M HKA Ensembles

Book, 26 x 22,2 cm, 144 p., language : English, publisher : Yale University Press, ISBN : 978-0300083736.

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. B 2028/877).

Literary synopsis

In Tenderenda the Fantast (composed between 1914 and 1920, and published in its original German version in 1967), Hugo Ball recounts a hallucinatory tale of his own Dada enchantment and disenchantments in a series of short chapters connected by recurrent characters. Ball used the novella to introduce an anthology of his own sound poems, some of which were performed at the Cabaret Voltaire. Jeffrey Schnapp introduces the book, elaborating the cultural and historical context of Ball's work, probing various aspects of Ball's asceticism, spirituality and sexuality to arrive at a revisionist interpretation of Zurich Dada and the origins of modernism as well as postmodern art-making.

Relation of the novel to the artist’s practice

Tenderenda the Fantast was to have appeared in 1922 accompanied by a suit of woodcuts by Hans Arp. The plan was never realised and the unadorned typescript was published posthumously in 1967.