MODERNISM AND TOTALITARIANISM II

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self would often say: “Above all and in principle I am not a constructiv-
ist.”19 Writes Lórand Hegyi: “Glockner [was] a constructivist without any
real possibility to develop his constructing, an experimenter with no
chance to proliferate his experiments.”20


5. Hermann Glockner, “Red and Yellow Rectangle on the Blue Rectangle”, 1955, private
collection

Glockner was a truły charismatic figurę of unusual prestige in the so-
called independent artistic circles of the GDR, nevertheless, (and per-
haps exactly for that reason) the state with its official cultural policy ig-
nored him altogether. The only institution which showed some sustained
interest in Glockner’s art was the Kupferstich-Kabinett of Dresden, and
that was because of personal commitment of its director, Werner
Schmidt. The artisfs experiments focused not only on the visual con-
struction of the picture, but also on the matter of his art, incorporating
banał objects of everyday use (e.g. boxes of matches), as well as on the
development of spatial forms, etc. for which the constructivist tradition
was just a kind of generał background, usually treated in a very in-
dividual manner. The size of Glbcknehs works was of importance, too -

19 H. Glockner, “Meine Arbeit ist mein Leben”, after: H. Kostner, “Herman Głock-
ner’s Board Work”, in: German Art from Beckmann to Richter, op. cit., p. 61.
20 L. Hegyi, “Poesie der Geometrie. Bemerkungen zur Situation von Herman Glock-
ner”, in: Hermann Glockner, 1889-1987, ed. W. Schmidt, Wien, op. cit., p. 6.