'Kafka: Making of an Icon' exhibition opens in New York
Kafka: Making of an Icon is the first major exhibition in the USA to present the Bodleian Library’s extraordinary holdings of literary manuscripts, correspondence, diaries, and photographs relating to the iconic German-speaking Prague writer, Franz Kafka.
Professor Murnane was one of the co-curators of the exhibition alongside his colleagues from the Oxford Kafka Research Centre, Carolin Duttlinger, Katrin Kohl, Meindert Peters, and Karolina Watroba. This follows the exhibition’s extraordinary success over the summer months in Oxford’s Weston Library, where it attracted over 100,000 visitors and was accompanied by an ambitious series of events, including the Oxford Reads Kafka initiative, Jitterbug in the University Parks (in partnership with the Humanities Cultural Programme), and a host of performances involving artists like Arthur Pita, Ed Harris, and Kristin Scott-Thomas. This was made possible with funding from the AHRC as part of the “Kafka’s Transformative Communities” project, on which Prof Murnane is a Co-Investigator alongside Professors Duttlinger and Kohl.
Highlights of the exhibition include the original manuscript of his novella The Metamorphosis, as well as the manuscripts of his novels Amerika and The Castle; letters and postcards addressed to his favorite sister, Ottla; his personal diaries, in which he also composed fiction, including his literary breakthrough, the 1912 story “The Judgment”; and unique items such as his drawings, the notebooks he used when studying Hebrew.
Drawing on institutional holdings and private collections in the United States, Europe, and Israel, the Morgan will show a selection of key works, among them Andy Warhol’s portrait of Kafka, part of his 1980 series Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century. In addition to presenting unique literary and biographical material, the exhibition examines Kafka’s afterlife, from the complex journeys of his manuscripts, to the posthumous creation of a literary icon whose very name has become an adjective, to his immense influence on the worlds of literature, theater, dance, film, and the visual arts.
" Few writers gain the global status of Franz Kafka, whose works are read around the world and continue to serve as inspiration for artists working in almost any medium you can think of today. To attend the opening of ‘my’ own exhibition in Manhattan was not something I would have expected to be doing as a researcher in German, but it has been such a privilege to be part of this exhibition and to introduce new audiences to Kafka’s life and work in such an innovative and accessible way. " Professor Barry Burnane
The exhibition will run from November 22, 2024 through April 13, 2025 at the Morgan Library, 225 Madison Avenue, New York.
Professor Murnane will be in New York for events around the exhibition from February 17 through 22, 2025 and is happy to hear from any alumni who would be interested in attending a private viewing.