
The Last Days of Mankind: A Visual Guide to Karl Kraus' Great War Epic
The Great War drama by Viennese satirist Karl Kraus, restaged by Sengl in "stunning display" of taxidermied rat-actors, with commentary. When the age died by its own hand, that hand was Karl Kraus'. - Bertolt Brecht PUBLISHERS WEEKLY - TOP 10 IN ART, ARCHITECTURE & PHOTOGRAPHY, Fall 2018 With critical success over the past four years, artist Deborah Sengl (b. 1974) has exhibited taxidermied rats, drawings and paintings in order to restage Karl Kraus' nearly-unperformable play The Last Days of Mankind (Die Letzten Tage der Menschheit, 1915-22). Featuring Sengl's entire installation, the DoppelHouse Press edition also includes essays that examine her ambitious dramaturgy, which condenses Kraus' ten-to-fifteen hour drama into an abridged reading of its themes: human barbarism, the role of journalism in war, the sway of popular opinion and the absurdities of nationalism. Select translations of Kraus' original provide a window to see his other "war" -- a war on the misuses of language i