The surrender of the Germany of the III Reich of Hitler before the allies and the release of Europe from Nazi domain turns 80 years. On May 8, 1945, Victory Day in Europe, World War II came to an end. Coinciding … With the commemoration of that day, it will be inaugurated in the state museums of Berlin, one of the world’s largest art centers, founded by the King Federico Guillermo III of Prussia With the name of Royal Museums of Berlin, an extraordinary exhibition: ‘The angel of history. Walter Benjamin, Paul Klee and Los Angeles de Berlin 80 years after World War II ‘.
The key work of this exhibition will be ‘Ángelus Novus’ (1920) by Swiss artist Paul Klee (1879-1940), who leaves the Jerusalem Museum exceptionally to be exposed in Berlin. The arrival of this charismatic work will be accompanied by other paintings of angels, from Berliners who survived the Iigm. What makes this watercolor so particular, 31.8 for 24.2 centimeters, is that it was owned by the German philosopher, of origin Jew Walter Benjamin (1892-1940). Benjamin acquired the work in Munich, during a visit to his friend Gershom Scholem in 1921, and possessed it until his death.
The importance of this work in Benjamin’s life was of such magnitude that he accompanied him in his exile, thanks to the help of a friend who took the painting to Paris in 1935. The philosopher had had to escape from his native Berlin, which he would not return, fleeing a Germany in which he had exploded persecutions to the Jews and Marxists. But in 1940, when the advance of the Nazi troops was arriving in Paris, Benjamín put his papers and the disassembled frame of the frame in a suitcase and handed it to George Bataille, which deposited it in the National Library fleeing precipitously from the country towards Spain.
Walter Benjamin took his life in our country, specifically in Port-Bou, on September 26, 1940. He committed suicide by ingesting a high dose of morphine at the France hotel in which he was housed. He was 48 when he died. He had arrived from the French town of Port you sell with a group that accompanied him. The intention he had was to cross the Pyrenees and thus be able to reach Portugal and embark to the United States.
To do this, his faithful friend the German philosopher Theodor Adorno le He had achieved the necessary traffic visas in Spain and from entry in the United States, in order to meet him. But he lacked the departure permit of France. Therefore, the authorities of this Spanish border town with France threatened Benjamin with deporting France. Faced with the fear of being delivered to the Gestapo, he could not bear him and he precipitated his death.
Fear of being deported
In a will of past years, Benjamin’s will was that the painting was delivered to Adorno, which would receive it in the United States after the war. Subsequently, Adorno gave it to Scholem in Frankfurt, and he would donate it to the Jerusalem Museum, where he has left for this exceptional sample.
In one of his last writings, ‘Thesis on the philosophy of history‘, Benjamin composed a text about the angel represented in the work of Paul Klee, of which he makes a very peculiar interpretation, somewhat cloudy, which he perceived as The Angel of History. In the exhibition it will also feature the manuscripts of this text of Benjamin from the Berlin Arts Academy.
In his book ‘Interrupted Speeches I’, Benjamin gives his own interpretation about Klee’s ‘Angelus Novus’. An angel who is about to get away from something that has been stunned. The angel of the story that he observes with his mouth and the wings extended, with his face looking towards the past, «a unique catastrophe that piles tirelessly ruin on ruin, throwing them at his feet. Well, he would like to stop, wake up the dead and rebuild the torn. But, Benjamin continues to tell, «a hurricane pushes him to the future, to which he turns his back, while the lots of ruins grow before him to heaven. That hurricane is what we call progress ». Time as progress will be criticized by Benjamin. Walter Benjamin was a brilliant mind, which developed an extraordinary intellectual career with passionate and sharp thought. He was considered one of the most important literary critics of his time, although his main vocation was philosophy.
The aura
One of his most recognized works, ‘The work of art at the time of technical reproductivity’, It was an invaluable contribution to aesthetic theory, because it raised problems of the philosophy of metaphysical art. The aura concept collected from the mystical tradition, photomechanical reproduction procedures or cinema are treated in this work full of discoveries.
In addition, fragments of the Wim Wenders movie ‘The sky on Berlin’ (1987) will be screened. In it two angels watch the divided Berlin. Reference is made to Klee’s watercolor and the interpretation that Benjamin makes of it.
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