Research Catalog

The last days of mankind : a visual guide to Karl Kraus' great war epic / artwork by Deborah Sengl.

Title
The last days of mankind : a visual guide to Karl Kraus' great war epic / artwork by Deborah Sengl.
Author
Sengl, Deborah, 1974-
Publication
  • Los Angeles : DoppelHouse Press, 2018.
  • ©2018

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StatusFormatAccessCall NumberItem Location
TextUse in library N6811.5.S379 A4 2018gOff-site

Details

Additional Authors
Museum Essl, host institution.
Description
175 pages : illustrations (chiefly color); 22 cm
Summary
"With critical success over the past four years, artist Deborah Sengl (b. 1974) has exhibited taxidermied rats, drawings, and paintings in order to restage Karl Kraus' nearly-unperformable play The Last Days of Mankind (Die Letzten Tage der Menschheit, 1915-22). Featuring Sengl's entire installation, the DoppelHouse Press edition also includes essays that examine her ambitious dramaturgy, which condenses Kraus' ten-to-fifteen hour drama into an abridged reading of its themes: human barbarism, the role of journalism in war, the sway of popular opinion and the absurdities of nationalism. Select translations of Kraus' original provide a window to see his other "war," a war on the misuses of language itself. Published in conjunction with the centenary anniversary of the Armistice, which ended The Great War but bred another soon to come, this edition of The Last Days of Mankind offers an agit-prop protest crossing the boundaries of art and spanning the knowledge of the century that has passed since Kraus penned his play. Deborah Sengl offers her stylistic model for envisioning human folly through animal actors, who become more than human, while confronting a violence particular to humankind, laced with selfishness and greed."--Publisher's description.
Subject
  • Animal sculpture
  • Kraus, Karl, 1874-1936
  • Rats in art
  • Sengl, Deborah, 1974-
  • Sengl, Deborah, 1974- > Exhibitions
  • World War I > Drama
  • World War, 1914-1918 > In art
Genre/Form
Exhibition catalogs.
Note
  • Feature of an exhibition held at the Essl Museum - Kunst der Gegenwart, Klosterneuburg, January 31 - May 25, 2014.
  • Sengl's artwork visualizes over 40 scenes from Karl Kraus's 'Die letzten Tage der Menschheit,' staged in three-dimensional scenes with taxidermy-prepared white rats, accompanied by paintings and drawings.
Language (note)
  • Translated from German.
Contents
Deborah Sengl's Karl Kraus -- "The Document is a Figure" -- Trench rats: Deborah Sengl's "The Last Days of Mankind" -- The Last Days of Mankind -- Karl Kraus and animals.
ISBN
  • 9780999754412
  • 0999754416
LCCN
99979671331
Owning Institutions
Columbia University Libraries