Kafka Fragments

György Kurtág, Kafka Fragments  Op 24

Hungarian composer György Kurtág's seventy-five-minute multi-movement work uses fragments of texts from the diaries of Franz Kafka, to create a  kaleidoscopic world of sound, sense and expression. Each fragment—some lasting less than a minute—is singular and potent; each movement offers a glimpse of a distinct viewpoint, and each gain in meaning through juxtapositions throughout the work as a whole.

The accompanying exhibit, Approaching Kurtag, offers an additional avenue of juxtaposition and conversation. For each of the five artists in the exhibit, Jinane Abbadi, Michele Burgess, Bill Kelly, Olda Procházka and Jim Renner, have, contained within the borders of each print, a unique language. These images, which themselves have been created in conversation with poetry, prose, frameworks of language and broader ideas, resonate with recurring themes of the Kafka Fragments. The beauty and chaos of cities; the abyss of the divine, the unending complexities of human relationships,…