He, holde Kunst! Streifzüge und Randnotizen by Anna Baar

Anna Baar was born in Zagreb in ex Yugoslavia, today Croatia, in 1973, and is living and working in Klagenfurt and Vienna, Austria. Her writing covers areas like poetry, prose and essays as well as literary pieces on artistic productions and exhibitions. Baar received the state Prize of Austria for writing in 2022.
The title of the book could be translated as Hey, fair art! Ramblings and marginal notes and itself is a tribute to art in all its forms. May it be high art or more popular art like music, world literature and poetry. It is a collection of essays depicting her life and the biographical influences on the written word, the melodies, and the artists behind these oeuvres: Patti Smith, David Bowie and Mozart are portrayed in her collection of artistic lives and endeavors. What is especially catchy, is that the author is putting personal thoughts in the margin of the text, a gesture to contextualize her own thoughts or even start an internal dialogue.This is a reflection of her own practice of writing and her own style.
The structure of the book is arranged through three parts or main chapters: 1. Music, 2. Considerations, and 3. Writings and Readings.
In the essay „ Portrait of a freedom fighter“, Music as an a political act and its reception is theorized in the essay about the  Hymn of the Resistance. It is introduced by a verse from Leonard Cohen, the Partisan :

„ An old woman gave us shelter;

Kept us hidden in the garret

Then the soldiers came 

She died without a whisper.“

The song is based on the Chat des Partisans by the Resistance. Cohen was so impressed that he asked himself, if this music was so mighty that it overthrew Hitler? The song later introduces a female voice that chants in French. Cohen at the end of the song, confident yet concerned: „Freedom soon will come, and will come from the shadow!“ Reading and listening to this work gives the reader and listener a multimedial experience drenched in history. 

„When I was young, it

Was more important /

Pain more painful / Laughter

Much louder „ - Eric Burdon & The Animals

This citation accompanies Baars words addressing her childhood and her house decorated with paintings and pictures; art that surrounded her in what was daily life.
She jumps between decades and genres and mixes her inner thoughts and feelings with bittersweet nostalgia and one has to get caught oneself in a voyeurs consideration of the author´s inner world of thoughts. It goes without saying that apart from the biography the essay collection is a highly intellectual work of great craftsmanship peppered with cross-references. 

It is amazing to see the multiverse that Anna Baar is drawing from creatively and expressively. We are not islands, artists are connected with other artists, society, politics and friendships. Life is accompanied by art and is definitely not a 9-5 job: If you choose this profession your whole story basically produces your work and thoughts. Though this collection was probably only a fraction of the influences of Baar´s writing and cosmos it was a great excursion into the mind of a great writer.

*all translations made by Elisa Mirbach-Eder. The book is only published in German as of 2025. 

ARTALK - Elisa Mirbach-Eder