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Item: Gefängnis. Das graue Haus. Das Haus im Schatten

Emmy Hennings

2015

Book, 19.5 x 12.5 cm, 576 p., language : German, publisher : Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen, ISBN : 978-3-8353-1834-2.
Materials: ink, paper

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. B 2028/885).

Literary synopsis

This volume compiles three prison novels by the famous Dada artist Emmy Hennings. In 1916 she opened the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich with Hugo Ball. Here, the Dada group rebelled not only against the war, but against art itself. Hennings’ novel Gefängnis (Prison), published in 1919, caused a great sensation. Based on her personal experience (she spent several stints in prison, at least once for forging passports), using powerful, expressive language, she dissects the experience of imprisonment down to its last linguistic detail. With existential urgency, the reader is shown exactly what it means to be in prison. For many years, Hennings was concerned with the relationship between delinquency and the penal system, crime and punishment. The other two prison texts, Das graue Haus (The Grey House) and Das Haus im Schatten (The House in the Shade) bear witness to this.

Novel's website

Authorship: Artist Author.

Creative Strategy: No Link to Artworks.

Genre: Autobiography.

Publishing: Publishing House.

Theme: Crime, Prison.

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The M HKA is a museum for contemporary art, film and visual culture in its widest sense. It is an open place of encounter for art, artists and the public. The M HKA aspires to play a leading role in Flanders and to extend its international profile by building upon Antwerp's avant-garde tradition. The M HKA bridges the relationship between artistic questions and wider societal issues, between the international and the regional, artists and public, tradition and innovation, reflection and presentation. Central here is the museum's collection with its ongoing acquisitions, as well as related areas of management and research.

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