our thought process? This, in fact, tends to be a very personal human choice, where technology plays only a subsidiary role.

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Classic Farces

Molière’s theatre pieces were popular pieces. Born with the name Jean-Baptiste Poquelin and son of a rich “tapissier” of the rue Saint-Honoré in Paris, he made a tough choice to devote his life to touring as a ”farceur” and comedian, having studied also law in Orléans before. Only after his first successful performances, farces and theatre plays, he could afford to buy the theâtre du Palais Royal, despite a bankruptcy about 20 years earlier with his own theatre. The much later title “Troupe du Roi” (of Louis XIV) and a pension by the King assured a financial and political independence rarely found in this period of classic theatre.
Molière’s “Les fourberies de Scapin” was written towards the end of his life and as a classic farce in the 17th century. The story is full of funny scenes and witty dialogues, which make it a great “intergenerational” theatre play even today. The plot about the institution of marriage addresses a cleaving social and legal construct “marriage”, which continues to excite all generations and across centuries.
(Source: Histoire de la littérature française XVII siècle. Robert Horville  in (Georges Décote series editor)

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Philosophy of Voyage

In an interview Claude Lévi-Strauss described himself as a philosopher of voyage. The excursions which lasted sometimes several months to live with indigenous people and study their languages, habits and culture became a scientific field of its own called social anthropology. He travelled with his wife and wrote down hundreds of notes and collected items. Only years later the concept of stuctural theory became evident to him. A voyage might go on after the end of traveling. It might start well before departure as well, not the least due to all the preparations. Colette, the French writer and polyartist, coined the phrase “ce qu’on sait faire, au fond, c’est de la route, ce  n‘est pas du voyage ” in the novel « La chatte ». In the pre- and immediate post 2WW years “taking to the roads” often had a gendered view of this with women being rare to hold a driver’s license. To “find meaning through voyages” or “the voyage is the meaning” fill whole libraries. For better or worse, travel books are still best selling books in a shrinking overall book market (less print books sold, but still higher value of sales).   

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Colette The Cat

The novel “The Cat” (La chatte) was written by Colette with a view on the emancipation of women. The main character “Camille” freshly married to her husband is terribly jealous of the cat 🐈‍⬛ of her husband Alain. In order to deal with this situation she dropped the cat from a window in a moment of anger. As her husband seemed ready to divorce her due to this incident she claimed that her husband defended higher moral standards for the cat than for her psychological wellbeing. The novel certainly raises the issue of hierarchy of rights and duties. The moral dilemma highlights the schism of animal rights and/versus human rights. This specific issue seems to be resolved in the modern context, where both animal and human rights are protected in parallel. On a more abstract level, however, our relationship with animals and nature requires us to balance the rights and relationships again and again.

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Racine Andromaque

The representation of Jean Racine’s “Andromaque” in Brussels at the Theâtre des Martyrs in 2025 has been an interesting choice, because the revival of a 17th century tragedy dealing with the intricacies of the Greek and Trojan war (mostly remembered for the Trojan horse). Jean Racine turned French theatre back to tragedies with his Andromaque (Résumé and analysis in French!), rather than the comedies or tragi-comedies of previous great authors like Molière.
The literary analysis of Andromaque by Roland Barthes (“Sur Racine”, 1963) identified 3 separate locations: chamber, anti-chamber and exteriors. The real power seems to live in the chamber as the place of respect, but also terror. (Compare also Mithridate). The anti-chamber is the place of diplomacy and the place of exchange of ideas, information and strategies. The exterior world is mostly closed off through walls or balconies as views from above. For Barthes this “symbolizes” even the prison inside or the pure heroic life inside the walls.
Besides this 21th century interpretation of 17th century theatre, Racine is remembered for his tragic love stories where A loves B, but B loves C and, maybe C falls in love with A. (Compare Robert Horville, 1991) The Condorcet paradox (Science of it) described only formally in the 18th century enlightenment, many decades later, had proven mathematically that such combinations of personal preferences are impossible to resolve. Hence, these confusions are great stuff for tragedies to evolve live on stage.