Between Private Tastes and Public Influence ? Private Art Collections in Germany

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?... more more

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The artist and his doctor

Monday 4 December, 2006

A deadly brain disease connects painter Jörg Immendorff and neurologist Thomas Meyer. One has ALS, the other is working on a cure. By Jan Brandt (Image: Jörg Immendorff, "Solo". Courtesy The Saatchi Gallery)

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The bellyache of an architect

Thursday 30 November, 2006

On November 28, the Berlin District Court ruled that the German rail company Deutsche Bahn will have to rebuild the entire underground ceiling of the Berlin's new Hauptbahnhof, in line with architect Meinhard von Gerkan's orginal plans. The verdict sets a spectacular precedent in architectural intellectual property law. By Andreas Zielcke
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Opening up Fortress Europe

Thursday November 16, 2006

Jürgen Habermas laments the swelling feel-good patriotisms in Europe and the flagging communal European spirit. The EU will only be able to fulfill its international mandate if Europeans learn to form a common front, and to recognise that the Polish plumber and the Portugese winegrower are key to European unity.
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Kicking the headscarf habit

Monday 13 November, 2006

I decided about a year ago to live without a headscarf. It makes a difference if you're obeying duties outlined by others or those based on your own conclusions. But calling for Muslim women to remove their headscarves is as futile as calling on Germans to stop drinking beer, because it must be the result of genuine consideration. By Emel Abidin-Algan
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Schröder's brilliant decisions

Thursday 9 November, 2006

Ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has just written his memoirs "Decisions", in which he relates at length what a smashing job he made of everything. And along the way he reveals a singular lack of literary talent. Writer Georg M. Oswald journeys into a rosy past.
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Raiders of the lost art

Tuesday 7 November, 2006

After being restituted to the heirs of its former Jewish owner by Berlin's senator for culture, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's "Berlin Street Scene" will be auctioned off tomorrow at Christie's in New York. Critics argue whether the heirs really did have a legal claim to the painting. By Brigitte Werneburg
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Radical geriatric

Monday 6 November, 2006

Revolution with a whiff of dementia. Nicolas Stemann stages Elfriede Jelinek's play "Ulrike Maria Stuart" in Hamburg's Thalia Theatre. Intelligent septuagenarian RAF schlock horror, says Christopher Schmidt.
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Berlin: capital of the underclass

Thursday 2 November, 2006

West Germany casts a mistrustful glance at Berlin, the city of lazy pleasure-seekers. And it comes down to this: the exhausted are envious of the detached. A polemic by Jens Jessen
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What to do with Mother?

Wednesday 1 November, 2006

Mother's friend E. can't move her hands. Mr W. scalded himself in the shower. Mrs A. fell down in the kitchen and Mrs H. was trapped among thorny roses. Perhaps it's time to get Mother to a safe place. In coming decades the number of over-80s will grow from three to ten million, more than one third of whom will need care. But where? And how? Susanne Mayer looks at why we are overtaxed when Mother or Father become care cases.
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Germany betrays Israel

Monday 30 October, 2006

In a recent speech in Israel, singer, song-writer and polemicist Wolf Biermann castigated Germany for misjudging the tragedy in the Middle East conflict and sympathising with radical Muslims out of patronising contempt. (Photo: Hans Weingartz)
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Music with white plaster-buckets

Thursday 26 October, 2006

With 23 premieres in 8 concerts over 48 hours, the Donaueschinger Musiktage is one of the major festivals for contemporary music. And for those who think that's a white elephant, think again. This year's edition was bursting at the seams. By Peter Hagmann
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"Nix Aldi - Picaldi"

Wednesday, 25 October 2006

The Berlin cut-price label Picaldi has cornered the jeans market for hoodies, dolies and rappers. By Johannes Gernert
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The Years of Extermination

Monday 23 October, 2006

Some people will think: "Not another book on the Holocaust!" But historian Saul Friedländer depicts the "Years of Extermination" with tremendous power and drama. His narrative style is much like that of a film director, elegantly combining individual stories with world events. By Dan Diner
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The island of Enlightenment

Friday 20 October, 2006

Berlin's Museum Island is perhaps the most important museum complex in the world. It was embellished this week with the reopening of the Bode Museum, housing the finest display of European sculpture anywhere. Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, takes us on a first-ever tour of European history in three-dimensional form.
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Bionade: the triumph of a guiltless pleasure

Wednesday, 18 October, 2006

There's no quenching German thirst for the organic lemonade in a Bionade bottle. The factory can't meet demand and has sent Coca Cola packing. Cornelius and Fabian Lange describe the rise of the Bionade empire out of the ashes of the failing Peter brewery in what was once a failing region in Germany - soon to be home to the Bionade valley.
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