On Display: Conditions of Critique in Austria

Abstract

Postwar Austrian literature features an unusual number of writers whose literary attacks are directed at their own nation. How do we account for the high concentration of tirades in Austria? Thomas Bernhard's Alte Meister provides a possible answer. For Bernhard, the work of art is the primary object of critical judgment. The crucial site for this critical judgment is the museum, since it puts artworks on display in a nonreligious context, as artifacts divested of sacred meaning and no longer insulated from critical assessment. Bernhard's novel indicates that Austria as a whole has become the object of sustained critique because it has elevated the museum to the status of the paradigmatic state institution. The critical judgments of authors are directed toward Austria because this nation has put itself on display and hence turned itself into an object of critical assessment. As a country that is also a museum, Austria is not the worst of nations, but it is the most criticizable.