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Frederick Kiesler. Studie for Salle de Superstition with "Figue Anti-Tabou", 1947

Cultural Code of "Figue"

Kiesler was born in a city once called Czernowitz (now Chernivtsi, on the territory of Ukraine). Even now, people living in modern Ukraine, as well as in the majority of countries with Slavic culture, will easily recognize this gesture - Dulya, Figa, Kukish, Shish (stress on the first syllable) - a fist with the thumb inserted between the index and middle finger. Our group of adults from project OPEN recognized this gesture right away and were surprised to see it at the exhibition. In modern understanding, it symbolizes the absence of something or refusal to give it: "None for you!" = “Dulia!” / “Fig!”, you can use the gesture with or without words. It does not have a sexual undertone in modern understanding, and even children can use it.

Historically, the gesture served as a universal hand sign against danger, evil influence, and even bad weather. According to beliefs, "figa" possessed magical qualities to ward off witches - having "figa" in one's pocket should keep witches from approaching the person. Additionally, in case of a stye on the eye, unexpectedly showing "figa" to the patient was believed to cure the ailment.

Participants of project OPEN are curious - is this gesture recognizable to people with different cultural backgrounds, is it still used today, and what significance does it hold for them?

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  • Frederick Kiesler
  • Project Open
  • Ukraine
Reply from Matthias Haldemann
On May 2, 2024
Dear Liudmilla, It's interesting how you interpret Kiesler's fist gesture! I can add something to this from my research on Kiesler. The Faust depicted in the drawing, which pushes from the ceiling into the room, represents his first sculpture. He made it in plaster for the 1947 Surrealist exhibition in Paris. She was in the "room of superstition" he had designed. The superstition of modern man is his attempt to withdraw into himself in order to find security, he wrote at the time. After the war, the relationship of man with others and with the environment was very important to him. Even works of art should not be isolated. In the "Room of Superstition", for example, he combined many works of art by several artists. His design drawings helped him to ensure that the overall space did not appear as an "arrangement of image, sculpture and 'architecture'", but as a "unified organism" and as a "clenched fist of future unfolding of power". The overall drawing and every detail of the structure, its shape, its color, its mechanisms, are testimony to a transformation of psychic values into physical configurations. In this way, a penetration of different modes of expression is achieved, a result that is more due to growth than to a skilfully calculated method of addition." He loves the "magical craft" of brush painting with paint: "We become children watching. The painter is a true magician of transformation." The same architecture could also become a picture and a sculpture when viewed. Against the superstition of self-isolation, the "Salle de Superstition" appeared to him as a house "freed from the husks of traditional aesthetics", as a "living creature". Liudmila, what do you think? Kind regards, Matthias