Miriam Cahn. WRITING IN RAGE

arnold dreyblatt78

postcards

Miriam Cahn

Praxis Inc.

33 Pakenham St.

PO Box 536

Fremantle, West Australia 6160

"Budapest"

1986

Miriam, just back from tour in Holland and concerts now in Bethanien and record come out - I am really confused so much travel - N.Y. was better this time - I realised it's my home + I had more distance - I ran around with Hungarian friends to Russian part of Brooklyn and I was ok and I could see everything so clear there sometimes - now finishing last concerts and then I must move out to Arndtstr 35 1/61 by end of July. then maybe I go east - the last tours were so boring. I don't know what to do + for now nothing with Who's Who. Zinnober79 asked about you (send them card) ALL IS BULLSHIT I had a great shoestune from an old Turkish man here

Love Arnold

Miriam Cahn

Danckelmannstr. 31

1000 Berlin 19

RFA Allemagne

"Liège"

1988

Miriam,

I don't know if you're back yet from Canada - I've cleared out my garden + it's very nice here now - eating + drinking with Terry - + working on solo music and pictures for my home movies - you should come + visit sometime in the summer - it should include a weekend for the local music scene.

Love, Arnold

Terry Fox address:

58 Rue Pierreuse tel - 3241-***

MIRIAM CAHN

Strassburgerallee 68

4055 Basel

Switzerland

"LUGOSI LASZLO" - a good friend

"BUDAPESTI NEONOK 1986"

1989 (?)

Dear Miriam - I missed you in Berlin by only 5 days - after mad travel thru Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria then Anatolia to Syrian border then Hung again, CSSR to friendly Berlin - which was a surprise because - can you believe it - I felt at home! It went ok in Linz - better in music than with the pictures - but as first time I felt satisfied + I made solo piece - but now all problems again - try now in Rotterdam to get support (want to move as soon as possible) + if not Brussels Köln or back to Berlin - the wandering Juden! + I want to get a video camera because this slide thing I made for Linz is a dead end. Otherwise IT'S A FULL TIME JOB NOT BECOMING INSANE! I would like to visit you after I get settled - you can still write to Belgium - until further notice!

Love, Arnold

Typed letter

1990 (?)

it looks like we missed each other again -i think that i arrived in berlin just after you left - Eva Maria gave me the dates when you would be in Berlin but i guess she thought that you would be coming later

I'm going to New York for a month after travelling continually since sept -i haven't been in one place for more than two weeks since then

so i'm a little dizzy

I have some commissions for pieces to be performed in Holland in June

and then I was offered a really good place in Berlin - an old girlfriend (and her boyfriend who's from Zinnober) will get a renovated loft in Kreuzberg by Oranienpl and want me to move in -i can rehearse in a big renovated kellerraum and its cheap and really luxurious and will be ready in July

so i guess i do it

i miss the east

and after the french, belgians and dutch i love the germans after all

anyway i learned my lesson

it's no point to look for a home

and it looks now like slowly Zinnober is breaking up and they're going to come out one by one - maybe not all but some of them and they will come to this loft

so it's a little bit family

except for the Republikaner

i'm 35 years old and ready to compromise

(but don't tell anyone because i applied for DAAD and i don't want them to know that i would come anyway)

Gabi (the leader of Zinnober) will come to Basle in a few weeks and i gave her your address

i hope you're ok

maybe after i'm settled in summer i could come and visit you finally and we could go to the mountains

i've never been in mountains like that

in Dagestan in the Caucasus there are mountain Jews living like goats but it's hard to imagine

love, arnold

Miriam Cahn

Gissliweg 81

CH-4057 Basel

"rheinsberg nach 1900"

1996

Dear Miriam, Thank you for the three books, coming at the same time as the Sandoz Ciba Merger! The books are really beautiful - and it was a great treat to read in English - so personally suddenly dreams, family, life and death! I guess we are all getting older! Hope to meet you again someday. I will make a big project in Copenhagen this year for the Kulturstadt Europa!

Maybe you come (end Nov.) Love, Arnold

31 November 85

Dear Miriam,

Thank you for your letter. Yes, the staging of the Fassbinder play80 has caused a stir - and rightly so. As you can imagine, I am wholly on the side of those who are obstructing its performance. I am glad that the Jews are refusing to accept this, in a consistent manner and without any rioting. In this matter, it seems to me totally irrelevant whether the author wanted to be anti-Semitic or not. The reactions prove that the play can be understood as anti-Semitic. And that's the point at which tolerance stops. It's too serious a matter to be decided by the literary smart set.

What is happening here again is precisely what Hitler so slyly insinuated: the rich Jew, as speculator and extortionist, is responsible for the sins of capitalism. He becomes the scapegoat for the capitalist system. By exterminating the Jews, you solve the "social question". This "terrible simplification" was one of the major driving forces behind the Nazis' success in 1933.

And today, once again, this type of negative image is being asserted. It must be nipped in the bud. And if the author is being misunderstood, then that's HIS mistake. The political climate today is hot enough anyway - think of the big successes scored by parties that are against the "foreigners" and that are ALWAYS also fascist: in Israel, in France and now also in Geneva and Lausanne .

I think it's a good thing that, as you say, the German intellectuals are being "ambushed by history". If that wasn't the case, then one would have to be astonished at their blindness, obstinacy, obtuseness. But precisely the fact that the events of this century are continually in their consciousness, lurking and nagging, makes me relatively optimistic about Germany's future at present. So, I am very definitely of the opinion that tolerance stops with anti-Semitism. It's not the same whether a writer "owns up" to his homosexuality, or his alcoholism or his voyeurism - or to his anti-Semitism. Because, whether he intends it or not, the latter can have a long-distance effect and, whatever form it takes, a highly dangerous one.

There is a point in your letter that interests me. In the field of literature and poetry you seem tolerate a far broader range of opinions, statements, philosophies etc. than in the fine arts. Yet the word always has a stronger effect than the image, more unlimited and time and entering the human mind. Especially on the stage (Schiller is quite rightly cited here: "The Theatre as a Moral Institution". And that's why I find Heidegger, Ezra Pound e tutti quanti great minds who flirted with fascism suspicious.

After all, you demand a clear standpoint from the creative artist and accuse the Abstract Expressionists of lacking commitment (which I don't quite agree with). But we don't want to discuss that today.

You are of course quite right to say that an exhibition that wants to show German art in the 20th century cannot simply leave out the Nazi period. On the other hand, it's damn difficult today to find anything good about the years 1933-45. This total absence is an undeniable phenomenon of art history. Most good artists, whether Jewish or not, emigrated and the others went into inner emigration. So what should one put on display? The weak late pictures of Heckel, Nolde and Dix?81 Or loathsome Nazi art such as the muscle-men of Arno Bräker? Where can they be found? If I had to make an exhibition, therefore, I would reserve a room for "1933-1945": photographs of Nazi architecture, a statue by Bräker, any "attractively" painted portrait of Hitler, Goebbels or Göring, and alongside them emigrant art: a powerful Beckmann, a Freundlich82 and a Max Ernst.

Unfortunately, they don't allow me to .

Phew, this letter is already far too long. Our congratulations on Sydney, Baden-Baden and Bonn (information from Stampa) and we hope to come to the opening of the exhibition in Baden-Baden. Is the date 12 September correct?

How have...