HUGO BALL FLAMETTI / FUCKING GOOD ART #44

Catherine Schelbert’s reading of Hugo Ball’s Flametti, or the dandyism of the poor was initiated by Robert Hamelijnck and Nienke Terpsma. It is published as FGA#44, to celebrate FGAs 20th anniversary, and consists of an audiobook/radio play, a read-along paperback, and 10-inch vinyl record. 

Flametti, or the dandyism of the poor is a dark satirical comedy about an impoverished vaudeville company and the rise and fall of its director Max Flametti, a figure of tragic proportions entangled in his inescapable self. It is also the story of the allure of the “Fuchsweide, the concert and entertainment quarter of the off-beat, fun-loving crowd,” which is in danger of being "cleansed" by the police. This deceptively straightforward, everyman tale eloquently renders the complex, conflicted, non-professionalized, messy, forgotten humus of a vibrant urban scene that prevailed in Zurich over a hundred years ago. 

Hugo Ball wrote his hilarious, provocative, largely overlooked, semi-autobiographical novel in 1916, the same year he, Emmy Hennings, Tristan Tzara, and others founded Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich. Their artist-run nightclub existed for less than a year and gave birth to Dada as a form of artistic protest against the brutality of the First World War raging in Europe. They spread their ideas in absurd, grotesque performances, sound poetry, and manifestos. It is from this cultural and political context that the novel Flametti emerged. 

Content warning: The novel contains historical slang including cultural, racist, and sexist stereotyping. 

Release 2024
Size 25,5 x 25,5 cm
Pages 196
Taal EN