May 27th: Robert Walser Panel Discussion
Presented by 192 Books and Paula Cooper Gallery, Susan Bernofsky will discuss her new book Clairvoyant of the Small: The Life of Robert Walser with Christine Burgin, Maira Kalman, Josiah McElheny, and Amy Sillman in a conversation moderated by Carin Kuoni.
The live event will stream directly on this page on Thursday, May 27th at 6pm EST. There is no login or rsvp required. A recording will be archived and posted shortly afterwards.
Susan Bernofsky - Clairvoyant of the Small: The Life of Robert Walser
The great Swiss-German modernist author Robert Walser lived eccentrically on the fringes of society, shocking his Berlin friends by enrolling in butler school and later developing an urban-nomad lifestyle in the Swiss capital, Bern, before checking himself into a psychiatric clinic. A connoisseur of power differentials, his pronounced interest in everything inconspicuous and modest—social outcasts and artists as well as the impoverished, marginalized, and forgotten—prompted W. G. Sebald to dub him “a clairvoyant of the small.” His revolutionary use of short prose forms won him the admiration of Franz Kafka, Walter Benjamin, Robert Musil, and many others.
He was long believed an outsider by conviction, but Susan Bernofsky presents a more nuanced view in this immaculately researched and beautifully written biography. Setting Walser in the context of early twentieth century European history, she provides illuminating analysis of his extraordinary life and work, bearing witness to his “extreme artistic delight.”
Photo Credit: Richard Gehr
Susan Bernofsky is best known for her translations of seven works of fiction by the great Swiss-German modernist author Robert Walser, as well as novels and poetry by Yoko Tawada, Franz Kafka, Hermann Hesse, Jenny Erpenbeck, and Uljana Wolf. A Guggenheim, Cullman, and Berlin Prize fellow, she teaches literary translation at the Columbia University School of the Arts and is currently at work on a new translation of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain.
Christine Burgin is a publisher who has collaborated with Susan Bernofsky and New Directions on several Robert Walser books including Microscripts, A Little Ramble, and Looking at Pictures. Her most recent publications include Hilma Af Klint: Notes and Methods, Angels and Saints by Eliot Weinberger (also with New Directions), and Matt Mullican: Heaven.
Maira Kalman is an author/illustrator of books for adults and children. She is a contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Times. Her most recent books are American Utopia with David Byrne and an illustrated edition of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein.
Carin Kuoni is a curator whose critical work examines how contemporary artistic practices reflect and inform social, political, and cultural conditions. She is the senior director and chief curator of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School. Before joining the university, she was director of exhibitions at Independent Curators International (ICI) and director of The Swiss Institute where she curated Fragments of Imaginary Landscapes: Joan Nelson and Robert Walser.
Josiah McElheny is a visual artist and writer, living and working in NYC; his exhibition Libraries—with a film by Jeff Preiss and Josiah McElheny is now on view until June 12, 2021 at James Cohan Gallery at 291 Grand Street NYC. He has collaborated with Susan Bernofsky and Christine Burgin on the books A Little Ramble—In the Spirit of Robert Walser, published by New Directions and Christine Burgin, and Glass! Love!! Perpetual Motion!!!—A Paul Scheerbart Reader, published by University of Chicago Press and Christine Burgin.
Amy Sillman is an artist and sometime-writer based in NYC.