Big City Fever

Otto Dix’s triptych Metropolis (1927-28) has resonated strongly with me for many years. It shows two streets of a German city suffering from the aftermath of WWI and one interior club of the amused upper class. Besides the obvious misery of the people in the street, I discovered that there was also an underlying ugliness to the upper class characters, with their strangely distorted bodies and their lack of interest in their surroundings. The main character Valisia is an outsider who slowly discovers how trapped these characters really are by their environment. Valisia wants to succeed in her own way despite her difficult circumstances. She quickly has to realize, that she is alone in that quest, as everyone else around her seems stuck in a superficial world. The motto seems to be: "You are what you have. If you have nothing, you are nothing". The only time Valisia doesn’t face rejection, is when she lies about her identity to the upper class by claiming to be a wealthy fashion designer. It is the first time, even if just for a brief moment, that she feels like she belongs somewhere.