Press Centre
June 2008
Exhibition Wortspielzeug (Toying with Words) by Hans Magnus Enzensberger
The “WortSpielZeug” (Toying with Words) exhibition by Hans Magnus Enzensberger makes a plea for the desire to toy with words and the joy of word play at Swarovski Kristallwelten from June 16 to November 9, 2008.
To play with words, to test their meanings, to twist and turn them around until the meaning disappears behind their sound is “an irrepressible desire” that the German author, publisher and translator Hans Magnus Enzensberger quickly seized upon. It was from this entertaining game, which has accompanied him throughout his life that the idea ultimately grew to go beyond pure text and “construct representational toys, objects that were something between art and nonsense that made different forms of reading possible”.
The resulting 18 objects, which are being exhibited under the title “WortSpielZeug” in the Swarovski Kristallwelten awaken the curiosity about the (hidden) meanings of words and generate the temptation to create them anew. There are mechanical apparatus, recorded messages from the world of literature, materials that lead to optical illusions and where the meaning behind them is only released through alternating between light and shadow. Between them are everyday items and free standing modules printed with poems and various sayings.
A part of these created literary objects is based on the associations to the content of the text - such as when, in the object “Spitzenlyrik“ Rainer Maria Rilke’s verse about the art of lace making is read through a paper doily for a cake, when Enzensberger’s poem “Schattenreich“ is only completely readable by opening and closing a Venetian blind or when the “Alpenjägerlied“ from Paul van Ostajen moves along two brass cylinders: “on and off” – as if the two protagonists of the poem were climbing up or going down a road.
On the other hand, Enzensberger breaks with the usual by challenging meanings in his text sculpture or in “Augsburg, chinesisch blau” where he creates new text by dividing it into various parts and rearranging them in relationship to each other. Words can be understood by using the hands. The lines of a fingerprint set free the letters of a text in other patterns than those that were first visible. Last but not least, visitors to the exhibition can practice sketching new combinations themselves by rearranging the 14 sonnet lines of “Riccordi di Laura“ six times over, or ussing a “black-white-red-green” turntable, create never before seen colours like “apple white” and “brick black”.
Altogether, the outcome is that Enzenberger’s “WortSpielZeug” is tangible poetry to think about and to be amazed by. The poet’s desire to tamper with text is translated into a highly amusing format for all those who follow him along the literary course of his "WortSpielZeuges” (his own toying with words).
Biography Hans Magnus Enzensberger
“I have been involved in the play with words and thoughts since the time I first began to wonder about language at around the age of three, four and five years old,” writes Hans Magnus Enzensberger in his introduction to the exhibition “WortSpielZeug”. Language and text have thus determined the whole life of the man born in 1929 in Kaufbeuren, Southern Germany. He studied literature, languages and philosophy, earned his doctorate on the poetry of Clemens Brentano, was a radio producer, academic and editor, but above all, an author. His first works, in the form of the poetry collections entitled “verteidigung der wölfe” and “landessprache“ were published in the late 1950s and early 1960s. These were followed by more poetry, novels, collections of essays on politics and philosophy (“Politik und Verbrechen“, “Palaver“, “Diderots Schatten“ and others), biographic and documentary texts (“Hammerstein oder der Eigensinn“, “Der kurze Sommer der Anarchie“, “Freisprüche. Revolutionäre vor Gericht“) as well as the linguistic discourse “Heraus mit der Sprache“.
At the same time Enzensberger’s occupation with text simultaneously was, and is, still to be found in many other areas. The author, who has increasingly lived abroad for longer periods, among other places, in Norway, Italy, the Soviet Union, the USA and Latin America, works as a translator and publisher. In 1965 he founded the cultural magazine “Kursbuch“, which is considered one of the most important medial expressions of the student movement and guided it until 1975. In 1980, together with Gaston Salvatore, he founded the cultural magazine “TransAtlantic“, on which he continued to work up until 1982. More than 250 volumes were produced in the bibliophile series “Die Andere Bibliothek”, which he founded and published from 1985 to 2007.
Hans Magnus Enzensberger’s work was recognized with, among others, the Georg Büchner Prize (1963), the Heinrich Böll Prize (1985) and the Heinrich Heine Prize (1998). In 2006, on the occasion of the award of the media prize of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Science, the German Mathematics Association named a polynomial “the Enzensberger Star” – after him.
