Otto Dix: The Evil Eye. (or “The Claw-Like Hand”.)
Exhibition: K20 Grabbeplatz, Düsseldorf
Feb.11 – May 28, 2017
 
Review by Clinton De Vere
 
There are two things to keep in mind when thinking about Otto Dix. The first is that as a machine gunner and commander of a machine gun unit on the Western and Eastern Fronts, he saw some of the worst fighting of World War One.  The second is that he was a strikingly handsome dandy who was good enough a dancer to contemplate taking part in dance competitions to earn extra money. He loved Jazz and the different dance styles of the period. If we look at photographs and self-portraits of the artist we can see these two sides of his personality: the warrior and the artist.

His wife Martha said of their first meeting: “I imagined a young man with blond hair and full of pimples…He did truly have blond hair and above all he was very spirited. It turned out he could dance incredibly well.” (Otto Dix: The Evil Eye. 2017, p36).

Otto Dix arrived in Düsseldorf in 1922 and stayed until 1925. His time in Düsseldorf was to be the making of him personally and professionally. This fine exhibition does a wonderful job in capturing how it all came together for him in this town. It was here that he met Frau Ey who owned a bakery and art gallery and was a great supporter of young artists. When Dix first came to Düsseldorf he lived with her. And it was where he met Martha, who would become his wife.

His first paid commission was from Dr Hans Koch, who was married at the time to Martha. They had two children. It is refreshing to learn that there was little drama among the participants in the affair, since Dr Koch was involved with someone else. It was a scandal, but for Dix, having seen the carnage of WW1, it seems to have been water off a duck’s back. By all accounts he was a good husband and father.

The exhibition is divided into two main spaces. On the left of the main entrance is a darkened area with the etchings, drawings and watercolours on paper from 1923-1925 where Dix chronicled his four years in the trenches of WW1. Some are clinically detailed examinations of soldier’s wounds and the carnage of battlefield. Others are more impressionistic, landscapes of desolation. His aim in doing these pieces was to work through the trauma of the war. He said: “I wanted to be rid of it!” (ibid p186)

There are the almost cartoon-like works, in the case of “Lens Being Bombed”(1924) where we see terrified civilians running from a swooping airplane. And the shocking mixed media pieces such as “War Wounded” (1924) where the anatomical detail of the wound is rendered in watercolour while the soldier is drawn in pencil.

At the end of this section is a reproduction of the painting he made, “The Trench”(1923) recording in epic style the totality of the devastation of war. It caused a scandal when it was first exhibited and has since been lost.

The second area of the exhibition contained all his other major works from this period. Here we have, among others, the commissioned works where he casts a clinical but kindly eye on his benefactors alongside less flattering works of subjects brave enough to sit for a portrait by Dix. These paintings were made using the glazing techniques of the old masters in an unflinching realist style.

In pride of place midway along the main corridor of the space and facing the viewer is his great masterpiece “The Portrait of the Dancer Anita Berber”(1925). One of the great joys of this exhibition was seeing this painting and imagining the energy of those years of the Weimar Republic. In this painting Dix tells the story of that time and of the ‘lost generation’. Anita Berber becomes a symbol of both the time and the generation. A classically trained dancer and choreographer, she was addicted to cocaine and alcohol and enjoyed sex with both men and women. She was good friends’ of Otto Dix and his wife. She would often perform naked and appeared in soft core pornography. The sensual snake-like figure of Berber. clad in crimson fabric. fills the canvas. As with so many of Dix’s paintings Berber’s claw-like hands are highlighted. Her face is pale and haggard and she stares off into the distance as though not minding our gaze. The red around her nostrils hints at her cocaine addiction. The contours of her body can be clearly seen beneath the diaphanous fabric. This is a portrait of a dancer by a fellow dancer and captures her physicality. Red, yellow and crimson dominate the palette as though her existence and the times in which she lived, were hellish. She died young. 

The other portrait which is perfectly positioned in the exhibition is that of Dix great benefactor, Frau Ey.  In “Portrait of the Art Dealer Johanna Ey”(1924) she doesn’t get off lightly as Dix records her every human flaw but there is a nobility about her, with her tiara and the theatrical curtain in the background.

Then there are the commissions. One can almost sense Dix holding back, just dying to give them the famous Dix claw-like hand. In these portraits such as “Portrait of Industrialist Dr Julius Hesse with a Paint Sample”(1926) we see the subject surrounded by the tools of their trade.

And what of the mad-crazy-sex-crime-sailors-soldiers-prostitutes-in-brothels drawings and watercolours on paper? Sex, crime, love, war. Dix did not shy away from showing the trauma and madness he and the rest of the population suffered from the war, nor the infinite range possibilities of human sexuality and violence. As he said in 1966: “I am a visual person and not a philosopher. That is why I am constantly taking stock in my pictures. I show what is really happening and what has to be said in the name of the truth.” (Otto Dix: The Evil Eye Booklet. 2017)

And then, at the other end of the scale, is the series of twelve watercolour paintings, never before exhibited, of events from the bible and classical literature, which he did for his children. These delightful paintings are full of life, love and colour. With watercolours he was able to be fast and free unlike his oils on canvas which required meticulous application of layers of glaze.

And next to this series, and a fine example of the choices the curators made in this exhibition, is a small oil portrait of Martha’s children, ”Children’s Portrait of Hanali and Muggeli”(1922). This is a delightful painting, with its colours and the sweet expressions on the children’s faces, as well as the tiny hand reaching out of the painting surface and onto the frame.

And finally his portrait of Martha wearing a fur and hat, “Portrait of Frau Martha Dix’(1923). It could be a matching piece to the “Portrait of the Dancer Anita Berber” in the choice of palette. Here the red/crimson is used on the hat which casts a light shadow over Martha’s face. The paleness of her face seems to express good grooming rather than decrepitude. One of her hands is encased in a white glove and the other is flesh coloured and for a Dix hand, relatively normal looking. She is surrounded by the soft darkness of the background and the classically rendered surface of the fur that falls off her shoulder. It is a portrait of love and desire.

As I think about the exhibition some other pieces spring to mind: “The Portrait of the Actor Heinrich George” (1932); “The Widow” (1922); “Train Station Restaurant in Glauchau”(1924) and its hint of surrealism; “Red-Haired Woman (Portrait of a Lady)” (1931) with her sad face.
​
The exhibition did Otto Dix proud. For me it is a must-see event and I am grateful that I had a chance to see it several times. The extra visits helped me get my head around most of the important pieces and to grasp the ambition of Dix’s project and his achievement. And in that strange way art and the unconscious works, I feel I have a better understanding of devastating impact of WW1 and the unsettling years of the Weimar Republic that followed, having seen them through Dix’s eyes. 

I recently completed a 15 week drama workshop under the auspices of the English Theatre Düsseldorf during which each participant wrote and staged a 5 minute piece which were all then presented on the final night of the course.

For this project I wrote a piece titled 'Las Meninas' in which I examined Velázquez's  masterpiece. In it I attempted to combine my impressions viewing the painting in  the Prado with my research on the subject. 

I visited Madrid, and the Prado, in June this year and was thrilled to be able to spend time with 'Las Meninas', Velázquez's great masterpiece painted at the end of his life. In it he attempts to demonstrate that painting is an art form of the highest order and in so doing shows the full extent of his talent and genius.

Some have called it 'THE masterpiece' and because it is so familiar it is very difficult to see clearly, with fresh eyes. We come to it with our brains loaded with memories of the painting. I saw it first as a child of 10 or 11.

In this project I want to get new view of the painting by recreating it in another form. The best example I can think of of this type of undertaking is indeed related to 'Las Meninas'. In 1957 at the age of 75 Picasso spent an entire year working and reworking his vision of 'Las Meninas.' In the end he had a suite of 48 paintings in which he grappled with the masterpiece and which he donated in its entirety to the Museu Picasso in Barcelona.   

My performance piece opened with a large projection of 'Las Meninas' on the wall to orientate the audience. This image then disappears and as the lights go up the painting in the form of members of the ensemble fills the left side of the stage; in effect a tableau of the painting.

Two characters then walk through the audience towards the painting. One of them is speaking Italian, a symbolic nod to the influence of Italian art on Velázquez's work and on Spanish art. The two characters stop in front of the painting and begin commenting on it.

The figures in the painting then begin to speak although the two characters outside the painting cannot hear them. Through the dialogue of the figures I tried to give the audience a feel for the tremendous achievement of this great masterpiece and my own excitement looking at it. 

The final simplified version with the ensemble playing the painting came after ditching a complicated first draft. Using the ensemble to create the painting was the key idea that in the end made the piece work. The focus, in the end, was on the painting. 

If I did the piece again (every work is in some sense a failure) I would perhaps have one of the two characters outside the painting express some skepticism about the work. Maybe say it looks to them like just another big boring old painting. This would have created some drama, some conflict. I would also have had less of the art history factoid stuff and more about how the painting made me feel. What the hell was the artist trying to tell us about life and how he saw it? How did it make me feel standing in front of it? Did it simply overwhelm me so I didn't know what to think? What was the atmosphere inside that room with all those characters, all being played out at the highest level of Spanish society? 

I enjoyed the process of cross pollination between art history and performance, and  being able to communicate my enthusiasm for the painting in a dramatic form.

Below is the final draft of the script. 

LAS MENINAS / THE MAIDS OF HONOUR      
Clinton De Vere
A. and P. walk through the audience. P. is speaking Italian. They both stop as though stunned for a moment, just looking.
P: Here it is!
A: Ah. Yes.
P: Not even the crowds can ruin it.
A: We are the crowd!
P: Yes, I suppose we are.
A: (reading the painting tag) "Las Meninas. Diego Velazquez. 1656."
P: You can see straightway the influence of Italian art. Titian and Caravaggio.
A: If only the figures could speak.
INFANTA: We can. You just can’t hear us.
P: Some call it THE Masterpiece.
VEL: I painted it to honour the king, to honour art and to show what painting could do. I painted it to win the honour of this cross on my chest. It was my last big push and I gave it everything I had.
A: The composition is extraordinary.
VEL: Thank you. I worked hard on it.
LM1: Linear and aerial perspective.
LM2: The arrangement of the figures.
DARK FIGURE 1: The lighting.
DARK FIGURE 2: The repetition of rectangular forms of the frames and doorway.
P: The way our eye is drawn to the figure in the doorway.
FIGURE IN DOORWAY: Ah yes. Am I coming or going?
A: And of course, the reflection of the King and Queen in the mirror.
P: Who would have been standing where we are standing.
KING: Well observed.
INFANTA: And me as the focal point. Well lit, but slightly off centre.
A: And the largest figure in the painting?
VEL: Me of course. The artist.  The creator. Everything from that day is gone. Only the painting remains.
P: The light and dark of Caravaggio and the tones and brushstrokes of Titian.
KING: Not only are you a great painter and a great friend, you are also a collector and connoisseur. You chose many of the paintings which form the basis of the Prado collection.
A: The painting is looking at us! Six of the figures are looking directly at us.
ALL: Yes, we are! And at each other!
LM1: A painting of glances. 
VEL: Well done. Yes, the painting is about the viewer. About looking at art. About paying attention. The viewer is the key to the painting.
QUEEN: Any response to a work of art says more about the viewer than it does about the viewed.
OTHER FIGURE: A painting about painting a portrait.
P: It’s also a moment.
A: A snapshot.
LM2: My curtsy.
FIGURE IN DOORWAY: Me in the doorway.
DARK FIGURE 1: Us in the background.
DARK FIGURE 2: All of which makes it feel so timeless and modern.
P: Someone called it ‘the theology of painting’.
VEL: I always liked that phrase.
INFANTA: Unfortunately, we never leave the Prado.
QUEEN: And you know why darling. They say it’s because of insurance and size but we all know the real reason.
ALL: Yes!
QUEEN: We are the crown jewel of the collection. El Prado’s beating heart! THE Masterpiece!
A: What a painting!
P: Yes. Amazing. Shall we grab a coffee?
 
 
 
 

(This short story is about the time in primary school in Port Moresby in the early 70's when two friends and I would play in the tunnel that ran beneath the main building of the newly built University of Papua New Guinea.)



Standing on the cool packed earth at the entrance of the tunnel, the boys, the three of them, turned and looked into the darkness.  It was a bright dry season afternoon and if they had taken two steps backwards they would have once again been bathed in the clear sharp tropical light.

He couldn't remember how or when they had first discovered the tunnel but now it was a part of their every afternoon.  He looked down at his bare feet and then at the storm water drain that disappeared into the darkness.  Outside, above them, he imagined the shaded space of the university's main building, with its roof high above the great amphitheater,a reflection in the library windows, all cooled by a steady breeze.  He imagined as well students walking through the space and the sound of their footsteps echoing off the smooth cement surfaces.

He looked into the tunnel and felt a thrill at the cool quiet dark space, with its unexplored corners, its muffled drips and dankness.  I. and P. had already plunged in, following the storm water drain, feeling their way along the wall.  His eyes adjusted to the dark.  The tunnel’s first turn was to the left, at ninety degrees.  It was here he felt that the tunnel truly began.  From this point the darkness became thicker, the air cooler still.

As always the tunnel was completely theirs.  They never expected to meet anyone and they never did. Not once in all the hours they spent there, after school or on the weekend, did they meet a single other soul.  It was their tunnel, their domain, their Aladdin’s cave.  

In a distant corner water dripped.  A right turn formed a corner in the drain which he enjoyed stepping over.  Next came the longest stretch of tunnel and, as with every section, it evoked a particular feeling in him.  The entrance lifted his spirits and made his heart jump.  The long straight line of this part was pure adventure, high drama, and he felt like he was in a movie, one that was fifty times better than anything he had seen at the Skylight Drive Inn or at Wards Cinema.  Those movies gave him something, certainly, but not this, not the singular uniqueness of this.  At the end of this part they needed to crouch to get under the squared structure of air conditioning duct.  On the other side the ceiling was lower, the space more intimate.  Here they sat in the dusty soil leaning against the brick walls which formed an alcove.

He felt the bricks hard against his back.  Over to his left he could see the rectangle of light formed by the frame of the door that he knew opened onto a small basement tutorial room.  One day they entered the tunnel through this door after having walked down the stairs near the library, then along a short corridor.

He pushed some dirt with his toes.  He could just make out the shapes of I. and P.  Listening carefully to catch any sound he was surprised by how many he could hear.  He heard voices, muffled, from the room nearby and the drip of water, as well as the hum and rattle of the air conditioning unit for the main lecture theatre above where they sat.  One day a kid got pushed against the dark glass doors of the theatre, smashing its pane and sending out great shards of glass.  There was lots of blood and glass everywhere.  After that, every time he passed the door, he looked at the stain of the kid’s blood on the cement floor.  There was the sound, faraway, as though from a distant planet, of an electric drill.

They stood and stepped back onto the cool path.  This was the last part of the tunnel and it was narrow and already hinting at the day outside. The dripping water was closer and the wall damp and mossy.  They stepped out into the day. It was so bright they needed to squint and cover their eyes. The afternoon had lost none of its intensity.  Bougainvillea hung from the silver grey rock wall and in the car park widescreens caught the sun and multiplied it.

Their bikes were where they had left them leaning against the stone wall of the library. Soon they were pedaling away from the university along the back road, a strip of asphalt cutting through the bush.  He felt the breeze on his face and chest. His shirt was open, as were his friends’, and as they pedaled, they shouted across the space between each other.  The land was flat and they were surrounded on all sides by high kunai grass.  If sitting in the tunnel had made him feel safe and calm this gave him a sense of freedom and exhilaration.  He whooped and laughed and pushed harder on the pedals so as to overtake his friends.

‘Ha ha ha!’ he shouted, as he stood, pedaling hard, gripping the handle bars and taking full control of the bike.  Suddenly the day felt still, lulled by the heat and light. Alive but sleepy, their movements apparently providing the only activity in an over lit landscape, like hyperkinetic cartoon figures rushing across a flat background image. Of course the stillness was an illusion and the boys fed off the bush’s pulsating energy and the life that filled every particle of matter.

He thrilled at the cool breeze, created by the forward movement of the bicycle, which touched the film of sweat on his body.  He saw I. and P. closing the distance between him and them, so he pushed harder, as hard as he could, and by the time he started to climb the hill to the back blocks of the university housing his friends were far behind him.

He stopped and placed one foot on the hot surface of the road, while his hands continued to grip the handlebars.  As he balanced there on the road, in the bush, at  the top of the hill, he felt he was part of a great tableau. He turned his head slowly towards his friends and like the final scene in a movie in the movie of his life he saw his friends figures in a khaki landscape smiling, waving and pushing their bikes up the hill towards him. ​

(A short story set in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, in the 1970's.) ​

　

A. took a small smooth stone from the ground, tossed it into the air and caught it. He then aimed at the gum tree a distance away, and in one graceful movement threw it so it hit the tree's trunk with a thud. Below us, at the bottom of the hill we heard the sound of children's laughter.

A. chuckled to himself, as he often did, as though a private joke would be lost if he told it. The ground's dusty surface felt warm on the soles of my feet. With my toe I pushed the loose soil into a small pile. The day was warming up.

'Nice shot,' I said.

'Yeh.'

After a time we proceeded with our expedition.  The day was not waiting for us and indeed the sun was already high in the cloudless blue sky. We followed the track up along the ridge through clumps of kunai grass. Fumes from the eucalyptus trees filled the late morning air which was abuzz with barely visible activity. It felt as though A. and I were stars in a big Hollywood production.

The hill was patchy with burnt off areas and the blue, dry season sky promised adventures and possibilities. In the distance, to our left, the profile of the Owen Stanley Ranges reminded us of our day's purpose.

'Look,' shouted Ant, pointing into the sky. I looked up and saw a Kitty Hawke circling, carried on a stream of warm air.

We soon reached the peak of the line of hills just above the old Show Grounds.  Below us, across Waigani Drive, sat the glowing white structure of the Drive Inn screen. It felt out of place in the afternoon light, as though someone had forgotten to put it away; an inexplicable cultural artifact, a suburban Easter Island statue.

A steady stream of Saturday traffic flowed along Waigani Drive. From up here it felt like another world, almost another time. We started down the hill carefully avoiding burnt off areas where soft grey ash hid sharp stones, pointy sticks and broken glass.

Once on Waigani Drive we began walking towards Boroko, our index fingers out. We passed the Volkswagen dealership, then the stationary supply shop and the bakery and just when it seemed hardly worth it a ute pulled up and we jumped in. From the back of the ute the scene was transformed, as the black bitumen road rolled out from beneath the ute like a conveyor belt.

Our friends looked incongruous among the Saturday shoppers. This was due in part to the two giant inflated truck inner tubes (gumis)that stood in front of them and by which they were dwarfed. Behind us a group of women sat on the footpath their produce laid out in neat piles in front of them, their backs against the wall of the Chinese trade store. Cars pulled in and out with operatic grace and over everything was an air of cheerful gaiety.

The PMV (Public Motor Vehicle) was empty except for two other people and once it began moving the cabin filled with a rush of wind. We passed the airport and if a plane had landed at that moment we could have looked up and seen its undercarriage, close enough to touch.

After the turn off to the Plateau the road began its windy ascent to the foothills and to our destination: the pig farm. Then we are standing in front of the pig farm fence and looking into the main paddock with its hard mud surface dotted with clumps of pig shit. We climbed the fence, headed for the clumps and began searching for gold top mushrooms. After finding what we hoped were enough spindly specimens with which to get high we scampered back over the fence. We saw neither pig nor person. 

At the river we divided up our harvest, put them in our mouths and washed them down with warm, sugary lemonade. We then threw the inner tubes into the fast flowing river and leaped in after them.   My skin tingled and goosebumped on contact with the cool water and my thoughts and vision became clearer.  Once on the tubes we lay back and let the river carry us.

Suddenly the light refracted and what had been clumpy bits of kunai grass and trees on the river's edge became a vast, roiling tangle of tropical jungle with multiple layers and shades of green. The river was now a knotted mass of brown and green, untangling and reshaping and, radiating upwards and outwards, the jungle and the river and the sky all one, and us, we, in the thing and it in us. The sun, the light, the reflection of light on the water, the heat, the cold, it was all one.

And that is where the memories of that day ends, as though the film in the projector broke or an energy surge erased the rest. In my final memory I am reclining on the smooth, cool black surface of the tube, feeling its soft solid rubber and air, my feet in the water, and the cool, cold mass of the fast flowing river is carrying us under the canopy of green vines and branches (and above that the sky), over rapids and around bends, and at one point I turn my head and look behind me, and see the vast silhouette of the Sogeri Plateau calling us home.

You'll find my head beside the armchair in the living room

My arms and torso under the carpet in the same room

My other parts and organs

Will be scattered around the place

What you see in front of you

Now is a

Pretence, a joke, a caricature




2011
​