Magazines - Tribal Art Spring 2009

By Elena Martínez-Jacquet

Introduction
Revered in his day for the liveliness of his curious mind and the insightfulness of his opinions in art matters, Carl Einstein (1885–1940) was all but forgotten for many decades. Only in the last twenty years have the critical writings of the author of the groundbreaking Negerplastik (1915), the first work on African art, been translated into various languages, allowing Einstein’s name to join those of other significant art theoreticians and modern thinkers, such as Walter Benjamin, Aby Warburg, and Georges Bataille.
Last fall, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid paid homage to this distinguished intellectual, who was so engaged in the promotion of both cubism and African sculpture, with an exhibition titled La Invención del siglo XX: Carl Einstein y les vanguardias (Invention of the 20th Century. Carl Einstein and the Avant Gardes). This international exhibition featured 120 paintings by artists such as Picasso, Braque, Gris, Miró, and Otto Dix, as well as nearly forty works of African art that were published in the original edition of Negerplastik. The event sprang from mutual interest on the parts of Manuel Borja-Villel, the museum’s director, and Uwe Fleckner, the exhibition’s curator, and their collaboration resulted in a unique portrait of this visionary thinker.

A Modern Thinker
Carl Einstein was born into a Jewish family in Neuwied, Germany. He lived in Berlin during his formative years and took courses in art history, philosophy, and ancient languages, among other disciplines, before leaving for Paris, where he lived between 1905 and 1907. During this first stay in France, he became friends with many of the principal figures of the avant-garde, including the cubists and art dealer Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler (see Tribal Art, summer 2008). Einstein contributed to the experimental climate of the early twentieth century with a 1912 antinovel titled Bebuquin oder die Dilettanten des Wunders (Bebuquin or the Dilettantes of the Miracle); a screenplay for the film Toni by Jean Renoir; and numerous poems, some of which were published in Entwurf einer Landschaft (Sketch of a Landscape), published by Kahnweiler in 1930.