This is a Psychic City assignment both Kate G. and I came up with. Kate is working on translation and I’m working on aesthetics and we thought about how to mix the two. I’ve been thinking a lot about the illusion of art and ideology and how the ideological message in artworks can never posit themselves in any sort of “pure” form – this relates directly to attempting to understand the proposed “meaning” behind a work when translating. We’ve discussed that these are two very similar mental processes.

The Degenerate Art Exhibition in 1937 (hope y’all read your German history books) showcased art which had been labeled as deviant, essentially. Our assignment is going to be finding a piece of art by one of the artists whose work was displayed at the exhibition and:

1. Write a poem/prose/a short essay/make a drawing translating your experience of the artwork.

or

2. If you feel that you don’t know how to find any one of these artworks, find a piece of art which you find could be potentially deviant (if you believe in that sort of thing – if you don’t, pretend you do) and then do number one.

A helpful link:

http://www.listal.com/list/degenerate-art