Summary

The exhibition is divided into two structured halves: a dynamic “emotional” sequence of rooms and installations highlighting Wagner’s anti-Semitism, the background to his works, early performances and the building of a community of supporters.

In the second part, the setting is one of contrasts, parallel narrations and discursive passages. It starts with the precarious and ambivalent situation of Jewish Wagnerians in view of the appropriation of Wagner and his music by the Nazis.

It concludes with sections devoted to a reassessment of Wagner and his work after the war, dominated by intensive colours, contrasting positions and reconstructive yet fragmentary architecture. They create an asynchronous ambiguity culminating in a “room of words” in two diametrically opposed sets of arguments.

As individual items presented in small, flat showcases, even very small objects like postcards, souvenir photos or advertising leaflets become precious exhibits. The design compacts these individual presentations into large rhythmically structured groups. “Warm” textile rooms with changing pastel shades and “cold” rooms with metallic surfaces, black tones and intensive colours create a changing atmosphere. 

Text explaining Design Strategy

(B. Denkinger)

Setting

The exhibition is divided into two structured halves: a dynamic “emotional” sequence of rooms and installations highlighting Wagner’s anti-Semitism, the background to his works, early performances and the building of a community of supporters.

In the second part, the setting is one of contrasts, parallel narrations and discursive passages. It starts with the precarious and ambivalent situation of Jewish Wagnerians in view of the appropriation of Wagner and his music by the Nazis.

The exhibition starts with an installation split into two unequal halves: an aggressive and invasive anti-Semitic thesis, and a wide, yielding part showing Jewish intellectual life around 1900. This is followed by a modular sequence on the fate of Jewish Wagnerians after 1938.

It concludes with sections devoted to a reassessment of Wagner and his work after the war, dominated by intensive colours, contrasting positions and reconstructive yet fragmentary architecture. They create an asynchronous ambiguity culminating in a “room of words” in two diametrically opposed sets of arguments.

First half of the exhibition

The exhibition begins “medias in res” with Wagner’s anti-Semitic essay Judaism in Music, leading to a room lined with velvet curtains describing Wagner’s time in Vienna. The perspective opens out from this “inner room” to his work, with a dynamic spatial display of objects from Wagner’s operas. As visitors turn the corner, this dynamism fades, ending in a three-dimensional visual high point: vertical metal panels with blow-ups of Alfred Roller’s stage sets.

Second half of the exhibition

The second half of the exhibition starts with a juxtaposition of Jewish and anti-Semitic Wagnerians. The ideas of the anti-Semites, which penetrate deeply into the room, are answered by Jewish authors of visionary concepts and cultural works set out in an arc. Smaller objects are shown on consoles, while the wall is used for projections and background pictures.

A light installation – the reproduction of a picture painted by Arnold Schönberg conveying fear and distress, a premonition of coming events – makes the transition to the next room devoted to the life and survival of Jewish Wagnerians after 1938. Ostensibly insignificant personal mementos like autographs, postcards, visiting card photos stand for fragmentation and distortion of various kinds. The presentation with large and deep displays creates a distance to the visitor and emphasizes the private nature of the objects.

End sequence

In the last room sequence the point of view and the protagonists change. Instead of biographical panoramas there is the discussion about Wagner. Influential thinkers like Adorno see Wagner’s anti-Semitic, exclusive nationalistic attitude as a structural constant in his works. By contrast, many (including Jewish) artists point out the difference between the author and his works. They emphasize the primacy of the music compared with the problematic instructions in Wagner’s manuscripts and see his music as being separate from the author’s opinions and following its own artistic rules.

The exhibition architecture interprets this debate as simultaneous, irreconcilable lines of argument and presents examples of it on four parallel, staggered metallic panels of different lengths protruding from the wall. Together they appear as a multi-layered wall interspersed with cut-outs.

Opposite this installation is an intensively coloured unit showing an encyclopaedic and recitative response to Wagner with diverse film excerpts (films d’auteur, comedies, fantasies) from the 1950s to the present. The simultaneous perception of the two complementary yet very different sides of the room gives an impression of a specific, ambiguous whole. In the following “room of words” this ambiguity is once again reduced to two antagonistic positions. Headline-style quotes in unusually large letters, divided into pro and contra, are presented as a frieze and header along the top of the walls. Together with the subtext – more detailed and extensive quotes underneath – they form a room dominated by letters and sentence fragments.

Object presentation, dramatic composition at different speeds

As individual items presented in small, flat showcases, even very small objects like postcards, souvenir photos or advertising leaflets become precious exhibits. The design compacts these individual presentations into large rhythmically structured groups. “Warm” textile rooms with changing pastel shades and “cold” rooms with metallic surfaces, black tones and intensive colours create a changing atmosphere.

The dramatic composition has different speeds:

• first the constantly growing and broadening movement coming to a stop at the end of the first part of the exhibition
• movement peaks at the start of the second part created through the confrontation of opposite positions
• slow, even movement divided among equal room cells before the last act
• transition of the spatial movement towards a virtual intellectual level, inviting the visitor to contemplate the questions and to draw their own conclusions.