Kristof Magnusson
17 – 25 Sep 2020
Muche House
// Invitation in cooperation with the Literaturhaus Berlin //
Exhibition: 4 Oct 2020 – 14 Mar 2021
Kristof Magnusson, born 1976 in Hamburg as the son of German-Icelandic parents, is a novelist, playwright, publicist and translator. He studied at the German Literature Institute Leipzig and the University of Reykjavík and regularly gives seminars and workshops at international writing schools, universities and institutions. His most recent novel Ein Mann der Kunst was published by Antje Kunstmann (Munich, 2020).
During his short but intensive stay at the Bauhaus Residency Magnusson focused on his own working processes: When does writing begin, where does research end? How do the environment and surroundings influence his own working processes? What effect does the past of a place have on the people who inhabit it? Magnusson also dealt with these and other questions in the video work he created for the exhibition in Gropius House.
The time he spent there was too short to develop a new novel idea – yet Magnusson thought about what a Masters' House novel might look like: „I can imagine quite different approaches: For example, it could be a kind of concept novel that plays typographically with the 90 degree twisted architecture and that can be read from different directions. At the same time, I can also well imagine an exciting crime thriller that takes place in the cellars of the houses. So everything is possible, from genre literature to conceptual art: after all, the Masters’ Houses, with their almost 100-year history and the various historical layers gathered here, also offer many literary points of reference.“
