Laufbahnen. Zwei Bilder verwalteter Welten in literarischer Begleitung: »Karriere« (A. Paul Weber) und »Abwärts-Aufwärts« (Uwe Pfeifer)

Following his book »Verwaltete Welten« (2013) and the therein discussed »basic aesthetic forms of visualizing public administration» (horizon, door, bench) taken from European painting, the author focuses on another basic form in this essay: the staircase. After an overview of art-historically significant representations of stairs, two lithographs published in 1968 and 1994 are presented, which use stairs to illustrate the hierarchical functioning of political and administrative career systems. They are accompanied by thematically appropriate literary texts from the 17^th to the 21^st centuries (e. g. Grimmelshausen, Knigge, Tucholsky, Menasse). While Weber’s picture ironically follows an unquestioning perspective of advancement, Pfeifer’s picture shows its profound disruption in an unsettling way. Constant is a criticism of careers in which concern for one’s own well-being masquerades as concern for the common good.