Arte política em Walter Benjamin e Asja Lacis

Abstract

Most of the time, when searching for the relationship between Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) and Asja L?cis (1891-1979), we find texts that deal with meetings and mismatches between the two, mainly in affective issues. The friendship between Benjamin and Asja, in fact, brings him closer to Marxism and makes possible the convergence between important actors of the European artistic and intellectual avant-garde. From there, we are interested in investigating and reflecting on Asja L?cis' influence on Walter Benjamin's thought and work, in order to understand her contribution to the elaboration of fundamental concepts in the author's thought. We start from the premise that the figure of Asja and her artistic and political praxis opened a new and definitive bias in Benjamin's thought, which remained present in his conceptual horizon from then until his last writings. We will look for this bias in the works they wrote together or in collaboration (Naples and Program for a proletarian theater for children); and in the work in which he directly quotes Asja (One-way Street). In addition, we also used essays present in "Magic and Technique, Art and Politics". It seems interesting to analyze, above all, the notions of aesthetic experience, the revolutionary potential of art, and the interest in the themes of childhood and the city that fed his reflection. Obviously, we do not intend to exhaust the subject in this article, quite the contrary, this is a first investigation that aims to punctuate and open paths for future research on the subject.

Keywords: Walter Benjamin; Asja L?cis; Art, Politics.