[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":861},["ShallowReactive",2],{"navigation":3,"index":78,"mdc--bnud8k-key":216,"mdc--xfoigd-key":229,"mdc-9lez36-key":238,"index-blogs":247},[4],{"title":5,"path":6,"stem":7,"children":8,"page":77},"Blog","/blog","blog",[9,13,17,21,25,29,33,37,41,45,49,53,57,61,65,69,73],{"title":10,"path":11,"stem":12},"100 Years to the 1st Zionist Congress in Basel","/blog/100-years-zionist-congress","blog/100 years zionist congress",{"title":14,"path":15,"stem":16},"Hundred and Twenty Years After the First Zionist Congress in Basel","/blog/120-years-after-the-first-zionist-congress","blog/120 Years after the first Zionist Congress",{"title":18,"path":19,"stem":20},"1897, The First Zionist Congress","/blog/1897-the-first-zionist-congress","blog/1897, The First Zionist Congress",{"title":22,"path":23,"stem":24},"Breaking Down the Boundaries between Art and Life","/blog/breaking_down_the_boundaries_between_art_and_life_chapters","blog/Breaking_Down_the_Boundaries_between_Art_and_Life_chapters",{"title":26,"path":27,"stem":28},"Empathy, Direct Experience, Violence and Will","/blog/empathy-direct-experience-violence-and-will","blog/Empathy, Direct Experience, Violence and Will",{"title":30,"path":31,"stem":32},"Illustrations from the Social History of Reading","/blog/illustrations-from-the-social-history-of-reading","blog/Illustrations from the Social History of Reading",{"title":34,"path":35,"stem":36},"Mach versus Boltzmann","/blog/mach-versus-boltzmann","blog/Mach versus Boltzmann",{"title":38,"path":39,"stem":40},"Notes on the Open Public Library","/blog/notes-on-the-opl-hamburg","blog/Notes on the OPL Hamburg",{"title":42,"path":43,"stem":44},"On the Jewish Metaphysics of Death","/blog/on-the-jewish-metaphysics-of-death","blog/On the Jewish Metaphysics of Death",{"title":46,"path":47,"stem":48},"The Open Library, Graz - Location #1 - Terminal Point","/blog/the-open-public-library-graz-location-no.-1-terminal-point","blog/The Open Public Library Graz, Location No. 1 Terminal Point",{"title":50,"path":51,"stem":52},"The Open Public Library, Graz 1991","/blog/the-open-public-libray-graz-1991","blog/The Open Public Libray, Graz 1991",{"title":54,"path":55,"stem":56},"The Outdoor Exhibition Space Munich - San Francisco","/blog/the-outdoor-exhibition-space-munich-san-francisco","blog/The Outdoor Exhibition Space, Munich - San Francisco",{"title":58,"path":59,"stem":60},"The Outdoor Exhibition Space\nMunich - San Francisco Questions & Answers\n","/blog/the-outdoor-exhibition-space-munich-san-francisco-qanda","blog/The Outdoor Exhibition Space, Munich - San Francisco Q&A",{"title":62,"path":63,"stem":64},"The Sick Soul IV - An Auditorium for Film, a Runway for Fashion and a Stage for Music Performance","/blog/the-sick-soul-iv","blog/The Sick Soul IV",{"title":66,"path":67,"stem":68},"The Train Library","/blog/the-train-library","blog/The Train Library",{"title":70,"path":71,"stem":72},"Variants of Aesthetic Collectivism","/blog/variants-of-aesthetic-collectivism-2009","blog/Variants of Aesthetic Collectivism 2009",{"title":74,"path":75,"stem":76},"Zionism as Separatism","/blog/zionism-as-seperatism","blog/zionism as Seperatism",false,{"id":79,"title":80,"about":81,"blog":84,"body":87,"description":88,"experience":89,"extension":116,"faq":117,"hero":157,"meta":183,"navigation":184,"path":185,"seo":186,"stem":189,"testimonials":190,"__hash__":215},"index/index.yml","CLEGG & GUTTMANN",{"title":82,"description":83},"About C&G","Two artist \npurposeful digital products that seamlessly integrate design and technology.\n",{"title":85,"description":86},"Latest Articles","Some of my recent thoughts",null,"Texts collection 1981 to 2025.",{"title":90,"items":91},"Work Experience",[92,100,108],{"position":93,"date":94,"company":95},"Brand Designer at","2023 - Present",{"name":96,"logo":97,"url":98,"color":99},"Nuxt","i-simple-icons-nuxtdotjs","https://nuxt.com","#00DC82",{"position":101,"date":102,"company":103},"Assets Designer at","2022 - 2023",{"name":104,"logo":105,"url":106,"color":107},"Raycast","i-simple-icons-raycast","https://raycast.com","#FF6363",{"position":109,"date":110,"company":111},"Senior UX/UI Designer at","2020 - 2021",{"name":112,"logo":113,"url":114,"color":115},"Linear","i-simple-icons-linear","https://linear.app","#5E6AD2","yml",{"title":118,"description":119,"categories":120},"Frequently Asked Questions","Answers to common questions about my process and services.",[121,133,148],{"title":122,"questions":123},"Services & Process",[124,127,130],{"label":125,"content":126},"What services do you offer?","I specialize in UX/UI design and front-end development. This includes user research, wireframing, interactive prototyping, creating intuitive user interfaces, building responsive websites and web applications (especially with Vue.js/Nuxt.js), and developing design systems. My goal is to create seamless digital experiences from concept to deployment.\n",{"label":128,"content":129},"What is your design process like?","My process is collaborative and iterative, typically involving stages like Discovery & Research, Ideation & Prototyping, User Testing, Visual Design, and close collaboration with development teams during implementation. I tailor the process based on project needs, always focusing on user-centered solutions.\n",{"label":131,"content":132},"Do you work with startups?","Absolutely! I enjoy working with startups to help shape their product vision and create user-friendly interfaces from the ground up. I can adapt my process to fit the fast-paced startup environment.\n",{"title":134,"questions":135},"Pricing & Timelines",[136,139,142,145],{"label":137,"content":138},"How much does a project typically cost?","Project costs vary based on scope, complexity, features, and timeline. For comprehensive UX/UI design and front-end development projects, my engagements typically start around $5,000, with average projects ranging between $8,000 and $25,000. For consulting or specific design tasks, my day rate is $700.\n",{"label":140,"content":141},"What are your payment terms?","I generally require a 40% deposit to schedule the project and begin work, with the remaining 60% due upon successful project completion and delivery. I accept payments via bank transfer and Stripe.\n",{"label":143,"content":144},"How long does a typical project take?","Timelines depend heavily on the project's scope and complexity. Smaller projects might take 3-4 weeks, while larger, more involved projects can range from 2 to 4 months. I always provide a detailed timeline estimate after the initial discovery phase.\n",{"label":146,"content":147},"Do you offer retainers or ongoing support?","Yes, for clients needing ongoing design support, feature development, or maintenance, I offer monthly retainer options tailored to specific needs. Let's discuss if this is something you're interested in.\n",{"title":149,"questions":150},"About Me",[151,154],{"label":152,"content":153},"What do you enjoy most about your work?","I love the challenge of solving complex problems through design and technology. It's incredibly rewarding to see people interact with something I've created and find it genuinely useful and easy to navigate. Bridging the gap between user needs and technical possibilities is what truly excites me.\n",{"label":155,"content":156},"What are your hobbies outside of work?","When I'm not designing or coding, I enjoy exploring Boston's neighborhoods, trying out new coffee shops, and hiking in the nearby reservations. I'm also passionate about photography and occasionally contribute to open-source projects.\n",{"links":158,"images":164},[159],{"label":160,"to":161,"target":162,"color":163},"Artworks","https://newauth-79tfmuva3-michaeljcleggs-projects.vercel.app","_blank","neutral",[165,168,171,174,177,180],{"src":166,"alt":167},"/blog/Hamburg OPL.jpg","Hamburg OPL",{"src":169,"alt":170},"/blog/JMD_Krems02.jpg","Random Image 2",{"src":172,"alt":173},"/blog/Rus-in-Urbis.jpg","Random Image 3",{"src":175,"alt":176},"/blog/Installation the First Zionist Congress in Basel 1987 Basel Kunsthalle.jpg","Random Image 4",{"src":178,"alt":179},"/blog/berlin_salon.jpg","Random Image 5",{"src":181,"alt":182},"/blog/1_Graz_OPL_1200px.jpg","Random Image 6",{},true,"/",{"title":187,"description":188},"Clegg & Guttmann - text collection","Texts collection of C&G from 1981 to 2025.","index",[191,199,207],{"quote":192,"author":193},"Emma's approach to UX design completely transformed our product. She has a rare ability to balance beautiful aesthetics with functional simplicity. The redesign not only looked better, but it reduced our customer support tickets by 40% and increased conversion rates across all key metrics.",{"name":194,"description":195,"avatar":196},"Sarah Chen","Product Director at Bloom Finance",{"src":197,"srcset":198},"https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1487412720507-e7ab37603c6f?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEyMDd9&auto=format&fit=facearea&facepad=2&w=40&h=40&q=80","https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1487412720507-e7ab37603c6f?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEyMDd9&auto=format&fit=facearea&facepad=2&w=80&h=80&q=80 2x",{"quote":200,"author":201},"Working with Emma was the best decision we made for our startup. She didn't just deliver designs—she challenged our assumptions, conducted thorough user research, and created an experience that truly resonated with our audience. Her technical knowledge of front-end development meant the handoff to our engineering team was seamless.",{"name":202,"description":203,"avatar":204},"Michael Rodriguez","Co-founder of Wavelength Music",{"src":205,"srcset":206},"https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1472099645785-5658abf4ff4e?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEyMDd9&auto=format&fit=facearea&facepad=2&w=40&h=40&q=80","https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1472099645785-5658abf4ff4e?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEyMDd9&auto=format&fit=facearea&facepad=2&w=80&h=80&q=80 2x",{"quote":208,"author":209},"Emma stands out in her ability to translate complex sustainability data into intuitive interfaces. Her work on EcoTrack wasn't just visually stunning—it fundamentally changed how our users interact with environmental information. She approaches each problem with both creativity and analytical rigor, which is exactly what we needed.",{"name":210,"description":211,"avatar":212},"Dr. Aisha Johnson","Chief Innovation Officer at GreenTech Solutions",{"src":213,"srcset":214},"https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1573497019940-1c28c88b4f3e?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEyMDd9&auto=format&fit=facearea&facepad=2&w=40&h=40&q=80","https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1573497019940-1c28c88b4f3e?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEyMDd9&auto=format&fit=facearea&facepad=2&w=80&h=80&q=80 2x","owlAdE8L-zwTukL9ZAiiwqmlSedoyXw6JosjjkRHuyg",{"data":217,"body":218},{},{"type":219,"children":220},"root",[221],{"type":222,"tag":223,"props":224,"children":225},"element","p",{},[226],{"type":227,"value":228},"text","I specialize in UX/UI design and front-end development. This includes user research, wireframing, interactive prototyping, creating intuitive user interfaces, building responsive websites and web applications (especially with Vue.js/Nuxt.js), and developing design systems. My goal is to create seamless digital experiences from concept to deployment.",{"data":230,"body":231},{},{"type":219,"children":232},[233],{"type":222,"tag":223,"props":234,"children":235},{},[236],{"type":227,"value":237},"My process is collaborative and iterative, typically involving stages like Discovery & Research, Ideation & Prototyping, User Testing, Visual Design, and close collaboration with development teams during implementation. I tailor the process based on project needs, always focusing on user-centered solutions.",{"data":239,"body":240},{},{"type":219,"children":241},[242],{"type":222,"tag":223,"props":243,"children":244},{},[245],{"type":227,"value":246},"Absolutely! I enjoy working with startups to help shape their product vision and create user-friendly interfaces from the ground up. I can adapt my process to fit the fast-paced startup environment.",[248,646,744],{"id":249,"title":26,"author":87,"body":250,"caption":87,"date":617,"description":618,"extension":619,"image":620,"meta":621,"minRead":642,"navigation":184,"path":27,"seo":643,"stem":28,"toc":644,"__hash__":645},"blog/blog/Empathy, Direct Experience, Violence and Will.md",{"type":251,"value":252,"toc":585},"minimark",[253,260,265,270,277,281,287,290,294,297,301,304,308,311,318,324,327,330,334,338,341,346,351,357,363,366,370,373,376,383,387,391,394,397,401,404,407,410,414,417,420,424,427,430,433,435,439,443,446,449,453,456,459,463,466,469,473,476,479,485,489,492,495,498,505,509,520,523,526,530,533,538,541,544,547,551,558,561,566,569],[223,254,255],{},[256,257,259],"em",{"style":258},"; font-size: 24px; color: gray; line-height: 8px; ","The Early Phase of Italian Modernism (1880-1920)",[261,262,264],"h2",{"id":263},"part-i-general-remarks-on-the-proposed-exhibition","Part I: General Remarks on the Proposed Exhibition",[266,267,269],"h3",{"id":268},"introduction","Introduction",[223,271,272,273,276],{},"The following text is a preliminary proposal for an exhibition about Italian modernism that Clegg & Guttmann are planning for Lia Rumma Gallery in Milano. The ideas mentioned in the proposal are tentative and subject to change; the main reason for writing the proposal at this early stage is the need to begin a concrete discussion about the planned exhibition. The recent Clegg & Guttmann installation in the Kunstmuseum Basel on the topic ",[256,274,275],{},"120 Years to the First Zionist Congress in Basel"," may be used as a rough guide for understanding the show we propose. The comparison with the Basel show is merely a heuristic, though; the projected exhibition at Lia Rumma Gallery will likely differ from the Basel exhibition in significant ways.",[266,278,280],{"id":279},"a-schematic-description-of-the-planned-exhibition","A schematic description of the planned exhibition",[223,282,283,286],{},[256,284,285],{},"Early Italian Modernism"," (the title will probably change) is planned for the ground floor of the gallery (alternatively, for all the three floors.) The exhibition will consist of six to twelve small environments spread throughout the gallery; each of them will be a constellation of objects, photographic portraits and furniture ensembles that represent a context where one of the aspects of early Italian modernism was developed – an artist studio, a futurist sound studio, a socialist club etc. The environments are supposed to belong to specific individuals or groups who contributed to early Italian modernism; each is dated and localized – the office of Leonardo Magazine in Firenze 1903, for example - indicating that the relevant events took place in a certain time frame in a particular part of Italy. A schematic map of Italy should be drawn with chalk on the gallery floor so the different environments can be placed thereon according to their locations.",[223,288,289],{},"Each of the environments is based on a specific photograph or a painting; the objects in the environments will be partly period pieces and partly 'schematic' representations made of MDF. Some of the environments will include reading materials – newspapers, books etc.",[266,291,293],{"id":292},"italian-modernism-as-an-operatic-artwork","Italian Modernism as an 'operatic' artwork",[223,295,296],{},"The main source of information about the protagonists and their activities are MP3 players attached to each environment that contain recordings of quotations of the protagonists, samples of their writings or music and texts about them. The audio-files will be playing simultaneously in order to create a 'sound environment' with a musical logic. When viewers approach nearby an MP3 player, they will be able to focus on the individual recordings it contains.",[266,298,300],{"id":299},"re-animated-portraits","'Re-animated' portraits",[223,302,303],{},"The exhibition will also include portraits of the different protagonists. These portraits are based on black and white photographs that the artists 're-animate' – the photographs are enlarged and printed in color in order give them the character of Clegg & Guttmann portraits. The artists developed the technique in order to allow the viewers to immerse themselves in the portraits of a highly impressive group of young Italians that brought the early modernist culture to Italy.",[266,305,307],{"id":306},"italian-modernism-as-art-essay","Italian Modernism as 'art-essay'",[223,309,310],{},"The projected exhibition belongs to a group of Clegg & Guttmann installations the artists refer to as 'art essays'; the artists have been constantly developing new strategies for presenting relatively complex bodies of ideas in that form. The reason behind the persistent interest of the artists in this category, that included some of their most ambitious works to date, is twofold:",[223,312,313,317],{},[314,315,316],"strong",{},"(i)"," The immersive qualities of the visual work of art help sustain the viewer's attention during complex, non-conventional presentations of intricate historical and philosophical material. The texts, audio files and objects are designed to appeal to the different mental faculties – a combination of sensual, intellectual and emotive stimulations that deepens the engagement with the topic.",[223,319,320,323],{},[314,321,322],{},"(ii)"," The intense intellectual engagement the art essay typically requires tends to transform the aesthetic experience; the background information on the objects in view and the role they play in the historical processes bestow on them a distinct type of aura that deepens the viewer's engagement and gives rise to an aesthetic experience of a new kind.",[223,325,326],{},"Clegg & Guttmann are, needless to say, far from being the only artists interested in art-essays. In fact, some of the legendary shows at Lia Rumma gallery featured important practitioners of the art essay genre who developed in those occasions ground-breaking strategies for essaying with art – Kosuth, de Dominicis, Kabakov and Mucha, for example.",[328,329],"hr",{},[261,331,333],{"id":332},"part-ii-on-early-modernism","Part II: On Early Modernism",[266,335,337],{"id":336},"the-need-for-a-better-understanding-of-early-modernism","The need for a better understanding of early modernism",[223,339,340],{},"The starting point of the present proposal is that there is an urgent need for a better understanding of early modernism. Despite the attention given to topic, we believe that the contemporary discourse about modernism suffers from systematic misunderstandings that stem from uncritical acceptance of various dogmas; as a result, the meaning of the crucially important concept is consistently misconstrued.",[223,342,343,345],{},[314,344,316],{}," The most pervasive misunderstanding is that modernism was a rationalist, scientific world-view. In fact, the modernist movement began as a revolt against reason; all of the important and influential early modernist philosophers - Schopenhauer, Mach, Bergson, William James, Nietzsche and Charles Pierce - were highly critical of the exaggerated role assigned to the intellect and argued for the centrality of the will, direct intuition and the capacity for empathy. That does not mean that modernism was anti-scientific - it was a critique of science in the name of science.",[223,347,348,350],{},[314,349,322],{}," The idea that modernism expressed an uncritical infatuation with technology, metropolitan life, industrialization and science is widely assumed to be a truism. In fact, most of the early modernists had an ambiguous relation to the modern lifestyle and sought to reform it.",[223,352,353,356],{},[314,354,355],{},"(iii)"," Another common mistake is that the modernists had a disdainful attitude towards the past and a delirious belief in the future. As a matter of historical fact, many of the early modernists were involved in an array of revivalist movements that studied 'primitive' culture, the Middle Ages or even the Baroque as a way of transcending the cognitive limitations of their day and age.",[223,358,359,362],{},[314,360,361],{},"(iv)"," The contemporary tendency to associate modernism with abstraction misses an important point: To the extent that they wanted to rid their art of representational content, the early modernists were motivated by the desire to come closer to the immediate, concrete reality of colors, lines, shapes and materials.",[223,364,365],{},"The dogmatic belief in rationality and scientific reasoning was typical of the second, post-war phase of modernism; after WWI, many associated the violent nationalist mentality that led to the war with the irrational exuberance of the early modernists who enthusiastically supported it. The wide spread tendency to blame the revolt against reason for the horrors of the Great War swung the pendulum in the opposite direction - it created an aversion towards anything mystical, spiritual or irrational; the result –a dogmatic, categorical belief in scientific rationality - was at the core of the new version of modernism that developed in the inter war years.",[266,367,369],{"id":368},"the-politics-of-the-early-modernist-avant-garde","The politics of the early modernist Avant-garde",[223,371,372],{},"The pervasive view that the modernist Avant-garde was an integral part of the culture of the Left is yet another example of the stubborn unsupported dogmas that blind us to the true intellectual history of early twentieth century. In fact, the division between Left and Right as we know it today did not yet exist until the Russian revolution and the end of WWI; early modernism developed relative to an earlier world view and thus cannot be easily classified as belonging to either camp. If anything, many of the early modernists were decadent aesthetes who were staunchly a-political; after WWI some of them became right-wingers – Marinetti and Kirchner for example – while others supported the Bolshevik Left.",[223,374,375],{},"In Italy, the dogmatic argument that fascists cannot be modernists was particularly harmful; it obscured the central contributions of right wing Italian philosophers, writers, political theorists and visual artists to early modernism. Marinetti, for example, was, indeed, a fascist whose political and aesthetic ideas were tightly interconnected; does that fact call into question the veracity or authenticity of his modernism? Is there any doubt that his futurist manifesto provided one of the most influential and internationally celebrated formulations of early modernist ideology? In fact, the Italian Avant-garde poet participated in the events that led to the emergence of early modernism in Paris; he took part in the discussions of the cubist group that met in Pateau; he corresponded with Tristan Tzara and other Parisian Dadaists; due to his influence, futurist groups were founded around the world that brought early modernist culture to places like Czechoslovakia Georgia, and Nigeria. The reservation about Marinetti's modernist credentials is not supported by historical facts.",[223,377,378],{},[379,380],"img",{"alt":381,"src":382},"Florence, offices of Leonardo Magazine","/blog/Leonardo-HFQ-Florence.jpg",[261,384,386],{"id":385},"part-iii-direct-experience-empathy-violence-and-will-four-early-modernist-themes","Part III: Direct Experience, Empathy, Violence and Will: Four Early Modernist Themes",[266,388,390],{"id":389},"direct-experience","Direct Experience",[223,392,393],{},"One of the complaints of the early modernists was that bourgeois culture functioned as a filter that led to a dull, distorted perception of the world. The revolt against reason sought to reverse or counteract this process by teaching people how to neutralize their reason and bring forth other cognitive relations to reality that will make it more resonant and engaging. The point was not to project one's subjective point of view on reality; quite to the contrary, the idea was that when one sets the concepts aside and engages directly in 'sense data' – with what one actually sees and hears – one might obtain access to a layer of important information that is usually suppressed and hidden from view.",[223,395,396],{},"Bergson argued that one of the victims of out over-intellectualized worldview was the perception of time. The French philosopher contrasted the 'mechanical' notion of time made of points that we are taught in school with 'duration' or the direct experience of time that was indivisible and forward looking. In the same years William James introduced the stream of consciousness as the basic object of psychology and proposed to investigate it 'in its own terms'. The two philosophers exerted important influence on Proust, Joyce, Woolf and other early modernist writers.",[266,398,400],{"id":399},"empathy","Empathy",[223,402,403],{},"In the social domain, the urban bourgeoisie were willing and able to 'filter out' the extraordinary poverty and misery surrounding them. In that period cities like Torino and Milano quintupled their population in less than fifty years, a process that resulted in a large segment of the population living in horrifying conditions. And yet there seemed to be a distinct lack of empathy for the victims of modernity. The rebels against reason blamed the same over-intellectualized world-view of the bourgeoisie for keeping urban misery from their view.",[223,405,406],{},"The idea created a shared ground between socialists who tried to 'open people's eyes' to the problems of the proletariat and decadent bohemians who wanted a more exciting world: Both were anti-bourgeois who tried to force people to take off their sunglasses and see their environment as it actually was.",[223,408,409],{},"Apart from its obvious social implications, the notion of empathy was useful also in the cognitive domain: In that context it signified the type of intense engagement generated by the neutralization of reason. Rodin's contemporary experiments with continuous drawings – when the eyes do not leave the subject and the hand draws automatically, as it were – were seen as proofs of the theory: when you keep concepts from view and focus only on the direct experience the results are often surprisingly life-like. In that context, too, neutralizing reason may lead to heightened empathy and the later, to an access to a new layer of facts.",[266,411,413],{"id":412},"the-will-as-a-central-concept-of-modern-philosophy","The will as a central concept of modern philosophy",[223,415,416],{},"Schopenhauer defined the core of modern philosophy as the insight that \"all our ideas are nothing but brain functions.\" According to his definition the philosophy of modern times calls into question any attempt to identify our internal representations with real, independently existing objects. The first philosopher to focus on these modern doubts was Descartes; in fact, the ability to doubt was central to his proof of the existence of the 'I'. Kant doubted the reality of the objects we perceive even further; he stipulated that we cannot have access to objects as they exist in and of themselves. Schopenhauer agreed with Kant but introduced the thesis that even though we have no way of knowing what lies beyond appearances we may identify a will behind them; even a wave that swells to its maximal size and then recedes displays such a will. Mach applied the modernist doubt to physics; he argued that even basic concepts like matter and energy have no independent reality. Science, in Mach's view, merely expresses the 'will to explain'; the concepts we use make the world intelligible to us. The will had a central role in Nietzsche's philosophy as well - he spoke about the will to power as the basis of his godless ethics; Bergson who was fascinated by the fact that sunflowers always turn their heads towards the sun concluded that they displayed a universal will to live; William James placed the will to believe despite insufficient evidence as the cornerstone of his pragmatist philosophy. The early modernists were overwhelmingly followers of Nietzsche, Bergson and William James; they believed that human beings were able to act autonomously despite their lack of access to the world beyond appearances due to their will.",[223,418,419],{},"Georges Sorel's political conception drew on the philosophy of Bergson and James; in this context too, the political theorist reasoned, the crucial notion is the will to believe. In so far as ideologies entice us to act, they should not be formulated as scientific theories as Marx required but in terms of evocative 'revolutionary myths' that make us throw caution to the wind. That was the basis of Sorel's syndicalism that profoundly influenced the revolutionary Left and the extreme Right. Indeed, both Lenin and Mussolini were deeply indebted to Sorel's idea of voluntarist politics. The rejection of science-based ideology and the assignment of a central role to the 'political will' made Sorel the godfather of modernist revolutionary politics.",[266,421,423],{"id":422},"the-legitimation-of-violence","The legitimation of violence",[223,425,426],{},"The most direct opposition to a life of reason was, of course, one ruled by brut force. Even if the early modernists did not initially intend to, their revolt against reason invariably turned into a joy of humiliating it and finally to a conception of life where violence played a constant part. For millions of young people in Italy, France, Britain, Germany, Austria and Russia, WWI turned that 'contrarian' attachment to violence into completely real challenge that they mostly enthusiastically accepted. The Futurists declared: \"We will glorify war —the world's only hygiene —militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of freedom-bringers, beautiful ideas worth dying for, and scorn for women.\" Many of them died in the war.",[223,428,429],{},"The war brutalized Italy. As Gramsci put it: \"Four years of war have rapidly changed the economic and intellectual climate. Vast workforces have come into being, and a deeply rooted violence in the relations between wage earners and entrepreneurs has now appeared in such an overt form that it is obvious to even the dullest onlooker. No less spectacular is the open manner in which the bourgeois state…shows itself to be the instrument of this violence.\"",[223,431,432],{},"The end of the war brought, in quick succession, a semi-revolutionary situation when hundred of factories were occupied and operated by syndicalist and socialist workers councils and a wave of vicious fascist counter-violence that culminated in the March of Rome of 1922.",[328,434],{},[261,436,438],{"id":437},"part-iv-italian-modernists","Part IV: Italian Modernists",[266,440,442],{"id":441},"early-modernism-in-italy","Early modernism in Italy",[223,444,445],{},"Italian modernism developed in the background of the intense industrialization, urbanization and political unrest of the period between the Risorgimento and the First World War. After the bourgeoisie completed their domination of every aspect of economic, social and political life, modernism emerged as an anti-bourgeois movement with philosophical, cultural and political wings. In the philosophical realm modernism was associated with the revolt against reason, which was associated with bourgeois ideology, and the celebration of intuition, empathy and the will. The period was also the first golden age of psychology that was researched both as a science of mental life – rational and irrational - and the means to control it. These ideas influenced the symbolist movement that aimed to produce on the viewer certain mental effects rather than represent nature. The same influences were evident in the political domain. The syndicalist politics of the same years sought to propagate revolutionary myths rather than rationally influence the masses. The rejection of 'bourgeois' dogmas – determinism, materialism etc. – had important consequences also in physics – field theory, quantum mechanics etc. - and mathematics – the 'subjective' foundations of probability theory, for example. In literature, early modernists tended towards the stream of consciousness techniques that were inspired by the writings of William James and Bergson.",[223,447,448],{},"Many of the conceptions of the early Italian modernists were influenced by the French discourse; the Italian versions were often highly original and distinctive, though, reflecting the conditions of the country. The next sections consist of short introductions to a partial list of the environments of the Italian early modernists that we plan to include in the exhibition.",[266,450,452],{"id":451},"the-florentine-offices-of-leonardo-magazine","The Florentine offices of Leonardo magazine",[223,454,455],{},"Giovani Papini led a group of young Florentine intellectuals that was known as the Italian pragmatists. Starting in 1903 the group began to publish a series of sophisticated magazines dedicated to philosophical and cultural issues. The first magazine was named Leonardo; it was followed by Lacerba and La Voce.",[223,457,458],{},"The Florentine pragmatists were influenced by British empiricism, positivism and pragmatism; when William James visited Italy and heard about his Italian disciples he initiated a meeting with Papini, Calderoni and the rest of the group; James' impression was highly positive – he said he wished his students at Harvard were as knowledgeable and sharp. Papini's crew met the futurists that gathered around Marinetti and after an initial tension, the two groups got along famously. In 1914, though, there was a split between the Florentine and Milanese. Both Papini and Marinetti became increasingly enamored with the fascist movement; the rightward turn of the former was reflected in the editorial policy of his magazines.",[266,460,462],{"id":461},"the-torino-school-of-mathematical-logic","The Torino school of mathematical logic",[223,464,465],{},"One of the founders of Leonardo was a talented young mathematician named Vailati who was studying mathematical logic in Torino. Among the eminent teachers who taught him during his studies in the Torino mathematics department were Peano and Volterra. The Torino school of logic was known worldwide for its insistence on rigorous axiomatization and formal proofs. The reasoning behind the axiomatic approach to mathematics was philosophical: The logicians of the Torino school insisted that mathematical theories should be defined in terms of precise axiom systems that filtered out the metaphysical assumptions that often crept in. Mathematicians do not have to assume that their theories were true; the truth of the axioms systems that formulate them should be left open; the mathematician's aim is to prove that if the axioms were true certain consequences followed.",[223,467,468],{},"Vailati wrote: \"It must be demanded of anybody who advances a thesis that he be capable of indicating the facts which according to him should obtain (or have obtained) if his thesis were true, and also their difference from other facts which according to him would obtain (or have obtained) if it were not true.\"",[266,470,472],{"id":471},"an-international-congress-on-probability-theory-in-rome","An international congress on probability theory in Rome",[223,474,475],{},"Bruno de Finetti studied mathematics and later became a professor in the University of Rome. His controversial, highly influential theory of probability is currently considered one of the most important treatments of the subject. De Finetti general philosophical point of view was influenced by the Italian Pragmatists and the Torino school: He followed the latter in his rejection of the idea that mathematical theories were objectively true. Instead, de Finetti recast probability theory in subjective terms, defining the probability of a proposition as the degree of belief an individual assigns to that proposition. Subjective probabilities reflect the betting behavior of the individual who assigns them - the way he or she would bet on various propositions. The sole requirement placed on the choice of subjective probabilities is internal consistency.",[223,477,478],{},"De Finetti's rejection of objective probabilities was motivated by a general anti-metaphysical spirit that stemmed, according to his explanation, from his hatred of 'bourgeois' metaphysics. Indeed, de Finetti saw a strong connection between his subjectivism and the anti-intellectualism of the fascists he admired. His 1931 paper \"Probabilismo\" for example closes with a remarkable pean to fascism that connected it to his philosophy of probability.",[480,481,482],"blockquote",{},[223,483,484],{},"\"But where my spirit rebelled most ferociously and clashed against the concept of 'absolute truth' was in the political field, and I could not say what part, surely very great, this sense of impatient revolt must have had in the development of my ideas. To be confronted by papier-mâché idols and a miserable political class that would have preferred Italy in ruins rather than failing (sacrilege!) to render due homage! Those delicious absolute truths that stuffed the demo-liberal brains! That impeccable rational mechanics of the perfect civilian regime of the peoples, conforming to the rights of man and various other immortal principles! October of '22! It seemed to me I could see them, these Immortal Principles, as filthy corpses in the dust. And with what conscious and ferocious voluptuousness I felt myself trampling them, marching to hymns of triumph, obscure but faithful Blackshirt.\"",[266,486,488],{"id":487},"the-grubicy-gallery-in-milano","The Grubicy gallery in Milano",[223,490,491],{},"The first Italian painting style that merited the designation modernist art was an odd combination of post-impressionism, symbolism and realism from the 1880's and 1890's that is often referred to as divisionism. Gauguin explained the symbolist painting style as a product of the desire of the artist to impact the viewer in a particular way rather than paint the world faithfully. With this aim in mind, Gauguin painted the earth in Sermon in the Afternoon bright red, for example; it did not matter to him whether or not the color corresponded to nature. Symbolism can be explained as a reflection of the modernist belief that the viewer has no access to the object in and of itself but only to its appearances. According to the modernist the idea of a faithful depictions stems from confusion; since the viewer never accesses the object itself what does the faithful depiction thereof mean? The only aspect of the painting process that has any relevance is the way the painted surface impacts the mind of the viewer.",[223,493,494],{},"In Italy the Scapigliatura movement developed an interesting confluence of symbolist and divisionist (re: post impressionist) ideas. The movement consisted of a group of bohemian artists and writers who were active in Milano from the 1880's. Grubicy, an art dealer and critic who opened a gallery in Milano, exhibited and supported some of the artists in the group. The art dealer spent a period of time in Paris where he became acquainted with the ideas of the symbolist movement and upon his return to Italy introduced them to Segantini and other talented local painters.",[223,496,497],{},"Segantini, like Van Gough, combined the symbolist use of color with intricate post-impressionist brushwork. Even though Segantini's paintings were not wild as Van Gough's, he shared the latter fascination with 'kinetic' surfaces that seemingly swirled and other 'psychoactive' effects that existed only in the mind of the beholder, emphasizing the symbolist ideology. The methods of the Scapigliatura to introduce motion into paintings influenced the futurists - Severini and Boccioni in particular.",[223,499,500,501,504],{},"Volpedo, another member of the Scapigliatura and one of Segantini closest friends introduced into his art the type of political subject matter used by 'realist' painters. The combination of realist subject matter, symbolist use of 'unnatural' colors and 'psychoactive' post-impressionist brushwork made paintings like ",[256,502,503],{},"The Forth Estate"," truly haunting.",[266,506,508],{"id":507},"an-austrian-café-in-trieste","An 'Austrian' café in Trieste",[223,510,511,512,515,516,519],{},"The writer Italo Svevo was born in Trieste to a Jewish father and an Italian mother. He completed ",[256,513,514],{},"Confessions of Zeno",", his masterpiece, when he was over sixty. The novel tells the story of Zeno, its narrator, who was instructed by his psychoanalyst to write his memoires as an aid to his therapy. Consequently, we learn about him only how he appeared to himself and his analyst rather than how he actually was; he emerges from the words that describe him like a portrait in a pointillist painting – an 'I' that construct itself in the manner described by Mach in his ",[256,517,518],{},"Analysis of Sensations",".",[223,521,522],{},"The book revolves around the narrator's tobacco addiction and his constant attempts to stop smoking: Whenever he manages to do so for a while he initially experiences such elation that he starts smoking again so he will be able to stop again and experience once more the state of mind he longs for.",[223,524,525],{},"Zeno was a close friend and early supporter of James Joyce when he lived in Trieste. Joyce, in turn, was instrumental in bringing Svevo's writings to the attention of publishers, editors and critics.",[266,527,529],{"id":528},"a-room-of-an-individual-anarchist","A room of an 'individual' anarchist",[223,531,532],{},"Novatore was an individual anarchist who embodied the irrational hyper-individualism of early modernism in its most violent, political form. A son of peasants from Liguria, he self-educated while toiling the fields, reading Nietzsche, Stirner and Baudelaire. If god was dead - as the first said - the only one you owed anything to was yourself – as the second did – and that meant living life to the fullest – like the third. Politically, Novatore was influenced by the revolutionary anarchism of Malatesta and Kropotkin.",[480,534,535],{},[223,536,537],{},"\"Revolution, he wrote, is the fire of our will and a need of our solitary minds; it is an obligation of the libertarian aristocracy. To create new ethical values. To create new aesthetic values. To communalize material wealth. To individualize spiritual wealth. Because we - violent cerebralists and at the same time passionate sentimentalists - understand and know that revolution is a necessity of the silent sorrow that suffers at the bottom and a need of the free spirits who suffer in the heights.\"",[223,539,540],{},"Novatore believed he had the right to expropriate from the rich what he needed for daily survival and justified the use of force.",[223,542,543],{},"From 1908 on Novatore embraced individualist anarchism. In 1910, he was charged with burning a local church and spent three months in prison but his guilt was never proven. A year later, the police accused him for theft and robbery. Renzo Novatore was involved in an anarchist-futurist-collective in La Spezia that he led (with Auro d'Arcola) and molded into an active militant anti-fascist Arditi del Popolo. In May 1919, the city of La Spezia fell under the control of a Revolutionary Committee and Novatore fought alongside the revolutionaries.",[223,545,546],{},"When Italy was about to be taken over by the fascists, Novatore went underground. In 1922, he joined the gang of the famous robber and anarchist Sante Pollastro. He was killed in an ambush near Genoa on November 29, 1922.",[266,548,550],{"id":549},"a-futurist-sound-studio","A Futurist sound studio",[223,552,553,554,557],{},"Russolo was an Italian futurist painter, composer a builder of experimental musical instruments and the author of the manifesto ",[256,555,556],{},"The Art of Noise",". He is often regarded as one of the first experimental composers. Russolo performed noise-music concerts in 1913–14 and continued them after World War I - notably in Paris in 1921. He designed and constructed noise-generating devices he named Intonarumori.",[223,559,560],{},"Explaining his musical approach, Russolo wrote:",[480,562,563],{},[223,564,565],{},"\"At first the art of music sought purity, limpidity and sweetness of sound. Then different sounds were amalgamated, care being taken, however, to caress the ear with gentle harmonies. Today music, as it becomes continually more complicated, strives to amalgamate the most dissonant, strange and harsh sounds. In this way we come ever closer to noise-sound.\"",[223,567,568],{},"Russolo and Marinetti gave the first concert of Futurist music, complete with intonarumori, in 1914, causing a riot. The program comprised four \"networks of noises\" with the following titles:",[570,571,572,576,579,582],"ul",{},[573,574,575],"li",{},"Awakening of a City",[573,577,578],{},"Meeting of cars and airplanes",[573,580,581],{},"Dining on the terrace of the Casino",[573,583,584],{},"Skirmish in the oasis",{"title":586,"searchDepth":587,"depth":587,"links":588},"",2,[589,597,601,607],{"id":263,"depth":587,"text":264,"children":590},[591,593,594,595,596],{"id":268,"depth":592,"text":269},3,{"id":279,"depth":592,"text":280},{"id":292,"depth":592,"text":293},{"id":299,"depth":592,"text":300},{"id":306,"depth":592,"text":307},{"id":332,"depth":587,"text":333,"children":598},[599,600],{"id":336,"depth":592,"text":337},{"id":368,"depth":592,"text":369},{"id":385,"depth":587,"text":386,"children":602},[603,604,605,606],{"id":389,"depth":592,"text":390},{"id":399,"depth":592,"text":400},{"id":412,"depth":592,"text":413},{"id":422,"depth":592,"text":423},{"id":437,"depth":587,"text":438,"children":608},[609,610,611,612,613,614,615,616],{"id":441,"depth":592,"text":442},{"id":451,"depth":592,"text":452},{"id":461,"depth":592,"text":462},{"id":471,"depth":592,"text":472},{"id":487,"depth":592,"text":488},{"id":507,"depth":592,"text":508},{"id":528,"depth":592,"text":529},{"id":549,"depth":592,"text":550},"2018-01-01T00:00:00.000Z","Text for show \"Modernismo Italiano\" at Lia Rumma Gallery, Milan 2018","md","/blog/Luigi-Russolo-Cacophonous-Italian-Modernismo.jpg",{"head":622},{"meta":623},[624,627,630,633,636,639],{"name":625,"content":626},"keywords","Public Project, 2006, Italy, Modernism, Avant-garde, Clegg & Guttmann",{"name":628,"content":629},"robots","index, follow",{"name":631,"content":632},"author","Michael Clegg and Martin Guttmann",{"name":634,"content":635},"copyright","© 2018 Clegg & Guttmann",{"name":637,"content":638},"description","The text first appeared in the accompanying project documentation of the show \"Modernismo Italiano\" at Lia Rumma Gallery, Milan 2018",{"name":640,"content":641},"og:title","This is an OpenGraph title",25,{"title":26,"description":618},"true","O-jbdUNXIBHfrry_Fa8sbEhSlu_n973_m4BeCW37M4k",{"id":647,"title":14,"author":87,"body":648,"caption":87,"date":732,"description":733,"extension":619,"image":178,"meta":734,"minRead":741,"navigation":184,"path":15,"seo":742,"stem":16,"toc":644,"__hash__":743},"blog/blog/120 Years after the first Zionist Congress.md",{"type":251,"value":649,"toc":722},[650,652,656,659,662,666,669,672,675,679,682,685,688,692,695,699,702,705,709,712,715,719],[328,651],{},[261,653,655],{"id":654},"_1-the-installation-as-art-essay","1. The Installation as Art-Essay",[223,657,658],{},"The present installation of Clegg & Guttmann in the Kunstmuseum Basel is dedicated to a commemoration of the first Zionist Congress in Basel that took place 120 years ago in the year of 1897. The artists consider the project an art-essay on a historical topic where the aesthetic and the intellectual experience go hand in hand -- the spatial, sculptural and material qualities of the objects are meant to augment and enrich the historical material. On the other hand, the placement in the exhibition space of audio sources to present the relevant historical material induces a musical logic on the show, transforming it into an operatic environment.",[223,660,661],{},"The artists - Michael Clegg and Martin Guttmann - are Israeli citizens who grew up in Jerusalem and are native speakers of Hebrew; the exhibition thus inevitably assumes also the character of a personal reflection. Both artists descend from Zionist families who immigrated to Palestine hoping to avoid being affected by anti-Semitism -- a threat they knew about only too well. Clegg's family left Corfu in the 1920's after a cruel, demoralizing pogrom made them realize they will never be safe there. Moshe Guttmann was on the Schindler's list; when the factory closed he was transferred to Mauthausen. Zipora Guttmann worked with a partisan unit until she was caught; after jumping from a moving train she spent the rest of the war pretending to be a Ukrainian peasant girl. The two met after the war; they were in their early twenties; they boarded a rickety boat that sailed from Genoa to Palestine; the British Navy intercepted the boat - at that time Britain was actively preventing the last remnants of the European Jewry from reaching a safe haven in Palestine - and my parents were imprisoned with the rest of the war weary passengers in a British concentration camp in Cyprus; they were able to arrive to Palestine only when the British left the Middle East abruptly in 1947. These autobiographic facts, needless to say, inform the artists' relation to the subject at hand.",[261,663,665],{"id":664},"_2-evolution-from-the-1997-exhibition","2. Evolution from the 1997 Exhibition",[223,667,668],{},"The present installation is based on an earlier exhibition that the artists created in the Kunsthalle Basel in 1997 -- the centennial year of the First Zionist Congress in Basel. In that context too the exhibition space was divided into several sub-environments that represented various aspects of Jewish existence during the period when Herzl formed the idea of Zionism: The bourgeois salon; the Heder -- the traditional, religious Jewish school; the synagogue; the Zionist Congress in Basel; the Viennese café; the kibbutz dining-room. In the earlier version the supplementary material was presented in vitrines as well; as it is the case with the present installation, the artists had also presented books, newspapers and publications that the viewers were meant to read. The earlier version included the large portraits presented in the present show -- photographic prints from black and white negatives that the artists 'reanimated' by coloring.",[223,670,671],{},"Despite these similarities, the present exhibition is a significantly different artwork. The inclusion of material presented through multi audio sources that operate simultaneously creates, as we mentioned, a musical environment that alters the experience of the viewers. The present exhibition also includes a new selection of primary sources -- the speeches in the Congress; religious texts like the bible and the Talmud; fin de siecle essays by Weininger and Krauss; later essays by Scholem and Hanah Arendt; texts of the Baal Shem Tov, Schnitzler and Zweig. This body of texts that the viewers may listen to as they move around in the exhibition space forms the 'intellectual skeleton' of the present installation.",[223,673,674],{},"It should be mentioned that each environment has two different audio files. The first one represents the dominant or official point of view and the second, a perspective of the opposition. Herzl's dominant point of view, for example, is contrasted with the criticism of Asher Ginsberg (Ahad Ha'am); orthodox, rationalist Judaism is supplemented with a text about Jewish mysticism; the standard legal text of the Talmud is set next to a supernatural story by the father of the Hassidic movement. Any attempt to understand the discourse surrounding Zionism must emphasize the multiple viewpoints, competing interests and the general culture of argumentation and debate that the protagonists all shared.",[261,676,678],{"id":677},"_3-historical-context-and-contemporary-reflections","3. Historical Context and Contemporary Reflections",[223,680,681],{},"In 2017 a number of other significant events related to Zionist and Israeli history were commemorated or acknowledged as well: The centennial of the Balfour declaration of 1917; seventy years since the UN voted in 1947 to partition Palestine and create two separate states for the Palestinians and the Jews; fifty years have passed since the Six Day War of 1967 when Israel conquered the West Bank of the Jordan river with its millions of Palestinian residents; 30 years since the Palestinian civil disobedience campaign of 1987 known as the first intifada. Each of these events sheds a different color on the entire history of Zionism; consequently, it is genuinely hard for the contemporary observer to avoid 'contaminating' the perception of earlier events with the hindsight knowledge of later ones. Difficult as it may be, we urge the viewer to focus on the original background of the Zionist conference; we hope that the present installation will be helpful in that regard; we would like to use the present occasion -- 120 years to the First Zionist Congress -- to emphasize the actual factors that created Zionism. We believe that regardless of one's views on various debates related to the movement -- the Palestinian problem, in particular -- one should understand the social origins of the movement and the spiritual strife of the Jewish individuals involved. These were after all the real reasons for the emergence of Zionism; later events, however important, should not be allowed to obscure this fact.",[223,683,684],{},"The fact that the congress took place before WWI makes it difficult to view it in the same terms as the protagonists from that period; the Great War changed the world so deeply that in its immediately aftermath everything that took place earlier seemed ancient, irrelevant and hopelessly old fashioned. Herzl and Nordau were liberal thinkers; after the war liberalism was under attack. The two believed that science and technology could solve the problems of mankind whereas the post-war protagonists had deep suspicion about the ethos of science and technology. The two Zionists believed in international diplomacy; in their view the world was determined by the intrigues of the Great Powers who were busy carving the world among themselves. Indeed, the political Zionism of Herzl and Nordau was a direct result of their general conception; if you wanted to make a difference in a world defined by imperialism, you had better lobby the Great Powers -- the Sultan, the Kaiser, the Czar, the King; the post war youths abhorred that point of view.",[223,686,687],{},"The Great War destroyed the world of Herzl and Nordau to smithereens. The Czar was toppled; the Bolsheviks took over. The Kaiser abdicated; the Social Democrats who replaced him proved weak and indecisive and soon enough Germany was divided between Nazis and communists. Austro-Hungary was split into a multitude of unstable nationalist regimes; the Turkish Empire collapsed and its spoils were divided between Britain and France. It was thus supremely ironic that the Balfour declaration, the greatest achievement of political Zionism, happened precisely at this point!",[261,689,691],{"id":690},"_4-the-post-war-generation-and-the-balfour-declaration","4. The Post-War Generation and the Balfour Declaration",[223,693,694],{},"The post-war Zionist youth was not particularly enthusiastic about the declaration; most of them were, to begin with, revolutionary leftists who despised the imperialist powers and believed their days were numbered; they could not accept the type of Zionism that was predicated on negotiations with the Great Powers. These young Zionists also understood the murky motives lying behind the declaration -- an odd evangelical philo-Semitism combined with a high dosage of anti-Semitic beliefs about the financial prowess of the international Jewry that would be diverted elsewhere if Britain did not show its support; (there was even a rumor that the US government will not join the war against Germany otherwise!) Others pointed to the large number of influential Jews in the higher echelons of the Bolshevik regime and being completely clueless -- Lenin explicitly rejected Zionism - hoped that supporting a Jewish national home in Palestine will elicit their sympathy. Ten years later, when the British realized their mistakes, they switched to an equally cynical strategy based on racist beliefs about the mythical power of the Arab nation that proved as erroneous -- despite the anti-Zionist policies of the British mandate the Arabs had no intention of supporting them in the war against Nazi Germany. Be that as it may, Britain altered its course, favored he Arabs and prevented Jewish immigration to Palestine.",[266,696,698],{"id":697},"gershom-scholem-and-cultural-zionism","Gershom Scholem and Cultural Zionism",[223,700,701],{},"Gershom Scholem who lived around the corner from us in Jerusalem was one of the Zionist youths who became highly critical of political Zionism after the war; in a letter to the Zionist leadership he warned against relying on Britain's declaration and thought it was unworthy of the movement to depend on such immoral, discredited allies. In fact, Scholem was mostly uninterested in the political dimension of Zionism in its entirety; he came to Palestine expecting a renaissance of Jewish culture -- the hope that the Jews who come to Palestine create a secular culture with Jewish characteristic that will rejuvenate the Jews and become \"a light to the nations\". Scholem supported a bi-national secular democratic state for both Palestinians and Jews; after the Arab nationalist pogrom of 1929, though, this point of view vanished almost completely from the public discourse. Even though Scholem did not join a kibbutz he was sympathetic to Hashomer Hatzair which members began to establish kibbutzim when he arrived at Palestine in 1923. Like many leaders of the kibbutz movement, the young scholar was an anarchist sympathizer who was adamant about avoiding exploitation in any shape and form.",[223,703,704],{},"Scholem wrote that he immigrated to Palestine because for Jewish youths like him the atmosphere in Germany was asphyxiating. He described at length how his parents and their Jewish relatives and acquaintances constantly deceived themselves they were fully accepted in German society despite all the evidence to the contrary; the young man was increasingly disgusted by the failure of that generation to come to terms with the truth. In fact, Scholem's situation was not dramatically different from Herzl's; when the father of Zionism was a young man he faced a very similar situation in fin de siècle Vienna. The difference between the two was that young Scholem could choose Zionism while Herzl had to invent it. That was in a nutshell what Zionism meant circa 1920 -- at least to some. 23 years after the first Zionist congress a younger generation of European Jews that included Scholem, Benjamin, Arendt and countless others were no longer doomed to live demoralized, paralyzed lives. Not all of them chose Zionism, of course; some chose communism, others anarchism and many vacillated between the different points of view. The very fact that Zionism existed, though, made a fundamental difference in the lives of them all.",[261,706,708],{"id":707},"_5-the-russian-jewish-experience","5. The Russian Jewish Experience",[223,710,711],{},"The largest group in the first Zionist Congress was Russian. Arguably, the Jews in that part of the world went through a number of extraordinary processes that prepared them for modern Zionism: In the 1870's they were finally allowed to attend Russian high schools and they took full advantage of that possibility. Thousands of young Jews learnt Russian, read Pushkin, Tolstoy and Turgeniev, finished their exams and joined society at large. Hundreds of them joined the Narodniks almost immediately -- a group of idealist youths who tried to agitate the peasants to revolt against the Czar; many remained in the movement even when it turned into a terrorist organization. From that point on a revolutionary ethos involving moral outrage, self-sacrifice and contempt for bourgeois morals became deeply engrained among the Russian Jewish youth. That mentality proved to be a fertile ground for Zionism as well. Needless to say, the increasing ferocity and frequency of the anti-Semitic pogroms helped too.",[223,713,714],{},"Many of the post war Zionist pioneers from Russia took part in the failed revolution of 1905. That was when a significant group began to gravitate towards the Bolsheviks; others decided to mix socialism and Zionism. That was the main group that began to settle the land of Palestine in record speed by founding a network of kibbutzim. That generation retained the idealism and moral courage of the Narodniky as well as their penchant for self-sacrifice. They were adamantly against exploitation, insisting on working their fields on their own rather than using hired hands. Many were pacifists who eventually learned they had to defend themselves from sporadic attacks by Arab nationalist forces and bands of local bandits.",[261,716,718],{"id":717},"_6-the-exhibition-as-mosaic","6. The Exhibition as Mosaic",[223,720,721],{},"The present exhibition is a mosaic of all these points of view. You hear the standard Jewish learning and the supernatural stories of a young religious students; A bible reading and the voice of Messianic mysticism; a story of a bourgeois salon and the perverse theories of the café set; the call of the Old-New Land and the response of the diaspora. These ghostly voices tell the story of the First Zionist Congress that took place in this city hundred and twenty years ago.",{"title":586,"searchDepth":587,"depth":587,"links":723},[724,725,726,727,730,731],{"id":654,"depth":587,"text":655},{"id":664,"depth":587,"text":665},{"id":677,"depth":587,"text":678},{"id":690,"depth":587,"text":691,"children":728},[729],{"id":697,"depth":592,"text":698},{"id":707,"depth":587,"text":708},{"id":717,"depth":587,"text":718},"2017-01-01T00:00:00.000Z","An art-essay commemorating the 120th anniversary of the First Zionist Congress",{"original_event_date":735,"venue":736,"artists":737,"exhibition_type":738,"readingTime":739,"wordCount":740,"head":87},"1897-08-29","Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel, Switzerland","Clegg & Guttmann","Installation","15 min read",3000,15,{"title":14,"description":733},"Txi3va4zec5wxRAMQa1pVvDJp4noOpVIMcqkYBlPef8",{"id":745,"title":70,"author":87,"body":746,"caption":87,"date":851,"description":852,"extension":619,"image":853,"meta":854,"minRead":87,"navigation":184,"path":71,"seo":859,"stem":72,"toc":644,"__hash__":860},"blog/blog/Variants of Aesthetic Collectivism 2009.md",{"type":251,"value":747,"toc":839},[748,750,755,765,770,774,778,781,785,788,792,795,799,802,806,809,813,816,820,823,825,830],[261,749,269],{"id":268},[223,751,752,754],{},[314,753,316],{}," In the aesthetic domain, individualism and collectivism stand for competing theories of artistic reception. The former view emphasizes the primacy of the experience of the single viewers, confronted with a work of art, whereas the latter, the manner in which they are constituted by it as parts of an aesthetic collective. For the aesthetic collectivist, you always experience art together with others; for the individualist, the art viewer is essentially alone.",[223,756,757,758,761,762,764],{},"Individualism is, of course, the more common sense view; all experience resides, after all, in the heads of single human beings. Collectivism points to the fact that an important aspect of the issue is ignored - that the sense of togetherness generated by common aesthetic experience is not an incidental phenomenon but part and parcel of the aims of all art, whether one experiences it in a concert hall, a cinema or a museum. Genuine art, as Kant reminded us, is not concerned with mere subjective gratification; art must always appeal to the viewer's ",[256,759,760],{},"sensus communis"," and the development of ",[256,763,760],{}," requires the experience of art.",[223,766,767,769],{},[314,768,322],{}," The present exhibition of Clegg & Guttmann is conceived of as an essay on various concrete forms of aesthetic collectivism found in their recent works of art.",[261,771,773],{"id":772},"works-in-the-exhibition","Works in the Exhibition",[266,775,777],{"id":776},"i-what-can-be-expressed-and-what-is-always-left-out-from-the-description","i. What can be expressed and what is always left out from the description",[223,779,780],{},"In \"What can be expressed and what is always left out from the description\" the issue of aesthetic collectivism appears in a most transparent way. When the individual viewers contribute intellectual labor, drawing the different parts of the tree as it appears to them at various points of time, they are thereby engaged in a communal aesthetic project.",[266,782,784],{"id":783},"ii-constraint-drawing","ii. Constraint drawing",[223,786,787],{},"\"Constraint drawing\" is also clearly centered on the topic of multi participant action albeit in a somewhat different way. One could even say that the artwork is, essentially, a devise for collective creativity. Because the movements of the \"model\" and the three \"draftsmen\" who are included in the piece are mutually constrained and the drawings that result represent the sum total of the actions of a genuine aesthetic collective.",[266,789,791],{"id":790},"iii-our-productionthe-production-of-others","iii. Our production/the production of others",[223,793,794],{},"\"Our production/the production of others\" is relevant to the present concerns because it is the terminal point of a sequence of events involving the photographers (Clegg & Guttmann) and their subjects (Melos Quartet). Clegg & Guttmann were asked to photograph the musicians. The photograph was used for a record cover of the late Beethoven string quartets. Finally Clegg & Guttmann \"re-appropriated\" the record cover image, re-photographing it and presenting it as their own work.",[266,796,798],{"id":797},"iv-cardinal-red","iv. Cardinal Red",[223,800,801],{},"\"Cardinal Red\" was made as a collaboration of Clegg & Guttmann and Franz Erhardt Walther – a work of art authored by, both, the photographers and their subjects. In so far as we see Franz Erhardt Walther demonstrating how to use the different parts of one of his works for a performance of sorts, the photograph is inherently concerned with his ideas. On the other hand, the work is also a portrait that employs various art historical conventions; in that regard, it is thoroughly consistent with the concerns of Clegg & Guttmann's works.",[266,803,805],{"id":804},"v-rus-in-urbis","v. Rus in Urbis",[223,807,808],{},"\"Rus in Urbis\" is an installation, which explicitly requires a collective aesthetic reception; the viewers are requested to syncopate with their dance movements to the beat generated by a mechanical bull.",[266,810,812],{"id":811},"vi-the-open-tool-shelter-of-toronto","vi. The open Tool-Shelter of Toronto",[223,814,815],{},"Finally, \"The open Tool-Shelter of Toronto\" shows how the work of art can expands its influence beyond aesthetic concerns. Being a mechanism for recycling and sharing various work tools, the work aims to generate in its social surrounding an enhanced sense of a community.",[261,817,819],{"id":818},"conclusion","Conclusion",[223,821,822],{},"To sum up, none of the works included in the show realizes an idea, which appeared, first, in the mind of a single creator. Most required a collaboration of a number of distinct individuals. All are open works, which must be completed by the viewers. Each in its own manner articulates a way in which the work of art casts the single viewer as a part of an aesthetically-generated collective which it helps create and sustain.",[328,824],{},[223,826,827],{},[314,828,829],{},"Exhibition Information",[223,831,832,835,838],{},[314,833,834],{},"Georg Kargl Fine Arts",[836,837],"br",{},"\nSchleifmühlgasse 5, 1040 Vienna",{"title":586,"searchDepth":587,"depth":587,"links":840},[841,842,850],{"id":268,"depth":587,"text":269},{"id":772,"depth":587,"text":773,"children":843},[844,845,846,847,848,849],{"id":776,"depth":592,"text":777},{"id":783,"depth":592,"text":784},{"id":790,"depth":592,"text":791},{"id":797,"depth":592,"text":798},{"id":804,"depth":592,"text":805},{"id":811,"depth":592,"text":812},{"id":818,"depth":587,"text":819},"2009-11-13T00:00:00.000Z","An exhibition exploring collective aesthetic experience through collaborative artworks","/blog/Kargl_Variants_2009_1200px.jpg",{"endDate":855,"venue":834,"location":856,"artists":737,"Exhibition dates":857,"readingTime":858},"2010-01-09","Vienna, Austria","November 13, 2009 - January 9, 2010","3 min read",{"title":70,"description":852},"HYstQ33PxDQaHLintg2U2vaalodPTBylhnYrGRAyAI4",1772638417488]