Beauty as Transgression
Manos Tsangaris and Anh-Linh Ngo in conversation with Ulrich Peltzer

Rather than talking about boundaries, we should perhaps first talk about the norms that boundaries demarcate – the statistical, social, political, technical and legal norms, not to mention the norms of morality and socially desirable, sometimes sanctioned, forms of interaction. Before they can claim authority in a territory, such norms are always the product of long and often violent processes of negotiation.

We are framed by these norms, which are codified in contracts and laws, their observance monitored by institutions – today, for the most part, state institutions. Our possibilities of movement are determined as follows: I have to pay rent, buy a ticket for the train, carry identification, avoid picking a fight with the tax office if possible, and I’m also not allowed to relieve myself in public; on the other hand, I have identifiable rights which, at least in theory, I can demand or insist on through legal action. This is what is called a bourgeois social order, which is by no means intended in a pejorative way.

Everyone is bound by norms. Circumventing or undermining these norms, for whatever reason, requires a certain amount of skill, or, as the Bob Dylan song goes, to live outside the law, you must be honest. That is how boundaries are created that are binding – until something in society begins to slip – that is, until certain norms are questioned, criticised, abolished or replaced. Here in our country, meaning the former West Germany, you can cite the shameful Paragraph 175, or the fact that, well into the 1960s, a woman could not take up employment or open a bank account without her husband’s consent – just imagine!

There’s the perennial question: How does resistance come about, and how can it be organised? The eight-hour working day was not introduced after a fireside chat at the Düsseldorf Industry Club.

As an artist, as a writer, I have to deal with different rules or boundaries, beyond what may be demanded of me by so-called good taste or the penal code (the blasphemy law has fortunately been abolished) – namely, those rules and boundaries that arise from the material of my work: What is it that allows me to break with conventions? And in what cases am I forced to do so? The history of art in the modern era is always also a history of disruption, of transgressing convention, at the level of both form and content; in the field of literature, for example, we can take Joyce or Genet, to name two figures as proxies for all the others.

Boundaries shouldn’t be defined only in negative terms, as instruments of exclusion or as barriers. They are mobile, they have a contested history and they possess only temporary validity as a practical and symbolic way of organising a space that has been mutually agreed upon – and not always by a vote.

In times of crisis, we see a blurring of boundaries or, to use a term coined by Deleuze, a deterritorialisation. While crisis can encompass many things, it often has its origins in economic upheavals, which are usually closely linked to criticism of normative restrictions. The 1960s were characterised by this, as were the 1970s, until the backlash came about – namely, an intellectual and moral turning point in the form of government-sanctioned reterritorialisation. Although it must be said that not everything can be reversed once transformation in a society has begun.

There are norms or values that cannot be circumvented, always and everywhere, at least in the kind of society I would like to live in – as formulated in the shape of fundamental rights in Germany’s Basic Law. Any attempt to restrict these rights must be met with resolute opposition. With regard to measures that directly affect our Akademie, this includes the attempts by political parties, both on the right and the left, to subject the arts to certain obligations, to require artists, as people in a position of responsibility, to follow a political programme. 

This does not mean art is unpolitical; however, it is political not by intent – in the name, perhaps, of this or that interest – but rather because this is an inherent feature of art. We should recall Shostakovich and the debates about Beuys, about Kathy Acker, or the fact that for a long time Ulysses could only be sold under the counter in the United States because of alleged obscenity.

Herein lies a potential for resistance, intrinsic to all art that is worth discussing: not to appropriate, not to instrumentalise, but to challenge our senses and our minds – to set the bar high, if I may. As an aesthetic insight that gives me access to zones I’m not familiar with or have previously avoided, a kind of foreign language that I am learning to spell.

Statements like “That’s going too far, that can’t be tolerated, that will overwhelm people, the social welfare system, so-called common sense” always open up a front in the battle to establish boundaries or norms, not only in art and art criticism but also in societal conflicts. However, as Roland Barthes once remarked, the battle against intelligence is always waged in the name of common sense and constitutes the most aggressive form of petit bourgeois backlash. 

Before new boundaries are actually drawn, before normative markers are changed to exclude and punish what was previously common practice, public space must be addressed using the means available in the media – currently, as we all know, this takes place through social media, the power of which cannot be overestimated. Anyone who has ever delved into the depths of services like X, TikTok or Telegram might actually be surprised that peace is still preserved in society; at any rate, you come away looking at your fellow citizens on the street with different eyes.

As restrictions rooted in historical experience, boundaries can make sense, because they define certain minimum standards without which civilised coexistence becomes impossible, and which, at least for me, also play a role in writing. What is touted as a lifting of taboos is often just a flimsy pretext for the unbridled enjoyment of the barbaric, the unappetising miasmas of depressed souls. And, for the most part, this is also expressed with such terrible, awful language, whether it be in art or in public discourse.

When I spoke earlier about deterritorialisation, about the removal of boundaries, it implied something positive, a somewhat imprecise notion of progress, the idea of a turn towards something more bearable, whereas reterritorialisation meant a kind of retrograde movement, renewed restrictions, a revision of things that had formerly seemed self-evident, or should be from now on.

It seems to me that this process has really accelerated in recent years, coupled with a loss of the capacity to remember – as if we hadn’t known better before. Brecht once wrote somewhere that those who don’t know tradition are bound to fall in behind it; it’s a line that I think has universal merit.

Which leads me to the question of where the arts should position themselves today, not in the sense of a mission or a statement, as mentioned earlier, but rather as tools of awareness and – to use a word no longer heard so frequently – of beauty, which is indeed anything but pleasing, but instead often amounts to a shock, as it breaks with prejudice and comfortable self-assurance and makes you think: So that exists, and so does that; the world is bigger, far bigger, than I had previously imagined. Well, it’s not a very easy question to answer; perhaps the question is older and has always touched upon the essence of any form of artistic production.

The political situation frightens me – that much should be clear. Particularly because it is not just about intellectual and moral turning points (looking at current political leaders, I find myself actually developing some sympathy for former Chancellor Kohl, who always knew his Hölderlin). And it’s not just because a nationalist mentality is making itself heard again without the least sense of shame, but because imperialist power politics are once again being pursued in such open fashion, no longer obfuscated by ideological disputes as was the case in the Cold War, but now, crudely and brazenly, as if it were 1884 and we found ourselves at the Berlin West Africa Conference.

The time is out of joint, said Hamlet, after his father’s ghost revealed to him the murderous intrigues that were being spun at the Danish Royal Court. Time has become disjointed – I believe it cannot be expressed any more precisely than that. The question is, what does that lead to? What advice would my father’s ghost give to me? In calmness lies strength, as he used to tell me before every hockey game I played? I’m afraid that’s not enough today. Unfortunately, it’s all I have to offer at the moment.

Translated by Peter Rigney

Writer Ulrich Peltzer has been a member of the Literature Section at the Akademie der Künste since 2010.