The Challenge of Authenticity

Don't give up hope. Be like Käthe. Create.

Tod un Frau by Käthe Kollwitz

There has been so much written about the raging dishonesty of the current political regime it’s almost not worth mentioning. The list of trespasses against the truth is impossibly long, growing each day. We can see the material results of the endless river of lies in the erosion of rights, disregard for the environment, and ludicrous policies that hamstring productivity and cultivate hardship for all but the wealthy.

For artists of all kinds this can be an especially challenging time. When our leaders wholeheartedly embrace dishonesty, creating a culture based in gaslighting, we may feel that our own voices are threatened. For some of us that is a new experience, for others - especially artists of marginalized communities - this is standard fare.

Nazi fear of authenticity -

The image associated with this post, “Tod un Frau” (Death and Woman) fascinated me in college. I was working on my undergrad thesis on the history of death and dying practices in mainstream US culture. I was looking at the evolution of death iconography in art. I found the traditional hooded skeleton of European culture to be lacking in feeling, and any sense of the organic nature of life and death. It was a caricature of death, not an actually relatable expression of the presence of death in life.

I was scouring death imagery through centuries when I came across the work of Käthe Kollwitz. She was a mother, a German artist who suffered many losses in her life. Though she eventually achieved international recognition for her creative work, and even a professorship (rare for women of her time) much of her early working life was as a nurse in her husbands medical practice as a town doctor. In that capacity she found herself caring for the poorest of her community, coming to know intimately their challenges and suffering.

Kollwitz could not separate her art from the suffering of the world. The depth of her experience, her authenticity, brought her into constant conflict with the Nazi regime. Her intimate portraits of the poor were too honest, too challenging for those pursing a racist empire. Forced to leave her teaching position, banned from exhibiting her art, she was an international symbol of creative resistance.

From the 1942 Contemporary Art Society of Australia’s Anti-Fascists Exhibition "Nazism paid her the compliment of banning her work and including it in its notorious exhibition of 'Degenerate Art', which in fact represented the greatest glories of German democratic art."

While she managed to escape Nazi imprisonment by fleeing Germany, she died five days before the end of WW II. At least she was alive to witness the complete downfall of the Nazi regime.

In my mind, Kollwitz’s vision of death is one of the first, authentic symbolic representations of death. By “authentic” I mean completely inclusive of the human experience. This piece, along with most of her work, was threatening to the Nazi regime because of its humanity. She spoke directly from the shared heart of many German women, Mothers who understood the true anguish caused by Nazi fascism. She responded to the horror of Nazism with the rawness of her incredible depth and connection to others.

Today.

Some on the right would suggest that the current regime is totally authentic, just being honest about what needs to happen in this country to "make us great again”. The Nazi’s were trying to restore a vision of their glory, one that never really existed. Of course the path to this version of authenticity means abandoning our humanity. There is no authenticity without the presence of our humanity. That which connects us must be a part of any deep, vibrant culture. The greatness fascism seeks is based in exclusion, which only creates a poverty of culture and spirit.

This morning I was asking myself what my contribution to resisting the growing fascism in our culture could be. I’m a single father, I have to prioritize the well being of my children over all else. I’m also a very sensitive person. My idea of a vacation is sitting alone beside a river, perhaps with our family dog, listening intently to the quiet to see what arises. Still, I was raised to think critically, I have a sharp tongue. I could join the fray of haranguing critics, but I would likely be quickly spat out the other side of that world as a tangled mess.

I choose to look to the model of Kollwitz and other artists who lived from a place of authenticity, for that is what fascism denies. As “speaking truth to power” is to the political activist so is authenticity to the artist. Authenticity is in fact the antidote to today’s political crisis. Who we love, how we love, what we create in the world - these are the greatest tools against the oppressor.

They can’t understand authenticity, because they are turning their backs on their own humanity. It will ultimately be their downfall.

Don’t give up hope. Be like Käthe. Create. You are beautiful.