Otherness as a value. Camp and the multicolored architecture of Hundertwasser

Karolina Jaklewicz

doi:10.37190/arc230202

Abstract

Due to the lack of an unambiguous aesthetic classification of Friedensreich Hundertwasser’s architectural designs, in this text his multicoloured creative activity will be analyzed through the prism of camp aesthetics. The aim of the article is to present Hundertwasser’s design creativeness in a new context, taking into account the criteria of camp sensitivity and asthetics. Our analysis will be made with reference to theoretical texts and direct experience. The reflection on the works of Hundertwasser will consider both the criteria included in Susan Sontag’s text “Notes on Camp”, which is fundamental to camp aesthetics, as well as the later considerations of Camp researchers who pay attention not so much to the object as to the person who camps (Czapliński, Booth, Meyer, Mauriès). “The eye of the beholder”, i.e. sensitivity of the recipient, will also be important for camp. The key issue will be colour without which it would be difficult to write about the Austrian artist’s objects in the context of camp aesthetics. The following text is an attempt at a new perspective on Hundertwasser and perhaps it will serve the acceptance of “misfits” as well as their “otherness” and will broaden the fields of mutual acceptance.

Keywords:
architecture
color
hundertwasser
camp

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2(74)

Karolina Jaklewicz*

Otherness as a value.

Camp and the multicolored architecture of Hundertwasser

Introduction

Camp does not go out of fashion. Exhibition at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (2019) “Camp.

Notes on fashion”, paraphrasing the title of Susan Sontag’s

essay Notes on “Camp”, which is fundamental to camp,

once again placed camp at the centre of cultural events.

Camp, which was dened by Sontag as the third (after tra-

ditional and avant-garde) sensitivity [1, p. 24], does not

become history, but it is a creation that keeps on becom-

ing anew, an identity in a process, an optics that allows us

to understand a diversity of the contemporary world. We

always react to camp in an ambiguous way – it arouses

our admiration and aversion – Sontag writes about camp

directly, i.e. “it’s good because it’s awful” [1, p. 33]. Else-

where, she points out that camp is an art of “too much”.

Do not the dilemmas, which are connected with making

an aesthetic judgment resulting from these ambivalent

feelings, accompany the perception of the works of Aus-

trian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser? This perception

is inuenced by both the form of objects (shape) as well as

the colour applied, which dier from generally accepted

and approved design and aesthetic standards. The afore-

mentioned non-normativity, as well as perceptual ambiva-

lence, predispose Hundertwasser’s work to be analyzed in

the context of camp aesthetics and sensitivity. This work

may show Hundertwasser in a new light and indicate a new

clue in the discussion about his works. The discussion

about Camp, which was initiated by Sontag’s memorable

publication Notes on “Camp” (1964), continues today.

Sontag undoubtedly triggered an avalanche. Before her

text, camp was unnamed and thanks to Notes on “Camp”

it became widely available and familiar. Phenomena

which previously eluded aesthetic classications gained

frames. Despite the undoubtedly accurate diagnoses, Son-

tag received justiable criticism. Opponents accuse her of

publishing the secret code of non-normative cultures and

passing it on to the whole society, which resulted in the in-

clusion of camp in mass culture, and above all in the lim-

itation of camp to a style because as Sontag wrote: Camp

is a vision of the world in terms of style – but a particu-

lar kind of style [1, p. 8]. Moreover, Sontag located camp

in an object, whereas the dispute called the retrieving of

camp is, rst of all, pointing to a camping entity without

which – according to many researchers and camp artists

– one cannot speak of camp. Retrieving camp is also tak-

ing into account its political nature, risk and social impact,

and it is after all an attempt at returning to the margins.

Many opinions about camp mean an immanent quality of

camp itself, its internal dynamics, diversity, and intensity,

i.e. features which are close to Hundertwasser’s creative

activity. Since, therefore, in the canon of camp art, Sontag

included Gaudi’s architecture, and in particular the Sagra-

da Familia Basilica in Barcelona [1, p. 17], pointing to

both the style and the author’s ambition to make a great

generational change, the absence of Hundertwasser’s

name (and in particular architectural objects) on this list

can only be explained by the fact that they were created

many years after the publication of Notes on “Camp”.

Summarizing various denitions of camp, it can be con -

cluded that today it is a polyphonic category because it

combines three main aspects, i.e. special aesthetics (so bad

that it is good), self-presentation (no camper, no camp) and

sensitivity of a viewer (the eye of the beholder). Not every-

one has the ability to take note of camp, perhaps this is the

reason why this category has not been a reference point in

the analysis of Hundertwasser’s work so far – texts which

discuss his projects focus on ecological and philosophi-

cal aspects, considering the appearance of a

building as

DOI: 10.37190/arc230202

Published in open access. CC BY NC ND license

* ORCID: 0000-0003-4119-0720. Wrocław University of Science

and Technology, Poland, e-mail: karolina.jaklewicz@pwr.edu.pl

22 Karolina Jaklewicz

an artistic expression and ignoring an unambiguous aes-

thetic classication. In recent years, Hundertwasser’s proj-

ects have received more texts glorifying his ecological and

pro-social solutions, in which attention is drawn to the top-

icality of the problem of relationships between man and

nature. Sanja Domazet and Darko Nadic emphasizes his

point of view on human and nature relation, i.e. He also

insisted that man was a guest to nature and that he should

learn to behave accordingly. The key to understanding

Hundertwasser’s view of life and his oeuvre is specically

in this – that man is a guest to nature and that he should

adapt to it. Therefore, Hundertwasser propagated living in

harmony with nature, and he personally lived accordingly

[2, p. 1023]. Emmanuela Chiavoni gives her opinion in

a similar way, namely His love of the environment creat-

ed profound, inner respect and a rened ecological con-

science; his work as the doctor of architecture was his very

personal contribution to the enhancement of the world [3].

Nir Barak analyzes and interprets Hundertwasser’s works

as a source of inspiration for environmental ethics [4] and

Ove D. Ja kobsen and Vivi M.L. Storsletten sees Hundert -

wasser as an exemplary ecological artist whose concepts

can still have an inuence on the improvement of the

world [5]. Feeling the absence of a deeper reection on the

aesthetics of Hundertwasser’s designs, this text will focus

on the external form of his works.

Material and method

Our analysis of Hundertwasser’s actions will be made

in relation to camp aesthetics which was dened by Sontag

in her essay Notes on “Camp” as well as in the context of

later critical texts referring to Sontag’s texts, which were

collected in the book entitled Kamp. Antologia przekładów

[Camp. Translation Anthology] (including Mauriès, Booth,

Meyer, Butler, Czapliński) and published in 2012 [6] as

well as in the context of the book Kamp, glamour, vint

age.

Współczesne kategorie estetyczne [Camp, glamour, vin-

tage. Contemporary aesthetic categories] by Wio letta Ka-

zi mierska-Jerzyk which was published in 2018 [7]. A com-

pletely new motif in the analysis of the Austrian architect’s

implementations is the reference of his works to camp in

the eye of the beholder, which encompasses his/her per-

sonal aesthetic experience. The colour used by Hundert-

wasser will also be analysed in the context of the “Hun-

dertwasser-Schiele. Imagine tomorrow” exhibition which

took place at the Leopold Museum in Vienna (2020). Ex-

periences resulting from the direct viewing of the exhibi-

tion, which showed the specicity of the Hundertwasser

colour palette as well as studies of architectural designs

allowed us to put forward a research problem, i.e. whether

and why the works by the creator of Kunst Haus Wien can

be classied as the aesthetics of camp.

No Colour, no Camp

Before the problem posed above is solved, it must be

proved that if it were not for the colour used in architecture,

the following argument would be much less purposeful.

Therefore, starting from the experiment and imagine two

illustrations showing the Hundertwasserhause should be.

The rst one shows a visualization of the Hundertwasser

hause building painted neutral white, whereas the second

illustration is a photograph of the original multi-coloured

building. Which one arouses more emotions? Which one

arouses ambivalent feelings? The white version evokes

echoes of modernism, while irregular rhythms devoid of

intense colour are associated with organic architecture and

they have the elegance of classical white porcelain. White-

ness has nothing to do with camp exaggeration. In the white

version, Hundertwasserhause is more of an objective model

than camp stylization. The object, deprived of colour, does

not represent the camp’s need for shock or a joke. It cer-

tainly cannot be said to be so bad that it is good. The white

object gently ts into our memory and discreetly presents

its form in an immaculate form. Whiteness represents neu-

trality and is far from manifesting anything. It is dierent

with the original. The multi-coloured building breaks out

of the habits and models of the European downtown archi-

tecture. It is a mist, it provokes and makes it impossible

to calmly pass it by. It manifests its presence. It arouses

a kind of admiration and rejection in us, we like it, but

we are not able to fully accept it. The colours applied are

mainly shades of basic colours, i.e. red, blue and yellow,

so in this proposal there is a quote from classic modernist

solutions, but the combination of spots, their location, size,

shape and quantity have nothing to do with modernist dis-

cipline. Playing with the past, however, makes it possible

to preserve the context without which camp does not exist.

For camp has to be more. By playing with known schemes,

camp keeps us in a state of instability, i.e. when we see ba-

sic colours in modernists’ designs, we accept it as if it was

supposed to be so. Nevertheless, when similar colours are

touched by camp sensitivity, they seem to be out of place,

but we cannot look away from them because camp is se-

ductive. Colours in the designs of modernists constitute an

emanation of the reasonable use of colours. Colours which

are enclosed in rectangular frames lose their internal ener-

gy, are subject to rules, and are subordinated to the shapes

determined by architecture. Camp colours seem slow, en-

ticing, and audacious. Applied intuitively, without restric-

tions, with out sharp boundaries. In this liberated way, by

crossing the boundaries of a suggestive eld, the colour

was applied by Hundertwasser (Fig. 1). Camp is not only

a traditional colour – camp shimmers and glitters, but also

sequins and glows. Glazing, ceramic elements, gold and

silver coatings, which were used by Hundertwasser, blink

from a distance with reected light (Fig. 2). It is dicult to

pass by the shimmering columns indierently. Colour adds

existential fullness to them and emphasizes an individual

character of particular forms. Hundertwasser’s columns

do not resemble light stone columns which are carved with

regular uting and crowned with symmetrical heads, which

we know from historic buildings. Colourful, irregular, and

unique, they resemble a collection of miscellaneous gures.

They are not perfectly even, they are perfectly distinct. They

are a group of mists, their skin is dierent, their surface is

the act of expression of some extraordinary identity (Fig. 3)

The colour used on the façades works in a similar way. The

surprising arrangement of colourful spots is an external act

Otherness as a value. Camp and the multicolored architecture of Hundertwasser 23

Fig. 1. Hundertwasserhaus,

Vienna – view from

the 36–38 Kegelgasse Street

(photo by K. Jaklewicz)

Il. 1. Hundertwasserhaus,

Wiedeń, widok od strony

ul. Kegelgasse 36–38

(fot. K. Jaklewicz)

Fig. 2. Hundertwasserhaus,

Vienna – fountain at

36–38 Kegelgasse Street

(photo by K. Jaklewicz)

Il. 2. Hundertwasserhaus,

Wiedeń – fontanna przy

ul. Kegelgasse 36–38

(fot. K. Jaklewicz)

24 Karolina Jaklewicz

interest in the art of Schiele grew and in 1950/1951 he

published the poem entitled I love Schiele [11, p. 6].

In the

poem, the older painter was called the father and his art

was the new religion. Researchers of Hundertwasser’s

oeuvre

agree that thanks to Schiele, Hundertwasser dis-

covered “ensoulment of colours and individual forms”

[12, p. 11]. Both artists have a similar biography, i.e. they

both lost their fathers and were brought up by their moth-

ers, both abandoned art studies in order to develop inde-

pendently, both, apart from art, used language – Schiele

wrote poems, whereas Hundertwasser manifests and theo-

retical texts. Despite many similarities, the joint Viennese

exhibition reveals signicant dierences precisely in the

sphere of colour. Schiele is the heir to the European school

of painting and his melancholic tone ts into the palettes

of Italian masters, especially the tone of the Venetian

school. Due to colour, Schiele’s paintings can be arranged

in a row with the paintings of Titian, Veronese, Giorgione

or Tintoretto. The tone of the Venetian school is consid-

ered to be sophisticated, in-depth, and romantic. There are

no sharp

combinations or pure colours as it is dark but

warm. It is a mysterious, sometimes dark palette. Egon

Schiele’s palette is similar – broken warm colours, dark

tones, deep greens, browns, reds, and oranges. We can see

that the artist is looking for a colour and mixes paints until

a unique-sounding tone is obtained. Schiele’s colours are

neither

unequi vocal nor obvious. Schiele is clearly a co-

lourist, whereas Hundertwasser is not. Hundertwasser’s

palette is less sophisticated and more banal as if it has lost

touch with the best painting traditions and has been inu-

enced by the contemporary conventionality of colours.

The colours of Hundertwasser are sharper and the combi-

nations are less harmonious. While in Schiele’s the colour

suggested some psychological depth, eroticism, mystery,

in Hundertwasser it lacks a second bottom and from time

to time it lacks a sense of combining contrasting spots and

colours lack a common denominator. Sometimes we can

see how much Schiele is inspired, but when he works more

independently, the dierence in the tone is even more pro-

nounced. This is especially noticeable when we compare

works of similar themes and compositions, which were

presented at the exhibition and reproduced in the cata-

logue, e.g. Schiele’s self-portrait (Self-Portrait with Raised

Bare Shoulder, 1912) with Hundertwasser’s self-portrait

(Self-portrait, Marrakesh, 1951), the town view of Schiele

(The small Town III, 1913) with a painting by Hundertwas-

ser City Scene, Half Siena, Half Paris (1950) or the paint-

ing of owers by Schiele (Sunowers II, 1910) with a paint-

ing by Hundertwasser Vase with Flowers (1951)

. A colour

is an individual property – if an artist is not a copyist – his

palette is as unique as ngerprints. Therefore, while there

are compositional or thematic similarities in Hundertwas-

ser and Schiele, the colour aura of the works of both artists

is dierent. Consequently, the Schiele palette has no eect

on the colour used in the architectural objects of the Vien-

nese designer. Schiele’s paintings will never be described

as happy, funny, or colourful. We can think of Hundertwas-

ser’s works in this way because they do not hide a secret,

they establish direct open contact and radiate the need to

attract attention to themselves. Colours on the façades

of performing an unusual interior. Colour – referring to

Hundertwasser’s theory of “The ve skins” – can be de-

scribed as the second skin of a building, which means for

architecture what clothing is for a human being [8]. Colour

makes the rst contact and determines the character of an

object. The colour-recipient relationship is intuitive be-

cause colour, following Immanuel Kant’s

way of thinking,

is a qualitative value – it cannot be counted, its perception

depends on an individual taste, colour is free from unam-

biguous judgments and this is also where its camp separate-

ness is revealed. Separateness is not, however, an attempt at

a revolution because camp needs the context of a common

taste and only against its background can it stand out [9].

Przemysław Czapliński expresses it precisely, i.e. In or-

der to avoid any ambiguities, it should be said that calling

a minority camp reactionary means exactly what it means,

namely that it collaborates with the system which it con-

tests. It is not transgressive, but ingressive, that is, instead

of crossing or shifting boundaries, it only wants to reveal

them. And after unveiling, to problematize. It is thanks to

this that it achieves a strong tension […] [10, pp. 43, 44].

Observing Hundertwasser’s projects, we feel this tension

resulting from the distinctiveness of his architecture, but

the distinctiveness presented in the very centre of the city

and in the majority context. In this situation, it is the colour

that is the rst distinguishing feature, it is the colour that

attracts attention rst, it is dierent, but it wants to remain

within the city limits and within the scope of the aesthetic

judgment of the majority.

The aforementioned need to be close to tradition, that

is, to be close to the accepted, is particularly evident in the

painting activity of the Viennese artist and his strong con-

nection with the creative activity of Egon Schiele. This

relationship became the subject of a joint exhibition,

where the works of both artists were shown and the works

of the master and apprentice, which were arranged ac-

cording to themes, were presented in individual rooms.

Hundertwasser became acquainted with Schiele’s work as

a 19-year-old young man at the Viennese exhibitions at

the Albertina and the Neue Galerie. From that time on, his

Fig. 3. KunstHausWien, Untere Weißgerberstraße 13

(photo by K. Jaklewicz)

Il. 3. KunstHausWien, Untere Weißgerberstraße 13

(fot. K. Jaklewicz)

Otherness as a value. Camp and the multicolored architecture of Hundertwasser 25

sound similar – they form a message of presence, an ema-

nation of vital energy, they symbolize the joy which comes

from the relationship between man and nature. Schiele

closes paintings into homogeneous compositions with

a heavy burden of the inner mystery by means of a colour,

whereas Hundertwasser often thinks fragmentarily – stains

tend to be independent of each other creating a set of

smaller elements which refer to a mosaic composition. In

architecture, this is particularly evident in the colourful

design of the Spittelau waste-to-energy facility in Vienna.

The mosaic arrangement of stains which lls individual

elds creates an open composition using a chequerboard

motif and free-oating organic-shaped spots which are di-

vided into smaller mosaic-like structures. There is an ele-

ment of childish sensitivity in this arrangement, which

longs for fanciful worlds. We can hear the echo of pop

culture, which intuitively chooses pretty colours, namely

optimistic, saturated, free, not paying attention to the dis-

cipline of the key colour. The reference to pop art is also

emphasized by the use of a black contour which by outlin-

ing the shapes of coloured stains evokes a comic book

form. There is also a noticeable postmodern freedom to

combine dierent orders, forms, and colours. The colour

tone between the contrast of black and white and extreme-

ly warm and cool tones – red and yellow, but also pink and

turquoise – may result from their functioning in postmod-

ern times and selecting colours characteristic of that peri-

od, i.e. the colours that do not match, freely adjacent to

each other, are closer to aesthetics of ugliness rather than to

the aesthetics of beauty. Hundertwasser emphasizes this

freedom and dissociates himself from the use of schemas,

i.e. […] my painting is completely dierent because it is

a vegetative painting… everything begins so unpreten-

tiously… it grows quite slowly and simply… colours in

succession can create the eect of visual music… I con

sider colour a sacred gift… while I paint I feel I am in

a dream. Once the dream is over I do not recall what

I dreamt. But the painting remains. The painting is the fruit

of the dream (after: [3]). It is true that Hundertwasser’s

objects can resemble dream visions, where elements

and co lours combine freely and where it is dicult to es-

tablish the logic of events. Where did the golden domes

above the waste-to-energy facility in Vienna come from?

Where did the colourful columns at the historic Uelzen rail-

way station, which were renovated according to Hundert-

wasser’s design for Expo 2000, come from? Where, if not

in a dream, is it possible to come up with an object such

as the observation tower at the Kuchlbauer Bre wery in

Abens berg with polypores-like balconies? Who else has

ever applied so much pink in architecture? More over, pink

combined with accents of red? The

multi-family building

in Magdeburg (“Green Citadel”) has a façade covered with

pastel pink and shimmering mosaic and is crowned with

domes with golden spheres typical of Hundertwasser. Ad-

ditionally, the building is supported by characteristic co-

lourful columns which constitute one of the hallmarks

of Hundertwasser, as well as various windows – for many

of his buildings the author designed various windows in

one building and, what is more, residents can freely deco-

rate the wall around window frames. Die Waldspirale in

Darmstad, which is divided into horizontal colourful

stripes where pink is combined with shades of yellow, as

well as Hundertwasser’s only project implemented in the

United States, i.e. Quixote Winery in the Napa Valley, are

both in a camp style. St. Barbara Church in Bärnbach and

Market at Altenrhein are also camp-like, as well as the

hotel complex in Bad Blumau – also pink, red, and yellow.

All objects designed by Hundertwasser are characterized

by a fanciful form and colour, which were not present be-

fore in the history of European architecture, i.e. colour

exceeding the free limits of postmodern taste, colour as

honest as any camp action, because it stems from the art-

ist’s interior and from his dream of a better world. Colour

in Hundertwasser is more performative than mystical,

more playful and joyful than symbolic or reective.

Hence, he is closer to camp rather than historical or

avant-garde sensitivity. Camp sensitivity makes it dicult

for a viewer to reject his colourful creative activity, de-

spite the aesthetic objection.

No Sontag, no Camp

Sontag’s theory allows us to make a camp-like revision

a posteriori. Sontag places camp not only in camp op-

tics, but also in an object, so there are camp lms, clothes,

pieces of furniture, and buildings [1, p. 5]. Following Son-

tag’s reection, we will look at Hundertwasser’s design

oeuvre, taking Hundertwasserhause and Hundertwasser

Village as examples.

Notes on “Camp”, originally published in “Partisan

Review” (1964) and then included in “Against Interpreta-

tion and Other Essays” (1966), is undoubtedly one of the

most important cultural texts of the 20

century. In spite

of the free form of the notes, that text became a reference

point for subsequent generations of camp culture research-

ers. According to Kazimierska-Jerzyk, Sontag refers her

considerations to Kant’s philosophy and in particular to

his concept of aesthetic judgments, and although the name

of the philosopher is not mentioned, there is no doubt that

it is the thoughts of the Królewiec philosopher that are the

basis for the writer’s deliberations [7, pp. 71–78]. Already

in Note 1, the author wrote: Camp is a certain mood of

aestheticism [1, p. 4], which means that when speaking

about camp, we use the criteria of aesthetic evaluation. In

the case of camp, however, this is a special aesthetic be-

cause it rejects the bad-good scale which is characteristic

of normal judgments and creates an additional set of value

criteria [1, p. 22]. Watching Hundertwasserhause we can-

not compare it with any other architecture, so it is dicult

to determine whether it is bad or good. It is dierent. If it

were good architecture – good with reference to the can-

on established by history – it could not be camp – “It’s

too good to be Camp”. Or “too important” [1, p. 7]. It is

also dicult to say unequivocally that it is bad because in

fact it presents this third sensitivity in which there is more

stylization and humour than class and seriousness. Camp

dethrones seriousness, although it does not oend it, leav-

ing seriousness with the artist’s involvement, not the ap-

pearance of the work. Avoiding the seriousness of style,

however, camp introduces a new approach to speaking of

26 Karolina Jaklewicz

things seriously. One can be serious about frivolous, friv-

olous about the serious [1, p. 26].

Hundertwasser spoke about things seriously – about

ecology and about the need for a harmonious relationship

between man and nature. The artist introduced an inno-

vative solution when he planted a forest on the roof of

the Hundertwasserhause in the early 1980s. Today, it is

a common practice but at that time it was an extravagant

gesture. It was not a real forest, of course, it was a conven-

tional forest. And here, too, it is not dicult to notice his

coincidence with camp because Camp sees everything in

quotation marks. It’s not a lamp, but a “lamp”; not a wo -

man, but a “woman” [1, p. 9]. There is a lot of texture

and sensual decoration in camp art [1, p.6] – just like in

Hundertwasser’s projects whose rich decorativeness is

a surplus in relation to the functional design needs. Camp

is art that proposes itself seriously but cannot be taken

altogether seriously because it is “too much” [1, p. 17]. Is

not that the case with Hundertwasser? His works include

exaggeration which makes it impossible to take them seri-

ously, however, depriving his art of this surplus would not

make it serious; without decorations it would become dull

and it would lose its character. The crowning of the terrace

balustrade at the corner of Kegelgasse and Lowengasse in

Vienna do not constitute a necessary element – a golden

gure resembling bowling, gures of lions, a sphere – af-

ter all, without them the terrace would still be a terrace,

but not the same terrace as before. Decorative elements

(also the columns mentioned in the previous chapter) give

the buildings a camp style. They are unnecessary and nec-

essary at the same time, they express unbridled sensitivity

and passion which are always exaggerated. Camp must

exceed the limits of normality, Camp cannot be dispas-

sionate [1, p. 18]. Hundertwasser’s architectural objects

are certainly not dispassionate, on the contrary, they ex-

ude creative passion and kind of honesty. His projects are

lled with innocent naivety and naivety is another version

of camp – Pure Camp is always naive [1, p. 13]. There

is therefore something in Hundertwasser’s objects which

does not allow them to be denied, which inspires the kind

of acceptance that appears when we deal with naiv prod-

ucts. A viewer appreciates willingness and making eorts.

An extraordinary eect is often appreciated. Camp – as

Sontag further notices – is an attempt at doing something

unusual, special or stunning, such as “a curved line or an

extravagant gesture” [1, p. 18]. Avoiding straight lines

was a designer’s challenge as he tried to replicate the u-

idity of shapes found in the natural environment. Colour-

ful stains emphasize an irregular character of the building.

For Hundertwasser, art was a bridge between man and na-

ture [12, p. 12], so he designed objects as close to nature

as possible. Nevertheless, he designed for the city and the

city is the natural environment of camp [1, p. 8]. In the

city, nature is “out of place” and in general, the city is

a space of paradoxes, it is a space which is admired and

hated at the same time because it is a space of “surplus”,

a city within a city is “too much”. In this exaggerated

scenery camp is created and in this scenography we see

projects with dierent sensitivity, projects with a surplus,

with a tower, with a forest on the roof, with colourful col-

umns, mosaics, and trinkets. When visiting Hundertwasser

House and Village, we can paraphrase The Troggs song

Love is all around and say one thing – Camp is all around.

No Camper, no Camp

Camp theory, however, is not only about Sontag. Mod-

ern thinking about camp refers to all that Sontag has

overlooked or ignored. While the aesthetic aspect aptly

dened in Notes on “Camp” remains a fundamental point

of reference, subsequent researchers point to a lack of

understanding of the non-aesthetic determinants of camp

(including Mauriès, Booth, Meyer, Czapliński). The very

etymology of the term camp diers among researchers,

but most often it is assumed that camp derives from the

French language in which it meant excessively stressed

actions and gestures. Additionally, as Moe Meyer empha-

sizes, it is not about the word, but about the behaviour.

Meyer wrote that not the word camp itself comes from

French, but specic behaviours were imported from

France [13, p. 214]. Mark Booth shares a similar opinion

as he locates the genesis of camp in the history of France

and in particular in the customs of the French court in

Versailles. Both authors see camp primarily in behaviour

– Booth noticed, that to be camp is to present yourself

from the side of your own involvement in marginal issues

[14, p. 196]. Camp seen as behaviour, special behaviour,

because dissimilar behaviour is in opposition to Sontag’s

objective thinking. Meyer writes that the function of camp

is to produce a dierent social visibility, therefore a re-

lationship between camp and the mist’s identity can be

established. So Meyer denes camp as a complete set of

performative practices and strategies used to act out the

identity of a mist, where he understand acting as the

production of social visibility [15, p. 531]. Camp other-

ness was traditionally identied with gender, in particu-

lar with the homosexual culture, whose representatives

are marginal in each community. Marginality, along with

otherness, is another post-Sontag determinant of camp,

i.e. So he [Booth] recognized that camp was a sociolog-

ical and not purely artistic phenomenon and formulated

a denition which associated camp with all margins. The

notion of “marginality” seizes in Booth everything which

is rejected, condemned, or condescended by the majority

of society. On such vast margins all the worse lands, i.e.

worse gender, worse sexuality, and worse varieties of aes-

thetics […] [10, pp. 20, 21]. We might add – a worse pro-

fession: an artist. And just when we look at artists through

the prism of otherness, we can also look at their actions

through the prism of camp which was dened by Booth

as self-presentation [14, p. 196]. The artist and his/her art

are unity at the time of creation, so what a provocative,

ironic or funny costume is for a campaigning representa-

tive of a sexual minority, as well as the act of wearing this

costume, this is what art is and acts of presenting it (ex-

hibitions, projects, books, shows, etc.) for an artist. With

this assumption, Hundertwasser’s artistic acts of self-pre-

sentation gain camp sensitivity. In the previous chapters

we showed that Hundertwasser architectural objects meet

the criteria of camp aesthetics and if Sontag had had an

Otherness as a value. Camp and the multicolored architecture of Hundertwasser 27

opportunity to use the restroom in Kawakawa or the Hun-

dertwasser Village Café, she would have likely placed

them on her camp list. Let us therefore consider whether

the person of Hundertwasser ts the criteria of camper, as

Sontag’s successors and critics saw it.

Hundertwasser projects represented camp “involve-

ment in marginal issues” and such were certainly environ-

mental issues during the development of capitalism in the

half of the 19

century. Undoubtedly, Hundertwasser

was also a mist – he was considered to be a visionary

and such people are always a minority and are perceived

as dierent. Since the end of the 20

century, camp no

longer expresses secret homosexual codes, the later game

of openness or gender transgression, but rather human

(not only homosexual) otherness [10, p. 39]. From this

contemporary perspective, Hundertwasser’s actions rep-

resented otherness – a precursor to the ecological lifestyle.

Its buildings are the odd ones – they clearly stand out from

the rest of the development, just as Hundertwasser stood

out from other designers. Buildings are the body of ar-

chitecture and the body of architecture is the emanation

of the architect’s soul. There is no camp without corpore-

ality – this literal and this implicit one. Camp takes place

inside and outside the body. Camp is an irritating physical

presence. It is “on” the architectural body that Hundert-

wasser’s soul crosses the boundaries of convention, and

the surface of the architectural body is the eld of mani-

festo and appeal. Judith Butler’s reection on the inside/

outside (soul/body) relationship in the context of den-

ing genders may be an interesting point of reference in

thinking about architecture and a designer. Butler wrote,

that recognizing the body as an indispensable and invio-

lable frame creates the impression that the inner space is

responsible for the entire structure. Then the soul is the

meaning of the surface of the body [16, p. 493]. Assum-

ing the architect’s consistency with the design (where the

architect is the soul, and the building is the body), it can

be concluded that the person of Hundertwasser showed

camp sensitivity because Hundertwasser’s soul was ex-

pressed in camp aesthetics of his designs. The buildings,

which looked as if they were wearing carnival costumes,

emanated with joy and naivety, however, they concealed

not the idea of fun, but the bitter truth about breaking the

alliance between man and nature and appealed for the har-

monious coexistence of both elements, i.e. nature (wild-

life) and man (technology). Besides, Hundertwasser did

not shy away from styling his image – as Matzner wrote

– Neither Schiele nor Hundertwasser were strangers to

self-staging, and both used their clothing, hair style as

well as the medium of photography to portray and convey

their artistry [12, p. 24]. Thus, the architect performed his

identity not only on the surfaces of buildings, but also on

the surface of his own body. Maybe in a less ostentatious

way, nevertheless, noticeably.

Discussion

Hundertwasser’s urban projects arouse controversy.

Usually, due to the ideas which constituted the foundation

of projects, critical texts discuss the ecological character

of the facilities or their impact on the well-being of users

[17]. If the form of buildings is criticized, designs are

placed on the verge of kitsch [18]. While it is dicult to

disagree with the approval of Hundertwasser’s visionary

ecological proposals, to call the Viennese artist’s imple-

mentations kitsch seems to be wrong. In discussions about

camp, we often encounter an erroneous use of the terms

“camp” and “kitsch”, which are used interchangeably.

Camp is not the same as kitsch – this is the obvious that

should be presented as the main principle as Patrick Mau-

riès argues in Second manifeste camp [19, p. 323]. And he

is right. Kitsch is a concept which appeared in the 2

half

of the 19

century in Munich. Initially, it meant bad art,

a cheap product and with time it became a synonym of

mass shoddy production, the opposite of art [7, p. 61].

However, kitsch items are used by campers because kitsch

is one of the favourite camp fad which means that camp

uses kitsch as an element of self-presentation, but the two

concepts cannot be confused [14, p. 199]. Kitsch may be-

come camp by means of camper’s actions, but camp will

never be kitsch. Hundertwasser’s implementations are

therefore not kitschy, but they arouse aesthetic dissonance

among viewers who are accustomed to established canon

– either to the historical beauty of harmony or to the dra-

matic beauty (or ugliness) of the avant-garde – precisely

because they are camp.

Conclusions

Taking into account Sontag’s text, it seems that archi-

tectural objects of Hundertwasser can be included in the

canon of camp art. When analyzing the aesthetic aspect of

his projects, we can nd many common points with Son-

tag’s reection. First of all, ambivalent feelings accom-

panying the perception of objects – delight and rejection,

decorative, exaggeration, stylization.

Hundertwasser’s implementations, similarly to other

manifestations of camp, break out of the traditional good–

bad valuation scale, oering sensitivity that is “so bad that

it is good”. Taking into consideration also the denition of

camp used by other authors and focusing on the camping

entity, we can indicate the camp character of Hundertwas-

ser’s actions – social visibility and otherness constitute

the features of his works and life. At the same time, it is

worth emphasizing and pointing to the importance of dis-

similar attitudes for the whole of society. Only by caring

for mists and ensuring their safety can we benet from

their visionary concepts. Hundertwasser, although he did

not count himself as belonging to camp subculture, he

exhibited camp nature and from a historical perspective,

can be perceived as a camper, especially when we see his

whole life as a performative process of self-presentation

in a particular aesthetic edition, the indispensable element

of which is the sensitivity of the beholder. Referring to

Philip Core – camp is in the eye of the beholder and that is

why – speaking perversely (so camp-like!) – camp is a lie

which tells the truth [20, p. 393].

Translated by

Bogusław Setkowicz

28 Karolina Jaklewicz

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References

Abstract

Otherness as a value. Camp and the multicolored architecture of Hundertwasser

Due to the lack of an unambiguous aesthetic classication of Friedensreich Hundertwasser’s architectural designs, in this text his multicoloured

creative activity will be analyzed through the prism of camp aesthetics. The aim of the article is to present Hundertwasser’s design creativeness in

a new context, taking into account the criteria of camp sensitivity and asthetics. Our analysis will be made with reference to theoretical texts and direct

experience. The reection on the works of Hundertwasser will consider both the criteria included in Susan Sontag’s text “Notes on Camp”, which is

fundamental to camp aesthetics, as well as the later considerations of Camp researchers who pay attention not so much to the object as to the person

who camps (Czapliński, Booth, Meyer, Mauriès). “The eye of the beholder”, i.e. sensitivity of the recipient, will also be important for camp. The key

issue will be colour without which it would be dicult to write about the Austrian artist’s objects in the context of camp aesthetics. The following

text is an attempt at a new perspective on Hundertwasser and perhaps it will serve the acceptance of “mists” as well as their “otherness” and will

broaden the elds of mutual acceptance.

Key words: architecture, color, Hundertwasser, camp

Streszczenie

Odmienność jako wartość. Kamp a wielobarwna architektura Hundertwassera

W związku z brakiem jednoznacznej estetycznej klasykacji projektów architektonicznych Friedensreicha Hundertwassera w niniejszym tekście

jego wielobarwna twórczość zostanie przeanalizowana przez pryzmat estetyki kampu. Celem artykułu jest ukazanie projektowej twórczości Hun-

dertwassera w nowym kontekście, uwzględniającym kryteria kampowej wrażliwości i estetyki. Analiza zostanie przeprowadzona w odniesieniu do

tekstów teoretycznych i bezpośredniego doświadczenia. W reeksji nad dziełami Hundertwassera uwzględnione zostaną zarówno kryteria zawarte

w fundamentalnym dla kampowej estetyki tekście Susan Sontag Notes on Camp, jak i późniejsze rozważania badaczy kampu, zwracających uwagę

nie tyle na przedmiot, ile na osobę kampu (Czapliński, Booth, Meyer, Mauriès). Nie bez znaczenia będzie też ważne dla kampu „oko patrzącego”,

czyli wrażliwość odbiorcy. Kwestią kluczową będzie kolor, bez którego trudno byłoby pisać o obiektach austriackiego twórcy w kontekście kampo-

wej estetyki. Prezentowany tekst jest próbą nowego spojrzenia na Hundertwassera, być może przysłuży się akceptacji „odmieńców” i ich „odmien-

ności” i poszerzy pola wzajemnej akceptacji.

Słowa kluczowe: architektura, kolor, Hundertwasser, kamp