“You are the task,” wrote Franz Kafka, and one might think that he is speaking directly to the people of Munich with these words. The exhibition “Kafka in Quotations” opened on Thursday at Gasteig HP8, which was launched to mark the 100th anniversary of the death of the writer Franz Kafka and as part of the “Kafka 2024” platform.
Kafka can be described in many ways. In addition to his fame as a famous writer, he is also known as a visionary of modernity and a master of the absurd. Over the past four weeks, Munich residents have had the opportunity to actively participate in the design of the exhibition as “audience curators”. At places like the adult education center and the city library, they were able to select and rate their favorite quotes from Kafka’s works. There were 60 different quotes to choose from, on which participants could stick dots to highlight the texts that spoke to them most. In total, more than 2000 points were distributed. In the end, 22 quotes were selected that received a particularly large number of votes. The artist Eugen Korda then artfully staged the quotes, giving the exhibition an additional visual dimension.
At the vernissage on Thursday, Susanne May, program director of the Munich Adult Education Center, emphasized that one should be “inspired and irritated” by the selected quotes, both the short and longer text passages. Since Kafka often deals with the existential questions of being human and the search for meaning and identity in his texts, his quotes invite you to think about your own challenges and tasks in life.
Among the selected quotes are lines like “There is a goal, but no way; what we call the way is hesitation” from Kafka’s diaries from 1914 to 1923. The following quote was chosen from his aphorisms: “Theoretically, there is a perfect possibility of happiness : Believe in the indestructible within yourself and don’t strive for it.” One quote, however, did not receive a single vote from the people of Munich: “The guilt is always undoubted.” Why not? Maybe it’s because the people of Munich are a fundamentally optimistic people and would prefer to avoid the dark topic of inevitable guilt. However, it seems that Kafka himself would have laughed at this irony – after all, he too was a master of absurd humor.
Of course, an exhibition like “Kafka in Quotes” cannot be enough to capture the entire complexity and depth of Franz Kafka’s world of thought. His works require a deep immersion into the work and frequent reading in order to begin to understand the complexity of his messages. Nevertheless, this exhibition offers a wonderful opportunity to gain an overview of Kafka’s ideas and thoughts. Particularly in this day and age, 100 years after Kafka’s death, it is important to honor his legacy and reflect on how his observations about human existence and the absurdities of life are still relevant. This makes it possible to view Kafka not just as a literary monument, but as a living part of our cultural reflection.
“Kafka in Quotes”, HP8, until July 12th, free entry