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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L'Espresso | Al Ahram Weekly | Gazeta Wyborcza | The Guardian | Polityka | Folio | The New York Times Book Review | Weltwoche
L'Espresso, 11.08.2005 (Italy)
"Belgrade is a strange city," writes Andrzej Stasiuk, who went there for an event being held in the name of his famous colleague Danilo Kis.
"The gathering that was intended to honour one of the greatest Serbian
writers was being watched over by Serbian police. The participants feel
a bit like the members of a forbidden religion, meeting in the
catacombs. The audience is made up mainly of friends. On the walls are
photographs of graves full of corpses but the speakers talk of poetry,
metaphors and the phonetics of texts whose shared feature is the
narrative of paranoia and the perversion of power which is nourished by
death and massacres."
Al Ahram Weekly, 04.08.2005 (Egypt)
Amr Hamzawy explains that, due to a well-rehearsed duo, necessary reforms are going to proceed very slowly, if at all, in Saudi Arabia.
"The ruling elite monopolises the government and national revenue while
the Wahabi religious establishment controls schools and universities.
Their power is exercised and perpetuated within the framework of a
mutually beneficial relationship whereby the latter confers religious
legitimacy upon the ruling elite while the former protects the Wahabis' absolute authority
to regulate society. This reciprocal arrangement works to curb any
reformist drive, giving both sides of the equation the ability to
determine the nature and pace of political change. Against this binary
power structure the influence of other political forces in society,
from the liberal, secularist, enlightened Islamist to the hardline
fundamentalist, pales. Whatever hopes they entertain are pinned either
on manoeuvring themselves into positions whereby they can obtain the
ear of those who monopolise power, or else on mobilising the public in support of their demands, so enhancing their room for manoeuvre."
Gazeta Wyborcza, 06.08.2005 (Poland)
Miroslaw Czech and Jerzy Chmielewski engage in a debate on the situation in Belarus. In the last two weeks, several speakers representing the Polish minority in Belarus have been arrested.
Lukaschenko has accused them of being a raiding patrol of the EU, trying to instigate an orange revolution. Czech said
in an interview, "Warsaw must not be silent if the rights of the Polish
minority are being violated, but Lukashenko's regime can spin this as a
western intervention in the country's domestic politics. For this reason,
one must try to represent the problem as a violation of elementary
human rights and not as a bilateral conflict. We have to make it clear
to the Belorussians that this also has to do with their rights. To do
this, the representatives of the Polish minority and the Belorussians
in Poland should be brought together – solidarity of the minorities against the dictatorship!" Chmielewski, himself a representative of the Belorussian minority in Poland, warns,
"We regret the situation but we have little influence on it. Poland
should be more careful in its statements so that the Belorussians don't
get the feeling that they are being talked down to by their
western neighbours. I only hope that the present conflict does not
result in separation and animosity – we must get to know and understand
each other better."
The Guardian, 06.08.2005 (UK)
The writer Blake Morrison goes to bat
for editors – key figures in the world of literature who are
characterized as know-it-alls but whose existence is now seriously
threatened, as their work is increasingly regarded as superfluous.
Particularly in England, cutbacks have meant that publisher's in-house
editors are no longer able to supervise all their authors, meaning that
either freelancers are engaged or novels are published in their raw
form. "Perhaps I've been unusually lucky, but in my experience,
editors, far from coercing and squashing writers, do exactly
the opposite, elucidating them and drawing them out, or, when they're
exhausted and on the point of giving up (like marathon runners hitting
the wall), coaxing them to go the extra mile. And yet this myth of the
destructive editor - the dolt with the blue pencil - is
pervasive, not least in academe." Today it still pertains: "Those who
can, write; those who can't, edit - that seems to be the line. I prefer
TS Eliot. Asked if editors were no more than failed writers, he replied: 'Perhaps - but so are most writers.'"
Polityka, 03.08.2005 (Poland)
Adam Krzeminski writes on the 60th anniversary of the Potsdam Conference,
commenting that in contrast to the celebrations marking the end of
World War II on May 8-9, no country was making a big thing of the day.
No wonder: "Potsdam was a 'day of reckoning'. And one
of the judges was a criminal comparable to Hitler. Yes, the Allies
agreed to drastic solutions, like the massive 'transfer' of the German
populations living in Central and Eastern Europe, solutions which
complied with no existing intergovernmental arrangements. But these
were also exceptional times. You can't declare war on two
continents, wage it in the most criminal way, and then go home as if
you'd lost a football match. What should the Allies have done? Cut
Germany into little bits, turn it into one big potato patch,
require it to pay an additional ten billion dollars in reparations?"
But, Krzeminski insists, the Potsdam model must be declared an isolated
historical event, one that could not serve as an example.
Folio, 02.08.2005 (Switzerland)
The weekly magazine of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung is all about men. English ethnologist Nigel Barley takes a look at "new laddism".
"I called another friend, a psychologist, and asked him what he thought
about it. He sounded irritated. 'Baloney', he grumbled. 'Laddism is
nothing but a new name for egoistical retarded development. By
the way, did I tell you I'm getting a divorce and moving into a new
place? I've realised that in fact I don't really want children. I have
enough of them all day long at work. Where was I? Oh yeah, you're
barking up the wrong tree. The real problem of laddism doesn't lie with
men, but with women! Today they all act the same way, they go on
binges, eat fast food, burn the candle at both ends... Have you seen
how girls walk around these days? That says it all. I can't imagine any man letting it all hang out like that. It's nauseating."
In his Duftnote column on fragrances, Luca Turin
calls for great perfumes to be conserved for eternity. Current scent
museums do not deserve the name, he writes. "Most of them (one in Paris and several in Grasse) consist of collections of bottles
and end up in a shop. There the frustrated visitors who were not
allowed to smell a thing for half an hour are set loose among an
arsenal of multicoloured soaps they can take home and give to relatives
and other un-loved ones. The biggest museum in Grasse used to have a
glass wall behind which you could see a perfumer at work, just like a panda bear in a zoo. And just like a panda, the poor guy spent most of his time holed up in a back room."
The New York Times Book Review, 06.08.2005 (USA)
Rachel Donadio visits the "irascible prophet", writer V.S. Naipaul, at his home in Wiltshire. The author does full justice to his reputation, and rails against French authors like the "tedious" Proust
and the "infuriating" Stendhal with as much gusto as he denounces the
"philosophical shrieking" of Islamist holy warriors. And he announces
the end of both modernity and fiction: "'We've changed. The world has
changed. The world has grown bigger.' Which brings us back to
the limitations of the novel. The writer must leave the sitting room
and travel abroad into the active, busy world. It is the tragic vision only a novelist can reach: that the world cannot be contained in the novel." Listen to excerpts from the interview here.
Weltwoche, 08.08.2005 (Switzerland)
Urs Gehriger and Simon Brunner quote from blogs, homepages and Internet forums by American soldiers
stationed in Iraq. "We sat tight, my humvee was in flames. Everyone
else from my truck was wounded, and my machine gunner, Lance Corporal
Cisneros, was dead. He'd saved our lives when a rocket hit the roof of
the transporter and exploded downwards. He took the whole brunt of the
explosion and protected the rest of us." One amateur porno forum features a big archive
with films and images taken by soldiers while deployed. The key to its
success: anyone providing material from Iraq gets free access to the
pay-to-view pages.
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.