Paul Scheerbart (1863-1915) was a visionary German novelist,
theorist, poet, and artist who made a lasting impression on such
icons of modernism as Walter Benjamin, Bruno Taut, and Walter
Gropius. Fascinated with the potential of glass as a medium for
expressionist architecture and moved by tales of the fantastic,
Scheerbart envisioned the sublime through a series of futurist
milieus composed entirely of crystalline, colored glass
architecture. In 1912, Scheerbart published "The Light Club of
Batavia", a novelette about the formation of a club dedicated to
building a glass spa for bathing - not in water, but in light - at
the bottom of an abandoned mineshaft. Translated here into English
for the first time, this rare story serves as a point of departure
for Josiah McElheny, who, with an esteemed group of collaborators,
offers a fascinating array of responses to this enigmatic work.
"The Light Club" makes clear that the themes of utopian hope,
desire, and madness in Scheerbart's tale represent a part of
modernism's lost project: a world that would have looked entirely
different from the one we now inhabit. In his compelling
introduction, McElheny describes Scheerbart's life as well as his
own enchantment with the artist, and he explains the ways in which
'The Light Club of Batavia' inspired him to produce art of uncommon
breadth. "The Light Club" also features inspired writings from
Gregg Bordowitz and Ulrike Muller, Andrea Geyer, and Branden W.
Joseph, as well as translations of original texts by and about
Scheerbart. A unique response by one visionary artist to another,
"The Light Club" is an unforgettable examination of what it might
mean to see radical potential in the readily transparent.
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