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The Dreaming Boys §
Die Träumenden Knaben
Oskar Kokoschka
1907-08
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© 2026 all rights reserved
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1. PROJECT’S SPECIFICATIONS:
The project consists of the publication of a limited-edition, printed fine art coffret operating as a premium typographical and archival reactivation of Oskar Kokoschka’s 1907–08 early masterpiece. Designed for international museum collections, specialized archives, and bibliophiles, this luxury edition delivers a definitive, trilingual presentation of the work through four core components:
- Facsimile Portfolio: A museum-grade, high-fidelity reproduction of the eight original colour lithographs, meticulously restoring the textured depth and striking palette of the historical Wiener Werkstätte prints.
- Negative Insert: A signature black-and-white insert hosting newly synchronized translations in English and French (with a prospective horizon toward a Spanish edition targeting the broader pan-American market).
- Critical Apparatus: A commanding introductory essay by marie martine (artist, critic, and instigator of the project) framing the contemporary urgency and socio-political relevance of the work, paired with commissioned, authoritative texts by invited international scholars.
- Definitive Translation(s): Rigorous (peer-reviewed), critically updated re-translation(s) of Kokoschka’s eruptive verses. Moving past outdated 20th-century iterations, this edition unites literary flow with curatorial precision, capturing the restlessness of the original German text with stylistic elegance and contemporary accuracy (bereft of automated distortions).
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2. RELEVANCE & POSTERITY
Kokoschka’s early lithographs are strikingly candid, and bold, and indeed eloquent. The crime is beautiful. So why insist on translating this obscure, early-century German text, today?
Kokoschka’s poem-prose is an example of co-conversant literary and art visual forms (a hybrid format I myself am revisiting today, as an artist and critic). As such, depriving the plates of their written rhythm and soul—words engraved on the lithographs themselves— is an interpretative mistake.
The tumultuous (difficult?) literary outbursts of the young Kokoschka may be to blame for the lack of attention it has received in recent years. But a piece historically known for causing an uproar—as well as launching one of the most defiant, prolific painters of the continental expressionist tradition, cannot be properly understood without them. There definitely is, deciphering it, something squirtish; something immature (... and indeed difficult—German remaining faithful to itself, what's more) about it. The operatic impetuses and grandiloquent passions of Kokoschka’s early artistic falterings do betray a “boyishness” of sorts. And, I want to contend: this is precisely why we should pay heed to his words, today. They also bear, as it stands, witness to a rare emotional candour, and charge.
Kokoschka’s agitated youth evolved within a stifled Viennese bourgeoisie masking sweltering social tensions dangerously akin to our own, at the cusp of violent economic and technological upheavals, and on the verge of a total war. The legendary, lifelong insubordination of the great painter (a trait that would adhere to his character up to his late 93rd birthday, in 1980) is, as such, insightful.
To propose an "American" edition of this Viennese artifact may seem equally counter-intuitive; but it is a deliberate geopolitical placement. It serves as a reminder that German Expressionism was, or at least in large parts, a displaced, trans-Atlantic phenomenon—one fabricated, reinvented, and boldened through forced exodus and subsequent translations.
The little-known history of the German Expressionist Studies Center at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)—envisioned here as a prospective institutional partner—stands as a direct testament to these geographical, diasporic, and psychological fractures. By anchoring this project between European archives and North American collections, the edition charts the legacy of an avant-garde that found itself through expatriation and displacement.
3. AN ETHICAL TRANSLATION: BEYOND PASSIVE CONSERVATION
There exists a single historical precedent to this exercise: a facsimile portfolio released in 1995 by Edizioni dell'Elefante / Maeght, drawn in a limited run of 620 copies under the auspices of Madame Kokoschka and the Société Pro Litteris (which manages the literary rights to this day). However, the Italian and French translations bound to that edition are frankly outdated, plagued by a stylistic stagnation that flattens the fiery metrics of the original text.
Recent contemporary re-translations of classic texts—such as Ovid’s Metamorphoses—have proven how fresh linguistic updates can reinvigorate historical works, making them truer to their essence while actively contributing to the current public debate. One thinks of how the classical notions of "ravishing" or rape, for example, are interrogated and destabilized by contemporary translations of Ovid, today.
A critical (comparative) re-translation of Kokoschka’s verses provides a similar, urgent opportunity. Questioning, at the dusk of newly laid global wars, the lighthearted gravity of youth—and the rage, and insubordination, and disquiet of this young boy, may, at last, bind the dreams of then to the visions of now.
4. PROSPECTIVE PARTNERS & INSTITUTIONAL HORIZONS
- Rights & Estate Management: Fondation Oskar Kokoschka (Vevey) / Société ProLitteris (Zürich).
- Research & Curatorial Dialogue: The National Gallery of Canada (NGC, Ottawa); The German Expressionist Studies Center at LACMA (Los Angeles); The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA, New York); The National Galleries of Scotland (Edinburgh); The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA, Montreal).
- Academic & Cultural Support: The Goethe-Institut (Montreal/Boston); The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD); Institute for Public Knowledge (IPK, New York); Universities Art Association of Canada (UAAC).
marie martine
F L A S H F I C T I O N B O O K S
by marie martine © 2026 all rights reserved
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