Carl Einstein und der Mythos

In Carl Einstein’s work, the death of God, as proclaimed by Nietzsche, provokes several responses. In the Dilettantes of Miracle or in G.F.R.G., his scepticism prevails over the desire of a mythical Ersatz which Einstein nevertheless postulates vigorously. In this context, the concept of community plays a central role, first in form of communism, then in form of anarcho-syndicalism. But under the influence of Negro Sculpture, Einstein looks out for an aesthetic solution of the transcendental problem which around 1930 culminates in the demand to create a new myth following surrealist procedures. In 1933 this hope is annihilated by another myth, the myth of the Third Reich – “jew without god”, Einstein wakes up from his utopian dreams in exile. In his Fabrication of Fictions, he transforms his “Ethnologie du Blanc” into a radical ideological critique which includes his own position. Ruined intellectually and economically, Einstein engages in the antifascist fight in Spain, and he lives again a mythical community on the side of the legendary Buonaventura Durutti.