Obituary Phenomenon :

The Ernst Beyeler Obituary Phenomenon
The Institute of Social Hypocrisy, ISH Paris, Nov. 2010.

Diary Excerpt: Kandinsky´s painting Improvisation No 10 was included in the collection of the Provincial Museum in Hannover in 1927. The text-font used for the painting of this registration is Bauhaus, based on the geometric sans-serif typeface, Universal, created by Herbert Bayer in the mid-1920s. Confiscated and registered as degenerate at the Niederschoenhausen Castle in 1937, Improvisation No 10 no longer is registered in a typeface related to Bauhaus. Four years later Hitler’s private secretary Martin Bormann issued the so-called Bormann-Erlass or Schrift-Erlass (1941), a decree regulating the use of typeface in Nazi-Germany’s official documents. This identificatory process, reminiscent of today’s creation of corporate identity, be it a museum or other public institutions, through a graphic design profile, was dealt with personally on the highest level. The understanding that not only the contents of words, but also their graphic expression produce meaning, is expressed on various levels; here as aesthetification of politics and politicizing of aesthetics. The conflict of letters was given a name of its own; the so-called Frakturstreit. Antiqua (i.e roman-face) was officially declared to be the correct typeface, while gothic type fonts (i.e black-letter face) previously connected with Nazi-Germany, such as Schwabach, were banned. For the registration of Kandinsky´s Improvisation No 10 at Fondation Beyeler (1951), the typefont Bodoni was used.

The E B Obituary Phenomenon: ISH, Paris 2010