As fate would have it, in March, in the space of just two weeks, we lost two of the giants of German thought between us, establishing a fruitful relationship. First the philosopher and sociologist Jürgen Habermas and now Alexander Kluge (Halberstadt, 1932 – Munich, 2026). The last direct testimony of the Frankfurt School has disappeared.
Writer and thinker, filmmaker, philosopher and theorist, poet and video maker, Alexander Kluge crossed all boundaries of thought and art. He continued to study literature, history and music and temporarily, in 1958, began working as a legal adviser to the Instituto de Investigación Social de Frankfurt. a close friend of its director, Theodor W. Adorno.
In this context, the young Kluge seemed to aspire to an academic career in philosophy, thus extending the German dialectical lineage. I’m not sure what happened, but the big news is this I translated this stream of thought into artistic creationcombining rationality with exquisite sensitivity.
For example, Adorno I met Fritz Lang, who became his assistant on one of his bikes. This encouraged Kluge to try his hand at cinema, quickly making short films like this one Brutality on stone (1960).
In 1962, he was one of the twenty signatories of the Oberhausen Manifesto, which declared the death of German cinema for fifty years and abogaba por un Nuevo Cine Alemán.
For Kluge, literature, paintings, and music are the practical wings of thinking about creating feelings. Whatever you need
With a great primer, Very much without history (1966), ganó el León de Plata in the best direction at the exhibition in Venice. Played by actress Alexandra Kluge, her associative and analytical style made her a new wave standard. Another direction Circus performers: Perplejos (1968), León de Oro in Venice; medium size The indomitable Leni Peickert (1970); patriot (1979); The power of feelings (1983); as well as other feature films and countless short films and film experiments.
In 2008, Eisenstein’s idea of filming was revived customization capital de Marx. How to film the abstract logic of Marx’s ideas? How do you translate abstract concepts such as merchandise, fetishism, ideology or production into images? But also how to do it according to the formal structure of the chapter Ulysses de Joyce? These questions salen al paso en new hours and averages Noticias de la Antigüedad ideológica: Marx/Eisenstein/El kapitalone of the projects that Kluge carries out with his usual confidence.
Parallel to the cinema, Kluge creates an entire educational and political laboratory. Take part in heated debates on German public television over means of communication and the role of the intellectual in society. On paper, it is essential in creating a German public sphere that resurrects the trauma of Nazism. Audience with sociologist Oskar Negt Public sphere and experience (1972), a famous update of the emerging public sphere studied by Habermas History and criticism of public opinion (1962). Kluge y Negt subsumen and Habermas propionido public, alternative and independent counterspherefor the middle classes and the proletariat through the appropriation of new mass media such as television.
Kluge will be distinguished as an author who produces dozens of unusual and original programs within the television format for various public and private groups in Germany. They are your “information parterres”, varieties where there is cabaret, intellectual debate, presentations, literary lectures and branches of the most colorful ones.
Much earlier, in 1963, Kluge founded his own product through what practically produces all his audiovisual material: Kairos-Film. The category “producer” is one recognized by Bertolt Brecht and Walter Benjamin, and this heredity aspires to Marxism in the borderless noisemaker.
Nothing cultural is old. Including opera. Gradually, the documentary style is appreciated, which dialectically shows reality through editing. At every opportunity and regardless of the chosen medium, Kluge seeks to interact with the viewer through multiple categories of meaning that overlap: association of ideas, quotations, archival material, clear intertitulos and typographical juegas, discussions, interjections, etc.
Para Kluge, literature, pictures, and music are the practical wing of thought at the time of feeling. Whatever you need. Once upon a time thoughts are awakened. Number of stories and micro-histories, to tell from below, starting with an anecdote or memory childhood, trazando concentric circles that never stop growing up. Editing texts and images, his genre was an idea of which he was an absolute renovator like Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda or Chris Marker.
He is associated with the prestigious editorial Surkhamp in his extensive literary and essayistic work. Although some of your books have been published with us, the publication of your collection is awaited Chronicles of feelingsoceanic books that condense the immense tail.
During COVID-19, he said, “Abogados and poets have to work in this heart, we have to use the time to put our things in order.” An incredible worker, Kluge was always available, always available.
In the last few years they found new spaces in digital media and the Internet for creating collections. I created video installations and participated in individual exhibitions Gardens of cooperation in Virreina de Barcelona, in 2016. Never mind that you could have seen it in a public interview with the curator Hans Ulrich Obrist or creating art books with the publishing company Spector Books (Leipzig), as a young artist.
A public figure of great intimidation, Alexander Kluge He has received all the most prestigious literary awards in his country. See Georg Büchner Prize in 2003; or Premio de Honor de la Academia Alemana de Cine in 2008; or the Gran Orden del Merito de la República Alemana awarded a personidades destacadas por sus logros en la política, la economia, la sociedad, la culture or el mellet. Show us your charismatic lectern, your gracious and elegant tone, the gentleness of your voice, the tone of your words.
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