Sign - Symbol - Allegory

A sign generally stands for something else (an object, a sound, a piece of information or an action).

A symbol is a concrete representation with a fixed, usually culturally agreed meaning. As a rule it is simple and consists of a single feature.

An allegory is a more complex, often visual or narrative representation of an abstract concept.

(Google AI)

What does a letter represent in a writing system? ‘A sign is the abstract idea of a written character; a glyph is its concrete graphical representation’ (German Wikipedia). So should we have used ‘Glyphs’ in the title instead of ‘Signs’? Gerhard Fietz – a founding member of the ZEN 49 artists’ group in 1949 – refers to two abstract, ‘dancing’ red figures against a dark background as ‘signs’. Is this a ‘new alphabet of communication’ (Lüneburg Art Archive)? It has distinct echoes of Chinese brush calligraphy.

The sculptor Hubert Kiecol creates woodcuts like sculptures of powerful architectural simplicity. The titles ‘Fence, Window, Gate, Bush, Ladder, Staircase’ tell us they are symbols. But are they really symbols? Perhaps it is simply a play with forms – a kind of sign language – just as Joshua Reichert calls his imaginary characters, whose meaning only he knows, Typography.

Antonio Neto even created an entire shadow alphabet – Shadows of Anarchy – consisting of 134 figments of the imagination.

Heinrich Heuer instructs us to be wary of the specific captions accompanying his abstract, exuberant visual symbolism: ‘Recognisable elements in the picture’, he writes, ‘are […] quotations, not statements. Also, the titles could be interpreted as unpremeditated attempts to avoid casting out anchors or hooks that dictate the direction of the gaze’ (Heinrich Heuer Online Catalogue Raisonné).

August Walla creates his own universe out of writing, signs and symbols – both familiar and idiosyncratic – whose allegorical meaning is ultimately known only to him, just as Albrecht Dürer reserved the right to interpret his Melancolia for himself. Viewers experience a pleasant shiver as they try to decipher what they see, but they are ultimately left in the dark about the true meaning. The Symbolists (The Czechs Josef Váchal and František Kobliha may serve as examples) are also happy to leave us groping for answers – in stark contrast to the supposedly clear, culturally agreed meaning of the symbol.

In 1960, towards the end of his life, the Surrealist Hans Arp embarked on a journey ‘towards the infinite white’ (vers le blanc infini). His delicately articulated, etched figures are as anthropomorphic as ever, just as the letter A (alpha / aleph), when turned upside down, recalls a bull’s head as its hieroglyphic precursor. Whilst Arp’s iconic forms may not be symbolic, they are nonetheless as evocative as his metaphor-rich poems, where the cathedral is a heart (‘la cathédrale est un coeur’) and the tower a bud (‘la tour est un bourgeon’).

The list of religious and political symbols is long. The cross as a symbol of suffering has been reinterpreted in a variety of ways. This is particularly striking in the work of John Heartfield, whose image of the naked corpse of a man impaled on a swastika laments the victims of fascism. Four hundred years earlier Cranach produced an equally striking image, with a deformed calf serving as a symbol of the degeneracy of the monastic order. In between, familiar motifs: the man at the machine, the raised fist, the masses rising, the hammer and sickle – and the sickle also used quite apolitically as a symbol of the artistic harvest. Midway between political zeal and naivety stands the artist with a burning heart, who seeks to determine his own future after the Great War (1919). In a collage combining the Coca-Cola logo, the American stars and a young victim of the Vietnam War, Klaus Staeck reminded us in 1968 where the money for wars comes from. Where are the artworks that remind us today?

Allegorical depictions are so numerous and varied that they would warrant a presentation of their own. Although their heyday came to a definitive end with the close of the eighteenth century, one of our finest examples dates from the early twentieth: a portrait bust of Emperor Franz Joseph entitled Morto (finalmente) il 21-11-16 as an Arcimboldesque composite head with personifications of the Seven Deadly Sins.

The works on display are by the following artists, amongst others:
Gerd Arntz, Hans Arp, Atelier populaire, Alberto Béltran, Joseph Beuys, Eduardo Chillida, Theodor de Bry, Josef Čapek, Walter Dexel, Gerhard Fietz, Raoul Hausmann, John Heartfield, Heinrich Heuer, William Hogarth, Wenzel Hollar, Hubert Kiecol, Jiří Kolář, Mikhail Larionov, Wolfgang Mattheuer, Roland Maurmair, Joan Miró, Antonio Neto, Oldřich Nouza, Max Pechstein, Mihailo Petrov, Joshua Reichert, Gerhard Rühm, Herbert Sandberg, Hans Schmitz, Richard Seewald, Wolfgang Seierl, Klaus Staeck, Curt Stenvert, Karel Teige, Augustin Tschinkel, Josef Váchal, August Walla.