Franz Kafka - Reading Research

I initially thought Franz Kafka would be a good person for me to respond to, as my creative interests are geared more towards strange and surreal events or scenarios, (incongruity in particular is something I always enjoy in art, films, music or whatever) and this was my understanding of Kafka's work. Sort of absurd musings on existentialism, often accompanied by a very dark sense of humour which underpins the experiences of the helpless characters who attempt to navigate the cruel world he has created for them. After reading through some of his work however I have mixed feelings. It didn't leave as much of an impression on me as I thought it might. 

I read 'Metamorphosis', seeming like the obvious starting point, and did actually enjoy that quite a lot. It certainly gave me some vivid visual ideas and got me thinking about how I might make work in response to it without me having to force it on myself.

I was quite happy with this painting/pencil thing I did. It's obviously pretty literal and doesn't go very far in terms of tackling any of themes of the story in great detail, but as a first response, with the main function of just getting me into the swing of things, I'm happy with it. I think the colours and textures work well to evoke the atmosphere of the story and it's protagonist.

      























This second painting I did I was less happy with, but it does address something which literally happens in the story quite a bit. Once he has transformed, Gregor Samza hides under his old bed whenever his sister enters the room to leave him food. I used some toilet role to construct the duvet and give it a bit more of a three dimensional, visceral quality, which hasn't really come through in the photo above because of the way the light was hitting it when I tried to photograph it, which worked a bit but didn't make as dramatic a difference as I would have liked. I'm not really too sure about the colours in this one either. 


After 'Metamorphosis' I read three more short stories, 'The Great Wall of China', 'Investigations of a Dog' and 'In The Penal Colony'. both 'The Great Wall of China' and 'Investigations of a Dog' I found to be rather tedious, and difficult to access. I found it very hard to stay interested in either of them and unclear what ideas they were trying to express. 'In the Penal Colony', I have to say I did enjoy, but overall, not enough for me to really be sure I would want to choose Franz Kafka as my subject for this project. This is also evidenced by the fact that I stopped making work in response to his writing so quickly because I couldn't get inspired by it.  

It seems to me that to truly understand and ultimately appreciate his work, one would have to read and re-read and really interrogate it from many angles and, unfortunately, his writing doesn't excite me consistently enough for me to want to invest the amount of effort it would take for me to get anything in return from it. I think I would end up very frustrated and wouldn't really be able to do justice to his ideas.