Helmut Salzinger

Ästhetischer und kunstwissenschaftlicher Gegenstand (The Object of Aesthetics and Art History)
Popkritik 1966-1982
VOLUME 187

An Anthology of Pop Criticism

Until the mid-1970s, Helmut Salzinger’s positions on questions of aesthetics, society, and politics are in constant flux. An early sympathetic observer and exponent of the emerging pop and protest culture of the 1960s, he becomes a committed champion of the “Yippies”—the unorthodox hedonistic branch of the political left that seeks to fuse a program of cultural revolution with a psychedelic way of life—but eventually leaves the culture business behind to settle down in the countryside. Like some of his peers, he found his euphoric embrace of cultural revolution gradually curdling into disillusionment. In this respect, Salzinger was perhaps a typical representative of his time. Yet the analytical acumen with which he undergirded his change of heart with theoretical insights was rivaled by few fellow members of the escapist faction.

This collection of essays in pop and cultural criticism and reviews, some of which had never been published in print, also reads as a cheerfully opinionated history of the (sub)cultures of the 1960s and 1970s.

Helmut Salzinger (b. Essen, 1935; d. Odisheim, 1993) was a German writer, editor, and publisher. Salzinger completed a Ph.D. in German studies before working as a reviewer and music critic.

Frank Schäfer (b. 1966) is a writer and music and literary critic and writes for Rolling Stone, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, taz, Titanic, konkret, and other periodicals. He has published novels and novellas as well as various collections of essays and nonfiction books. He lives in Braunschweig.