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A Dreadful Lust for Forbidden Eyes: Unica Zürn and the force of imagination

de Zanger, M.

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Schmerz. Lust: Künstlerinnen und Autorinnen der deutschen Avantgarde

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Citation for published version (APA):

de Zanger, M. (2015). A Dreadful Lust for Forbidden Eyes: Unica Zürn and the force of imagination. In L. Bosco,
& A. Gilleir (Eds.), Schmerz. Lust: Künstlerinnen und Autorinnen der deutschen Avantgarde (pp. 251-270).
(Moderne-Studien; No. 18). Bielefeld: Aisthesis Verlag.

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Download date: 06 Jul 2020

 Sonderdruck aus:

Lorella Bosco / Anke Gilleir (Hgg.)

Schmerz. Lust.
Künstlerinnen und Autorinnen
der deutschen Avantgarde

AISTHESIS VERLAG
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Bielefeld 2015
Marion de Zanger (Amsterdam)

A Dreadful Lust For Forbidden Eyes

Unica Zürn and the Force of Imagination1

The Straight Line is Godless

Hundertwasser

Almost everything that has been written on the work of Unica Zürn deals with
her suffering, most of all her psychic torment. This is partly due to the artist
herself, who spoke and wrote publicly about her mental crises and detain­
ments in mental hospitals. Her self-presentation in an exhibition catalogue
of 1967 shows how well aware she was that it enhanced the attention for her
work.

[…] Unica Zürn lebt seit 1953 in Paris. Sie wird im Laufe der letzten
fünf Jahre mehrere Male in psychiatrischen Kliniken (Berlin und Paris
sowie in La Rochelle) interniert. Die kurze, sehr schöne und keines­
wegs beängstigende Epoche des Deliriums (Halluzinationen) bezahlt sie
teuer mit einem jähen Absturz in die tiefsten und hoffnungslosesten
Depressionen. […] Es existiert eine große Zeichnung mit Texten (siehe
Abbildung), die sie in einem leichteren Delirium machte. Sie stellt eine
teuflische Grimasse dar und sie gibt ihr den Titel »Der Tod des amerika­
nischen Präsidenten John F. Kennedy«. […] Die phantastischen Zustände,
die ihr die verschiedenen Krisen ihrer Krankheit vermittelten, sind fas­
zinierend und von poetischem Wert. Geheilt schreibt sie ihre Eindrücke
über die Geisteskrankheit nieder. Das 200 Seiten lange Manuskript wird
zur Zeit ins Französische übersetzt. Sie hofft, es bei Gallimard in Paris
zu veröffentlichen. Unica Zürn.2

1 Malcolm Green translates the original phrase »Ich habe oft eine furchtbare Lust nach
verbotenen Augen« in Zürns Das Haus der Krankheiten into »…a terrible desire for
forbidden eyes«. Unica Zürn. The House of Illnesses. Stories and Pictures from a
Case of Jaundice. Trans. Malcolm Green. London: Atlas, 1993. P. 34. I used the same
translation in my dissertation (2004), but would opt for a more powerful one today.
2 »[…] Unica Zürn has lived in Paris since 1953. She has been interned several times in
psychiatric clinics (Berlin, Paris as well as in La Rochelle) over the last five years. The
short, very beautiful and in no way scary phase of delirium (hallucinations) comes at
the high price of a sudden collapse into the deepest and most desperate depressions.
252 Marion de Zanger

She chose to represent herself in the German-speaking culture as an intrigu­

ing, artistic, mentally ill patient, yet nonetheless one that aimed for a very
prestigious French publisher. Zürn turned her mental illness into her trade­
mark. She hoped that this would appeal to the imagination of the public and
boost the sale of her work. Such had notoriously been the case with the Ruma­
nian avant-garde painter Victor Brauner (1903-1966), whose work all of a sud­
den began to sell far better after he had painted his one-eyed self-portrait,
his eye thereafter actually being knocked out by his friend, the artist Oscar
Dominguez (1906-1957).3 Both the fact that Zürn foregrounded her psychiatric
history and the fact that the drawing she mentioned is really the bleakest and
most gruesome in her entire oeuvre, reveal her self-positioning strategy. In
Paris she already had this reputation when in 1962 a very prestigious gallery
exhibited the restored pen drawings she had torn up in a fit of despair while
living alone in a hotel room. Yet Zürn’s work is not at all ›insane‹.4

[…] There exists a large drawing with texts (see illustration), which she produced in a
light delirium. It shows a devilish grimace and she has given it the title ›The death of
the American president John F. Kennedy‹. […] The fantastic states the different cri­
ses of her illness put her into are fascinating and of poetic value. After her recovery
she writes down her impressions on mental illness. The 200 pages long manuscript is
being translated into French at the moment. She hopes to publish it with Gallimard
in Paris.« Exhibition catalogue Unica Zürn: Aquarelle, Zeichnungen, Radierungen
− Hans Bellmer im Studio: Druckgraphik, Zeichnungen, 28.4.-4.6.1967. Hannover:
Galerie Dieter Brusberg, 1967. P. 2-4.
3 Unica Zürn. Gesamtausgabe. 8 vols. Berlin: Brinkmann & Bose, 1988-2001 (from here
on referred to as GA, followed by volume and page number). Here vol. 4.2. P. 477 and
p. 544.
4 Zürn was hospitalized six times. Three of her stays in mental hospitals (in 1960, 1962
and 1970) were extended disproportionally, because they coincided with a break in
the relationship with Hans Bellmer, which made her practically homeless. During
her longest hospitalization period in Sainte Anne, Zürn spent half of her time on
leave with Bellmer and was only released after Bellmer went into treatment for his
alcohol addiction. Three further hospitalizations (in 1964, 1969 and 1970) did not
happen out of pure psychiatric necessity, but were in fact measures to protect her,
or to unburden the ailing Bellmer. The hospitalization in La Rochelle in the summer
of 1964, however, did happen in order to let Zürn regain peace of mind, as she was
severely shaken after having spent several weeks with her daughter, whom she had
not seen for ten years. For the last but one hospitalization Zürn feigned confusion,
because her home situation exceeded her forces. With regard to her last stay in
hospital, Bellmer seems to express in a letter that she could be dismissed after a few
days already, yet that no-one, not even Zürn herself, had any idea where she could
go. See: Marion de Zanger. »Orakel en Spektakel. De waanzinnige receptie van Unica
 A Dreadful Lust For Forbidden Eyes 253

She exploited the interest, widespread in the avant-garde art world and in
progressive psychiatry, in the art of mentally ill people or other ›outsiders‹.
The hype that existed in those days, and in fact still does, is the reason why,
next to art museums, also museums for art brut, later named outsider art,
exist today. As recently as late 2013, Belgian curator Jan Hoet (1936-2014)
put on display art works by artists with and without psychiatric records in his
exhibition Middle Gate Geel ›13 in order to show that the difference that is
always assumed neither exists nor can be traced (Geel, Belgium 29-09-2013
− 19-01-2014). The work of artists with and without psychiatric history in this
exhibition had a lot in common, not in the least the conviction that life can be
difficult, bleak, confusing, painful and sexually restless. In the accompanying
catalogue it was pointed out that a specific art category such as art brut,
outsider art, art by mentally ill people, or psychiatric art is a myth.5 Around
1967 Zürn certainly embraced this myth, which both harmed and helped her.6
Her early death at the age of 54 − suicide − increased the attention for her
mental suffering, which is, however, often overemphasized and even manip­
ulated, as, for example, in the retrospective catalogue Unica Zürn: Bilder
1953-1970 (Unica Zürn: Images 1953-1970). In this catalogue, several undated
little ink drawings sketched in an untypically simple style and some undated
clumsy etchings are put at the end of the chronological survey of her oeuvre
(two reproductions are even printed upside down), thus suggesting that her
mental state worsened perceptibly.7 Something similar happened in the flyer
and introduction of the recent solo exhibition Dark Spring (New York, 2009)
and the group exhibition Surrealismus und Wahnsinn (Surrealism and Mad­
ness, Heidelberg 2009-2010), which characterized Zürn emphatically by her
»ever recurrent admissions in mental hospitals and her suicide«.8 Even more
recently, the exhibition Nerveuze vrouwen (Nervous Women, Ghent 2012-
2013) displayed the audiovisual recording of an interview with the psychia­
trist who played a central role in the construction of Zürn’s psychiatric image.

Zürn, surrealiste«. Jaarboek voor Vrouwengeschiedenis 30 (2010): P. 79-101. Here p.

94. These six crises are of course real, as was Bellmer’s inability to cope with them.
5 Arnout De Cleene/Leni van Goidsenhoven. »Outsiderkunst, de ontmanteling van een
mythe«. Middle Gate Geel ›13. Ed. Jan Hoet. Ghent: Borgerhoff & Lamberights,
2013. P. 19-31.
6 Marion de Zanger. Een verschrikkelijk verlangen naar verboden ogen. Unica Zürn
(1916-1970) in haar cultuurhistorische context. Amsterdam: AUP, 2004. See in parti­
cular chapter 6 »Man soll das tun, was einen besessen macht …«. P. 201-264.
7 The undated little ink drawings are probably first attempts in a situation, in which
she had no decent drawing material at her disposal and probably date from around
1961. The first engraving experiments are most likely much older.
8 See: de Zanger. »Orakel en Spektakel« (see footnote 4). P. 79-80.
254 Marion de Zanger

Thus the diagnosis »schizothymiques« was reconfirmed for the umpteenth

time, as if no serious doubts about the diagnosis of schizophrenia9 or the
impact of the heavy pharmaceutical treatment existed already during her life
and after her death. Not a word about this.

I. Leaving Traces10

Zürn did indeed write about her personal experiences and from that it beco­
mes undeniably clear that her life was far from easy. She suffered many mis­
fortunes and anxieties: the rape by her brother, the assaults by her mother,
the divorce of her parents, the sale of the parental home (a large villa full of
art works from all continents), the death of her father, who never returned
from his journey to Italy, her brother’s death on the Russian front at Witebsk
during the Second World War, the adultery of her husband Eric Laupenmühlen
and the pregnancy of his mistress, the birth of her son during the bombing of
Berlin and her ensuing scarlet fever, the Nazi-sympathies of her mother and
stepfather, the incomprehension of migrated German artists in France for
those who had stayed at home in Nazi-Germany, the break with her mother,
two illicit abortions, the taking into care of her son without her knowledge,
a time of poverty together with Bellmer, the recurring uncertainty about her
residence permit in France, Bellmer’s preference for excessive eroticism, the
nasty side-effects of psychiatric drugs, the embarrassment about her lack of
proficiency in French, the robbing by her psychiatrist, and the many suicides
in her immediate surroundings. Not least because of Zürn’s own testimonies
and various other sources, a lot of research effort has gone into the map­
ping, description, and explanation of her suffering.11 Drawing on her liter­
ary and plastic art work, each scholar seems to perceive a different person.
Depending on prior knowledge and theoretical perspective, Zürn’s work is
either considered as that of a schizophrenic, a manic-depressive, of someone
with a schizo-affective or multiple personality disorder, a wrongly diagnosed

9 See for example: »Also sprach Unica Zürn. De secundaire literatuur over het beel­
dende werk van Unica Zürn«. de Zanger. Een verschrikkelijk verlangen (see foot­
note 6). P. 21-56.
10 »Was ist der Sinn des Lebens? Sie antwortet auf diese Frage: ›Spuren zu hinterlas­
sen‹. Das kann geschehen, indem man Kinder zeugt und gebiert, in denen die Erin­
nerung an die Eltern weiterlebt. Und Spuren hinterlässt man auch mit einem Werk.
Mit einem hinterlassenen Werk − wenn es ausgezeichnet ist, kann man ›unsterblich‹
werden.«. GA 5. P. 72.
11 See: de Zanger. »Zover het oog reikt«. In: de Zanger. Een verschrikkelijk verlangen
(see footnote note 6) and the aforementioned chapter 2.
 A Dreadful Lust For Forbidden Eyes 255

psychiatric patient, a shaman, a spiritual sage, a medicalized or sexually

traumatized woman, a woman without subject position, a frustrated, hurt or
abused woman, a female artist who collapsed under male surrealist artistic
practices, or an artist who did not acknowledge the limits of the artistic pro­
cess. Zürn is considered a marked person, a conscious or subconscious victim,
voiceless, powerless.
Yet Unica Zürn left us with some very characteristic words and images,
and her life was also one of pleasure, enjoyment, satisfaction, surprise and
challenge. Writing, drawing and painting − writing stories and conceiving ana­
grams and afterwards also making pen and ink drawings − was her raison
d’être. Not simply because writing prose and poetry, painting and drawing
were such fantastically delightful experiences, but because the process of
creating made life worth living.

II. One should celebrate the parties as they come12

In December 1956, Unica Zürn wrote the following:

In dieser Jahreszeit stehen wir spät auf − auch weil es kalt ist und ehe
der Ofen das Stübchen wärmt zittert man vor Eisigkeit. Um 11 gehen
wir zu Marcelle und trinken unseren ersten ›Café creme‹ quatschen eine
halbe Stunde gähnend miteinander, darüber, was Tags über getan wer­
den soll − oder ich erzähl Hans, was ich geträumt habe, dann gehen
wir für das Mittagessen einkaufen und kommen gegen 12 nachhaus,
wo es inzwischen warm geworden ist und ich mich nach einem Mut-
Glas voll Wein ans Aufräumen mache. Wir verursachen jeden Tag einen
Riesenberg voll Müll u. Staub − wo das immer herkommt, weiss kein
Mensch − ich glaube es kommt durch die Wände − aber es ist ja auch
alles zugleich: Küche, Werkstatt, Wasch- und Badehaus, Schlaf-, Wohn-,
Esszimmer. Es ist irrsinnig gemütlich, schändlich klein und vollgestopft
bis unter die Decke. Natürlich träumen wir von mehr Raum − ich bin
sogar nach wie vor davon überzeugt, dass wir einmal ›reich‹ werden −
aber das wird wohl noch ein paar Jahre dauern. Ich möchte einmal in
einem grossen hellen Raum zeichnen, worin man spazierengehen kann
und Mozartmusik beim Zeichnen hört. Wir möchten auch gerne mal ein
Badezimmer haben und in der Badewanne Kriminalromane lesen und
zu mir sollte 2mal in der Woche ein alte dicke chinesische Masseuse

12 »Man muss die Feste feiern wie sie fallen«. Title of an anagram, dated 1955, Mont­
pellier. GA 1. P. 32.
256 Marion de Zanger

kommen und meine Schultern durchkneten, − ich habs nämlich in den

Schultern − Hans sollte einen Raum haben, wo er wieder anfangen kann,
Objekte zu bauen − dazu eine Ziege, Hühner, Kater und Gemüsegärt­
chen. Ich halte sehr viel vom ›Herbeiwünschen‹ der Dinge. Man ist ja
nicht unbescheiden. Man braucht wahrscheinlich eben doch ›die Leute‹.
Wir haben uns vorgenommen, das ein bis’chen mehr als bisher zu pfle­
gen. Wenn es uns nur nicht so schwerfiele, denn im Grunde ist es ja so,
dass man in diesem Stübchen, bleibt man nur gesund, liebt sich, hat
Lust zum arbeiten und Geld zum Essen, Trinken, Rauchen und Heizen −,
noch jahrelang sitzen möchte.13

In December 1956 Zürn was forty years old and Hans Bellmer fifty-four. Zürn
had met the emigrated surrealist German artist Hans Bellmer (1902-1975)
in Berlin and shortly afterwards moved to Paris with him, where they lived
in a poor, dingy and noisy hotel that was mainly inhabited by Arab migrant
workers. Here, Bellmer rented one »tiny room«.14 While Zürn really enjoyed
the sound of the Arab neighbours, it greatly annoyed Bellmer, who invariably
woke up too early due to the early rise of their co-tenants and was unable to
go to sleep again afterwards. They avoided the outdoor closet of the hotel by

13 »At this time of year we rise late − also because it is cold and by the time the little
oven has warmed the tiny place we shiver of frost. At 11 o’clock we go to Marcelle
and drink our first milk coffee, while yawning gab a bit together about what should
be done today − or I tell Hans what I dreamt and then we go shopping for lunch and
by 12 we come home, where it is warm meanwhile and I start tidying up after a
courage-glass of wine. Every day we cause enormous piles of waste and dust − where
is all comes from, no-one knows − I think it is because of the walls − but then it is all
in one: kitchen, studio, bath house and washhouse, sleeping, living and dining room.
It is ludicrously cozy and shamefully small and packed to the ceiling. Of course we
dream of more space, I am in fact still convinced we will be ›rich‹ one day, although
that might still take a few years. I would love to draw in a spacious and bright room
in which you could walk around and listen to Mozart while drawing. We would like to
have a bathroom once and read detective novels while sitting in the tub, and twice a
week an old and fat Chinese masseuse should come to me and knead my shoulders − I
suffer from my shoulders − Hans should have a place where he can start constructing
objects again − and a goat, chickens, a cat and a vegetable garden. I believe a lot
in ›whishing‹ things. One isn’t modest. Probably one does indeed need ›people‹. We
are resolved to take care of that a bit more than we have done until now. If only
it weren’t so difficult for us, because, in fact, it is the case that one would like to
remain in this tiny place if one would only stay healthy, love each other, feel like
working, have enough money to eat, drink, smoke and heat.« GA 4.2. P. 530-531.
14 For a good description see for example: Peter Webb/Robert Short. Hans Bellmer.
London/Melbourne/New York: Quartet Books, 1985. P. 208-209.
 A Dreadful Lust For Forbidden Eyes 257

having a cheap coffee outside the house. Sleeping at night was difficult for
both. Zürn suffered from nightmares, because she worried about her little
son and daughter, whom she had left in the care of her ex-husband and his
new family, and only sleeping tablets offered some relief. They both had
been in great pain that year, suffering from headaches, toothaches and aches
in fingers and heels. There was only just enough money for food, drinks and
cigarettes, and luckily the wine was cheap. At times, they had to look for
fag ends, yet once in a while Bellmer sold one of his works of art and then
they celebrated and bought lobster, caviar and champagne. The theme of
their lives was irrsinniger Zauber15 (mad magic) and life was at its best when
they were in their room, each of them at his/her own table, creating magic
images. Mysterious, wonderful and creepy monsters, creatures and images
that make you wonder, fill you with disgust, make you blush or grow silent.
Of course they did not always succeed in finding the necessary peace, quiet
and concentration: »Hier geht es bergauf und bergab, in einem Rhythmus, der
erstaunlich gleichmässig ist. Wenn nichts mehr da ist − kommt plötzlich und
von einer Ecke, die man nie in seine Hoffnungen einbezogen hat − etwas Neu­
es.«16 Zürn and Bellmer did as much together as they could. It was a challenge
for Zürn having to fetch drawing material from the little town of Ermenonville
(where they sometimes lived for several months) on her own, when Bellmer
was not able to join her because of his health problems. She had been much
more independent in Berlin.17
But Zürn stood at the beginning of her career as an artist and poet. She had
been a writer in Berlin, but writing radio plays and short stories for German
newspapers from Paris proved practically and financially impossible. Bellmer
encouraged her talent for drawing and writing poetry. When they met in Ber­
lin, Bellmer had taught her the art of making anagrams, in which she later
excelled. After seeing her randomly drawn doodles, he also realized that Zürn
had a beautiful and powerfully imaginative penmanship and he encouraged
her to make the most out of this technique of écriture automatique, by using
it as unrestrained, carefree and bold as possible. The publication of Zürn’s
Hexentexte (Witch Texts) was the first milestone in the new course she had
taken.18 In December 1956, with Bellmer’s technical assistance, Zürn inves­

15 GA 4.2. P. 491.
16 »Here things go up and down in a rhythm that is astonishingly regular. When nothing
is left − all of a sudden and from a place one would never have included in one’s
hope − something new springs up.« GA 4.2. P. 524.
17 GA 4.2. P. 545.
18 Unica Zürn. Hexentexte. Zehn Zeichnungen und zehn Anagramm-Texte mit einem
Nachwort von Hans Bellmer. Berlin: Galerie Springer, 1954.
258 Marion de Zanger

tigated which technique would suit her free and loose hand: oil or tempera,
etching or ink drawing.

Fig. 1 Öl auf Pappe (oil on cardboard), 1956, Paris, Bilder, XXX © Verlag Brink­
mann & Bose Berlin.

In her early work (Fig 1) Zürn conjured up a jumble of fantastic creatures that
either seemed to belong to the submarine, subterranean or ethereal world.
Their language is mysterious, they are grey and pink, but also yellow, brown
and black and they reveal themselves simultaneously en profile and en face.
From their heads and arms all kinds of vicious tentacles sprout; eyes, nipples,
vaginas are accentuated in a similar manner. In the middle of this phantas­
magoria also two small hearts leap up. In December 1956 Zürn had her first
solo exhibition in the bookshop gallery Le Soleil dans la Tête, which, as she
admitted herself, would not have been possible without Bellmer.19 The exhi­
bition got good reviews in four newspapers and magazines, one of which was
the very prestigious magazine La Nouvelle Revue Française (N.R.F.). A second
exhibition was planned in the same gallery in the following year and it left
an excellent impression both on Bellmer’s surrealist colleagues and writer
friends as on doctors and philosophers from acquainted intelligentsia circles.

19 GA 4.2. P. 538. This gallery had works by Bellmer in stock.

 A Dreadful Lust For Forbidden Eyes 259

In Berlin, Zürn had lived amidst the avant-garde, absurdist cabaret artists
of the Badewanne. Yet in Paris, she found herself in the supreme avant-garde
intellectual environment of the surrealist and art autre artists of Bellmer’s
generation, such as Max Ernst, Matta, Man Ray, Joyce Mansour, Victor Brauner,
Jean Dubuffet, Hans Arp and Henri Michaux, to name but a few whom she got
to know personally. The appreciation for Zürn’s anagrams, pen drawings and
paintings was genuine and general, yet it was first and foremost the appre­
ciation for Bellmer’s wife, as she also presented herself on the front page of
various manuscripts. This was the artistic environment in which the psychia­
trists Gaston Ferdière and Jacques Lacan conducted innovative research into
art brut and psychopathological art and debated about it. Art brut comprised
the work of ›extraordinary‹ people, prisoners, psychiatric patients or other
outsiders that were considered of no importance by the establishment of that
time and were ignored, ridiculed or destroyed.

III. Utility is the beginning of all evil20

Writing and drawing were Zürn’s ultimate means to give meaning to life and,
at best, even to transcend it. Zürn wanted to be surprised, she wanted to be
challenged to think out of the box, be amazed; she loved fables, parables
and oracles, fancy fairs and circus, slapstick and spectacles. A leitmotiv in
her work is her love for what she called »the lower city« and the volcano in
Katrin. Die Geschichte einer kleinen Schriftstellerin (Katrin. The Story of a
Little Writer, ca. 1953). The book is about a girl, like she herself once was,
who dreams of becoming a writer. The world she loathes is the so-called mid­
dle city, the bourgeois world of careerists, settled people, museum directors
and academics, a world in which artists do their utmost best to satisfy their
»highly honourable« audience. The world she loves, on the other hand, is the
lower city, the multicultural world of the man in the street: the nightlife,
the harbour area, the variety theatre, circus, puppet theatre and gypsies.
The world she longs for is the volcano, the place where artists can commit
themselves wholly to art, where they live on spiritual food and aim for nothing
but the deepening and improvement of their work: »Ceci est une explora­
tion. Par les mots, les signes, les dessins.«21 The investigation, exploration
and discovery of yet unexplored imaginative worlds, beyond the familiar and

20 »Die Nuetzlichkeit ist aller Laster Anfang«. Title of an anagram, dated 1955, Mont­
pellier. GA 1. P. 26.
21 Henri Michaux. Misérable miracle. La mescaline. Paris: Gallimard, 1955. P 13.
260 Marion de Zanger

permissible, but also beyond the border of Western culture was something
Zürn and her fellow artists pursued in extreme ways.
In 1958 Zürn produced a fascinating manuscript: Das Haus der Krankheiten.
Geschichten und Bilder einer Gelbsucht (The House of Illnesses. Stories and
Pictures from a Case of Jaundice).22 It contains a forty-two page story and
seventeen drawings, that relate a peculiarly imaginative journey through the
rooms of the body in order to transcend a strange experience, i.e. a mortal
enemy has shot out the hearts of the artist’s eyes. The journey leads through
many spaces and ends in Das »verbotene« Zimmer (The »Forbidden« Room),
also called Zimmer der Augen (Room of the Eyes). The top left of the image
depicts the part of the house called Kopfgewölbe (Vaults of the Head). The
Room of the Eyes is filled with eyes and has an open window, through which
a white eagle enters and where, on a plate in front of a Buddha statue, the
remains of the eye hearts lie. Zürns story is an adaptation of the tale of
Bluebeard. She interweaves the idea that not only a glimpse into the forbid­
den room but sometimes also a glimpse into the eyes of someone can have a
devastating impact that leaves no escape and unavoidably determines life.23
»Das weiß jedes Kind« (every child knows that).24
The theme of encounter is present throughout Zürn’s entire oeuvre and
reappears in ever changing versions and shapes in her anagrams, prose and
graphic art. Recurring aspects of encounter are the colours red and white,
as well as the numbers six and nine. These are the opposite pairs she juggles
continuously in a Taoist yin-yang way.25 White and nine are no doubt favoura­

22 A beautiful facsimile edition was published in 1986 by the editors Brinkmann & Bose
and Lilith in Berlin. For a simpler reprint see: GA 4.1. P. 43-78 and the manuscript
note in: Unica Zürn. Alben. Bücher und Zeichenhefte. Berlin: Brinkmann & Bose,
2009. P. 286-287.
23 The theme of encounter was often imagined and rephrased within the avant-garde,
see: de Zanger. Een verschrikkelijk verlangen (see footnote 6). P. 141f. A less known
but absolutely beautiful expression of this theme can be found in: François Cheng.
L’éternité n’est pas de trop. Paris: Albin Michel, 2002. Cheng based the story on an
anonymous Chinese publication from the end of the Ming Dynasty. He had read it in
a French library in the fifties, yet it disappeared from that same library later. Cheng
was a close friend of Henri Michaux, who, by coincidence, had Zürn’s manuscript
Das Haus der Krankheiten in his possession.
24 GA. 4.1. P. 65. English translation: Green. The House of Illnesses (see footnote 1).
P. 34.
25 Zürn and her friends, among whom Henri Michaux and Hans Arp, contributed great
wisdom to the Taoist writings. She refers to them at several occasions, or to Lao Tzu
(also written as Tse or Zi) as well as to Zhuang Zi. See for example: GA 4.2. P. 471,
473 and p. 545.
 A Dreadful Lust For Forbidden Eyes 261

ble signs but invariably and endlessly they change into their opposites, as in
the Chinese book of oracles I Tjing. The Taoist faith in the effectiveness of
not-acting is also a recurrent theme in Zürn’s work. Next to the influence of
Lao Tzu and of the fairy tales, Zürn also refers to other literary imaginations,
such as Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma or André Breton’s Nadja.

Fig. 2: »Plan des Hauses der Krankheiten« (plan of the House of Illnesses), Feder­
zeichnung (pen and ink drawing), 1958, Haus der Krankheiten © Verlag Brink­
mann & Bose Berlin

Most drawings in Das Haus der Krankheiten reveal a style that is atypical for
Zürn, as they illustrate a specific thought in a fairly clear manner. Never­
thelesss, especially the Plan des Hauses der Krankheiten (Plan of the House
of Illnesses) (Fig. 2) conveys a good impression of the meaning and tone of
Zürn’s imagination. The imaginary journey that is made in this manuscript
sets off in the Wachtturm von Dr. Mortimer (Dr. Mortimer’s Watch-tower),
from where the protagonist escapes to seek rest and sleep in the Kabinett der
Sonnengeflechte (Cabinet of the Solar Plexuses). This room avoids the secret
262 Marion de Zanger

path to the Saal der Bäuche (The Hall of Bellies) and the Busenstube (The
Bosom Room). In the first room she can all too easily imagine how repulsive
it will be. Whereas at an earlier stage she would have preferred to be in the
Busenstube, where there is milk and everything is quiet, it does not appeal to
her anymore now. The Kammern der Hände (Chambers of Hands) is familiar
territory; it is the room of the white-haired gentleman, who feeds her with
soup and supplies her with vitality. The rooms she feels attracted to are the
Räume der Herzen (The Suite of the Hearts) and, even more so, the Zimmer
der Augen (Room of the Eyes). However, it is not safe inside the house, as
enemies may appear everywhere. They are unpredictable and have their sus­
pect places and secret routes set out on the floor plan. She skips the Räume
der Herzen, having received more than enough stabs in her heart during her
life. The most desired room, the forbidden room of the eyes, is the one she
initially hardly dares to enter, yet where, in an apotheosis, she retrieves the
hearts of her eyes, which enables her to leave the house, guided by the call
of the cuckoo, the owl and eagle owl.
Zürn’s drawing style (Fig. 3) cannot be compared to Bellmer’s. One of
her strengths was that she was self-taught and that her handwriting was not
polished by formal education. In her pen drawings and especially in her écri­
ture automatique she drew freely without preconceived ideas or images, with
a released hand, that allowed her imagination to flow from the pen without
interference or touch up. Her ultimate goal was to create images, creatures
and phantasmagorias that would surprise or appall people, move or shock
them. The crazier the better. The technique for anagrams is similar to that of
the écriture automatique. The point of departure of an anagram is a sentence,
such as, for example: »Utility is the beginning of all evil« (»Die Nuetz­lichkeit
ist aller Laster Anfang«). While making anagrams, the rule of the game is that
only the letters of that first sentence may be used. The letters are set free
from their initial context and new words and sentences are created with them,
like an oracle, that may be wonderful, surprising and incomprehensible. From
the sentence above the following anagram was generated:

Zart sang ein Leichenkleid aus Flitter alt:

Neuland, Angst, ich friere kalt. Alle Zeit ist
aller Anfang. Die Nuetzlichkeit ist Laster.26

26 A distressing example of the lack of understanding towards her work is revealed

in a letter Zürn’s mother wrote to her doctors on the occasion of her daughter’s
first hospitalization in Berlin: »Sie war so sehr von ihrer künstlerischen Berufung
überzeugt und verachtete das bürgerliche Leben, in dem wir ja alle wurzeln und
wurzeln müssen, so sehr. […] Man müsste einen gütigen Geistlichen bitten, mit ihr
 A Dreadful Lust For Forbidden Eyes 263

Fig. 3: Federzeichnung (pen and ink drawing), November 1961, St. Anne (Paris),
Album V, Alben © Verlag Brinkmann & Bose Berlin.

zu sprechen, ihr vielleicht eine Arbeit zu verschaffen, Hilfskräfte werden ja jetzt

überall dringend gesucht! Sie müßte diese Arbeit dann geduldig und ohne Wider­
willen verrichten, so wie wir es ja alle tun müssen. Dann wird sie bald wieder ein
gesunder und zufriedener Mensch werden.« GA 4.3. P. 329-330; see also de Zanger.
»Man soll das tun, was einen besessen macht«. In de Zanger. Een verschrikkelijk
verlangen (see footnote 6). P. 221-223.
264 Marion de Zanger

Zürn’s art of pen drawing is mostly in small format, often not larger than a
sketch book or a music score, which made her art an intimate kind of work,
more bibliophile than museological. She welcomed every small creature or
chimera, as her main goal was to bewitch the spectator.

Fig. 4: Federzeichnung (pen and ink drawing), 1963, Paris, Bilder, Cii. © Verlag
Brinkmann & Bose, Berlin.

Zürn did also work with larger paper formats (Fig. 4) and those drawings were
more appropriate for gallery exhibitions. Generating large drawings in one
fluent movement demanded good timing and concentration. Zürn herself did
not seem to approve of some of her larger works, as she crossed out some of
them and started again on the other side of the paper.
Zürn’s phantasmagoric world was entirely different from that of Bellmer’s.
Her iconography and handwriting are immediately recognizable. While her
art is never malicious or rude, but in general has something pleasant, fairy-
like and exotic, Bellmer’s phantasmas are fearless and without inhibitions.
The power of Bellmer’s style lies in the virtuosity of his drawing and graving
 A Dreadful Lust For Forbidden Eyes 265

technique. Yet their mutual inspiration waned over the years, in spite of the
fact that their material conditions improved somewhat and they now occu­
pied two rooms in the Rue Mouffetard number 86.

IV. When the nine has become the six27

Zürn’s sign of the zodiac was Cancer, hence her astrological number was 69,
a constellation in which the battle for hegemony between the numbers nine
and six takes place. They are each other’s opposite and complement, the
reverse side of the same. Zürn associated her European zodiac sign with Yin-
Yang, the well-known Chinese Tai-Chi symbol.28 From 1957 onward she played
with the numbers nine and six in various ways: nine is life and six is death,
two nines looking at each other make up a heart, which is risky. Two nines or
ninety-nine is a much better situation. Two sixes facing each other make an
ace of spades, which is something one should be aware off, because it can
turn into an ace of hearts.
Increasingly, Zürn also played her own game instead of Bellmer’s. For
example, she wrote the German manuscript called Les Jeux à Deux (between
1957 and 1959)29, a title that clearly refers to Les Jeux de la Poupée (1949),
the work that had made Bellmer famous. Via Bellmer Zürn got acquainted
with Henri Michaux (1899-1984) and Hans Arp (1886-1966), two artists and
writers that outshined him. They were older than Bellmer and much more
spiritually oriented than he was, be it in a somewhat rowdily, playful and
adventurous manner. Michaux and Arp greatly appreciated Zürn’s work and
had more access to it than their French colleagues, because of their knowl­
edge of German.
Les Jeux à Deux draws up the rules for the perfect encounter, the one
that is dominated by the number ninety-nine, the colour white, the infinite.
It reveals Zürn’s quest for a place, a community, a (real or imaginary) land
where she could feel at home, belong to, that appears in various manuscripts.
She formulated it as such:

27 »Wenn die Neun zur Sechs geworden ist«. Title of an anagram, dated 15.9.1960,
Paris. GA 1. P. 106.
28 Zürn. »Der Mann im Jasmin«. GA 4.1. P. 140.
29 Published posthumously in French translation in Zürn. L’Homme-Jasmin. Impres­
sions d’une malade mentale. Trans. Ruth Henry/Robert Valançay. Paris: Gallimard,
1971 and in the original German version and its many reprints: Der Mann im Jasmin.
Eindrücke aus einer Geisteskrankheit. Berlin: Ullstein, 1977.
266 Marion de Zanger

Man darf nicht in alle Zimmer gehen. Entweder sind sie zu schön, und
wenn man sie wieder verlassen muß, dann sehnt man sich sein Leben
lang dorthin zurück. Oder sie sind zu übel. Wenn man hinausgeht, haf­
tet ihr Anblick wie Schleim, man wird ihn nicht los. Ehe ich ins Haus
der Krankheiten kam, war ich in einem sehr schönen Zimmer. Als ich
hinausgehen mußte, hätte ich mich gerne an einen Stuhl geklammert,
um nicht fortgehen zu müssen. Es war genau das Zimmer, in das ich
hineingehörte. Ich wußte, daß dort und nur dort meine besten Kräfte
freiwerden könnten.30

This yearning for a homeland characterized Zürn in a very strong sense. It

had been the driving force that brought her to world literature and the visual
arts, to the artists’ colonies, first in Berlin and then in Paris. She had always
wanted to travel in real life, at least more often to her children in Berlin, but
also to other, especially faraway countries. She had an inkling that she would
feel more at home outside of Europe. Yet although there was no limit to her
imaginary travels, lack of money made travelling outside France impossible,
something she regretted very much.
Zürn’s enthusiasm for Bellmer’s fascination for obscene and scandalous
eroticism waned more and more. In 1958 she let Bellmer tie her up half-naked
with a rope, and the atrocious distortions of her body were photographed in
various positions in their robbers’ den. The pictures were preliminary studies
for the cover of the spring issue of the surrealist art magazine Le surréalisme,
même (1958) and were made in the spirit of the Kriminalromane (whodunnits)
they had enjoyed reading together so much. The cover photo is a curiously
abstract object that bears a strong resemblance to the surrealist fascina­
tion with Lautréamont, as represented by Man Ray.31 Bellmer’s private photo
shoot, of which only the negatives existed, were printed and exposed eight
years after his death32, something he would have disapproved of strongly.

30 »One mustn’t go into all rooms. Either they are too beautiful and so if one has to
leave them again, one will yearn to go there for the rest of one’s life. Or they are
too nasty. When one leaves, the sight sticks like slime and one can’t get rid of it.
Before I came to the house of illnesses, I found myself in a very beautiful room.
When I had to get out, I would have wanted to clutch a chair in order not to have
to go. It was precisely the room where I belonged. I knew that there and only there
my best powers could be set free.« GA 4.1. P. 63.
31 See: de Zanger. »Ins Weisse schwimmen«. Een verschrikkelijk verlangen (see foot­
note 6). P.148-152.
32 The series consists of nine negatives, 6x6 cm. For the exhibition Hans Bellmer. Pho-
tographe in the Centre Pompidou and Filipacchi in Paris in 1983 reprints of 16 x 16
cm were made. All nine prints also figured a year later in the exhibition catalogue
 A Dreadful Lust For Forbidden Eyes 267

These preliminary images were part of Bellmer’s working method, but making
them public in such a crude manner underscores his image as a scandalous
artist, which happens at the expense of Zürn.
Zürn’s nine turned into a six more and more. Bellmer and Zürn were pho­
tographed together very often during that time and all these images reveal a
grumpy Bellmer and a dispirited Zürn, though it could also be the pose they
were asked to assume as it complied with their reputation. Yet it is a fact
that Zürn underwent a second abortion in 1958 and complained openly to
friends and doctors about Bellmer’s sexual preferences, something he admit­
ted honestly when he was asked about it. It is also a fact that Bellmer had a
drinking problem and suffered from depression from 1959 onward, something
he would never be able to overcome during his lifetime. After the breakdown
of their relationship in 1960, Zürn had a mental collapse and was admitted
into a mental hospital in Berlin for the first time. It had a huge impact on their
lives and they never quite recovered from it. Yet time and again they tried to
pick up the pieces.
The desire to create diminished, yet both never lost it completely. At the
depth of their misery, the six still changed into a nine. In 1963 Bellmer had,
though one year later than initially planned, a large important solo exhibition
in Paris at the Galerie Daniel Cordier. And in 1964 Zürn also had a second solo
exhibition at the Galerie Le Point Cardinal, besides participating in collective
expositions, such as L’Exposition internationale du Surréalisme (1959-1960).

V. The wonderful hour33

From 1960 onward Zürn created much of her visual art in mental hospitals.
During all her stays, she managed to regain tranquility fairly quickly as well as
the courage and concentration to start drawing again. In all the mental hospi­
tals she stayed, Zürn was recognized as an artist and writer and was provided
with a workplace. Once unburdened by household duties and daily worries,
she managed wonderfully well to make pen drawings in the small format of
sketchbooks.34 All these drawings are signed, dated and provided with the

Hans Bellmer: Photographien. Hannover: Kestner Gesellschaft, 1984. The pictures

have often been reprinted since, see for example the three full-page photos in:
Pierre Dourthe. Bellmer: Le Principe de Perversion. Paris: Jean-Pierre Faur, 1999.
33 »Die wunderbare Stunde«. Title of an anagram, dated November 1964, Paris. GA 1.
P. 130.
34 In Centre Hospitalier Sainte-Anne also two other drawings in large format have
been preserved.
268 Marion de Zanger

name of the mental hospital. Additionally, Bellmer numbered the pages to

avoid theft. In 1966 Georges Visat, an important printer with whom Bellmer
cooperated, brought her etching plates, which resulted in a beautiful, luxu­
rious edition in large format, in spite of the fact that she had practiced the
art of engraving only once before. Oracles et Spectacles (1967) consisted of
eight anagrams translated into French and eight etchings, printed twice on
expensive thick paper and on rice paper − the latter were also coloured in by
hand.35
Around 1967 Zürn set her mind on getting Der Mann im Jasmin published in
French translation, preferably with the editor Gallimard: »Es ist die für mich
wichtigste Arbeit, die ich in meinem Leben gemacht habe.«36 Zürn recounts in
Der Mann im Jasmin everything she saw and experienced within the walls of
the psychiatric wards. She also describes psychotic experiences in an expres­
sive language and calls them »valuable drawing lessons«. It gives the reader
a look into the forbidden rooms behind the walls of the mental hospital and
enables to get a picture of what may be perceived through the eyes of a
mentally ill person. Zürn also beautifully evokes her doctors’ attention for her
art and its possible relation to her illness. Her experiences are expressed in a
careful and colourful manner, but she also leaves certain things out, such as
her doctor’s reassuring observation on seeing her drawings, that »elle a repris
une activité artistique tout-à-fait normal.«37
To some extent Zürn exploited her insanity. Bellmer disapproved of this,
because it attracted the attention of art dealers he did not trust. He con­
sidered Zürn to be too decent, naive and trustful and thought it unwise to
focus on experiences of crises and hospitalization in such an extensive way.
But she did manage to have her own way as Gallimard accepted the man­
uscript of Impressions from a Mental Illness. Also Bellmer’s agent, gallery
owner André François Petit, became increasingly convinced of the importance
of Zürn’s visual art and considered promoting it. Because this prospect irri­
tated Bellmer greatly, the project was abandoned.38 Unfortunately Gallimard
postponed Zürn’s edition for such a long time that she did not live to see its
publication, although it is doubtful whether she would have liked the way it
turned out. The edition of Der Mann im Jasmin also contained various other
little manuscripts, such as Das Haus der Krankheiten, which were wrenched

35 With an introduction by Patrick Waldberg and a frontispiece and postscript by Bell­

mer.
36 »For me it is the most important work I made in my life.« Zürn. GA 4.3. P. 111.
37 Centre Hospitalier Sainte-Anne, Certificat de Demande Transformations de Place­
ments (23th December 1961, file).
38 Interview with the author, 7th March 1995.
 A Dreadful Lust For Forbidden Eyes 269

from their proper context and published without the pen drawings. Frustrated
with the publisher’s delay, she had approached publisher Pierre Belfond for
the French translation of Dunkler Frühling (Dark spring, 1969), an autobio­
graphical novella about the awakening erotic feelings of her childhood. Bel­
fond agreed to publish it on the condition that Bellmer would make a fron­
tispiece for the title page and sign it by hand. Unfortunately, this publication
appeared posthumously as well.
From 1967 onward, Zürn dedicated her life to Eindrücke aus einer Geistesk-
rankheit (Impressions from a Mental Illness). She had not made any anagrams
since 1964 and only drew sporadically after 1967. She and Bellmer did have
their pleasant moments still, for example during the summer holidays they
spent at the coast and the visits of their young adult children (Bellmer’s twin
daughters, in particular Doriane and Zürn’s daughter and son Katrin and Chris­
tian). But the »wonderful hours« of creation nearly ceased. By now they lived
in an apartment Bellmer had purchased. Yet he suffered a stroke in 1969,
became partly paralysed and could not bear any sound anymore. Zürn was
unable to deal with this situation. She made two more drawings in 1970, in
one of which she seems to bid farewell to her »Chateaux d’Espagne«, her
castles in the air.
Zürn rose and thrived as a writer and artist thanks to the stimulation
of avant-garde circles, yet the preservation of her art and fame happened
thanks to Ruth Henry, Inge Morgenroth, and Luce Irigaray, three outstanding
feminists.39

Works cited

Exhibition catalogues

Unica Zürn: Aquarelle, Zeichnungen, Radierungen − Hans Bellmer im Studio: Druck-

graphik, Zeichnungen, 28.4.-4.6.1967. Hannover: Galerie Dieter Brusberg, 1967.
Hans Bellmer, Photographe. Ed. Alain Sayag. Paris: Centre Pompidou and Filipacchi,
1983.
Hans Bellmer: Photographien. Ed. Carl Haenlein. Hannover: Kestner Gesellschaft, 1984.
Unica Zürn. Dark Spring. Ed. João Ribas. New York: The Drawing Center, 2009.
Middle Gate Geel ›13. Ed. Jan Hoet. Ghent: Borgerhoff & Lamberights, 2013.
Nerveuze vrouwen, Twee eeuwen vrouwen en hun psychiaters. Ghent: Museum Dr. Guis­
lain, 2012.

39 See: de Zanger. »Orakel en Spektakel« (see footnote 4).

270 Marion de Zanger

Other sources

Vincenzo Bellini. Norma. Opėra seria en 2 actes. Milaan: la Scala, 1907.

André Breton. Nadja. Paris: Gallimard, 1925.
Cheng François. L’éternité n’est pas de trop. Paris: Albin Michel, 2002.
Arnout De Cleene/Leni van Goidsenhoven. »Outsiderkunst, de ontmanteling van een
mythe«. Middle Gate Geel ›13. Ed. Jan Hoet. Ghent: Borgerhoff & Lamberights,
2013. P. 19-31.
Marion de Zanger. Een verschrikkelijk verlangen naar verboden ogen. Unica Zürn (1916-
1970) in haar cultuurhistorische context. Amsterdam: AUP, 2004. Open access: see
www.dare.uva or: http://dare.uva.nl/record/124864
Marion de Zanger. »Orakel en Spektakel. De waanzinnige receptie van Unica Zürn, sur­
realiste«. Jaarboek voor Vrouwengeschiedenis 30 (2010). P. 79-101. Open access:
www.dare.uva or http://dare.uva.nl/document/217850.
Pierre Dourthe. Bellmer. Le Principe de Perversion. Paris: Jean-Pierre Faur, 1999.
Henri Michaux. Misérable miracle. La mescaline. Paris: Gallimard, 1955.
Thomas Röske/Ingrid von Beyme. Surrealismus und Wahnsinn/Surrealism and Madness.
Heidelberg: Das Wunderhorn, 2009.
Peter Webb/Robert Short. Hans Bellmer. London/Melbourne/New York: Quartet Books,
1985.
Unica Zürn. Hexentexte. Zehn Zeichnungen und zehn Anagramm-Texte mit einem Nach-
wort von Hans Bellmer. Berlin: Galerie Springer, 1954.
Unica Zürn. Oracles et Spectacles. Quatorze poèmes-anagrammes et huit eaux-fortes.
Paris: Georges Visat, 1967.
Unica Zürn. Dunkler Frühling. Mit 3 Zeichnungen von Hans Bellmer. Hamburg: Merlin,
1969.
Unica Zürn. L’Homme-Jasmin. Impressions d’une malade mentale. Trans. Ruth Henry/
Robert Valançay. Paris: Gallimard, 1971.
Unica Zürn. Sombre printemps. Trans. Ruth Henry/Robert Valançay. Paris: Belfond,
1971.
Unica Zürn. Der Mann im Jasmin. Eindrücke aus einer Geisteskrankheit. Berlin: Ull­
stein, 1977.
Unica Zürn. Das Haus der Krankheiten. Geschichten und Bilder einer Gelbsucht. Berlin:
Brinkmann & Bose and Lilith Verlag, 1986.
Unica Zürn. Gesamtausgabe. 8 vols. Berlin: Brinkmann & Bose, 1988-2001.
Unica Zürn. The House of Illnesses. Stories and Pictures from a Case of Jaundice. Trans.
Malcolm Green. London: Atlas Press, 1993.
Unica Zürn. The Mann of Jasmine & other texts. Trans. Malcolm Green. London: Atlas,
1994.
Unica Zürn. Bilder 1953-1970. Berlin: Verlag Brinkmann & Bose/Neue Gesellschaft für
Bildende Kunst, 1998.
Unica Zürn. Dark Spring. Transl. Caroline Rupprecht. Cambridge: Exact Change, 2000.
Unica Zürn. Alben. Bücher und Zeichenhefte. Berlin: Brinkmann & Bose, 2009.
Inhalt

Lorella Bosco / Anke Gilleir (Bari/Leuven)

Schmerz. Lust. Künstlerinnen und Autorinnen
der deutschen Avantgarde.
Einleitung ...................................................................... 7

Anke Gilleir (Leuven)

Galateas gebrochene Nase.
Künstlertum und Weiblichkeit im Werk Dolorosas ....................... 27

Christiane Schönfeld (Limerick)

»Alle Qual vom Herzen schreiben«.
Performative Ästhetik von Lust und Schmerz in Margarete Böhmes
Tagebuch einer Verlorenen (1905) und Dida Ibsens Geschichte (1907)
in Text und Film ............................................................... 51

Elisabeth Krimmer (Davis)

Ecstasy and Pain.
The Representation of War and Violence in Käthe Kollwitz’s Works 79

Christine Kanz (Gent)

Spielerische Lust am kulturellen Dazwischen und
intellektuellen Anderswo.
Kreative Mobilität und Transkulturalität
in Else Lasker-Schülers Gedichten und Erzähltexten .................... 107

Markus Hallensleben (Vancouver BC)

Faces of the German Female Avant-Garde.
Portrait Montages in Else Lasker-Schüler and Hannah Höch ............ 129

Ruth Hemus (London)

›Made for a Party‹?
Legs as Fetish in Hannah Höch’s Photomontage Works .................. 157

Giulia A. Disanto (Lecce)

Zwischen Anna und Hannah.
Die Gestaltung des Weiblichen in Kurt Schwitters’
und Hannah Höchs gemeinsamen Arbeiten ............................... 175
Carola Hilmes (Frankfurt)
Verquer.
Elsa von Freytag-Loringhovens unbotmäßige Auftritte .................. 193

Lorella Bosco (Bari)

»Denn wir suchen die Lust und nichts anderes«.
Stigmata, Ekstase und Askese in Emmy Hennings’ Werk ................ 213

Inge Arteel (Brüssel)

Marieluise Fleißers groteske Sachlichkeit ................................. 235

Marion de Zanger (Amsterdam)

A Dreadful Lust For Forbidden Eyes.
Unica Zürn and the Force of Imagination ................................. 251