One day when I woke up, I was at the Morgan Library & Museum in Manhattan New York City, having a french style breakfast with coffee and orange juice while listening to the consistent rain outside. I was waiting for a press preview of Franz Kafka's Exhibition to start...
FRANZ KAFKA : Morgan Library & Museum
The exhibition of Franz Kafka just opened at Morgan Library & Museum celebrating the 100 years since him passing away. The exhibition is on view from November 22, 2024 through April 13, 2025. I had a great opportunity to attend their preview to hear the curator's talk and see the exhibition.
If you like Franz Kafka's work, I highly recommend you visit this exhibition. Many materials in this exhibition are first time exhibited in the United States. If we live in a big city we have many opportunities to see exhibitions of famous painters and other artists. There are new exhibitions of well known artists like Van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso, and Salvador Dali constantly happening. If we missed one exhibition, there will be another exhibition focused on the same artist. But this one, we will not have something similar again soon. Franz Kafka is an Austrian-Czech writer born in Prague who is said to be one of the major creatives in the 20th century who influenced many artists and writers after his death, but it is only a handful of exhibitions of him.
There are two tips from me for visiting this exhibition:
Firstly, read his short story at least before visiting. If you aren't familiar with Kafka's work, I recommend to at least read his short stories before visiting this exhibition such as "The Judgment (or The Verdict)" (Das Urteil / 判決). I feel you need to be familiar with his world first to appreciate, enjoy, or take something from this exhibition.
Secondly, visit alone.While it is a one room relatively small exhibition, it offers a decent amount of his original writings such as letters, postcards, and manuscripts, as well as minor pictures of him growing up that easily keep you stay for over an hour. I highly recommend visiting this particular exhibition alone as if you are going to meet up with Kafka himself because it is mainly reading materials.
Below are some my impression of this exhibition:
Kafka and Asian Art Influence and Hebrew:
Like many artists and writers, Kafka also got some influence from asian art and literature which you can see in this exhibition as well, but I don't think it wasn't a big influence for him compared to some visual artists, which I felt from this exhibition. More, I was interested in him learning Hebrew coming from that His family were German-speaking middle-class Ashkenazi Jews. I like him for making an effort and being interested in learning his origin and culture.
Kafka and The Room He Grew Up & His Health Problem:
Interestingly his room in his house he grew up in was sandwiched between two rooms where people had to walk to his room to go to the other room. I can see how some ideas for the Metamorphosis came from his childhood living condition. He was a kind of artist whose work is actually related to or starts with his reality, and extends to the surreal.
He was a very sensitive person and also had a health condition with noises. In this exhibition I could sense that the surreal part in his work also comes from his life. He also genuinely enjoyed writing as a communication throughout his life which you can see from postcards and letters he sent to his friends and families. All his writings are in German except the language practice he was doing, so many of us aren't able to read his handwriting displayed but that is why it is important to visit this show alone like I mentioned. Disease
Kafka and Max Bord:
Another interesting element in his work is Max Bord. Even though Max Brod edited Kafka's work from his background and his perspective, without him, we probably didn't have Kafka. It is like Kafka is an author and all writings are his but his work completed with Max Brod and now Brod is essential part of Kafka's work. This is very interesting to me.
Kafka and I:
I like his work because it often starts with a mundane life and in the normal absurd situations, something peculiar and or surreal happens. I like his work because I read them after reading numerous other books and also after living my own life for a while.
I wonder how many people have read his work in its original language. I have read his work mostly in Japanese and some in English because unfortunately I don't read German. I believe many people who are reading this are similar, reading his work in another language, like many authors and artists in the past who were influenced by him in the past. I think this is interesting because if it's a painting even though we see it digitally it is still the same image but translation changes the original. (There are mainly two major Japanese translated versions of Kafka's work.)
Lastly, I am glad to know Franz Kafka's work.., after I become an adult. I am glad that I didn't read any of his work as a child during my growth period. If I read any of his books as a child it might have affected me to grow differently more or less than who I am today. I am glad to be able to read his work as who I am today.
As usual, this is a text focused exhibition review/archive by me. Photos are taken from my perspective for my personal record and while these are my photos I don't own any artwork and texts in the images. I'm happy if this blog helps anyone who can't make it to this exhibition or those who want a recap.
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| This was an interesting video in the exhibition. Please take a time and see it if you visit. |
The house he grew up, the red area is Kafka's room.
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The house he grew up, the red area is Kafka's room.
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| Kafka's Diary, 1911 |
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| "A Hunger Artist" Manuscriot |
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| Pictures of Kafka center photo are Kafka and Ottla, one of the right is with the maids, and the left photo is the only photograph left and known today that was taken by Kafka. |
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| Postcards Kafka sent to his friends and families |
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| postcards Kafka sent to friends and families |
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postcards Kafka sent to friends and families |
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| Phillip Roth "I always wanted you to admire my fasting; or, looking at Kafka" |
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| Postcards he sent to his friends and families |
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| Postcards he sent to his friends and families |
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| Postcards he sent to his friends and families |
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| Kafka as a child 1 |
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| Kafka as a child 1 |
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| Kafka 1906 |
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Andy Warhol, Franz Kafka, 1980,
from Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth
Century. Portfolio screenprint on Lenox
museum board, 40 x 32 inches. (Info from Morgan Library Press Kit)
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| Letter to Ottla 1917, about his pulmonary tuberculosis |
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| detail, Letter to Ottla 1917, about his pulmonary tuberculosis |
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| detail 2, Letter to Ottla 1917, about his pulmonary tuberculosis |
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| Notebook, 1917 or later, Kafka learning Hebrew |
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| Kafka's childhood house |
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| Kafka's childhood house |
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| Kafka's childhood house |
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| Thank you so much to the curator of this exhibition. |
When Franz Kafka died of tuberculosis at the age of forty, in 1924, few could have predicted the influence his relatively small body of work would have on every realm of thought and creative endeavor over the course of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. This exhibition will present, for the first time in the United States, the Bodleian Library’s extraordinary holdings of literary manuscripts, correspondence, diaries, and photographs related to Kafka, including the original manuscript of his novella The Metamorphosis. Other highlights include the manuscripts of his novels Amerika and The Castle; letters and postcards addressed to his favorite sister, Ottla; his personal diaries, in which he also composed fiction, including his literary breakthrough, the 1912 story “The Judgment”; and unique items such as his drawings, the notebooks he used when studying Hebrew, and family photographs.
In addition to presenting unique literary and biographical material, the exhibition examines Kafka’s afterlife, from the complex journeys of his manuscripts, to the posthumous creation of a literary icon whose very name has become an adjective, to his immense influence on the worlds of literature, theater, dance, film, and the visual arts. Drawing on institutional holdings and private collections in the United States and Europe, the Morgan will show a selection of key works, among them Andy Warhol’s portrait of Kafka, part of his 1980 series Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century.
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