Never before have there been so many private collectors making extensive acquisitions of contemporary art. Are they the real key figures of a global art business?...
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Nepszabadsag | The New Republic | Le Nouvel Observateur | Artforum | Al Ahram Weekly | Elet es Irodalom | The New Yorker | Outlook India | Folio | The Times Literary Supplement | Eurozine | Letras Libres | Europa | Spectator
Nepszabadsag 10.05.2008 (Hungary)
Does man need to remember? There is no question about it for writer György Konrad: "The personal history is an active working instrument, a collection of examples, a living metaphor which shows its muscles like an animal. (...) It is human to remember, it is was makes us human. Nature is indifferent to history. Grass growing on a mass grave is no less green than anywhere else. Nature does not mourn and bears no witness. To remember is an unnatural action, which takes a stand against death. Why would I want someone to live who is no longer alive? Is it not humility which prescribes the over-simplicity of forgetting. One says that people who never forget are dangerous. But one also says that God never forgets. Man's memory is a similar hubris, an audacity, like the invention of fire. The apple which forced Adam to decide between good and evil gave everything he had ever lived a simultaneous presence in his mind. Remembering is rebellion."
The New Republic 28.05.2008 (USA)
Seldom was a book more vigorously excoriated than Nicholson Baker's pacifist polemic "Human Smoke" (excerpt) which questions the justification of the allied war against the Nazis, at the hands of Gulag historian Anne Applebaum. She lashes out on two fronts: firstly against Baker's book; and secondly against what she considers to be the rampant lack of seriousness in the internet where conpiracy theories are fabricated from bits of information patched together from Google and Wikipedia. And Baker is a Wikipedia fan, as he recently emphasised in the New York Review of Books. Applebaum has the following to say about the book: "You cannot disagree with Baker's argument, because no argument has been made. Baker does not build a case, he insinuates something, leaving the reader to guess what. My best paraphrase of his view goes like this: Churchill was a bully and a drunk. The Roosevelts were snobs and anti-Semites. Therefore they were not good people. Therefore their so-called 'good' war must have been hypocritical. Therefore they could only have been fighting because they were in hock to the military industrial complex and they had a bloodthirsty fondness for bombing raids." And so on...
Barack Obama 's success so far is testament to a drop in racism in the USA compared with 50 years ago, writes John B. Judis, but a racist subconscious remains, that surfaces with subtle sociological probing. Around 15 percent of most stalwart Democrats would not vote for Obama because he is black, and the question Judis addresses is whether and how Obama can overcome this hurdle. Strains of racism still thrive among the white working class, say Judis, but not exclusively: "The only groups that didn't evince racial animosity toward blacks were voters with post-graduate degrees and, of course, African Americans. Hispanics were nearly as prejudiced as whites, and a group labeled 'other' that includes Asian Americans was even more so - a partial explanation, perhaps, for why Obama fared so poorly among these groups in California." In Judis' view, Obama should steer clear of the race issue in the election campaign and concentrate on the war in Iraq and the economy.
The New Republic is in full form this week: Cynthia Ozick writes an long essay on Lionel Trilling. Francesca Mari explains "Cosmic Realism". Gabriel Sherman analyses Murdoch's strategy for the Wall Street Journal.
Le Nouvel Observateur 08.05.2008 (France)
In an interview, the popular Chinese writer Yu Hua talks about his latest book "Brother" (Seuil). It is a portrait of China over the last forty years and in the first part, he touches on the Cultural Revolution, a time he experienced as a child, and which remains a taboo in China. Some of the characters are fictional but "in China reality far exceeds the power of the imagination. (...) It was a crazy epoch: In a newspaper from the time I read that Pen Zheng, the mayor of Bejing, genuinely suggested to Mao that the Forbidden City should be razed to the ground to make way for the world's biggest latrines so that the entire world could piss and shit where the Emperors lived!"
Le Monde de Livres also features a review and a portrait of Yu Hua.
Artforum 01.05.2008 (USA)
It was not a revolution, at least it was "less and less 'the revolution' the students believed and hoped it was", writes the New York philosopher and art critic Arthur C. Danto who witnessed the student protests at Columbia University in April 1968. And yet it was: "I have a kind of theory that when great social changes are about to take place, something happens in the arts first - think of Romanticism and the French Revolution, or of the Russian avant-garde in the years 1905 to 1915 and of Aleksandr Rodchenko's slogan 'Art into life!' That was close to the motto of Fluxus, led by students in John Cage's seminar in experimental composition at the New School in New York."
Al Ahram Weekly 08.05.2008 (Egypt)
Gamal Nkrumah tells the story of the Sudanese cameraman Sami Al-Haj who was taken prisoner by the Pakistanis in 2001 and handed over to the Americans, who locked him in Guatanamo for seven years without trying or charging him, and who has finally been released. "Al-Haj says that he was deprived of sleep, and that he was subjected to cruel interrogation techniques. He suffers from rheumatism among other ailments but was denied medication and medical attention. During the past 16 months he went on a hunger strike in protest at his illegal detention. And, he says that he was force-fed by intravenous means."
Elet es Irodalom 13.05.2008 (Hungary)
It is not only the cultural heterogenity of the European continent that is blocking the creation of a "European identity", it is also the insecurities of the transitional period explains media scientist Peter György: "As the borders disappeared, the space became dizzily wide and the cultural pattern impossibly complicated. As the national state disappeared and it became clear that the Schengen zone was as big as it was diverse, the old isolation reflex kicked in again. The answer to a traumatic present and failed modernisation is, as always, the longing for a shared mindset, a manageable familiarity. This is an understandable as it is hopeless... The co-opting of national identity by the radical Right is not a proper solution. And since the liberal laissez-faire has brought little of substance in socio-political terms, the millions who are breaking out of society are clinging - surprise surprise – to the hope of national solidarity." György calls for a dialogue with the disenchanted over the connections between trauma and frustration.
The New Yorker 19.05.2008 (USA)
Sue Halpern describes how traumatised veterans are treated with "an experimental treatment option called Virtual Iraq, in which patients work through their combat trauma in a computer-simulated environment. The portal is a head-mounted display (a helmet with a pair of video goggles), earphones, a scent-producing machine, and a modified version of Full Spectrum Warrior, a popular video game."
David Remnick portrays the American jazz DJ Phil Schaap, who every working day for the last 27 years has presented the "Bird Flight" show on Columbia University Radio. The show, which is dedicated to saxophonist Charlie Parker, is "so obsessive, so ardent and detailed, that Schaap frequently sounds like a mad Talmudic scholar who has decided that the laws of humankind reside not in the ancient Babylonian tractates but in alternate takes of 'Moose the Mooche' and 'Swedish Schnapps.'"
Further articles: Hendrik Hertzbergs comments on the last round in the Democratic primaries. There is also a short story "East Wind" by Julian Barnes and poems by Bob Hicok and Richard Wilbur.
Bee Wilson reviews Paul Roberts' study of the food crisis: "The End of Food" (Houghton Mifflin). Alex Ross looks back on a five-concert Stravinsky festival. And David Denby watched Henry Bean's comedy "Noise" starring Tim Robbins, and "Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay" by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg.
Outlook India 19.05.2008 (India)
Outlook this week offers its annual "Bollywood Special" which this time focusses on the stars or rather superstars. A number of surveys have been carried out into the greatest and most popular stars of all time – Amitabh Bachchan was the clear male winner but there was more variance in the female section (here the results in several categories).
In the most fascinating article of the special, Sadanand Menon describes the close relationship of South Indian fans to their stars. He not only writes about the fluid transition from screen to reality, but also diagnoses a dramatic shift in the image of the hero. "The Southern hero, for long, carried himself within the armature of androgyny. His erotic appeal worked equally for the male and the female. Almost all major Southern heroes from the '50s to '70s had, at earlier stages in their careers, played female roles. There was very little then of the current macho and aggressive masculinity in the bodies of the male stars."
Bhaichand Patel compares female stars of past and present and is unimpressed by what the relaxation in nudity regulations has brought in tow: "Some of today's stars, Aishwarya Rai, Bipasha Basu and Kareena Kapoor, are prepared to expose quite a bit. And why not? They look after their figures better than the heroines of the past and it's paisa vasool for the paying public. But these women look like Barbie dolls, not normal people, exquisite but plastic. They do not have the allure of their predecessors who came to us wrapped in saris."
Naman Ramachandran tells the story of the age of the superstar when stars became godlike idols – which dawned in 1969.
Folio 12.05.2008 (Switzerland)
NZZ Folio focusses on art. Or rather the question: What is good art? This is something art criticism has long been incapable of answering, claims art historian Christian Demand, "who simply cannot believe the mass of linguistic strutting, moral imposture and poor thinking that this genre inflicts on him." This might lie in the centuries-old moral-intellectual divide that has been hewn between art and other artefacts. "The idea that art has to possess certain characteristics which 'raise' it above the rest of the social world, thereby freeing it from all obligations to justify itself, has become so deeply entrenched over the course of 300 years by the pens of entire armies of writers about art, that it will take considerable effort to take another road across this terrain. But why should you? It is certainly in the interest of the critic to follow in these footsteps. They offer, for example, a plausible method for explaining the phenomenon of the chronic variance in the evaluation of art, and in practical terms, one which guarantees that in his work the critic is automatically on the right side."
Gudrun Sachse interviews the artist Pipilotti Rist, the head of the Zurich Kunstalle Beatrix Ruf, the gallerist Bob van Orsouw, the art dealer Simon de Pury and the art professor Philip Ursprung. The latter explains why "beauty" is no longer a category for art criticism. "The intercessory institutions object to the term because it offers a direct connection between art work and viewer and makes their job superfluous."
Further articles: Rene Ammann visits the artists Max Grüter, Sidonie Nuoffer and David Renggli in their studios. Marion Maneker accompanies New York's most sought-after art consultant Kim Heirston. The sculptor Wolf E. Schultz explains how it feels to watch your public sculpture abused over decades.
The Times Literary Supplement 07.05.2008 (UK)
The mighty shadow cast by Edward Said and his "Orientalism" theory still dominates debate, writes Robert Irwin, the Middle East editor at the Times, much to his dismay. Which he why he takes obvious pleasure in reviewing two books which dissect Said's theory: Daniel Martin Variscos book, wittily subtitled "Reading Orientalism - Said and the Unsaid" and the book written by an Islam apostate under the pseudonym of Ibn Warraq, "Defending the West" (excerpt). Warraq, whose defence of the West goes slightly too far for Irwin, draws attention to Said's neglect of the role of the German travellers to the Orient. Irwin writes: "German scholars dominated Arabic, Hebrew and Sanskrit studies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, yet Said avoided any substantial discussion of their work. Some critics have argued that this was because the pre-eminence of German Orientalists did not fit his thesis about the interdependence of Orientalism and imperialism in the Middle East, but others have suggested that it was because his German was not very good."
Eurozine 11.05.2008 (Austria)
Catalan philosopher Xavier Rubert de Ventos explains in an interview conducted for L'Espill, why he prefers to read reactionaries like Celine and Drieu La Rochelle over John Rawls. Or perhaps Ernst Jünger?
"No, no way! In his Paris Diaries he describes how he kept the last letters of people who were condemned to death by the Nazis during the war and, with icy elegance, justifies the convenient circumstance that they never reached their destinations. In contrast, Drieu La Rochelle and Celine accept their human condition without making excuses. I too am a man and don't like being one. I feel strange about it, bad, uncomfortable, hung-up, perplexed. If my philosophy has been of any use to me, it's been to situate my monstrous condition within an order of general discourse. I feel affinities with Celine, Drieu, and more and more with Marx. I have become more radical in my ideology. Once I was surprised by people who became radical when they got old. But it's happening to me too."
Letras Libres 11.05.2008 (Spain / Mexico)
The focus for the current edition of Letras Libres is "ideas for the Left". The renowned Venezuelan political writer and ex- Marxist Teodoro Petkoff talks in an interview about the difference between the "authoritarian" and the "democratic" Left in Latin America: "Venezuela is an exception. Here the Left found a different way into power than it did in other Latin American countries. Chavez succeeded despite, or rather becuase of a failed military putsch. But Chavez was unable to win over the traditional, organised labour force; instead he won a group which was thought to be impossible to organise: the 'urban poor', in other words the long-term unemployed, poor housewives, casual labourers, street vendors, petty criminals etc. Luckily, for now at least, he has proved to be a non-bloody Utopian. How is this possible? He can afford such experiments because he has a 'shitload' of money: We 27 million Venezuelans will take in 70 million crude oil dollars. And this wil allow Chaves plenty of room to play out his fantasies."
Europa 10.05.2008 (Poland)
As would be expected, Poland has been keeping a close eye on the "changes in government" in Russia. And everyone is asking what the future of the regime will bring. Putin critic Boris Nemzov is dismissive: "The current stability is illusory. Just go and look at the garrisons – 150,000 officers have no homes. The submarines are rusting away unmanned and unarmed; relations with the neighbours are destroyed – even Lukashenko sees Russia as an enemy. State institutions are practically non-existent, self-administration is not working. The only stable factors are gas and oil prices and no one knows how long this will hold. Stability is nothing more that a pretty image on state TV. Nothing more…" And Nemzov also knows when the Russians will finally have enough of their corrupt regime: 2020.
The Spectator 09.05.2008 (UK)
Theo Hobson attended Mass with Gene Robinson, the only openly gay Anglican bishop in the US, who is not popular with his British colleagues. He was asked not to attend the forthcoming Lambeth conference. But Robinson has many fans in the UK. "There is a standing ovation, which I've never witnessed in a church before - except on TV, at Princess Diana's funeral. Come to think of it, the late Princess is not irrelevant to all this. The Anglican gay cult is all about vulnerability, emotional honesty, siding with the marginalised. Robinson invests these gentle virtues with prophetic force. In his talk he cited the passage from John's Gospel in which Jesus tells his disciples that they're not ready for all of Christian teaching, so the Holy Spirit will add further instalments, at a later date. 'That's what's happening in our lifetime. What this is all ultimately about is patriarchy - the beginning of the end of it. The strength of the resistance tells us we're on to something.'"
RSS
The New York Times investigates the new hunger for reality. In Salon, Andrzej Stasiuk sees only individual realities. In the Gazeta Wyborcza, the ethnologist Tomasz Rakowski describes the reality of the Polish poor mines. Sometimes you can turn reality on its head, El Pais reads in the Financial Times. Le Monde diplomatique gives the low-down on the ACTA talks. And the New Yorker dreams of less polish and a bit more grit.
In Magyar Narancs Agnes Heller demands more civil courage of the Hungarians. Mohammed Ali Atassi explains in Qantara, why conservatives in Egypt see women as candy: either wrapped or covered in flies. Oliver Roy outlines in Resetdoc, why's there not so much as a hair's breadth between the Christian right and the secular left. In Magazin, the philosopher Ludwig Haslar tells the Swiss that if they want mediocrity today, they cannot expect the superman tomorrow. Jonathan Safran Foer tells Prospect why he neither wants a chicken in his bed nor on his plate. The NYT embarks on a human-flesh search and finds a kitten killer.
The New Yorker tells the story of how corrupt podiatrists almost brought down the US health system. In Polityka, the Kapuscinski biographer Artur Domoslawski explains how he thinks the legendary reporter should be read. In Tygodnik, Zygmunt Bauman calls for more understanding for Kapuscinski. Magyar Narancs celebrates the ban on Holocaust denial in Hungary. In Le Point, Jorge Semprun asks whether Claude Lanzmann is the only person who's allowed to talk about the Holocaust. Wired describes how Google learned how to tell the difference between a hot dog and a poached pooch.
In Eurozine, the Transylvanian-Hungarian-Armenian writer Kinga Kali tells the story of a "virgjinesha". Prospect celebrates the next art superstar, Argentinian painter Guillermo Kuitca. The Gazeta Wyborcza explains how young people use the web. The New Yorker sends out a message to the depressed: stay away from psychiatric literature. Outlook Indian learns to play Carnatic music online. The London Review swims with the salmon sages.
The Atlantic finds out why the Chinese are not enemy number one in cyberspace. Elet es Irodalom asks why no one in Hungary is interested in former informers. In New Statesman, Tariq Ramadan can't tell us what a moderate Muslim is. The Guardian hearkens to the ticking bomb in Emily Dickinson's bosom and links it to the shards of crockery on the floor. And if it can't smoke, El Pais Semanal wants everything painted black.
In Prospect, Tim Berners-Lee invites the world to play with the British government's data. England, not Nigeria belongs on the terrorist list, literary Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka informs The Daily Beast. In Rue 89, Beppe Grillo explains why Sarkozy is more dangerous than Berlusconi. In Tygodnik Powszechny, Stefan Chwin mourns for the Polish idealist. Polityka reveals where a Pole turns to when he's not allowed to marry. Olga Tokarczuk walks her Polish tangle around Amsterdam for Salon. And the Guardian thinks about Armenian women rubbing their soft breasts on a stone.
In Wired, Chris Anderson celebrates the next industrial revolution - taking place in garages near you. The Boston Globe serenades the camel - Nabati style. In El Pais Semenal, the sociologist Edgar Morin complains about European lethargy. Outlook India asks why the Australians hate the Indians. Odra and Tygodnik are still debating the impact of freedom on literature. In OpenDemocracy, Salome Zourabichvili mourns for the wilted petals of the rose revolution. In Prospect, Martin Amis divides the literary sheep from the goats, according to the pleasure principle. The NYT profiles a dyed-in-the-wool jihadist from Alabama.
Das Magazin reports on the dramatic increase in the number of pupils who have threatened to gun down their classmates. The Spectator warns City bankers about gun-wielding dominatrices in Switzerland. In Sinn und Form, Marc Fumaroli remembers the man whose name shall not be mentioned: Mario Praz. In the New Humanist, Laurie Taylor remembers the holy men who sexually abused him as a child. The Guardian asks why Theo von Doesburg slipped into avant garde oblivion. And in the NYRB, Garry Kasparov asks why computer chess programmers are so uninspired?
OpenDemocracy explains why a novel called "Paranoia" suddenly disappeared from Belarussian bookshops. Prospect fears that a ban on Islam4UK could undermine British democracy. The Gazeta Wyborcza explores Polish-Jewish relations. Le Monde diplomatique watches the carving up of Africa. In El Pais Semanal, maths whizz Marcus du Sautoy explains the sex appeal of suduko. And Gerhard Richter manages to surprise the Nation.
The New Yorker buries itself in the Arab novel. In Le Monde, Bernard-Henri Levy heaps scorn on the state-run caricature of a debate. Qantara points to the person responsible for all the misery in the Arab world: Daddy. In L'Espresso, Umberto Eco takes a pin to the overblown daily paper. The Nation has earmarked 30 billion dollars to save journalism. In Tygodnik Powszechny, the writer Wojciech Albinski explains what makes Poland exotic. And the Spectator waves a tear-stained old hanky as shabby chic fades into the past.
In Merkur, art historian Wolfgang Ullrich defines a new type of artist: the contractor. In Nepszabadsag, writer Peter Nadas considers the crisis in Hungary and how it might end. In NouvelObs, Francis Ford Coppola explains why DVDs should be free. Eurozine introduces Lithuanian literature. In the New York Review of Books, Wyatt Manson asks why Pleiade is omitting Celine's anti-Semitic trilogy from the collected works. In Express, Philippe Gavi reminds us that Mohammed was not a crazed killer. A Californian marvels in NZZ Folio, at the reincarnation of an Indian factory worker. And confronted with the recent proliferation of literary cuddling, the New York Times yearns for a bit of Philip Roth.
Wired tracks James Cameron's 32-year quest to out-Lucas Lucas. In Nouvel Obs, Alain Finkielkraut and Alain Badiou tear each other apart over immigration and national identity. Tygodnik Powszechny introduces the pioneering artist Miroslaw Balka. Andras Bozoki asks why Hungarians are undermining democracy. In The New Statesman, Leo McKinstry explains why the bombing of Coventry was an inspiration to the British Air Staff.
Vanity Fair goes in search of a superpartner. Elet es Irodalom reads a new collection of essays by Imre Keresz. Outlook India complains about journalistic corruption. The New Yorker reads a new Koestler biography. Nepszabadsag foresees the next French revolution. Rue89 wonders about the provenance of prawns. And in the New Republic, Moshe Halberthal celebrates the sublime humility of Amartya Sen.
In Wilson Quarterly, the economist Tyler Cowen sings an ode to multitasking. Prospect has seen the monsters of the left. The Boston Globe follows James C. Scott to the new Shangri-La in the mountains of Tibet. Weltwoche is up in arms about the criticism of Switzerland's anti-minaret vote. In the Novel Obs, Pierre Nora applies his mind to the bestseller. New Criterion knows why the Pop art bubble won't pop. NZZ Folio examines the chicken nugget. Al Ahram asks what political Islam wants. The Walrus mourns for the first victim of the C-58. In Resetdoc, Joseph Massad explains why Arab homosexuals are an invention of the West.
Slovenian poet Ales Debeljak argues for a fusion of cultures in Eurozine. Umberto Eco agrees in Le Monde. The Nation portrays the Salvadorian author Horacio Castellanos Moya, who himself explains in Babelia why 200 years after independence there's nothing to celebrate in a number of Latin American countries. Polityka lies Poland down on the couch. La vie des idees reads a book on Jews and the resistance in France. Americans read more than Europeans, writes historian Peter Baldwin in Merkur. And in The New York Review of Books Robert Darnton makes two bold proposals for a new Book Settlement.